Trying to Figure Out if I Have Asperger's

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I've never been formally diagnosed with Asperger's, however when I was in high school I had a therapist and one of the last things she and I talked about was certain things about my interactions with people and my concern for them. She had said it's possible that I may have high functioning autism or Asperger's. The thing is, too, I've had great trouble with being able to do well in school. I used to do well, back in third grade and before that, but ever since my grades have always been in steady decline. It got so bad in high school that I had to take summer classes in order to make up for the grades I had messed up on. I barely graduated.

Now, my adult life is a bit different. I'm 25 years old. I've been in and out of my local community college since 2009. GPA is at 2.2 right now, but I think it's possible that the reason is because I have a terrible time with comprehension. Lately, my life has been undergoing great changes for the positive. I quit a 4-year pizza delivery job that I hated, and got a full-time job working high-functioning disabled adults. I actually only worked there for 3 months, but it provided a lot of perspective for me, and improved my life in a lot of different ways. Also, before getting that full-time job, I had gone back to the community college after a 3-year long hiatus, but I went back with a plan. Even though I had never taken classes in programming, I knew that that's what I'd want to do, so I went to a college counselor, laid out a plan for what I wanted to pursue, and registered for a class for the summer semester in programming. I received 102% in that class. I certainly felt over the moon with that grade. I was in danger of getting a mid-A because of a few flubs on the first test in the class, but ended up doing extra credit and getting it to that nice overage. Even if I had gotten that mid-A, it would have been so much better than any grades I had received since 3rd grade.

After that successful one-class semester, I was ready to take on more classes... Or so I thought. As it turns out, working full time during the week and part-time on the weekends while taking 3 night classes (English, Communications, and Programming) meant that I had very little time for homework. However, I certainly wonder whether it was actually me not having the time to do the homework, not comprehending all of the things gone over in a class-period, or my addiction to video games that has caused me to not succeed this semester. I've never wanted to do better in all my school-life than I have at this point in time. I'm certainly extremely frustrated with myself, especially since I've fallen back into the bad habit of playing video games when I'm supposed to be doing homework, and yes, I know that's a major problem not conducive to my success, but the problem is I feel lost with what I'm supposed to do most of the time.

Now I'll talk briefly about my video game addiction, as I'm sure most of you may say that it's the cause of my problems, and I'm sure it is, but just for the sake of clarification, I'll talk about it. I feel I play video games as a coping method. I've never had very many friends, and even when I get a good group of friends, I tend to always drift away from them and having to make new friends is extremely hard for me. I feel that most people don't like me. I've been a shut-in most of my life because of my addiction to video games, and that had caused a bit of a speech impediment because my interaction with people was limited. My addiction's gotten so bad at certain points, like in middle school I had ditched school for half a day to go play video games at a nearby gamer club (though that was more of me being rebellious than anything else), and then in my semesters in college up until these last couple, I would sometimes play video games in class because I would feel lost. The funny thing is, I'm not particularly GOOD at video games, I just enjoy playing them.

Now here's a bit of information on my mental state and why I feel it's possible I may have autism. As stated before, I have a tough time comprehending things talked about in class or in just everyday life. My notation skills aren't that good either, which doesn't help. Also as stated before, I had mentioned certain aspects of my interactions with people as being the cause of my informal diagnosis from my therapist; they were things like barely making eye contact in a normal conversation, talking in a monotone voice with very little expression (my nickname in middle school and high school was 'robot'), having difficulty forming my thoughts into a sentence which will usually result in jumbled words, back before my senior in high school I had other speech impediments like word slurring and stuttering (and then I joined my high school speech and debate team which helped a lot with my speech impediment), and also the only subjects I absolutely enjoy talking about are video games and television shows. I had also told her about a time when I was younger and I had some severe emotional trauma happen to me. This was actually in 3rd grade. Other than that, though, I've also had things happen to my head. I was once either slammed down onto a La-Z-Boy's reclining leg rest, or someone had popped the leg rest against my head when I was sitting by it, while wrestling and rough housing with neighbors when I was younger. I've also had basketballs and soccer balls hit me in the face, the basketball being intentionally, forcefully thrown at me, and the soccer balls being headers with playing soccer for 8 years.

So, my question to you is, is it possible I have Asperger's, a learning disability, or am I just not great at school due to my addiction to video games? And another question: how would I go about moving forward with that possibility while also only being a part-time server now that's paying his own way through college?

Also, I forgot to mention a few things in regards to my mental state, which is I'm awfully forgetful, I have extreme difficulty with listening (like sometimes a person will be like a foot away from me and I can't understand what they're telling me, either because of noise or it's just not processing in my brain), I have difficulty expressing despair and sadness, I'm depressed, I can get distracted more-so than your average person, and I believe I have a mental maturity that's younger than it's supposed to be.

And another thing I forgot to mention as well was that when I was a baby I had Atrial Septal Defect, and the doctor when looking at an MRI suggested using a small, artificial valve to cover what the doctor thought was a hole about the circumference of his thumb, but when they performed the open heart surgery on me, the doctor realized that the artificial valve was too small because the hole was actually about the circumference of a quarter, so he went to my parents, asked if it was okay if he performed a heart graft to cover the hole, and then performed that surgery. During that time frame of my chest and heart being open, I imagine it could be possible that I endured some sort of brain damage due to lack of blood and oxygen.

Whether you have autism or not, the way to deal with it is to press forward. Do your best to work through or around your obstacles. I have formal diagnosis up the wazoo and that's basically what it boils down to for me.

That said, you definitely fit in here and welcome to WP. Hope to hear more from you

http://www.rdos.net/eng/Aspie-quiz.php <-- good self diagnostic tool...

I also wrote about this HERE

Thanks for the input, guys. I took that Aspie Quiz, and I'm not entirely too sure how to interpret the results.

Here they are:

Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 112 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 103 of 200
You seem to have both neurodiverse and neurotypical traits



I'm guessing that it means I probably don't have Asperger's. However, I do feel that there's something wrong with my mind. I don't have money to be able to afford prolonged treatment, and the insurance I have will be cut off for me in February. I don't know what to do, but I want to do something.

where are you located?

Modesto, CA. Not exactly the best place in the U.S. Crime is extremely high, and it's in the valley, filled with terrible air.

You sound like you have some significant reading comprehension problems. A lot of people with this specific problem bottom out in 3rd grade because the expectations for students change at that age. There is likely a learning center at your community collage. Talking to the director there might lend you some insight on resources they have for that. Some schools have courses you can take to strengthen that skill. You can also ask the disabilities center if they have any referrals or suggestions for you.

I know this is expensive, and you might not want to deal with it, but a full psycho-educational evaluation would be wonderful for you. I think you would really take advantage of the information gained through that kind of testing. You seem primed to use it. It might come up with autism, or it might come up with a type of dyslexia, or something else all together.

In the mean time, why not slow down a bit with the courses? Take one or two at a time instead of three. If you really love coding, don't give it up! That's a great way to start making a decent living. You might just need extra help to get through your English courses. There's no shame in that. In fact, it's really great that you are continuing to work on your goals in life.