New here! Probably asp, thoughts?

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Hi there,

So I am a mid-thirties guy and I probably have high functioning aspergers. Curious to see if any of you share some of these things I struggle with and traits that I have.

These might be more general
- I have periodic obsessions, could be a person, book, game, period in history etc.
- I could go on and on about that obsession but people usually like to remain on the surface level of things we discuss.

This is more detailed, communication issues:
- I have a hard time translating my knowledge and thoughts I know into a format for social interactions.
- All the things I read and understand is processed for me to use for myself, it's never processed with the intent of sharing.

Whereas other people have their ideas in shareable format, I need to do that on the spot? Therefore it comes out a lot less detailed than I would like.To compensate I usually start dumbing down my ideas and mimicking how other people in the convo would find the input digestible. This happens unconsciously usually, they then underestimate what I know, which is obvious and frustrating. Working on taking the time to respond. I am to lazy to sort my thoughts and process on the spot to make crystal clear what I mean.

Some additional struggles
- I am way better at generating my arguments in text than in speech.
- It feels like I process the wrong stimuli and input in social situations, there is too much noise. When writing I can shut out the noise and focus on the arguments.
- I hate group interactions, rather be 1 on 1. When the place is loud I get distracted easily, too much input.
- I have a hard time with time-controlled tests, I can still perform well though. My desire to be exact and really figure things out, it makes it hard to control my executive functions efficiently. With time I can do anything.
- I overthink things like eye-contact, and all other non verbal behavior.
- I really like my autonomy, I like doing things on my own. I have so many diverse interests and things I like to do and learn. It's baffling for me that people can be bored being alone.
- I have never been able to do office politics, and conforming to any unwritten rules or hierarchy that I have not made up myself. I can force myself to be a good soldier for just 2 months max. This is the reason I am self-employed.
- I don't have any friends, I used to have a small group of friends but over the years we started to differ too much.
- I have a very hard time making friends and relating to "normal" people. I get bored easily and I don't like pretending to want to hang out with someone. When people are weird or wired differently I can easily be around them.
- I have a very hard time mantaining any sort of connection with people, unless it's a girl.

On the other hand
- I can socialize quite easily and no one notices anything. People give feedback that I am easy to be around and open. (My internal experience is quite different)
- I have had many woman in my life and usually the relationships I have with them keep me company
- Under the right circumstances I can be loud, energetic and fun to be around.

Thanks in advance for taking the time to read my struggles.

Here is a free pdf booklet that you might find interesting

http://christianpioneer.com/blogarchiev ... e_2017.pdf

You might also find the Youtube videos of Tony Attwood of interest.

From your description it sounds likely that you've got ASD, but I wouldn't bother too much about that question unless you have some strong reason for doing so. I'd focus on the individual traits, which are more objective. You're welcome here of course.

But if you're really interested, you could try the Aspie-Quiz by RDOS, and if money is no object you could buy an assessment. I don't recommend Baron-Cohen's AQ test because I'm a nuanced thinker (which is in itself a tad curious because Aspies are supposed to be black-and-white thinkers), so I can't answer the highly reductionist, forced-response questions without feeling that the result will be misleading. Having said that, most people seem to have no problem with the AQ test.

From what you have written here,..one might be inclined to think you have some form of Autism. .
Therefore am compelled to wish you a nice Welcome to Wrong Planet .
btw , have had inperson conversations , where putting things into Word can be difficult at times .
Even up to m@ny days later , I think of how exactly,would have been the best way to say something .
And wish, I had thought of that at the time.

Hi laconicsight,
that's a very detailed description and I can identify with quite a lot of it. It would seem that you, like me,are officially undiagnosed. The possibility of having a touch of autism never occured to me until I was into my 60's.
"People remaining on the surface level" :- I take that to mean many of them prefer small talk where you must always agree with what everyone else is saying, and if you offer a different opinion you are just being argumentative
How else can we compare ideas and opinions ? (and learn)
"Translation" :- I've lost count of how many times I've said one thing and other people have heard something else.
"Detail" :- Do you mean that people tend to generalise a lot? which is fine, but I think us Aspies like to be a bit clearer on what the question is exactly. Whenever I try to get a bit more detail, I invariably just get a repeat of the original answer.
Like you, I find texting easier than real time chat as that gives me more time to put my thoughts into a more understandable form for ' normal people '
I hope this helps you feel a bit less 'Weird'
Your post has certainly helped me.

Yes...all of them

Welcome to Wrong Planet.

I am another person that strongly relates to what you described.

Welcome to WP! I hope you become a regular here.

I will defer to others regarding whether or not you sound like you are Autistic. It took me 65 years to figure out I was Autistic!

Personally, I liked the AQ test...but as assurance that my suspicion that I might be Autistic wasn't all in my imagination. But I will note that I did not get interested in Autism until well after I was comfortably retired...I did not have to worry about repercussions with my academic or professional lives because they were pretty much history at that point.

welcome, learn as much as you can through books, videos, podcasts, blogs, and the like,
ask questions in forums with autistic folks who can give insights and advice from their own experiences. Take your time as you look into it, there's a lot to sort and diagnosis can give a lot of answers to Why questions of your life, it can be a relief but it also throws almost everything we thought we knew and understood about our selves, our past, and our present state of being into chaos because we have this new perspective through the lens of knowing about autism

. One of the best things about my learning of my autism and my very late diagnosis at age 68 was that I found out I was not the only one, that there were many others here who understood!

welcome

Yes, I also feel a lot of info is lost during communication. Was dreaming about some direct mental communication channel, when I was younger (ok, I still dream about it from time to time). I see it that way:
1. My internal representation of info - mostly verbal, but also using "pure ideas" and shortcuts to my general web of associations and beliefs.
2. Translation to public language using lossy compression - many details are removed; ideas transformed to words, which not always works well; associations cut with the hope that the other person will create similar associations. I guess it would be even worse if I were thinking in images.
3. The other person receives my words and translates them to their own internal format, generating more errors.
4. The other person adds their own associations, which in the worst case can completely change the meaning.

The alternative would be to store info already in public language, then you wouldn't need to use online translation and there would be much less losses in point 2. And if the other person used the same format and had similar associations, you could communicate almost perfectly. Well, maybe some people work that way.


Yes, but I guess the main reasons are that I just have more time for translating info from internal to external format, and have access to things I've already written. Writing still doesn't come very naturally - I have to think about almost each sentence.


Depends on the type of weirdness/wireness, but yes - "properly weird" people are more interesting and easier to connect with.

There are more yeses to the question if I share things you've written about, but these are the most interesting to me

You sound like you have many ASD traits, OP, and perhaps you would meet the criteria for a formal diagnosis?

Welcome to the forum, in any case.

Welcome to Wrong Planet,

Many of the things you wrote look like they could have been written by myself, so I'd say there is a very good chance that you are in fact on the spectrum.