So how do you know?

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I don't really want to go into any details on my background just yet so I can keep things clean for lack of a better word, but I ran across this site almost by accident and I'd like to ask a question. Aside from the rather general descriptions I've seen on the main site, how do you know if you are effected by Asperger's Syndrome? I mean are there some questions that someone can ask themselves or particular parts of their personality they can examine? Is there a medical test that can be run? Is there a test that someone can take?

For those of you here who have AS...how did you come to that conclusion?

Thanks,

someguy

I found this website earlier, it's wonderful. Read some, does this sound like you? Sure sounds like me.......
http://www.freewebs.com/aspiefrommaine/index.htm

You could go to your family doctor and let him send you to somebody. And if you should have it make sure you get correct information about it. There's a bunch of lies about it on the net.

I was diagnosed with AS when I was 16, around 5 years ago.

Being a senior citizen, born the same year that Asperger released his study, I'm formally undiagnosed. Folks our age are seldom formally diagnosed, particularly as we were at war with Germany back then and Asperger's didn't come to the attention of western neurology until about 4 decades later. I've read opinions that formal diagnostic isn't necessarily useful for someone my age, and I tend to agree; I've got my own yoga that I follow.

I came into my discovery by what I feel as a series of "cosmic coincidences"; I had my first overseas voyage to a family and spiritually oriented reunion in France (130 people, a social challenge for any "aspie") in mid September. Twice during this period of time, once in a group-activity setting in France, and later in London, I was "taken to task" in a social setting when going off on a typical "motormouth" monologue, one of the behavior patterns I later discovered listed as one of the symptoms. A chance remark on a third occasion by an English friend, who wondered aloud if I might be autistic, led me to look up the definition on the "wiki web", which led me to the entry on Asperger's, which led me eventually to wrongplanet.

At my age, I've had a long experience of how I think and feel, and behave socially; it's not hard for me to realize I have an "Asperger's Personality Type" after delving deeply into the subject. The mental and emotional turmoil took a while to "hit me", but since finding out "who I am" so to speak, it has made, for me, a remarkable change in my outlook and perceptions of life.

In the Eastern mythology, there's a character called Mahesha; he is one of Vishnu's doorwardens, and fails in his duty and gets cursed to human birth. He cannot remember who he is, and can only remember the name of one of the three principal aspects of diety, Shiva.

Now my primary social & spiritual group is centered around the philosophical concept called "Shiva Kalpa", and despite the fact that this group felt like a family I had come home to, I didn't know who I was, and felt a long-time sense of alienation within the group, so I felt similar to Mahesha, I didn't know who I was, but I remembered Shiva.

Within this group's e-list, I recently posted this expression of how I had begun to feel on my latest birthday, after this self-realization that I was an "aspie":

Compare your childhood years to the traits listed on the DSM-IV, keeping in mind that you will create coping habits as you get older. A good list can be found here.

A clinical psychologist or a psychiatrist is a good resource. Don't settle for a grad student with a manual. Try to find someone who has prior experience diagnosing AS in adults. Some US states have a vocational rehabilitation department that may pay for part of the cost of the diagnosis. You may have to be referred by a physician or counselor.

I'm an undiagnosed aspie. I am gong for a diagnosis next year.

Why I suspected it was AS?

After years of accepting my oddness I just chalked it up to the way I am.

My Godson has AS, so I was doing some reading for his sake. The more I read, the more I realized that I was reading about ME. I looked for things before, and though some things made sense, others did not. Nothing really fit until I started learning more about AS.

Then my Godson's mother realized after I told her that this is what it was. She sees it in her son everyday, but couldn't pinpoint me (maybe because I'm an adult), but she also believes it is AS.

And I'm a firm beliver in if you suspect something about yourself, you are probably right. No one knows you better than you.

Welcome to WP.

I'm just posting something so that I can get an email to remind me to come back here later. I think this thread promises to be interesting.

Technically, I don't "know" that I have AS even today, but, deep down, I know that it is the case... when I first read the Wikipedia article about AS, I didn't think that it described me all that well, but the more I read, and the more details I learned about all of the strange ways in which AS can manifest, the more it became apparent that I have it.

When I first read about stimming, I pictured rain man, and I thought, "that's not me." Then I remember that I used to rock during school all the time until my friends told me it weirded them out. Then I began to notice all of my nervous tics and my poor posture.

I have always had friends (well, not always, but for the most part), so I didn't think the history of my social life matched up very well with that of an aspie. But, again, the more I thought about it, the more I realized how uninterested I was in other kids as a young child, and then how difficult I often found it to connect as I grew up. I was bullied and teased, and then I did my own share of bullying to feel better about myself. Some people thought I was the sweetest kid in the world (which I am ), but others saw all too clearly my potential for vicious, cold-hearted behavior.

I am way too smart and analytical for my own good... I am obsessive, and I fall completely apart without structure and routine. Another thing that really tipped me off to AS was when I realized that I have had many TEXTBOOK cases of "special interests" over the years, when a certain topic or activity will completely dominate my brain 24/7 for months or years at a time. I simply have an interest and passion for certain things that "normal people" do not have. I wouldn't say it's a good thing necessarily to have such a one track mind, but it does have its advantages along with its problems. Another thing is the monologues which come along with it... that was one of the most painful things to realize... that so much of my relationships in the past which I thought were so special consisted in large part of me ranting and raving about my latest interest. Luckily, I've found a few people over the years who enjoy hearing what's on my mind, but it was still painful to realize how selfish I had been in so many conversations.

Anyway, maybe this helps. There isn't a single symptom, with the possible exception of special interests, that I exhibit to the degree that it is obvious I have AS. It's more of a general feeling that I know "something is up" when I put many things such as social struggles, faux pas, self-injury and meltdowns, a highlight analytical mind, etc. all together. It's just a label, and I try not to think about it that much, but if deep down you feel a connection to the label and if it helps you to understand yourself and to live a happier, more productive life, then perhaps it would be helpful to identify yourself as an aspie.

Thanks for the replies! Honestly I don't know what to think just yet. I've never been cool or hip or really fit in socially, so it'd be easy for me to grasp on to a 'oh it's not my fault I just have condition x' which makes me not want to jump to any conclusions. It was almost freak chance that brought me to this site. I ran a search in google on 'I never fit in', not really for any particular reason..I think just to ask it to someone or something other than myself for once (I don't really like the holidays much and this past weekend was a rough one). In any case I came across a posting where someone asked why everyone else seems to fit into their little social boxes and he didn't. Among the several dozen replies tearing the guy to shreds for being a narcissist and so on there was one reply that listed AS and a link to it in Wikipedia which is where I found out about this site.

I don't think I'd say I'm not social, because I can get plenty lonely. For me it's more of that I have a social energy tank, and if I spend too much time with too many people I have this knee jerk reaction where I just want to lock myself away from the world for a few days and just be alone. If I don't get enough alone time I get frustrated, angry, and sometimes borderline depressed. I grew up with no friends, the strange kid who was always picked on, and a particularly easy target since I usually didn't even know it was going on half the time. It was confusing feeling like an idiot around other kids while being told by adults that you're so smart and getting good grades and so on. When I caught on enough to avoid that more often I pretty much just mistrusted everyone and avoided them. Honestly growing up I liked being around adults more than kids, I never liked other kids or playing with them much (something which makes me struggle with the though of having my own). I've also never had any use for social rules. I consider myself a very logical thinker and when something doesn't make sense to me I just can't bring myself to do it. I could never spend money on fancy clothes when cheap clothes did the job just as well, and don't send cards to relatives on special occasions since I don't see how 5 minutes of my time, $2.00 out of my wallet, and someone else's clever phrases show you that I care about you. It's so obviously shallow it really blows me away that anyone buys them when they could just make a 15 minute phone call to let someone know you are thinking of them. I can't handle business politics since they have nothing to do with getting things done and everything to do with making yourself out to be more important than you really are. If I played the game I'd be in much better shape financially, but even knowing that I just can't bring myself to do it. I'm just incapable of BS. I also don't lie, I hate doing it and I'm bad at it. This gets me in trouble a lot. Anyways moving on....

Fortunately (and I know this is going to sound horrible) my college years introduced me to drugs and alcohol. As bad as it is to say this those two things did wonders for my sanity and social life as when everyone is messed up and acting stupid and you are too, well it was the only time in my life I felt at ease around other people...like I fit in. Like I wasn't mere seconds away from saying something that would draw silence and confused looks in my direction yet again. College is long over and the more back into real life I get the more I feel like I did as a kid, like there's just something wrong with me and I'll never find my niche, never fit in with any group of people. It's to the point where it's affecting the friendships I do have, my career, and my marriage.

Anyway this is turning into a crazy rambling already so I'll leave it at that for now. I just always figured I messed up as a kid. I made the wrong choices or hung out with the wrong crowd or whatever and grew up strange and if I tried hard enough long enough I could get to normal and fit in. The idea that maybe I was always going to turn out like this regardless, well it's hard to fathom. The idea that there could be something fundamentally different with me on a mental way it confusing to ponder.

Well thanks for listening, sorry for the long post...I've just had a lot of things pent up for a long long time and it's good to get some of it out.

Excellent post, dude. Don't apologize for a well-written, heartfelt post ever again! It can be very helpful for you to get your thoughts out, and I think we all learn about ourselves from reading the thoughts of others, too, so keep it coming. Perhaps a list of specific symptoms could give you and us a better handle on your situation - are you awkward physically or verbally, do you have special interests, do you tend to gravitate towards math/science/music/language and other logical sorts of things? etc.

I was told by my parents when I was 7, though I never really believed them.

I've felt exactly the same - that I messed up my future opportunities by having made wrong choices as a child and as a teenager.

And to answer your question:
I had never heard of AS, but I knew that I was very different from everyone, even different from my excentric friends (yes, by my final year of highschool, I had friends, because I wanted some enough that I developed an "NT act" - enough to be "an excentric", at least). While in college, I ended up being bullied by community services personnel and sent to a psychiatric ward, where I was then bullied by the psychiatrist and staff there. After getting out of that mess, I spent a couple years trying to convince my mom that I was not what the psychiatrist said I was, but that I knew something was different about me, and that I wanted some help. Over the next few years I'd seen several psychologists, some of which had helped me (the first one I saw was able to vouch for me that I had been given a bogus DX at the psych ward), but none of them could pin down what made me who I was or how I could help myself have "a life". Eventually I saw a psychologist that suspected I had AS, who suggested that I look it up on the internet. By the time I found and read the Wikipedia page for AS, I was convinced.

You probably would have volunteered this if you wanted to share, but what did they diagnose you with at the psych ward? Schizophrenia?