am I on the Autism Spectrum?

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I'm sorry for another one of these. I appreciate responses. I think I have many traits. Do you think I could be on the Autism Spectrum, should I seek medical advice? Here are my traits which I think are relevant.

Social skills /empathy:

- I’ve got difficulty with eye contact; I tend to avoid eye contact, and sometimes over-do it. It doesn’t come intuitively to me. And teachers complained that I looked away when they spoke to me when helping me in class.

-I have been called blunt, insensitive and very honest. Cause offense when I point things out sometimes.

-Also someone used to give me her essays to read because I was the one honest enough to find all its issues apparently.
-I like to point out others’ factual, logical and moral errors.

-Cannot see, or want to see, where other people’s incorrect views come from. I have no compassion or mercy for those who do serious wrongs to others.

- Described as cold/aloof sometimes; Don’t know how to comfort people. Don’t like hugs generally. Have never kissed my mum on the cheek or anything, don’t understand what flirting is in practise.

-I have a Flat/monotonte voice, and apparently ‘dead eyes’
- Also got a flat emotionless face all the time almost.
- Can’t recognise faces often, but I think its for unrelated reasons.
-Small talk is pain, but I can do it.
As a child I preferred company of adults, and preferred the news to most kids shows.
-I have a black and white thinking apparently (usually accused as such by irrational pple)


Sensory and behaviour:

-I am sensitive to touch - my dad says I got ‘touch phobia’ (which is an exaggeration).
-I am sensitive to clothes tags and tight cloths, used to rip tags out as child, still do.
-Dont eat some food textures, e.g. mushrooms.
- I do many common ’stimmings’. -I do things with my fingers a lot and I fidget a lot. I rock back and forwards a lot and pace.
- Used to eat the same food everyday, I generally wear the same clothes everyday but with different colours at times (bought same clothes but with different colours basically.)
- Have some ocd traits.
-Got anxiety issues.
-Always had poor motor skills, hand writing is almost impossible to read in exams especially.
- Used to repeat words and sentences a lot. Still do sometimes.
- I get almost hypnotised by things like floating water and certain sounds. Gives me a lot of pleasure.
-I’ve got a clumsy/odd walk
-From childhood had near prodigious memory especially with dates/years.
-Accused of focusing on details and precision when others talk (someone once said ‘’why are you being so pedantic about my words are you autistic or something?’’.)


Special interests;

- focus on them in a way that one hour of studying interest feels like one minute. Time flies, which causes disruption to my life. Interests have usually always been very academic, from childhood until now, its been science, history, languages/linguisitcs, programming, literature/writing, IR, including some very narrow aspects.
- Also as a child I obsessively studied local maps, learned their emblems, area codes etc and redrew them a lot, also collected the local emblems and sort of all I spoke about for a while etc . Still carry this interest to a lesser extent.
- Yes I did have a model train as a child, and love to build houses for it and plant little plastic trees around it etc. Why is this such an ASD stereotype apparently?

Others:

-Idiosyncratic views and personality
-Not dogmatic at all, but when I know I’m right I’m incredible stubborn.
-Always been concerned with justice and right and wrong. Got strong morals, and injustice affects me a lot. Never been prejudicial. Despite what some say, this IS common amongst many with ASD.
Im very emotional, even if I seem robotic.

AQ; 34
SQ; high/extreme systemiser
EQ; low, 18
Aspie quiz (I know not very reliable;) ‘very likely aspie’.



BUT: Things that speak against it:

-I can’t think of any reason why I shouldn’t understand non-verbal communication. I think I do. I remember once I told someone about a society and asked if she wants to join and I could immediately tell she got really bored by the description.
-while I’m a huge introvert by many standards, I always had friends and acquaintances, actually from teens onwards I had many of them, although I can’t relate to most on any significant levels.
-I don’t talk and talk and talk with others. Mostly I just pretend to listen/ fake interest in chatting.

Was there any notice of all this when you were little by teachers or a doctor etc?

How about when you were a toddler or a preschooler?

What you've written is indicative of somebody who at least fits the Broad Autism Phenotype.

You should, if you can afford it, get an assessment.

Don't let a potential diagnosis of autism change your essence. You are a person first and foremost.

No one here is going to be able to give you a definitive Yes/No answer as only a trained professional can give you that answer.

As Kraftie as said , if you want to know for sure and you can afford it, get an assessment.

If you stick around here long enough and join in it can be very insightful and may answer a lot of questions for you.

It's funny you mentioned that people give you their essays to correct- people do that to me too because I'll point out all their mistakes

I agree with the other posters- if you can, get a professional assessment. I will say you sound a lot like me, though .

while you did list off a lot of ASD traits there still should be a assessment to determine whether these traits are a result of ASD or not. this involves finding out if these traits are causing significant problems or if these traits prevent you from functioning independently.