1st post, new to the world of AS

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Let me first say, I haven't been diagnosed with AS. I saw a show on Discovery about autism, and it really sounded familar, so I started to do some research on-line. The more I've read, the more I think I might have AS.

At the age of thirty six, I'm feeling like it might be too late for me to bother with a diagnosis. Part of me thinks that it would be nice to have something to point to for all these years of being a mis-fit, but on the other hand, what does it matter? I have largely learned how to survive this life and there doesn't seem to be anything that can be done to fix me. I am the way I am and that's how it is. People can take it or leave it, I really don't care anymore.

Here are a few things about me.....
-One of my earliest memories is from kindergarten....and the teacher was yelling at me because I couldn't color a picture like everyone else. I used round circles and she wanted straight lines.
-My mother wanted me to repeat first grade for social development, but the schools refused because I was above average in testing.
-Never had many friends and never understood why people didn't like me.
-Most people have and still do consider me to be elitist, arrogant, etc.
-Most of my life people have asked me why I don't smile, or why I'm so serious. My wife constantly gets upset about me being "too literal".
-My handwriting is terrible, and I form letters differently....starting o's on the bottom for example. Had one teacher try to fail me in fifth grade because I couldn't correct it.
-I have had several teachers tell me that I was "wired differently" and I did well in those classes, but when forced to follow strict patterns/formulas I failed.
-I write with my right hand, but throw with my left....even though I could change both without difficulty.
-I have excelled at applied sciences, but failed abstact math. In statistics class in college, I felt as though I was born with the knowledge and knew everything the teacher presented before he presented it. I also scored in the 98th percentile on the ASVAB test in highschool, but never entered the military because of the strict rules.
-In my career life, I found office environments intollorable (to the point of thoughts of suicide), but excelled in technical field positions.
-I have always excelled in athletics, but always did so with different techniques than what was considered ideal, mostly using my physical strength to overcome technique.
-Today, I own my own technically oriented business and work alone. I have been called a freak for my ability and knowledge in the subject matter.
-I am married, but to a woman that wants very little physical or emotional interaction. I've never had a problem attracting women, just keeping them.
-I have few friends, and the ones I do have accept me as being different and socially awkward. I can maintain eye contact, but only because I know that's what I need to do to be "normal".
-I find social interaction...going to parties or interacting with large groups exhausting.
-I reward myself with solitude.
-I scored 45 on the on-line AS test, where 80% of people that scored above 32 were found to have AS.

There's plenty more, but I'll cut it off here. I've presented the idea that I might have AS to my brother (who i think has it too) and my wife. Both just kind of brushed it off, suggesting that I'm nothing like "those people".....reffering to rainman, or people that can't talk, etc.

Does any of this sound familiar to those if you with AS?

Welcome to WP!

Tim

Yes indeed, it does sound familiar to me. I am not good at all in math, but the rest of what you describe, especially your social experiences are very parallel to my own.

I don't think it is too late to seek a diagnosis. It may not change much of reality for you, but it will give you an explaination as to why your life has been the way its been. For me, being diagnosed in middle age is something that has given me a great sense of peace. My life now makes sense. That can be priceless.

Welcome to WP.

To answer the last first, which is a habit of mine, yup.

Coping skills don't always last forever. I've had them fail and fixed some and have had to make new ones. The fixing of these isn't an over night thing, they can take me a very long time and that causes big time problems in the real world. I think I'll be able to make the better ones, just armed with some more insight on what makes me tick. I'm 56. I can walk on the bright side or the dark side, very easily, when the skills work. I like the middle, I like the zen, I like the spaces in between the buttons.

For me it is important to know, even if the pro I see doesn't think it is, it won't matter. It fits. It fits me better then anything else I've ever seen. I'm still trying to catch the beat of this place, figure out cultural slang and what the abrevations all mean. Trying to figure out the degrees that this can manifest itself in. I'm in no hurry and some of what I just mentioned will wait for my question and answer to my head doctor. The reason it's important to me is I'm on meds and it might make a difference in the approach. But it is also important to me because I was a huge self medicater (women, drugs, booze, and other obsesive shiny things that caught my attention) in the past and I just don't want to go back there. My feeling is, I'm better able to deal with past bad habits if I understand the root of the problem. Just learning the term brain overload has had a huge impact on getting out why I do what I do around the house with The Wife. It's a tool to let her know some of what happens in me over what would be considered simple things to most. She will most likely make an appearance on this site in some form or fashion, that's totaly up to her.

postpaleo

Oh and Howdy

Last edited by postpaleo on 24 Feb 2007, 10:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

All of us who find out later struggle with whether we should get the "official" diagnosis. Most of us, like you, have found a way to survive in this world, so it's more of a thing where it all finally makes sense. It depends on how much you want that validated and if you value the system that does it. That is a journey I think we all take.

Much of what you wrote sounds familiar. I, like you, had plenty more that I could add. The list just keeps growing as I find out more. Things I never even thought were related are now explained. It's almost eerie or surreal.


Whatever you decide, welcome!

WOW, WELCOME!


-One of my earliest memories is from kindergarten....and the teacher was yelling at me because I couldn't color a picture like everyone else. I used round circles and she wanted straight lines.

Well, I don't remember kindergarten having such things, but I read FLUENTLY in the first grade(I started reading before going to school), one teacher(I forget if it was 1st or 2nd grade) demanded I erase all the work in my vocabulary book. I already knew it all, so I figured WHY BOTHER?

-My mother wanted me to repeat first grade for social development, but the schools refused because I was above average in testing.

My mother didn't. But the school wondered if they should hold me back because I did NO homework. They decided NOT to, because I passed every test with an A! The school ALSO asked me to be tested because of social problems. I ALSO attended a class that the school never talked about, etc... I have to wonder if it was because of my problem. It was kind of a courtesy/social interaction class.

-Never had many friends and never understood why people didn't like me.

SAME HERE!

-Most people have and still do consider me to be elitist, arrogant, etc.

I try not to sound that way now, but they used to feel that way about ME also!

-Most of my life people have asked me why I don't smile, or why I'm so serious. My wife constantly gets upset about me being "too literal".

They used to say that about me.

-My handwriting is terrible, and I form letters differently....starting o's on the bottom for example. Had one teacher try to fail me in fifth grade because I couldn't correct it.

Actually, I always wrote TEXTBOOK cursive until about 3 years ago. The bank didn't care, and my writing was FAR better than anyone elses, so I decided to lose some quality for speed.

-I have had several teachers tell me that I was "wired differently" and I did well in those classes, but when forced to follow strict patterns/formulas I failed.

WOW, outside of social differences, nobody seemed to care with me.

-I have excelled at applied sciences, but failed abstact math. In statistics class in college, I felt as though I was born with the knowledge and knew everything the teacher presented before he presented it. I also scored in the 98th percentile on the ASVAB test in highschool, but never entered the military because of the strict rules.

WELL, I tested over the 93rd percentile(I forget what the general score was, but I know it was over 93%), but a clerical error caused them to grade me as a sophmore in COLLEGE as opposed to a sophmore in highschool! I found someone in the 99 percentile on electronics(my main interest at the time), that was scored at the correct grade. His actual score was LOWER than mine! My best areas were science and vocabulary related.

-In my career life, I found office environments intollorable (to the point of thoughts of suicide), but excelled in technical field positions.

Same here, though I can manage the office environments perhaps 97% of the time. I try to find a way to avoid the 3%.

-Today, I own my own technically oriented business and work alone. I have been called a freak for my ability and knowledge in the subject matter.

I started a business once, but started working for my main customer. DUMBEST thing I ever did. People have TREATED me like a freak, astounded, etc... They never called me one though.

-I have few friends, and the ones I do have accept me as being different and socially awkward. I can maintain eye contact, but only because I know that's what I need to do to be "normal".

I have the same deal with EYE contact.

-I find social interaction...going to parties or interacting with large groups exhausting.

Same here.

-I reward myself with solitude.

I guess, in a way I do too.

-I scored 45 on the on-line AS test, where 80% of people that scored above 32 were found to have AS.

There's plenty more, but I'll cut it off here. I've presented the idea that I might have AS to my brother (who i think has it too) and my wife. Both just kind of brushed it off, suggesting that I'm nothing like "those people".....reffering to rainman, or people that can't talk, etc.

BTW Rainman wasn't about someone with AS. AS people can NOT be incommunicative, or stupid. It is actually part of the diagnosis. You COULD have it. MOST AS males DON'T have the social or athletic success you do, but that isn't part of the diagnosis.

Steve

"-One of my earliest memories is from kindergarten....and the teacher was yelling at me because I couldn't color a picture like everyone else. I used round circles and she wanted straight lines."
~ The teacher sounds like an idiot.

"-Never had many friends and never understood why people didn't like me."
~ If anything, I've gone through life not knowing whether people liked me or not. On the occasions that I found evidence that they did, I tended to wonder why.

"-Most of my life people have asked me why I don't smile, or why I'm so serious. My wife constantly gets upset about me being "too literal"."
~ Yeah, I get the not-smiling or too-serious thing. One person, who I ony tended to see in the evenings (this was about age 13) used to greet me by asking how I was. I used to get tired in the evenings, so would say I was tired. (I didn't realise 'how are you' was a greeting and not a question.) At one point she said to me 'you're always tired!' and I thought, for one thing, why does she ask when it's obvious, and for another, why say I'm 'always tired' - all she knows is that I'm tired when she sees me! Um, that was a slightly random anedote, on reflection - but I'll leave it in as an example of me also taking things literally (and over-logic-ising them.)

"-My handwriting is terrible, and I form letters differently....starting o's on the bottom for example. Had one teacher try to fail me in fifth grade because I couldn't correct it."
~ I also have bad handwriting, and tend to start a lot of letters from the bottom. Again, though, it sounds like a daft teacher.

"-I have had several teachers tell me that I was "wired differently" and I did well in those classes, but when forced to follow strict patterns/formulas I failed."
~ Again, some teachers seemed to get on with me better than others, and those that insisted on conformity tended to get less good results.

"-In my career life, I found office environments intollorable (to the point of thoughts of suicide), but excelled in technical field positions."
~ What exactly did you dislike about offices? I always found them too boring and monotonous (and found the people hard to get on with.)

"-I have few friends, and the ones I do have accept me as being different and socially awkward. I can maintain eye contact, but only because I know that's what I need to do to be "normal"."
~ Yeah, same here.

"-I find social interaction...going to parties or interacting with large groups exhausting."
~ Likewise

"There's plenty more, but I'll cut it off here. I've presented the idea that I might have AS to my brother (who i think has it too) and my wife. Both just kind of brushed it off, suggesting that I'm nothing like "those people".....reffering to rainman, or people that can't talk, etc."
~ When I first suggested to my mum that I might have Aspergers (and briefly explained what it was) her first response was 'you can't be autistic, you're too intelligent!'

"Does any of this sound familiar to those if you with AS?"
~ Yes.

Um, no. I've known people who have been diagnosed with AS, who can have trouble communicating, and at times I can have trouble communicating verbally. I've also known some people with an AS diagnosis who can be incredibly stupid, although obviously the term 'stupid' can be subjective.

Just read the first post: walloftext

Paragraphing is, sadly, lacking on many WP posts

Intelligence IS subjective, so the DSM uses the IQ as a determining factor. "At times" doesn't count. It refers to ability and cognition.

HECK, I will actually scramble words if I get OVERLY stressed out. Ironically, that only happens with VERY stupid customers. They may ask me to do something VERY complicated, or suspect a problem is my fault, etc... And want me to fix it IMMEDIATELY with 5+ people in my tiny cube whose SOLE job and ability is to frustrate any attempt to do anything. Since my young AS attitude is all but gone, and I need the job, I simply try to bluff, and get away at the first opportunity and fix the problem. There have been times when the bluff goes on for an hour, and I get it fixed MINUTES later.(Minutes AFTER they leave) WHY? Because it may be something NOBODY would ever think of, but I can sometimes almost subconciously debug hundreds of pages of code in my HEAD. That will NOT work, and I now won't even attempt it, when I am crowded and under such stress. AND, if someone asks me a question then, I may actually sound kind of drunk!

BTW I USED to simply say somthing like "Look, you aren't helping, and just creating stress, and I don't work well under stress! Could you please leave? I will try to get it done ASAP!".

Steve

welcome.

I was almost held back in kindergarten because I couldn't walk the balance beam.

Most of what you said is true for me too, except I'm good at higher math and suck at computers

Oh, and I don't own my own business, but should within 3 years.

WOW, WHAT STUPIDITY!! !! Doesn't the ADA FORBID that? I mean a person in a wheel chair couldn't walk the balance beam EITHER! There are problems with touch, balance, strength, coordination, etc... That could EASILY frustrate such attempts, and they aren't that uncommon.

BESIDES, school is supposed to be there to LEARN and how often have you had to walk a balance beam?

Steve

Welcome to WP!

I'm 42 years old, and I too, suspect I have a lot of AS traits but am too old to benefit from a formal diagnosis.

When I was in kindergarten, I entered at four years old because I knew everything I needed to know, but my teacher wanted to hold me back due to social issues. I started school in a language other than English (my first language was German) and the teacher said I would never learn. In first grade, I was reading and writing at the fifth grade level, in English.

My reading and vocabulary scores were always high. I was only average in math, but I feel that was due to poor teaching methods, not inability.

I love my current job because it is something I can do largely on my own, without a lot of people watching me. Plus, it is in line with my areas of strength: reading, organizational skills and broad-based general knowledge.

I am not at all athletic. I failed every physical fitness test at school, but I did a lot of swimming and walking. I don't run, but I am interested in track and field statistics. My favorite athlete is Roger Bannister, a very bright man who I suspect has some AS traits.

I prefer the company of animals to people. As my screen name indicates, I have nine cats-plus a dog.

Very.

Welcome.

If you can count how many cats you have, you don't have enough

postpaleo