Indecision about ASD

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Do you sometimes feel you fit the symptoms for an ASD but at other times feel that it does not fit?

I keep changing my mind. I am not formerly diagnosed and I won't turn down and assessment if I can get one, but there are days I feel as though I could or do have an ASD and days where I wonder if I am just a traumatised NT who was bullied a bit too much. My symptoms were there as a very young child (Ie before the age of 5 years old) but I was also bullied from a young age as well.

How would I know if my issues were trauma related or ASD related or both?

That is tough. I feel like this as well. I was diagnosed at a young age and I've had to deal with people treating me like a non-person for my whole life. Right now I'm doubting if that diagnosis was valid. I can socialize fine with people I have things in common with.

That doesn't count.



Being bullied is part and parcel of the autistic experience. The fact that we are socially awkward and often stand apart from the crowd makes us easy targets and bullies love targets that can't fight back and aren't likely to be defended by the rest of the peer group.

It's also not unusual to have days when your social abilities are at their peak and you feel relatively 'normal.' I find my social skills are much better and come much more easily when they're kept up by regular use, like when I had a job and had to interact with other humans every day. When I'm isolated for long periods of time, they begin to atrophy and I have a hard time even interacting for a few seconds with with a store clerk.

But even when my abilities are at their best, I can still tell that I'm not interacting as fluidly or as well as the rest of the people around me.

Last edited by Willard on 26 Jan 2014, 5:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Why doesn't that count? I ask because I can be similar in that if I can find someone to chat to about mutual subjects of interest I can actually enjoy the social interaction and socialise fine, except that I still have to remember to let them speak because I get excited talking about whatever it is that I am excited by.

Oh and I have to remember not to keep going off on tangents or I can lose them a bit.

It doesn't count because anybody can carry on a conversation with someone about things they are both fascinated by. It's very much like talking to yourself. That does not mean your social skills are well-developed.

The test of Sophisticated Social Skills is being able to initiate and carry on an interaction with someone, or a group of people, with whom you have relatively little in common, other than being human and speaking the same language.

Chatting about subjects one has no personal interest in, in order to be polite; being able to jump into a group conversation when appropriate, without interrupting anyone; not commenting on some specific remark in a way that is not germane to the overall content of the discussion (inserting non sequitur); knowing when and how to terminate the discussion appropriately, without cutting anyone off, or just letting it trail into awkward silence, that sort of thing.

I think most of my social problems are caused by a mismatch between my chronological age, emotional age and intellectual age. For the average person those things match up more or less, so they can socialize easily with their chronological peers. I am seventeen, but I am about fifteen emotionally and in my twenties intellectually. That means that I get along best with those age groups. If the average person were to socialize with a non-peer they usually have the same problems I have with my peers. I think a lot of people on here overestimate the average person's social skills.

no, i feel very confident with my diagnoses, but i do have one or two Borderline Personality Disorder traits, mostly i picked them up from my mom and sister though.

I think so too.

Well, the best way to evaluate is to compare how well the average neurotypical is faring among their peer group, as opposed to how well you are faring among yours.

Are you being invited to as many social interactions, included in as many conversations, enjoying as much job security and getting promoted as often as they are?

If not, chances are their social skills are much better developed than yours.

I think social skills are a skill and all skills need to be developed. Mine are not well developed because I have social anxiety. I'm rarely in contact with my true peers. When I'm with my true peers I don't have much problems with social interaction, even if it involves talking about stuff I'm not interested in. I know that 99% of people my age are not my true peers. I bet if I had more practice interacting with my true peers I could get normal social skills one day.

More often than not I feel like I'm "not autistic" and then something happens and I'm like

uh

well

i guess i am :/

There are many reasons why a person might answer "no" to these questions that do not indicate having undeveloped social skills, so I don't think these are a good measure of social skills.

Most people I know around my age have children and/or do things with their own families. Any other social functions they go to are church related, work related, or hobby related. Otherwise if they are single, they may be dating. I don't want to participate or be invited to any such activities. I do not put myself in a position to be invited to interact socially with anyone. I socialize only with my own family, or online, however I am growing more and more wary of socializing with people online.

I don't know ANYONE who is enjoying any significant job security right now. I have about as much job security as anyone else I know, maybe just a bit higher than average because of the type of work that I do, however the reality is that job security can change at anytime, for any person. I know several people who are unemployed right now. I don't know anyone who has had a promotion. Most people I know who have jobs, are just trying to keep a job. They aren't necessarily trying to be promoted. Many jobs do not have any opportunity and/or necessity for promotion. My own position is not promotable, company-wide. I was informed of that when I was hired, and I agreed to it because prefer it that way. I would not want to be promoted even if the opportunity existed.

I work in sales. I have had plenty of experience in developing these kinds of social skills:



However, having these skills doesn't mean I am able to use them at all times (or that I would necessarily want to either), due to sensory issues, memory problems and attention problems. However when I CAN do these things, I do them well, and I think much more politely and appropriately than the average person who doesn't put much thought in it. But it makes me very, very tired. I do what I have to do, to get by in my job, or to be polite to people I run into out in public, but I don't go out of my way just to have these kinds of conversations with people.

I think DevilKisses is too young for the job questions to even be applicable to her.

The more pertinent differences for me, in comparison to my own age group (mid thirties) are that I am not able to work full time. I am not married. And I do not have (and do not want to have) children.

Getting an assessment from someone who has experience with AS would eliminate any doubts.

I had doubts until I got a diagnosis from an expert even though I am the poster child for AS, have all the symptoms. I still doubted whether or not I had AS even after I got diagnosed. It was a bitter pill to shallow thinking I would never get any better. Today I accept it and try to adapt to the weaknesses that my AS causes. It has taken a couple of years though.

I don't think AS means you can't learn to function socially. It means that you have to work at it, and there are some things you are never going to understand. So I don't buy the argument that having social skills means you don't have AS. I have enough social skills to work, have romantic relationships, and friendships. My socials skills improve all the time. It doesn't come naturally though.