Do I have aspergers or social anxiety? Or both?

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Hi!

My name is Celia and I'm fifteen-years-old. Nice to meet you!

My question for you is, considering most of you are autistic: do you think I'm autistic, or am I just suffering from social anxiety? I've been leaning towards social anxiety, but I tend to worry and brood a lot so I'm just coming here for some clarification. Thank you for your time.

Things that point to me not having aspergers;

My mom said I was a VERY easy baby. Very well behaved, always polite etc. I never had a single melt down and didn't cry much, good about not spilling my things, etc

I've never had any problems understanding social cues, other people's emotions or my own. This seems to be at the core of what aspergers is, but I still can't be sure. I've always found it incredibly easy to know how people are feeling and I empathize with people easily. I can be selfish but I'm good at understanding why people do what they do, etc. I'm naturally in tune with the way people feel, and almost never say anything rude or inappropriate by accident.

I also never have trouble understanding if people are joking. Sometimes my family will joke around with me (good-naturedly) and tease me about how quiet I am, how I don't have many friends, and it ends up in me crying as soon as I'm alone. My mom always tells me "they're just joking" and they seem to think I can't understand that they're joking, when I can -- I'm just very sensitive and easily hurt, even when it's a joke. I don't know if that's common with people with Aspergers or not.

But I do have troubles making friends, due to being timid. From the time that I was young, I've been very, very shy, and very sensitive. In elementary, I wasn't outgoing but I would come out of my shell and make a fairly normal amount of friends. I had about 4-5 close friends at any given time, and I would spend a lot of time with them. I never had any trouble connecting with people or knowing how to make friends, just timid about approaching people.

1-6 years old, I would love to hang out with my friends and would often get upset and cry if they had to leave. 7-13, I would love to spend time with them still but I would often feel exhausted afterwards or just tired of dealing with them (some of my friends could be realllly immature and bratty) and I found most of my enjoyment from sitting down and watching my favourite TV shows.

I was never bullied and was always "well-liked" by my peers.

From the time I was about 14 to now, I find social contact really energizing! I love to socialize and my fear of approaching people is really disabling for me because I often feel deprived and exhausted when I don't get to talk to people. I still like to have alone time, but I don't feel like socializing takes something out of me, like it would an introvert.

I don't really stim. Sometimes in class if I have to sit for a long time I might play with my pencil or move my feet around, but I've never hand-flapped, don't ring my fingers or rock back and forth, and when I'm experiencing intense emotions, all I do is cry - I remain still and don't feel any need to stim. I've also never experienced sensory overload, really

I don't really get absorbed in things. From when I was about 11 I would spend lots of time on my computer (I had a depression then) and my mom would say that I got sucked right into it, and maybe I did because I was so in need of escape, but nothing like that ever happens now. I never lose track of time because I'm absorbed in anything.

I don't have any special interests (but there's more, I'll write about it in the next section)

I play pretend easy and have a VERY active imagination! When I was young my favourite thing to do was play House at school, and me and my friends would always play games where we were our favourite TV characters. My mind is always thinking of what might happen next.

No trouble falling asleep at night

No dyslexia or dysparaxia, though I can be very clumsy and often had trouble with sports as a kid, though I think it was because I was so cautious and afraid of getting hit by the ball. To the best of my understanding, autistic (kids especially) have a hard time thinking of what happens next and can be impulsive or lack common sense. My autistic friend said that when she as younger, she would jump off high places and get hurt. Well, when I was a kid, I wouldn't even touch the monkey bars. I never understood how people could be so reckless, what if you got hurt?

No selective hearing. I don't have trouble hearing people and I don't hear small sounds others don't.

I speak in a normal tone and always have. No monotone, no high-pitched, and I don't talk too much Sometimes I don't talk enough because I'm too afraid, but other than that no odd speech. I also don't have trouble with knowing if I'm talking too loud or too quiet

I don't care about how things work and I don't want things to be the same

I don't see patterns easily.

I'm an auditory learner and learn best when I hear things. Retain spoken information best. I learn visually as well but my visual ability is only ok, I don't see things detailed in my head.

Have no trouble knowing when to speak

I'm a girl, and I've never observed people to know how to act. Knowing how to act in social situations comes naturally to me and it's instinctive. I hear aspergers woman are good at adapting and "acting", copying people, but I don't do that at all. I've never felt as if I was just acting, I've always been me.

I've never felt any different than my peers and never felt like I just "didn't fit in". I find it very easy to relate to anybody, just hard to approach them in case they dont like me

Didn't read much as a kid, though I was good at it and enjoyed it, I just didn't care much about learning facts or engrossing myself in knowledge

Things that may point to aspergers;
I'm very easily put-down, have low self-esteem, poor body image and have very strong emotions. Others might chalk this up to having poor emotional intelligence, but I'm very in touch with my emotions and have always been really self aware. I think for fifteen, I'm very mature, even if I can still be immature at times.

Loud noises don't bother me at all, but bright lights do. When I was younger, itchy clothes would bother me and I'd often want to wear only a few really comfortable outfits, but I don't have that problem anymore. Other than that I don't have any sensory problems.

I love animals and when I was a child I would play pretend with all my stuffed animals (I had a lot!) Of course I couldn't relate to them like my friends, but I still enjoyed having them and pretending they were real. Sometimes I'd want to rescue animals.

When I was younger, I guess I kind of had special interests? I really liked the shows Atomic Betty and Sailor Moon and a few others, and I guess you could say I was obsessed, but I woudn't talk about them excessively. I mean, when I was 7 I would talk about Sailor Moon a lot to my mom and dad but not at school. Does it still count? Now, I have no special interests at all. Though my sailor moon obsession was very intense and EVERYBODY knew about it haha! She was my hero

I MIGHT have ADHD. Ultra-distractable, lose everything, short attention span, but I don't hyperfocus and I can focus if I want to, and I have no trouble blocking out external stimuli

Used to have some OCD symptoms, but not anymore really

I get things stuck in my head VERY easily.

The only social symptom I have is that I sometimes act awkward in social situations. I freeze up and get really nervous, because I'm so afraid of being judged, but I still know how to act...I'm only acting this way because I get nervous. I guess from an outside point of view it must seem like I don't know how to socialize but I definitely do!

I guess, reading my post it seems like I definitely don't have autism but I still want a few second opinions haha!

Sometimes I talk to myself, but it's more like thinking out loud

I used to have "imaginary relationships" but they only existed at night while I was trying to fall asleep. They were just brief fantasies I'd have about the cute guy at school or my favorite video game character, and I never really felt connected to them at all.

Overwhelmed easily, fussy, etc.

Can't tie my shoelaces.

I'm attracted to older men - I know that's not really an aspergers thing but I know that having an alternative view of what attractive might be, so that might count?

Weird kinks

Don't like to make eye contact when I get nervou and am afraid of being judged

I liked to draw A LOT when I was younger and have become very good at it! I don't draw nearly as often anymore but people usually acknowledge that I'm good at it, but I'm also very good at things like writing. People often tell me I'm "good at everything", but most acknowledge my special talent in drawing.

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My aspie quiz score was 52 out of 200 aspie, 181 out of 200 nt

So I'm most likely neurotypical...but, what do you think? Sorry if I seem so ridiculous here haha, I'm a bit high-strung sometimes

Diagnostic labels promote black and white thinking. They exist only as a means for treatment; labels are not an identity. Unless you feel you need extra support or medication it's pointless to seek them out.

You're right that you don't sound autistic. Literally everything you have listed may be normal, something is abnormal if it is causing you a great deal of impairment. You are the judge of your own suffering - and that goes back to my first point.

Your main issue seems to be a lack of self-confidence.

Have you got friends or family that you can discuss your problems with? If not, your school likely has counseling available.

_________________
Unapologetically, Norny.
-chronically drunk

Only appropriately-trained and licensed mental-health professionals can make an official diagnosis of an ASD, and online tests can not provide an objective AS/ASD diagnosis, either. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise.

We're just a bunch of amateurs with subjective understanding of what effects ASDs have on us. Not one of us (as far as I know) is an appropriately-trained and licensed mental-health professional, so your best bet is to seek one out in the real world, and not in a social forum.

Thank you!

And to fnord, you're right that no one can really diagnose me but I guess what I'm looking for are loose opinions. Nothing official.

I'm actually 15 also (a boy though) and I am going through the same "do I have aspergers" dilemma. The only way your going to know for sure is to go and get tested, but based on what you said here I would guess that you probably just have social anxiety. I mean if you don't have obsessive interests, don't find social situations draining, don't really have sensory problems, don't really stim, and you only got a 52 aspie score (online tests are not definitive but can give a good hint) you probably don't have aspergers. I'm not saying it's impossible though, like I said you would need to get tested to know for sure (your school might do it for free). Also sometimes we don't realize how hard we find talking to people (and other aspie symptoms) because aspies are so use to being different.

I have social anxiety as well but only recently have I started to consider it might be more than that. I have mild-moderate sensory problems, (clothes tags, some lights, loud noises) I suck at most things that make me use motor skills, if I am interested in something I can spend hours looking up stuff about it, I definetly stim I hand flap when I am excited and sometimes head bob though I can contain it and only do it in private, I am often overly honest, have mild trouble with recognizing sarcasm, (though MILD trouble as I am a highly sarcastic person and my small group of definitely nt friends think I am intentionally pretty funny) I find it hard time empathizing with people unless I can understand what there going through (which when I do I can actually be more empathetic than most people), and while I can definitely understand facial expressions and body language fine I have a somewhat hard time knowing how to react to what I am reading in the other person, I feel weird saying "thank you" "please" "hi!" "how are you?" its not that I don't care about the other person it just feels forced for me to say those things, and I have trouble with eye contact but I can usually force it and make it work. I also feel like many of my behaviors are things that I have picked up from various people and aren't naturally me though most of them are second nature now. But yet I am kinda on the fence as to if I have aspergers or not, I got a 122 on the aspie test and a nt score of like 70 something so I am strongly beginning to consider that I have it but I honestly don't know. I always felt like everyone got some class on how to be a person that I missed and I just kinda had to adapt. Maybe thats why I don't really come across as autistic to many people as if I have aspergers I am not the sterotypical little proffesor.

So I don't know if you could relate to any of that but typing out how I feel different was nice so there ya go.