An Atypical Autistic Phenotype, I need Resources!

Post Reply New Topic

Hey all! if you read my signature, that basically sums me up.

I apologize for my poor punctuation and grammar, I missed a lot of school!

So I made an earlier post about Hyper-Empathy and Autism?: https://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=304240
As an unfortunately misguided and self-pointed Social Justice Warrior with a poor sense humour and overwhelming fear with the current affairs in the world, I have been thinking about this a lot again.

So I struggle with an overwhelming levels of Theory Of Mind and Affective Empathy, and I struggle to reconcile this with my Diagnosis, of Autistic Spectrum Disorder Higher Functioning Sub-type. (Maybe it is a fancy new way of saying PDD-NOS, in the updated DSM-5)
So naturally I decided to experiment on my poor parents and my sister haha, put them in separate rooms, with no distractions and gave them the 'Reading the Mind in the eyes test'. I Score around 35/36 I mistook a friendly face for a dominant one, eh I was bullied, my gut said friendly but I thought it was lie.

My Mother and Father both scored 33/36, and that was surprising, my dad seems to have more autistic traits than I do, I guess I judged him like I feared others would/do judge me, on surface behaviour, instead of the actual way he saw the world, like me I imagine then.
My Mum I expected.
My sister being only 14 scored 31/36, which is pretty good considering you don't reach your best until past your early twenties, I'm 18 By the way.
The average for NTs being 26/36 and Autistic being 21.9/36

So clearly there is a genetic element here, and a clearly Ironic phenotype, because we all have degrees of autistic traits my dad and sister, me being the most concentrated, My Mum being painfully sensitive to sound, temperature, lights etc, like me.
Now I just finished reading the DSM-5 criteria for ASDs and it has only one line on Theory of Mind problems, and I meet the other criteria to a T apart from obviously outright Repetitive Behavior, problems with Theory of Mind and trouble understanding social interaction, I have a lot of trouble reciprocating though and picking up on normative nuances of social etiquette, I basically face perpendicular to them when I talk!
Although you could argue my Empathy is abnormal because of its intensity, I have had clinicians examine me about this, they could confirm that I'm not delusional, and that what I experience does reflect what I understand from others.

Now even if you don't take anything from this I can say it makes me anxious that I find it difficult to explain/reconcile how I think compared to how I am expected to, and Ironically it makes me very alone, I realized through research and discussing this that some women with Autism/Aspergers have similar experiences to what I do, more so than men on the spectrum, There is resources for them. I am a Man and there isn't anything like that for me, I know there must be men who experience things like I do, but perhaps not enough of us to actually talk about it.
I know perhaps I should consider myself lucky, but I feel ever so alone, I have searched and searched and there is a void for this kind of thing, I know I must not be the only one, it is statistically improbable that I am alone like this.
It is also not very validating, when the only time I encountered a person uncannily like me was when I watched Hannibal last year, with the Fictional character Will Graham, except I realised I am more of a younger version who isn't mature enough to just except myself yet. Haha (and posts annoying little monologues)
Are there any resources for people who are like me? Research, Websites, Blogs, Writers, People on here even, I will even settle for more fictional characters. etc etc
I am going to University next year, Studying Psychology, if I can't get a grip on this then there is a good chance I will fail.

I scored 28 (still above NT average), and I am very much autistic. I presented many of the more unusual signs when young. I was legitimately surprised at some of my wrong answers, some were a toss-up.

Truth is, at some point pattern recognition will kick in and you will be able to draw inferences for later questions because if you have one wrong they give you the right answer right away. So it wasn't hard to figure out that eyes that don't look at you are associated with "shiftier" emotions and eyes that look at you even if the head is somewhat sideways usually means affection or attraction of some kind. Also some times the age of the face was related - older faces tended to represent "wearier" emotions. Once you've got these clues it's a simple matter of filtering out the choices that obviously didn't fit. If that test had asked me to name the emotion rather than give me multiple choices my score would have been much lower.

It's much easier to do this with pictures, when all your attention is focused on this one single aspect, rather than in real life. My mom often complains because she can't signal her unease with things I say by making faces at me. It's like her facial traits are blurred in my head. I just legitimately don't see her trying to signal to me that she is displeased. But if I concentrate on pictures of eyes to the exclusion of everything else, I'll eventually see and figure it out.

"at some point pattern recognition", This was what the original Psychiatrist who diagnosed me said, I didn't tell him that is what I feel was an intense intuition reaction, which I obviously use my Psychology knowledge to butress my understanding, because I'm not bloody psychic! (In regards to everyday experiences not some test)

I only saw them for like two sessions, didn't test me at all, just self-report. The psychologists I saw actually suggested that what I deal with is "huge and overwhelming levels of both affective and Cognitive Empathy." , after many sessions then said I had an incredible mind, surprisingly this didn't help only made me feel isolated even more.
Mentioning the test was an easy way for me to express a point, about my wider experiences in person, I look away because it is like seeing a bright light shone in my face, all their feelings, thoughts and emotions being shunted into my mental space.

Try researching purpose of empaths....as long as you don't focus too much on the crystals and psychic stuff...some of them are actually very good and helpful coping skills...

Hi, Jonesy, good to see you again!

Kudos for getting the family involved in testing - are they surprised at the results?

I remember the hyperempathy thread, it's a bit of a treasure to me because of the extreme relatability, which I don't experience very often.

Too funny. I also talk perpendicularly to people when I am not comfortable.

I think there is a least one male in the hyperempathy thread, maybe you could talk to him? I get it that even though the things you experience are similar to what some of the women experience, the world will treat you differently because of gender roles. Strategies are necessary. Do you find that you end up hanging out with women anyway?

Hey Underwater well I'm glad you found the previous thread relatable, I was hoping for that kinda.

It was funny my family got on really well afterwards, all seemed to elevate their moods after the test I gave them. Haha

My Best friend/complicated Relationship ish thing we both couldn't quite grasp, was a woman since like we were 13 haha. She constantly thought I was mind reading her, very funny... Except she knew me just as well. We were very similar, so similar we can't stand to talk to each other anymore because we stress each other out, different paths in life now and too much baggage.

Otherwise I did have acquaintances, of equally mixed men and women in a group, which I like a lot, the diversity etc, by that I mean no one talking staring at phone screens haha. Now I am on my gap year all alone haha, staring at my phone screen.