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It's been a long time since I visited the board, I know, but I wanted to get someone else's comments on the following. I've been seeing a therapist for a while now. According to him, I am what is called a Highly Sensitive Person (meaning that I have a sensitive nervous system that doesn't filter as much data as other folks', as identified by Elaine Aron) along with autistic-like features -- difficulty recognising facial expressions, body language and social cues.

I'm not really sure what to make of this. I do fit most of Dr. Aron's criteria, excepting only the social features of being an HSP and the high sensitivity to pain (I'm actually hyposensitive to pain, not hypersensitive.) The therapist says my discomfort with eye contact isn't really much of an issue since Americans don't make that much eye contact anyway, and Dr. Aron does mention eye contact being too stimulating for some HSPs in one of her books. My daughter says this places me right where I thought I was originally, straddling the borderline.

Has anyone else been given this type of diagnosis? If so, what now?

There doesn't seem to be anything helpful I can do beyond what I do already to cope with things at this point. I'm kind of confused and disappointed that there aren't any definitive answers. I like being able to categorise things, although I know that most things fall somewhere between the categories. Still, I like the structure of being able to name something, if that makes any sense.

Regards,
Patricia

It's been my impression that most of the sensory issues associated with asperger's/autism involve the inability to switch off and no longer perceive sensory input that's irrelevant.

Things like the texture of clothes, a ticking clock back when clocks used to tick, or what normal people call "background music."

Yes, that's how I interpreted what she was talking about by not filtering extraneous sensory data, but I could be wrong. That's one of the things my therapist is saying fits with the HSP idea. He says I'm just too high-functioning to be actually autistic -- he brought up the autistic label, not me -- because I can follow and contribute to a conversation and have a good relationship with my daughter, but have this sensitive nervous system and some autistic-like features that make social interaction difficult. None of this, however, helps me much when trying to deal with daily life.

I'm not really sure what I'm looking for right now, just, I suppose others who might be in the same basic area who have some insight on where to go from here?

Regards,

Patricia

I think I'd get a second opinion. If your therapist said that in his/her opinion you have sensory processing disorder, then fair enough, but HSP? That's (as far as I know) not even listed in the DSM. It's just a theory. I can understand why you're disappointed.

I advise you to get a second opion. Being autistic doesn't mean you can't follow and contribute to a conversation and/or have a good relationship with people. It might be harder, but it's not impossible.

I agree with Sarafina7.

What on earth leads this person to believe people with Asperger Syndrome for instance can not be able to follow and contribute to a conversation? That conclusion seems contrary to the diagnostic criteria to me.


Every person I know in real life with an Autism Spectrum diagnosis can follow and contribute to a conversation and have the capacity to have good relationships. This group includes people with Asperger HF Kanner and PDD-NOS diagnoses, so I would seriously reconsider the competency of this person.

I'm diagnosed with mild Aspergers and I have good relationships with many friends and my family. I can both follow and contribute to a conversation... at times... at other times (when I'm overtired; conversation takes a lot of effort) I can't. Sometimes I can't even register what other people in a group are saying; it's all just noise. Sometimes I talk and talk and completely override the other person, repeating myself for what can last to hours on end. And again, I was diagnosed with AS years ago when I was lower functioning than now - and when I was diagnosed, the doctor said that I was very mild, so I would have been near that cut off line.

Look, what your doctor says does sound like it fits you, and it's possible you are just a little too high functioning to fit the AS criteria (to fit it your disorder has to *severely* impair a certain amount of different types of daily functioning for you - perhaps your impairments aren't in enough areas). So, essentially, what the doctor is saying is that you would have say extremely mild Aspergers syndrome - which cannot be diagnosed as it is not severe enough, so he tells you you have "traits of Austism" which is true, and he finds your symptoms are severe enough in one area to fit under a borderline type disorder that focuses on that particular area.

I think the other disorder that fits around that area is PDD-NOS - which is a borderline disorder, although I don't know too much about it. If your biggest problems are with sensory issues, then you diagnosis you have does seem to fit.


Of course, I don't know you, so I could be completely wrong (maybe your social functioning is much more impared) - but this is what it sounds like to me.

As far as treatment is concerned - because the disorder you have has many elements tied in with AS, you could look into AS treatments as they would likely work for you. Because all ASD disorders are part of one big umbrella spectrum (and it sounds like this disorder would fit somewhere in that umbrella) they are related to each other in certain ways.
With sensory issues, though, I haven't really heard of effective treatment for them. For my worst ones; which involve touching certain fabrics (mostly velvety type fabrics I have figured out) that can make me nauseous to the point of throwing up, I just try to avoid touching them and I have learned to visually identify fabrics that might cause this reaction so I can keep away from them (except when my mum decided to throw a black velvet rug she had brought for my brother into my lap so I could feel how "soft" it was - funny story).

There is of course cognitive behavioral therapy (I think it's called) where they expose you to the bad stimulus until you become more conditioned to it and the sensation lessens.

My advice is to look up Aspergers treatments specifically related to the areas of most concern for you.

Sunshower:

Thank you. You seem to have hit the core of the matter that was eluding me for some reason. I was focusing so much on what was confusing about it to me that I couldn't really get to that core.

Actually, I don't really mind the sensory stuff all that much. I've always coped with that by just avoiding the situations that cause problems as much as possible and giving myself plenty of alone time to recuperate when I can't. Luckily, I grew up in a situation where there were very few other children and I was pretty much left to fend for myself between meals, so it's always been normal to me to live in very quiet, peaceful surroundings and I try to replicate that as much as possible. My real problem is trying to navigate social situations, which I also tend to deal with by avoiding them as much as possible. At this point in my life, though, I'm starting on a new career and academic direction. Now they're impossible to avoid and starting to cause more and more trouble.

I don't make eye contact easily or often outside of family and good friends and can't read facial expressions very well beyond the basic broad expressions, so nonverbal communication is an issue. I also don't read body language very well. (Want to see me utterly confused? Drop me in the quad at class change. All those people going every which way --yikes!) The social rules I remember being taught by my parents don't seem to apply any more in a lot of cases, either. I also know that, given my own head, I'll talk endlessly about stuff that no one else wants to hear about -- you're getting a dose of that right now -- so I tend not to talk. I've found it's easier than trying to fix things after saying the wrong thing, but it's not good for career advancement. As I talk to people more, though, I'm finding out that others don't generally have a good impression of me and that's upsetting since I don't see myself as being a cold person.

I am, however, having some success with reminding myself that some of the communication issues that have plagued me are actually me and not other people just being strange or mean-spirited. It seems to be easier to come to accomodations when I keep that in mind. I do find that I'm less willing to pretend I know what's going on and just bull my way through things, although my therapist seems to think that's much more common than I think it is.

Any way, thanks for the clarification.

Regards,

Patricia

Hey Patricia,

Glad to be of help. If it's any comfort, I've been diagnosed since age 11 with AS, and I've never had any specialist treatment for helpful solutions to my social problems except what my parents taught me too, and what I've figured out for myself. I think that there is definitely room for research in that field.

I can offer some advice from my own experiences and knowledge. I find that as far as social skills go, the best way to help yourself is to find an NT confident who you can ask anything (even awkward questions), and they will explain things to you in clear literal language. I used to ask my brother this sort of stuff - for example, How do you kiss someone, and when should you do it (I couldn't read the lead up body language).

It's very important never to retreat into silence because you are afraid of saying the wrong thing, or screwing up. The thing is, the only way we can learn is by the hard way - through making mistakes, and then learning from those mistakes and not repeating them. You need to stop avoiding the situations, and meet them head on; make the mistakes, suffer the consequences, then learn and grow from your experiences. If you make a mistake, you need to question people closely and try to figure out what caused the problem, so you can correct it.

It takes a lot of courage to put yourself "out there" (so to speak), but it's worth it in the long run. Give yourself breaks and times of isolation, but expose yourself to different social situations so you can learn from trial and error as well as the advice of a confidant. It's also very helpful to observe other people closely; how they interact with each other, and *learn* what they do. The mistake many aspies make is that they simply imitate what others do - but imitation isn't learning. The best way to go about it is to watch others closely, then think about how they act and use logical inference to work out *why* they act that way. Then you know the correct context in which to imitate the actions.

For example:

Every time a person walks past a person they know, they smile, and make a comment such as "Hi, how are you?" and the person replies "Good thanks, how are you?" then the original person replies "Good", and they go their separate ways.

An aspie would probably think - what's the point? They are speaking in automaton, not learning anything new about each other, and they always say the same thing, and they always answer the same whether they're feeling good or bad. Why do people feel the need to go through this ritual every time they pass by someone they know?

If you just imitated the ritual, without understanding the reason for it, you might imitate wrong. So first you need to figure out why. Using logical deduction, over time I figured out that the words they were saying where meaningless. The purpose of the ritual was simple courtesy - acknowledging the other person's existance, and reinforcing the friendly connection you have by demonstrating that you care about the other persons welfare, and by smiling (body language that says you like the other person, and want the friendly connection you have to continue).

Then, you can learn and repeat the ritual yourself, with a solid grounding in its context and purpose.

I am probably rambling on a bit here, but hopefully this will give you an idea of the sorts of things you can work on to improve your social skills. If you want to talk some more, feel free to PM me anytime.

Also, I found purchasing and reading a book on body language was one of the most enlightening things I've ever done for myself in terms of understanding social interaction.