I feel like I may have AS

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Hi there. New to this forum and anxious to hear what other have to say about this.

If there were an autism "knob" that went from 1 to 10, 10 representing a fully nonverbal and passive individual and 5 representing the kid from the "In My Mind" video on Youtube, I feel like I might be somewhere between 2 and 3. I realize that it's not that simple and linear, but I can't think of a better way to describe it.

First, a few things about me that seem to lend themselves to a diagnosis of AS. For the record, I had only a vague understanding of Autism until about 24 hours ago when a relative made a comment that prompted a few hours' reading on the subject.

I learned to read and speak at a very young age. I asked my first questions, "What's this?" and "What's that?" before my first birthday. My whole family knew I was unusually intelligent practically from the start, there are several stories (that invariably come up during "tell funny stories about each other" part of family/holiday gatherings) about things I said as a toddler that left my relatives speechless. Naturally, they had extremely high expectations of me. After a great deal of difficulty in kindergarten through 4th or 5th grade, my parents took me to a local private prep school and plead my case to them. They had my IQ tested and my result was more than three standard deviations above mean. But my performance in school never really improved. I had extreme social difficulty and a profound aversion to the classroom. I began skipping classes, by locking myself in a locker for the full length of a class, in 2nd grade.

I was always one of the strange kids. Actually, that has never really changed, I'm just a strange adult now. It always seems like people get weirded out by me before I've done or said anything--that has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I have always had a hard time socializing with people. When I do socialize successfully, I feel like I'm planting a flag at the top of Everest.

Also, when I was a kid, I used words in unusual ways. One time when I was probably 3 or so my father said something about a pair of socks I was holding, and I responded by saying, "These aren't socks, they're clues." When I was 9 or 10 I drew a crude comic book with odd anthropomorphic figures named "Barter" and "Brillo".

My motor skills are somewhat unusual, and people have pointed it out intermittently throughout my life. It took me a long time to learn how to ride a bike, tie my shoes, and even button the fly on my pants. In many circumstances I have good aim and balance, but I'm very "fumbly." My being "fumbly" drives my wife crazy. She says, "It always seems like you're doing everything for the first time."

It's like, I often can learn to do something really well, but only after I've either a) tried about a million times, or b) somebody has shown me very slowly and in ridiculous detail how to do it. I've seen the word "empirical" associated with AS. Even without knowing exactly how it applies, it resonates with me a great deal.

I wish I could think of a better way to describe this next phenomena, but I can't, so I'll just say, I seem to have trouble with estimating force. When I play guitar, I constantly fight the urge to play WAY TOO HARD. I pinch the strings way too hard and strum way too hard. Another great example of this came up just last week when I was using a coin-operated washing machine, the kind where you set the quarters in the slots and then push them on a slide type thing into the machine--when I went to push the slide in, I slammed it much, much harder than I had to. For a reason I couldn't put my finger on, I felt that I would have to do so, that the slide was going to put up a lot of resistance or something. As a kid, I was often said to "not know my own strength." Likewise, I often underestimate the force required to do something. I guess I just could've said I squeeze things too hard.

The whole nonverbal cues issue as it applies to facial expressions is not really a problem for me, but it it extremely difficult, and often times hilariously impossible, for me to replicate gestures, dance "moves," and even simple motions like sweeping fluidly. It's not merely that I'm uncoordinated--it's been said that I move like a robot. I also have horrible posture.

My wife and many others have often complained that I talk too loudly in public and that I seem oblivious of social expectations.

I often feel like my life is a movie.

I am obsessed with making lists.

When I was very young, probably five or younger, I developed an obsession with a particular category of animal. Being able to name the different types of animals within the category was of particular importance. Over time I have developed similar obsessions with relatively narrow fields of interest. For instance, I love music, but 99% of the time I listen to one of two different performers. For some reason, my list-making obsession invariably manifests itself in my other obsessions.

I tend to notice details that other people miss.

I have a huge aversion to riding in any kind of vehicle. While I do understand (and to some extent share) an appreciation for vehicles, they are scary and dangerous things to me.

I am fascinated by nature. When I was a young child, and the other kids were out riding bikes, I would be inside watching National Geographic--this in the middle of summer.

I feel like I have a highly developed sense of humor, but it comes off as extremely dry, esoteric, and unusual. It tends to leave strangers cold, but those who are closest to me have gradually come to find it hysterical. I know how to "fake" humor, I can put together something that I know most people will think is funny and I over time I have developed something of a palate for the "typical" joke, but my actual sense of humor is something completely different.

I feel like I have to "fake" emotions. I basically understand them, I just don't feel them.

We are all more or less the sum total of our experiences, but I feel that dynamic has unusual prominence in my life, I feel like it's exaggerated to cartoonish proportions.

hey there & welcome, i haven't read your whole post as i couldn't focus (ADHD maybe) you're not boring.
In my (amateur) opinion of what i have read, you certainly describe many traits & as such i think it very likely you do have AS or an Autistic spectrum disorder..
someone will answer you fully & better than this.. but don't forget the little people :p

Hi Poke,

I'm no expert, but after learning more about Asperger's Syndrome as a result of my ex-husband and I finding out too late of his own AS, it does seem like you may be on the spectrum. Would you consider getting an official diagnosis?

Because of my own experience, I'm always concerned when I see some people who post here are married/in romantic relationships and I think about how undiagnosed (even diagnosed) AS may be affecting their relationship. Have you spoken to your wife about how "different" you feel compared to others?

A poster, asplanet, posted this link - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/fashi ... .html?_r=1 - and you might appreciate it.

Whatever it is you decide to do from this point on, I wish you good luck.

Esther,

My wife, who is a good, reasonably skeptical health professional, is convinced that I have AS after reading a bunch about it over the past few days.

In reading lists of symptoms of AS, it's not merely that I feel I'm like that, it's kinda like discovering the Grand Unified Theory of myself. The only reason I'm still skeptical at this point is the fact that most of the people I've seen who've had Asperger's have extremely pronounced, flat, "static" way of speaking, which I generally do not. Also, the way people with AS are described as thinking in images does not sound like me.

Well I do think in images (which sucks badly when I have bad thoughts) but I do not have that flat effect. My psychologist even told me that my not having the flat effect surprised her since I am clearly AS. I was that way as a child, but am not that way as an adult.

Poke, what you describe sounds rather similar to me, but I don't know whether I have AS either.

My voice doesn't lack inflection, but I do have people tell me that I speak too quietly at times and I don't realize I am doing that. My posture is good when standing or sitting, but walking can be difficult as I don't always know how to get everything moving at once, and keep my back straight. My arms always feel like they are in the wrong place then. That makes it seem as if I can't walk, and I can. I just feel like I wasn't put together properly. It's hard to explain.

This sounds familiar. I tend to walk behind people I'm with, even if they're walking very slowly. I slouch badly and sometimes I can't figure out exactly what to do with my arms.

Try putting your hands in your pockets. My hands are in my pockets a lot. I got into trouble a bit while in the Air Force. They have a silly regulaton that says thou shalt not keep thyne hands in thyne pockets for tis unprofessional.

That's why I put my hands in my pockets now.

But really, If you don't know what to do with your hands, give them something to do...carry something.

Not all Aspies have that flat, monotone way of speaking.

The diagnostic criteria aren't like a check-list where you have to check them all, you only have to check a majority, and not the same ones, because Aspies have different traits.

For example, I don't have dyspraxia, I'm not particularly clumsy. I learned how to ride a bicycle and how to swim before my sister who was a year older than me. I was very good at hockey at school (although not track events, because I was always last in the sprints, albeit quite good at stamina type things, like cross country running).

So I'm unlike you.

But I am like you in that I don't have a particular monotone voice, I've always been a bit 'little professor'-ish and prone to monologues, but my intonation and emphasis has always been okay. Now, it's even quite good, because I'm a broadcast journalist and have had voice training.

It's possible that you are dyspraxic but don't have those monotone traits and are still Aspie.

Just as I'm Aspie, but I'm not dyspraxic, nor do I have those monotone voice traits. But I have had problems with eye contact, I've had problems socialising, I have mild prosopagnosia (face blindness, I particularly struggle to recognise men, who mostly have short hair, whereas I guess I distinguish women by different hair length, curly, straight, hair colour), which other Aspies might not have, I've had problems reading facial expressions and body language, resulting in problems with reciprocity in conversations, I've had problems dealing with authority, I'm too logical and stubborn and so on.

And not all people think in images either. Personally, I am more of a visual type person, I like to see things that I'm trying to learn, I struggle if I'm just told stuff, because sometimes it seems like 'it goes in one ear and out the other'. And I had an almost photographic memory as a child, but not all Aspies are like that.

Hi, I'm also new here. Yesterday, while considering whether I should go dack on anti-depressants and doing some research on some of the newer medications, I came across a website describing AS. Reading some of the symptoms was like reading my own life story. I am 46 years old and have been wondering for a long time what was "wrong" with me. I've been to doctors, therapists, psychologists. I've been to Rehab & AA. I've read evey self-help book out there. (One of my obsessions is that over the last few year I have purchased close to 100 self books.) What I read and learned yesterday brought me close to tears; at last, there may be an answer. I won't go on about my isolation, my obsession with "collecting" everything from watches to Mad magazines to baseball cards etc, depression, self loathing, lack of relationships etc. My question is - what now? Knowing isn't fixing. I apolgize in advance for any spelling mistakes and if this post is in the wrong place. I'm just glad to be here. Thanks.

Yup, it's an eye opener for many of us. Welcome to WP.

After a few weeks of worth of reading, I feel that I have a better grasp on what exactly is amiss in my head.

If I had to choose one "condition" to describe me, it would be Nonverbal Learning Disorder. That one is right on the mark. But I don't conform neatly and completely to that diagnosis.

Put very simply, I would say I was 75% NLD, 25% AS.

Or, that I have NLD with major elements of AS.

Probably the biggest revelation I've had in the past month is that I cannot "visualize." It never occurred to me that when someone says, "Picture this" that they actually expect you to be able to conjure up a clear, definite mental image. To me, "picture this" has always meant something along the lines of, "correlate the following concepts as best you can." Imagine my shock and amazement when I learned this month that people actually see things in their heads.

I have a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that I have been alive for thirty years and that my inability to visualize has gone undetected by myself or anyone else.

An update to my status as a potential autistic person.

On Sept. 11 I am going for an evaluation.

Should be interesting.

This is where I was when I first heard about AS a few years ago. But I'm convinced regardless. It's a somewhat flexible condition, and while I don't have a "flat" way of speaking, I do tend to fall into patterns.

The other thing to remember is that most AS diagnosis criteria were developed to diagnose children. I'm now 38 -- by this time, most Aspies who have successfully integrated (I'm also married) have moved away from some of the typical behaviors that denote AS in children, via learned behavior.

Oh yeah... I have been diagnosed with Asperger sydrome.

thanks for posting an update. I'm anticipating my own assessment in Nov. but finding out about AS was like finding the key to a very strange lock, then learning how to unlock it a little at a time.

I have some similarities to you. couldn't handle school as a kid although my IQ is somewhere in the 140s most likely (I've only had a partial workup).

I've even hidden in a locker, but I didn't like it so I found a new hiding place under the auditorium seats.