Do I have Aspergers? - Unique case

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I am experiencing the vast majority of symptoms of Aspergers, some stronger than others. Everything from social awkwardness, communication problems, not understanding jokes, to balance problems, weird walk/posture, obsessive interests, etc. I've been through lists and lists of Aspergers symptoms and I have almost all if not all of them.

However, there's a catch, I have not experienced these from birth, at least not that I can remember. I was, I guess you could say, "normal" until about age 13-14 when I had epilepsy and a series of pretty bad seizures, and since then I have been suffering the symptoms.

Now, it is possible that my memory is off and that I was suffering from the same symptoms before then, but if I look back through the years, that's the definitive event where I can say "I definitely had Aspergers symptoms after that".

So, opinions? Thoughts?

What should I do?

If you really didn't have those symptoms from birth, than this could be a form of schizophrenia or maybe also personality disorder (maybe schizoid/schizotypal PD and Obsessive PD or something like that).

I would go and talk with a very good psychiatrist on this matter about it.

Ok, thanks for the answer. I have looked in to various personality disorders before though.

It would be good to get some other thoughts on this.

Frontal lobe brain damage? Executive dysfunction?

teenage years is quite common for AS to become a question - the social demands change from being a kid

I was thinking about the possibility of:
Disorganized schizophrenia
or
Simple-type schizophrenia

Can be very simmilar than ASD.



Yes, this would also be a possibility.
The social demands change and make AS more obvious. In some mild cases that's the case.
Mostly women with AS so far I'm informed, but it's also possible in men.

Or maybe just autistic like symptoms through the seizures, frontal lope damage.

Last edited by Raziel on 13 Jan 2013, 4:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.

ASD must be present from birth. If you definitely did not have symptoms prior to that seizure, then chances are, you are not on the spectrum. It is possible for seizures to causes damage though...perhaps that is what happened?

There are sub-types of AS, it could be that you were one of the less noticeable types in your earlier childhood, and you can change between the sub-types at different times in your life. Epilepsy is more common with people on the spectrum.

Can you ask your parents about your earlier childhood?

Lots of non-ASD people also have epilepsy though (my grandmother being one of them)

It absolutely cannot be Asperger's...having it from before the age of 3 is required to make that diagnosis, the DSM doesn't give any wiggle room on this. It's probably residual damage to the brain from the seizures that closely mimics the symptoms of Asperger's, so some of the same coping strategies we use might help. You should see a psychologist, preferably one familiar with neurology. It could also be that you didn't notice the symptoms until you were in your early teens because that's when the social environment becomes a lot more complex, and expectations become much more difficult to meet. I would definitely say that life didn't get difficult for me until middle school. Maybe have your parents fill out a screening questionnaire based on your behavior when you were a child, just to make sure.

If I do have Aspergers, it's mostly likely a mild version, because although I do have all the symptoms, how shall I say it... most people don't think/know that there's something wrong with me. They just see me as really shy and awkward.

I don't remember much from my childhood, but now that I think about it, I only really had one friend for most of it, and I played by myself a lot at home, I had a very wild imagination (and still do).

I think it's just coincidence that I was briefly popular in year 5 and 6, I think it might be because at that point one of my strong interests was football

Both of those things are potential signs. Children with AS can have really vivid imaginations, to the extreme that they almost live in a fantasy world. Do you know if you initiated the friendship you had as a child?

My "symptoms" definitely increased as I got older, especially when I went to high school. That's when I remember being different to others. Although I've only realised that I have Asperger's in the last year or so, before that I just thought it was my personality and the way that I was. My mum took me to the doctor's all the time when I was little, about different things and they never noticed anything. So, it is possible to get to adulthood without realising.

Your case is so interesting, and imo, i really think maybe it could be possible that after the seizure it caused Asperger/like symptoms.

You'd have to get a psychologist who could interview your parents regarding your childhood.
I know you say you were "normal", and it's likely you were. Not everyone remembers everything from their childhoods, your parents
would be best to help recall.
Never was i a "normal" child, i was always "weird", however i was always comfortable in who i was nor did i try to change. I used to think i could pass for NT, and i was very wrong, when i finally realized that i am so obviously on the spectrum with horrific social skills and then some,i felt stupid for thinking i thought i could blend in if i wanted to. Another thing may be, was that the friends i did have, they were not the mean judgemental types.

What i think is fascinating is that the symptoms were triggered by a seizure later on at age, 13-14. The epilepsy and seizures.. we all know that those on the Autism Spectrum can be prone to seizures and epilepsy.

Here's an article about scientists working on a connection between Autism and Epilepsy:
https://sfari.org/news-and-opinion/news ... and-autism

If we think about it, it wasn't until really the 1990s and much later when all this research and activism awareness of Autism picked up.
Scientists researching Autism right now; well it's still in it's infancy.
Back in the 1980s we didn't have Aspergers and there was no spectrum, there was classic case low functioning only and "refrigerator mothers" and people placed in institutions.

We are making progress, the decades go fast, yet there is so much research yet to be done.

In the OP, Arathor's case, i wouldn't be surprised if some time in the future they actually found a cause for the Asperger like symptoms being triggered by the seizures.

My cousin wasn't born autistic. He's got epilepsy and he later got diagnosed with PDD-NOS/Atypical Autism. He's 13 now and I'm not sure when he got diagnosed.