Hi, There! (I'd Like Your Opinion!)

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Hi. My name is Hella and I'm a 32 year old female. I'm happily married to my husband of going on 12 years, with no children (yet), and a small zoo of pets--four cats and one dog.

The reason I'm writing to you, today, is because I'm beginning to wonder if I'm autistic--though by no means a severe case, obviously. I know it's a little late in the game for me to be wondering if this is a possibility, but I admit freely that I never really knew very much about autism until more recently.

Last night, my husband and I were having one of our awesome, deep conversations and, though I can't presently recall the source of the tangent, I asked him if it was normal for me to have trouble gauging (even roughly) distances and similar things. He said he was pretty good at guesstimation, so we decided to do a test. I tried to figure out how far the distance between myself and the TV was, guessing 8 feet to be safer--when I wanted to say 12. My husband shook his head, telling me it was only around 4 feet from me.

So, that led me to wondering about who else might have problems of this nature. Judging spacial distances and such, I mean. For example, if you gave me a jar of marbles and asked me to guess how many... I'd be so lost. I can't even fathom it! I'd do my best to guesstimate, but I'm almost always way, way off in one direction or the other. So, when I got up this morning--even though I wanted to take a bath--I started doing some researching on Google. That's when I started finding articles about autism and spacial familiarity (or whatever you'd want to call it.)

The more I researched, the more I found that traits that I have (and didn't always think about as strange or different) that can be autism-related traits. So, I took the AQ test and scored a 33. However! I am actually fairly gifted, socially, finding it easy to get along with others, make new friends, carry on chit-chatty conversations and so on--even if I don't necessarily like to do it. I'm rather artistic and creative, finding my imagination to be quite cinematic and intensive--though, I honestly don't remember playing make-believe games with kids or toys, when I was younger. I did read a lot, though. A lot, a lot.

I have a quite obsessive personality and I'm pretty intelligent--but, only when it comes to things that interest me. If something bores me, I literally can't pay attention--my mind drifts, I become irritated and so on. And, when something interests me, I dive in head first. I engulf myself in it for as long as I can, as long as it lasts or until I simply must stop for whatever reason. I have no concept of time passage (seconds, minutes, hours) if I'm doing something I enjoy.

Some of the things I have, though, I always thought were other disorders--like OCD. I've got a pretty steady obsession with the numbers 2, 4 and 8. Any string of numbers I see, I start adding, subtracting, multiplying and/or dividing...ignoring some fairly important mathematical rules, at times...to 'get' that number to be 2, 4 or 8. I got married on April 8, 2000 (4/8/2), at 2pm! Another example--right now, there are 1051 visitors online. In my head, I do this weird sort of lightning math, going through the following equations:

1+0+5+1=7 (X - rejected)
1-0-5-1=-5 (X)
1x0x5x1=0 (X)
1/0/5/1=0 (X)
10+51=61 (X - as 61 can't equal out to 2, 4 or 8, the way I go through my patterns.)
10-51=41...4x1=4 (Accepted and number-manipulation dropped.)

The worst part about being obsessed with numbers, retaining them fairly easily and so on...is that I am absolutely terrible at more complicated math. I flunked geometry, hardcore--I just couldn't grasp its concepts, at all. I did pretty decently with Algebra II, but barely scraped by in Algebra I (but, that could be the difference between a good and bad teacher). I'm also REALLY terrible with geography. REALLY bad. When my husband and I play Trivial Pursuit and I get 'History,' 'Sports' or 'People/Places'... We both know it'll be a miracle if I can summon the correct answer--and, that'd really mostly be from pure guessing.

Anyways... There are more things! I'm just going to list them in a stream of consciousness line and expound on them later in this post, if necessary.

* Laser-like focus and no concept of time passage when enjoying myself.
* Horrible at 'guesstimation' with distance/length/time/volume/etc.
* Math problems, but obsessed with numbers.
* Anger/rage outs when I was younger (and when I lose my patience.)
* Intensely interested with/obsessive over grammar/spelling/etc.
* Obsessed with names and their importance.
* Sensory fixations. Oral, scent, touch, taste, visual.
* Stimming? Tweezing, chewing/touching/exfoliating (picking or otherwise) lips, etc.
* Panic if I lose my tweezers.
* Obsession with <younameit>, collecting thorough information.
* Empathy, reading people, musical emotional charge, etc.
* Exacting, good memory for certain details, highly observant.
* Nausea and anxiety when overwhelmed--sensitive to touch, temperature, sound, etc.

Okay. I meant to be in the bath over two hours ago and I'm still Googling and formatting this post as I write it! This is the kind of thing I mean, I guess. I won't be able to rest until I've finished this post, I think. I made a deal with myself that I'd get the bare-bones down and pick it up after my bath, but I'm still sitting here. (Obsession over interesting topic, time-loss and collecting thorough information.)

Okay, as I said, I've got a pretty obsessive nature--I find something I like and I enjoy the crap out of it. Names are important to me--I hate bland, 'traditional' names, for example. I feel like some people whose names are super common and boring are being cheated for being named the way they are--as though their personality is far more interesting than their name and the two shouldn't be clashing. Weird; right?

I have very strong opinions on all things sensory. Things I consider 'bad' will quickly make me upset. Food I don't like the taste of is immediately left to my husband--and, my sense of taste is so acute that I will just somehow know if a previously favorite meal has been changed, in some way, ingredients-wise. Bad smells that persist around me will make me nauseated and irritable. Ugly things (like, say, 60's-70's cinematography) will make me restless, irritable and unable to look at them. And, it goes on! I've had this weird love for the smell and feel of foam (the squishy, solid kind) for a long time, as well, that makes no sense to me. I'm very sensitive to temperature--quick to ire if I'm too hot, depressed and sluggish if I'm too cold. I must not feel any hint of crumbs, unsecured fitted sheet, wrinkles, lumps or anything in the bed, or I can't sleep.

Emotions... This is a big, big one for me. I feel everything incredibly intensely. I'm highly empathetic, in that I can read people's moods very easily through tone of voice, body language and word choice--and, I've been susceptible to absorbing others' moods, even when I don't want to. I have an easy time expressing how I feel and obsessively try to find the root cause of whatever emotion I'm feeling, or analyze things endlessly to figure out what I'm feeling and why. -- I used to have /severe/ rage issues, when I was younger. My temper would flare at the drop of a hat! I've gotten a trillion times better with keeping my temper in check, now, but it's still bad when I lose it. -- Music is really important to me, emotionally, because I submerge myself in music that makes me feel things--sweeping emotions--and often ride a 'music high' for as long as I can by listening to one song (or set of songs), over and over and over, again--until I'm done with it/them or find something else that interests me more--sort of like a magpie.

I...don't know that I actually have stims. I think I do, though. In addition to having an oral fixation, I have other learned behaviors I can't seem to stop. I sucked my middle and ring fingers on my right hand until I was around 8 years old. After my parents broke me of that, lots of oral fixation habits started popping up. Always sucking, chewing, biting, talking, drinking, eating... I mean, it never ends. I got a tongue ring at 19 years old and I'm pretty sure I'll die with it in my tongue! Huge oral fixation. -- But, worse than that... I've got PCOS (which is unrelated to any of this, except that it makes me grow coarser hairs on my chin/neck)... And, when my hair started growing darker and coarser in that small area... I took to tweezing them away. (This also goes with my tactile obsession, that I HATE these coarse hairs and how it makes my skin feel..but, I can't stop touching it, even when I'm tweezing.) My eyebrows, too, though I just keep them in shape. I have a specific brand and style of tweezers that I deem the 'right kind,' and nothing else will do. Now, not a day can go by where I don't either have my tweezers on me, near me or I know exactly where they are. When I lose them, I panic. I tweeze hairs on my chin and neck...all day long.

Memory... My memory is a weird thing. Sometimes, I can recall incredibly detailed information about a certain day years and years ago (as if it were yesterday) and sometimes, I can't recall what I ate two days ago. It's very odd. I tend to have better recall for conversational things than I do for routine, but it's unpredictable. If I see/use a number more than twice, the number pattern/sequence almost tattoos itself on my consciousness.

And, last on my list... This is an always sort of thing. If I feel at all overwhelmed, whether it's from stress, being overly warm, suffering from an upset stomach or anything else... I become incredibly irritable, nauseated and can lash out, if I'm not handled properly.


At any rate... I REALLY need to go take my bath, now, because I've been meaning to do it for two hours (and I've sat here with my coat and hat on for about half an hour, because I didn't think to take them off after my smoke, because my mind was focused on this post)! I know this post is rambling and long. Please, forgive my verbosity...I can't seem to help it. -- Below, I've included my score for the AQ Test (if it means anything beyond the totaled score). And, I'd really appreciate any information anyone would like to share with me on the things I've rambled on about! Thank you so much for reading this!

AQ Test Results:
---------------
Agree: 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13, 16, 18, 19, 20, 23, 35, 41, 42, 43, 46: 1 point
Disagree: 8, 15, 17, 25, 28, 29, 30, 32, 34, 37, 40, 44, 47, 48, 49: 1 point
Score: 33

You could look in the women's forum... there's a list of women's Asperger's traits, which are somewhat different from men's.

Thanks! I went and looked, following links and I eventually reached the image with the list of Asperger's symptoms in females.

I won't even joke about it--every single thing on that image. I fit every single thing. It's like someone took all my idiosyncrasies and made them into a list and put them in a .jpeg! Looks like I've got more research to do.

Hi Hella! You described really vividly A LOT of things that I also do and experience. I was diagnosed 2 years ago at age 23 for what it's worth.

Welcome to the Wrong Planet

Oh, thank you, everyone!

Wow! I just have to say it, again, wow! Seriously, this has blown my mind right out of my head! I feel like my world just groaned to a stop, shifted to a slightly different angle, snapped sharply into focus and film began rolling, again. Wow. I just can't believe it. I'm 32 and no one even suspected! No one even suggested anything to me! How can the different symptoms of Asperger's, even the very stark differences between female and male symtoms...not be known? How have I been ignorant for so long? D:


Thank you, everyone! I really look forward to being a lurking reader for a bit, finding my AS legs.

Welcome! I'm 30 and was diagnosed this year. I think women can imitate and mask others quite well and try and hide any signs. Quite often they can be diagnosed after going through mental health services e.g. depression, anxiety. That's the route I came through as had problems socially and with employment (although not education or finding a partner).

Just a thought. Not to complicate things for you, but you may want to look into ADD symptoms too. It's pretty common to have both, and I see at least a few signs that it would be a good idea for you to investigate that as well.

The combination of ADD and AS poses it's own unique conflicts, problems and eccentricities.

Really? May I ask which signs prompted you to make the suggestion and why? I'm very eager to learn more. It's...difficult, coming to an epiphany like this. I start wondering why I didn't make connections earlier, but... That's kind of what it's all about.


I'd really appreciate seeing some examples of these conflicts, problems and eccentricities! I've found I relate better to exemplars than to generic, vague concepts.

Partly the comments about your memory, but mostly it's the way you kept saying you needed to take a bath, but kept on writing. That's could be a huge red flag. Perhaps, perhaps not.

Also the length of your post, given that you knew you had other important things to do. Other than that, it's really just a feeling. A sense I got from your post that's kind of hard to explain.





Good grief. I have really BAD ADD myself. I have outlined them in the past, but for the life of me I can't ever list them at the drop of a hat. They are though, pretty complex things that are very hard to describe to anyone not possessing an intimate knowledge of AS. AS is harder to understand than ADD, and how it interacts with ADD depends on the "brand" of AS one has. AS is very different from person to person. ADD is a quite a bit narrower spectrum, but is also a spectrum.

How it might conflict and otherwise interact would vary greatly from one Aspie to another. The best way to "discover" how it does in yourself, is to research both, decide whether you even think you might have ADD as well. If you really don't think it fits, forget it and move on. If you think it does, it'll take quite a while to become familiar with how each affects YOU, and from there, you can kind of begin to figure out how they work (or don't work) together in yourself.

Probably not the "bullet list" you were looking for, but it just ain't that simple. Sorry.

I can't fault anything you've said, nope! I suppose I attributed my penchant for doing things like this morning, when I wrote the post even though I wanted to take a bath, to the 'laser-like focus' aspect of AS.

Thanks for replying! I'll look into ADD a bit deeper, as well. I've got a lot of reading to do.

Try this site:

http://www.totallyadd.com

There's a great screening tool there somewhere, and a ton of the best information I've seen anywhere about ADD.

Direct link to the screening test (you'll need speakers):

http://totallyadd.com/virtual-doctor/

Haaaaa. So, on the first part, I scored 9/9. On the second, 6/9. The video doctor said, "Welcome to the world of ADHD!"


D:

If you truly don't have social issues, you don't have Asperger's. You may have traits of it, or even PDD-NOS, but a dx of AS requires social issues to be present.

I didn't say I have /no/ social issues, just that mine are drastically less severe than others I've heard and read about. I don't particularly like social gatherings very much, as they make me uncomfortable and I take a long time to become truly comfortable with people, in general. Big crowds make me anxious. I'm easily capable of being chatty--especially about something that I'm passionate about. That's a symptom of AS, as well, called verbosity, I believe. Part of the hyperlexia, I think? I'm still new to all of this.