Undiagnosed aspies- how did you come to the conclusion?

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Just did the aspie quiz - 177 now 174 earlier.
Hey this is fun - gives me an idea about what the normal world expects to happen naturally... I'm off to a baptism this morning - never been to one before. I had to look up in a book of etiquette to find out what I should bring/do.... Thank goodness for books! I think I still got the gift wrong, but will have to wait and see.

Thanks, Unico. What you wrote makes sense. All 'quiz' tests that I have taken show aspie-like results, sometimes on the mild side (PDD - barely moderate: avg. 103, Aspie-quiz - barely "you are likely an aspie": 142/146), sometimes average (AQ - avg. 40), sometimes not so mild (SQ - 66, EQ - avg. 12). I took tests several times, that's why I give averages. All facial expression tests show above average results (eyes - 31, fake smiles - 17). While I consider face tests to be quite reliable, in quiz tests truth is in the eye of beholder. Some questions are difficult to answer, because I was never in the situation described, or I just can't judge myself (e.g. "Is your voice monotonous?"). Unfortunately, I have nobody to ask. People don't tell me about "unusual" things that they possibly notice, because they don't want to criticize me (I guess). And if they say, they probably do it in such hidden ways that message gets lost. I become more and more observant of myself, but as others can attest, this is a difficult skill. Finally, sometimes I just don't understand questions, e.g. "Is it difficult for you to generalize?". What does it mean exactly? The result is that I grade myself conservatively, and the error margin is high. Also childhood tests are very unreliable for me, because of my patchy memory that tends to forget bad moments.

I've been spending a very large amount of time thinking over my entire childhood and thinking, "Oh dear, didn't anyone notice that?!" The incident that seems to upset me most was being ridiculed horribly in the fourth grade for rocking.
I'm also talking to mother about it since she remembers my childhood a lot more than I do. I've spent a lot of time trying to forget and now it doesn't want to return in such a timely fashion.
The memories I do have are all flat still pictures with very few people in them and no faces at all. I haven't decided how I feel about that yet.

My problem exactly. I was trying recently to recall if I was ever stimming at school. I don't remember doing so, but I recall another student looking at me and flapping hands. She was mimicking me, but at the time I thought that she was simply engaged in the pleasurable activity that all humans enjoyed. This was in 1st or 2nd grade, I believe. I must have been ridiculed for stimming, because otherwise I wouldn't block it, but I can't recall such incidents at all. Lost in all that bullying, I guess.

After that incident I still did it, but more socially acceptable forms like bouncing my legs, snapping my fingers, pulling/peeling my lip, twirling my hair...
I started going to therapy before I was even in middle school and I'd really like to get a hold of those records now.

I have a major problem taking tests/quizzes that aren't essay/long answer or very straightforward (eg. "Pearl Harbor occurred on which of these dates?"). I found the Aspie Quiz easier to understand than the AQ test, but on all those tests the answers seem "yes" or "no" for only specific circumstances and generalizing everything seems to diminish the importance of individual peculiarities. For instance, I am highly empathetic when I can imagine feeling the same way as the other person is feeling (if he/she's upset, I get very upset), but if someone reacts vastly different to something than I would I *might* have sympathy, but very little empathy. Also, a person with a lot of empathy for animals could score the same as someone with no empathy for animals. And someone might be interested in machines and technology, but dislike lists and categorizing, whereas someone might be the opposite, yet, their scores could be the same. Looking at the answers to the individual questions would tell more, I believe, though, as you stated, many questions are very vague. However, despite all this, I love quizzes and tests^_^

I do "soft stimming" in public. The worst that I risk is that someone asks if I have an early-onset Parkinson's desease... Otherwise it's mostly fidgeting. "Hardcore stimming", on the other hand, is a home-only activity since early years of Elementary School. I never listened to my parents and "grew out" of this horrible hand flapping.

I do similar things, though I don't recall ever doing any more "extreme" repetitive stims when I was younger. Now, I bounce my legs, drum my fingers, knock my wrist against my thigh, or press my back or my fingers against something hard or sharp (like the edge of a desk or the metal wire on notebooks). When I was elementary school I chewed my nails to the point of making my fingers bleed. I also bit myself, which I only did at home (I don't think my parents ever noticed, either). When I mentioned it once to some kids at school, though told me it was very weird, so I kept it to myself after that.

In elementary school, I wasn't teased, I was actually looked after by some of the other kids, like I was their younger sibling or something. Since I'm so small, I guess they thought I was cute. Unfortunately, though, I was severly taken advantage of by someone I considered by best (and only) friend in 5th and 6th grade. The teasing started in Jr. High.

I do some of the less acceptable ones when I'm at home, too. When I'm provoked I do tend to lose it and have little tantrums of flapping.
My daughter is a flapper and a clapper when she's happy, upset, or tired. I'm not sure how I'm going to handle that when she starts school. :\

I'm pretty small, too. Under 5 feet. It just made me an easier target. The teasing started when school did. The odd thing is that we moved alot, so I ended up going to a new school each year and it never took more than a week for the teasing to start each time. One year it was so bad my mother pulled me out of school before the year was over and just enrolled me in another school the next year.

I don't ever recall a stimming problem when I was in school, if I did it, no one ever noticed, or made an issue out of it with me, Although when I had my ADD screening, the clinical psycologist who gave me my evaluation noticed that I had "severe facial tics" when I was working with him during my evaluation. If you could call this stimming I can't say, but I assume you could say it is.

And with the mention of hand flapping in this thread. To be brutally honest, I never even thought I did hand flapping at all, then yesterday I caught myself doing it!

I'm sorry to hear it was difficult for you. I guess I was lucky to be going to school with some compassionate kids. Though there were many other factors to consider, as well. I was going to the "slum school," our school was strangely made up of the kids from the worst part of the city and kids from one of the upper-middle class areas (my area). It was always the kids from the worse area that were nicer to me, many of the kids from my own area were snotty and arrogant, and if there was anyone who ever picked on me or snubbed me, it was them. We also had kids in class that were more noticeably "different" than I am- a boy with down's syndrome and a girl with severe disabilities (she was in a wheel chair, mostly blind, and had mental retardation. She couldn't speak at all or do anything for herself. We actually had a cycle in which kids in the class helped out working with her, I guess to develop compassion and tolerance.) I don't think people picked on her, but the boy with down's syndrome was often teased, because it was easy to get him angry and out of control.

Sorry for the double post, but this is a question that keeps coming to mind, but I keep forgetting to ask when I am on the forum. What exactly is hand flapping? Can you describe the motion to me?

My daughter was tested and Dx'd with AS 2 years ago, I have only taken an online test. But I fit all the criteria that she was questioned about! Many things have been explained after 47 years of wondering!!

Peace

I couldn't find any picture on the net (and certainly I have none of myself), but the schematic picture below shows generally how it looks ("Bizarre behavior" on the right). Hand can be flapped vertically at wrist, or laterally by twisting forearm (bent down at wrist). In the past I used the former way, but some time ago switched to the latter, as it allows faster movement and is more "satisfying". I make 4-7 flaps per second, and "flapping session" usually lasts a couple of seconds. Other people may flap differently than I described.

Link to image: http://www.southlakesautism.co.uk/stickmen.jpg

Last edited by magic on 26 Jul 2004, 10:29 am, edited 1 time in total.

I see that many of you have taken the online tests. To throw a spanner in the works I must say that these are no substitute for a formal diagnosis. I am glad that this forum has a way for people to represent themselves as diagnosed or undiagnosed as I am wary of self-diagnosis as final option for people. I understand what it is like to identify as having AS and waiting for diagnosis and how it is difficult or some to get a diagnosis because of finance or location. I hope people can find the resources if they want a diagnosis but continue let us know their diagnosis is pending.

I do know that the wishes of the site owner is to be non exclusive and I know that these views may not sit well with them but I do think there should be room for discussion of these things.

Others choose not to get diagnosed so I ask why should you represent yourselves as having Asperger Disorder (Syndrome) if you choose not to get a diagnosis.

People can of course choose to represent themselves in what ever way they like but if you choose to represent yourself as part of the AS community then I, an AS community member, am also concerned with how you choose to represent the community I belong to.