When my family and I moved from Alaska to Oregon my parents took me to multiple “specialists” who diagnosed me with simply ADD and drugged with amphetamines, and we never knew any better. And I was raised and dealt with as any NT male child was.
When I was young I people watched (as long as they were not watching me), I derived great joy from films, and as I got older that never changed aside from the addition of a bout of interest in: sociology, philosophy, social engineering, business image, reading people and negotiating; when I was a teen.
Most of the brief time I spent at high school was dedicated not to my work but to maintaining some kind of equilibrium with those around me. Additionally around the time I turned 16 there was so much conflict at my home that I moved in with a friend, dropped out of school and have been more or less on my own since that time with increasingly fewer generalized (family, friends, etc) supports. As time went on life continued rendering some very hard times which I was required to take on myself. I am now 27 and have just been diagnosed with aspergers the condition classified by the conglomeration of my symptoms. . (Aspergers with Comorbid: General anxiety with proneness to social anxiety and panic, sensory integration disorder, and ocd symptoms)
The reason I give this specific info is that at some point in time be it gradually or what have you, I believe I more or less acquired the ability to read people and social situations. Something that I believe I may have been lacking in my past, and something I am aware asd people have a hard time with.
For instance I know what angry, sad, neutral, happy, etc, faces look like, I know downward inflections can have negative connotations (I know when someone is being mean or condescending), and upward inflection is good, etc. However I don’t think that I always possessed these abilities nor do I know when or how I developed them so well, aside from perhaps ceaseless empirical data gathering which does seem to be prevalent in me.
Driven by the need regulate my anxiety or perhaps simply get along in the world, (I feel affected by peoples attitudes. “Angry people make me anxious, etc”), when I enter into contact with a person I first observe facial features, the tone inside their voice, and body language which I cross-reference against each other. All of these give me a great deal of insight into the potential emotional state of a person. I again cross reference the collected data against events, objects, and other people in proximity to form a hypothesis of the emotional climate. Although I get very close or spot on with my hypothesis I often have to ask people “Are you ok?”, “what’s up?”, “what are you thinking about?” or some similar probing question so that they will clarify the situation or at least provide more data to help substantiate my theory. These processes allow me to act accordingly to defuse potential situations of high stress or attempt to position myself in such a way as I am braced. However one disadvantage to the way I operate could be that I will randomly ask probing questions to check on the climate if there is not enough data coming from a person for me to be sure. The uncertainty of the ever shifting climate causes me anxiety.
I guess my main point is that ive never met other aspies/auties, I have no idea what everyone else is like. Is this normal for an aspie? All of my other symptoms are in line with autism but my ability to read things so well (not flawless, but well) bothers me when I cant understand the nature of its existence within the contexts of autism. I have such a hard time with some things, lots of things, all the pieces fit, aside from this. And I cant ignore it, I must understand it.
Ive never felt a part of the NT world, and I am afraid that autistic people will think im not part of theirs either.
Any input would be greatly appreciated.
PS
Sorry about the formatting, I typed on a PC and pasted it from my phone. But I'm having issues using this forum from my cell (only net I have)
25 Mar 2012, 4:30 pm
