Do I have Aspergers or am I just a misfit?

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I have been questioning this for a while. I hoped if I could say a little more about my life story, it would make things more definite.
I feel that I might have Aspergers as I am always using formal language, to the extent that I cannot even send a text unless it is perfect grammatically, and contains a big word. My vocabulary is getting so big to the extent that people in my age group are starting to misunderstand what I am saying, and I have been rejected or belittled many times on forums. I find it so difficult to use informal language, and conform to social norms. My social life is suffering: to make this evident, I have taken two empathy quotient quizzes, which both stated I had empathy below 90% of results, and I believe this is true for my life. In the past month I have been told three times that I am arrogant and selfish, and that I feel the world evolves around me. To an extent it does; however, I don't really understand how I can change. I have taken the official Myer's Briggs Type Indicator test, and I scored 91% for introversion. When I meet new people I am socially awkward and uncomfortable. It is very unlikely that I will talk much, or act in the right way. People often get the impression that I am snobbish, stupid or funny. Nevertheless, I do have friends who accept me for who I am. Around them, I talk or 'blabber' about an obsessive interest or how I am feeling/what I am thinking at the present moment. I'm such a bad listener, that I can't pick up when people are bored until I have smothered them in my words, at which point they use every form of effort to escape, or let me know what they think about my egocentricity. Ever since I was little, I have been uncoordinated to the extent I was the only person last year to get kicked off the badminton team; although in actuality they needed about three more players 'no matter what the skill level', and failed PE consistently since Grade 1. I have had obsessive interests all my life. By Grade Four I had memorized all of the scientific names of birds in my area, and had a collection of 80 toy dinosaurs, each one with a name, social status, occupation, political view etc. Right now I am into astrophysics, and the MBTI. I spend so much time into these obsessions, that I procrastinate to a dramatic extent, and never end up finishing my schoolwork because of Google-ing sprees that can last up to seven hours. I have a musical talent, and people are pressuring me into a performing career, even though I like the sciences and would like to pursue that path. My ears are hypersensitive to loud noises, and I sometimes feel I have hyperacusis, which is why I have been avoiding playing...I have a 'tic', where I rub the back of my fingers against my mouth when I am thinking, and stay in an almost paralyzed state.

Some reasons I think I am not Aspergers, are that I understand metaphors, and I am only slightly gullible when it comes to sarcasm. I do understand what facial expressions mean, and social cues, but I cannot apply these in the physical context. I don't find jokes funny, unless I am in a hyperactive mood, but I still understand the intentions. I am also visiting a psychologist for my extreme mood swings, identity disturbances, temper outbursts, breakdowns and depression. She has not mentioned Aspergers, over the course of 11 sessions.

My mother is schizophrenic, which eradicates any genetic variables.
I am female.

What do people think of my post, if you are bothered reading this?

I always think these diagnose me via the internet type posts are a little odd.

You and your psychologist know better than anyone here because you both have access to way more information about you. A lot of diagnoses rely on observations in addition to self reports. (IE- It's much more accurate and easier to diagnose someone when you can actually see them.)

When I am working, I'm a social worker with a mainly medical background. This is in no way a diagnosis, however, I would guess Schitzoaffective disorder and not AS for numerious reasons. However, it's just an educated guess. It's also much easier to come up with an accurate picture when you are face-to-face and talking with someone.

I'm both an aspie, and a misfit. There's an old song, 'Misfits' that was written by an aspie.

Maybe you have Aspergers and maybe you don't.

A clinical diagnosis only makes sense in extreme cases where some kind of medication or social assistance is needed to keep the patient from slipping below some vague threshold of a "normal" self sufficient life. In a situation where a person may be on the Autism spectrum but is not extreme enough to warrent a clinical diagnosis sometimes the best therapeutic approach is nothing more than to talk and help the patient find coping strategies.

The job of a psychiatrist or a psychologist is not to come up with a diagnosis, but to HELP the patient. If the therapy helps, then the therapist is doing their job. Perhaps your therapist has not discussed Aspergers because she is still gathering the information. To make a diagnosis with insufficient information is potentially damaging to the patient.

It certainly sounds like you have a lot of the traits associated with Aspergers, but these traits might also fit another diagnosis. Treatments that might work for one condition might only make another one worse.

I think it can be helpful to learn more about any condition you suspect you might have, but you have to be careful not to grab a hold of any one of them and decided that "This defines who I am!" Nothing defines who you are but yourself. There is no diagnosis that can fully describe you as a person. But what can be helpful is to examine the traits you have, learn what others have found to work in mitigating the worst of the problems and adopting some coping mechanisms.

Human psychology is far too complex to be solved in a few carefully worded paragraphs in the DSM-Whatever. You may need to accept the idea that you will never have a single diagnosis that you can place on yourself that, if properly applied, will solve all your troubles. But you may be able to learn some valueable strategies that will help you get through life a little more successfully.

Good luck.

http://www.balametrics.com/
http://www.infinitywalk.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wii_Fit

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About empathy (insights into, not a cure)
http://www.dalecarnegie.com/

My experience is that when I finally got around to getting a formal diagnoses, it was not the cure for anything. Like you, I resisted the suggestion that there was a label that confirmed and objectified me into part of the "mentally abnormal" spectrum and its universe of acronyms. I think that I was under the idea that in being formally labeled in a category, a whole new set of expectations would then be placed in my path; but that the underlying attractant to getting that "dog tag", was that the expectation that NTs would now have a point of reference to be able to understand and accept me. That may be due, in part, to the adaptive process, where we are forced to clinically study the reactions of NTs to ourselves, in order to find a way to live with them. There is also the dark side, where, if we have a formal label, we can also act like insensitive idiots, and now have that "get out of jail' card.

The old Catch 22 idea, that if you recognize your pathology, you can't possibly have it, doesn't really hold up for Asperger's. As adults, we seem to have the ability to "walk around in ourselves", in a very non-typical way, that I have found can be very confusing to professional shamans of the Mind. If you suspect that you are an Aspie, tell your psychologist that ,and let her prove to you that you are not, if that is her belief system. My experience has been that few professionals will seriously look for AS. They have no way of "fixing" that, or to deal with it, except to adapt to it. But you are probably going there to find some peace of mind. Your peace of mind, not theirs. Don't settle for just a Label.

Do no harm.

I think in many cases we are so frightened of being accused of using it as a "get out of jail" card (you're using this figuratively, right? as in, using it as an excuse to be jerks?) that we either over-police ourselves and become shy, or else just don't tell people, or else refuse to use it as any kind of an excuse. I've seen more autistics hurt because they wouldn't allow themselves more leeway than NTs... I haven't really seen anyone use it as an excuse. Using AS as an excuse seems to be tied mostly to people who think they're worthless and it's hopeless to try to better themselves; seems to me they'd blame it on something else if they didn't have AS.