Who am I?
22 Apr 2015, 6:57 pm
Hi, I'm new here and I beginning to believe I have Asperger's. I thought that posting here may shed some more light on things for me, and to get some other opinions. I did do the online test and scored 41. Reading blogs and other articles I can relate greatly to others stories / accounts of having Asperger's and the more I read the more I realize I can relate or have very similar experiences myself.
I am now in my thirties, but even as a child I felt different and in fact was diagnosed (wrongly) as being ret*d as a child.
I was never given my "pen licence" in school and to this day my handwriting is very poor.
I had great difficulty working people out, why they acted a certain way when logic dictated differently. I also had trouble determining what emotions others were displaying.
So, In my early teens I taught myself about micro expressions, and how to read people based on logic and proven science, it has become somewhat of a sixth sense and I am now basically a human lie detector, which I am not afraid to pull anyone up on, even authority figures.
And yet it goes one step further, for example: last night watching a television show (MKR) where 2 judges score dishes of food made by contestants, I was able to "guess" the score the judges gave, with 100% accuracy. Having seen the show before, there expressions were familiar and I could "read" them.
Similarly, One night, the moment my EX wife walked in through the front door I knew she had cheated on me.
She was shocked as I just came out and said, she began to take a deep breath and stopped, saying "I was going to lie, but there is no point. You always know."
Even with this ability, I am always told I am cold, when I believe I am stating the obvious, but I do not see the point of beating around the bush. For example a friend of mine wanted to move out of home, I knew how much money she made and told her she wouldn't be able to afford it, she got upset I wasn't being supportive and it actually ended the friendship, 3 months later she moved back home because she could not afford to live on her own.
Even to this day, I don't have many friends and that's not to say I don't get along with people, I just have no need, or desire to put time and effort into something constantly, that shouldn't change if I don't see them for months.
I don't believe I lack empathy although I have been accused of it many times, I often feel like I am being attacked for offering the truth or asking why someone feels the way do about something.
I also seem to have very little to no fear. Don't get me wrong something can jump out and surprise me or maybe I wouldn't do something because I believe it is unsafe, but none of that is really fear. I am yet to be scared / afraid from a movie, I seem to sit there and watch while my GF jumps when something "scary" happens.
If I wasn't / aren't interested in something I have great difficulty trying to learn it. However if it's something I am interested in, I strive to know every little detail and will even remember that over my kids birthdays...
I have often been told I eat "weird", I am right handed (had to think about that) but I use the fork in my right hand and knife in the left, I tend to hunch over my food, almost get on top of it. I will also usually eat quite fast unless I'm trying not to look "weird".
I have a symmetry CDO, for example: In a room that has blinds on the left and the right, if one is up and one is down or they do not match it frustrates / makes me anxious to point I must fix them. I do this in other peoples homes, my job or even the doctors office.
I recently found out about stimming. I am constantly doing something with my hands, massaging them, playing with a pen, flicking them, biting my nails, my GF says I cannot sit still.
My sensory perceptions seem non typical, I seem to have reduced pain perception in my hands as I can quite easily grab food straight out of the deep fryer. I once had an infection in my mouth, I obviously hadn't noticed, I felt off, but not unwell or in pain, and then suddenly the pain was intense, so much so all I could do was scream and cry. I was rushed to an emergency dentist, who said the infection was so bad I should be dead. I have also had chronic back pain since I can remember. I am constantly told to use my inside voice.
I now find myself in my thirties working as a Full Stack Developer (I write software / websites in many programming languages and take the projects from concept to production on my own and work behind a closed door most of the day), trying to find myself, work out who I am, why am I the way I am? There is no question I am not "typical" and I feel no need to be so, but I still wonder.
