Do you ever feel like you might not have AS?

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By AS, I mean all ASDs just to let you know.

Sometimes, I feel like I am not autistic because there a lot of symptoms that I don't have.

-I don't hate crowds

-I am not bothered by loud noises

-I enjoy social interaction

-I don't have an odd posture

-I don't have problems with eye contact

-I understand humour

-I don't have difficulty with facial expressions

-I don't have difficulty with tone of voice

-I don't see people as objects

-I am not sensitive to light

-I am not an animal lover

ONE THAT I DO HAVE

-Handwriting issues

-Meltdowns

-Bad at sports

-Picky eater

-Special interests

FOR INFO:

I interact with adults easily but not peers or younger children.

I doubt it sometimes. You seem to have even fewer problems than I do.

I think I don't have ASD all the time. I spent part of yesterday wondering if it was all ADHD.

I spend most of my time being pretty sure, though, and I don't believe "Do I really have it?" moments so much anymore. I don't have every possible trait either.

I'm not diagnosed, but I know I have AS. Symptoms seem to calm down when I'm self medicating or have less problems to think about, but they're always there. Still autism is a spectrum and involves a lot of different genes, so you might have some of those that gives you problems. But since you don't have social/communication impairement and don't have sensory issues, I doubt that you have AS.

By the way, I don't think it's a matther of hating crowds, but more of hating being touched by the people in the crowd. Being bad at sports is not a trait, nor is handwriting. I used to have a bad handwriting, but I worked hard on it, and when I take my time, I can write good. Sports is the same thing, it's not a trait, but is due to lack of spatial representation (you don't know where or how to place yourself) and verbal explanation (you can't understand coach's explanation like NT). I'm good at sports, but it takes me much more time then others to get the technic right, but when I do, I'm very technical because I understand the biomechanic behind the movement. After you practice enough, it's not your conscious brain that takes the decision, those are reflexes.

I've worked on my handwriting and it's still bad. I do have a social impairment, it's just not as severe as most with AS and it's worse with certain age groups.

I don't think a prerequisite for being diagnosed with Asperger's would be to put a checkmark beside every single symptom. You'll notice that there are lots of people on Wrong Planet with diagnosed Asperger's who don't have all of the symptoms, or who might even be the opposite of a particular symptom.

I, myself, have wondered if I might truly have Asperger's, but I usually feel that it's the best diagnosis to describe me.

Nope. Not anymore. Used to have some doubts. Now, there's utterly NO question.

Sometimes I feel that I'm certain I have it, and sometimes I feel that everything I think I have is just psychosomatic.

I've never been diagnosed with it in the first place, but it's the only thing that fits me to a T. Sometimes when I have to (like at my job), it's easy for me to conceal certain things that really do bother me though, so i wonder if it's just anxiety or something. All the symptoms you don't have are ones I do have lol, except seeing people as objects and difficulty interacting with peers/young children. I'm completely inept with peers and adults.. little kids are the only people I can stand P:

From the few aspies I've known, they have had trouble with being touched while I'm the exact opposite; I LOVE touch. It feels like an fuzzy explosion of tickles on my skin when people touch me. I agree with Descartes though, every individual is different!

I thought you were diagnosed with PDD-NOS which is pretty much NOT having all the symptoms but maybe that was somebody else. Stop fretting over it.

Part of it, is the fact that many people has overcome some of the listed symptoms while growing up. The sensitivities and such your never going to get around, but some of the social and interaction things can be learned/faked/forced. I know for me personally up until the age 15 or I could have been the poster boy for AS, but then I started really getting in to the rave culture and did some drugs and really started being able to take apart social interaction how people interacted with each other. I meet some wonderful people throughout those times and social interaction became one of my obsessions. So much so that by the time I was a senior in high school I knew pretty much everyone in the school and vice versa. Also I don't think it's so much people with AS hate social interaction it's more of the fact that it drains us. I don't hate people, nor do i hate being around that it's just that after a night out where most of friends would be energized for the next day I will be extremely run down and out of it. I "recharge" myself by being alone reading about engine,turbochargers, and performance tuning, thats how I relieve stress. Most of friends relieve stress by having a night out on the town, now I'm sorta lucky because I also enjoy electronic music and dancing so when we go out to a club I can just retreat to the dance floor and have myself a good time and recharge that way.

You really have to look at the symptom list and relate them all back to the core of AS. I highly doubt there is anyone that flat out doesn't understand all humor and jokes. I take things quite literally so sometimes when I hear a joke it completely goes over my head still i have a chance to analysis it and realize "oh haha that was a joke". Perfect example Was working on an old car with some people at school and someone asked what year the car was, instantly someone responded it's a '69. People start chuckling instantly while I honestly believed it was a '69 for a split second, I still got the joke "oh haha 69 dur" but it did get lost in translation for a second there.

Just a question, what makes you think you have AS in the first place your small list of symptoms you have? Not for nothing but I know plenty of people that have those that you listed that aren't on the autism spectrum.

Sometimes I'll be at work and I end up feeling very comfortable.....like I'll look at people and say hello, interact more with people, not feel cramped in a crouded area, I'll even initiate the dreaded small talk with random strangers. But then I wake up the next day and go to the grocery store and its like I'm a nervous wreck. I work at a hospital and I work 12 hour shifts so usually by the 2nd or 3rd day I feel more comfortable. But If I'm taken out of those surroundings and placed in a WalMart or something........I'm lost. Its back to the old mean faced, fast walking, avoidant personality. Its hard to explain *shrugs*

Anyone else feel like a chameleon sometimes? Like you change your personality and behaviour depending on your surroundings? I find myself doing that quite often. Sometimes I don't even know who the real "me" is.

I used to, but at this point I don't.

I've also really arrived at the idea that I don't really care what it's called. I don't care if it's called autism or whether it's called whoozlewart. I know what it is, and that's all that matters. Autism is just what it's called in this day and age. At another time it may be called something else entirely, the idea of autism may be completely destroyed. The important part is that I know how these parts of me work, I have access to services, etc.

I really think the term autism and things like that... are only really good inasfar as they do positive things. Bring people together where at least some of us manage to identify with each other (I don't identify strongly with most autistic people, but I do with a small few, and identify less strongly with others). Help us understand ourselves. Help us get services. Etc.

It becomes a problem when it's just a source of angst over "am I or am I not", or when people treat it like it's all exclusive and stuff, the various witch-hunts for "people who aren't really autistic", or... just all kinds of situations where it's really a useless concept that is being used to hurt people in various ways.

I haven't been officially diagnosed, so I doubt it constantly. I have most of the symptoms to one degree or another, so it's not that.

It's more denial, I suppose. That, and I find myself thinking "Maybe I'm just exaggerating my symptoms and I'm really NT?" Which, of course, is just silly.

Why I think I'm an aspie:

- I understand the language of math better than English

- I only care about what I'm interested in

- I've always had a hard time making friends, and I hate social situations

- many people think I'm "shy" or "antisocial"

- I've had problems with eye contact. When I was younger people always got mad that I would stare at them, so I stopped doing that for a few years. Now I have to remind myself to look people in the eye.

- I can only think about one thing at a time, I have no multitasking abilities whatsoever

- whatever I do think about I can always concentrate on extremely well

- I tend to think and react at half the speed of average people. I often have a hard time finishing my tests at school.

- I have a hard time saying "hi" back to people, my immediate thought is "who the heck are you and what do you want from me?"

- my mom says that I walk "weirdly"

- if somebody says something stupid I always want to correct them

- I am extremely sensitive to light, although I have far from perfect vision

- My mom says I look sad all the time and that I'm never happy, even though that is not true

- When I'm at school people ask me why I'm always smiling all the time even though I don't think I am

- I am easily stressed out about having a lot of schoolwork to do, I don't like it when things intrude into my free time

- I am extremely unathletic, I never learned to ride a bike until I was at least 8 years old

Why I don't think I'm an aspie

- I have never had a meltdown or a shutdown, I am not very emotional, if I'm stressed out I stay calm and work out a solution

- I'm not sure about delayed speech development, but I was always way ahead of the rest of my class in learning to read. I was reading on a fifth grade level when I had entered second grade.

- I'm not a procrastinator, If I have two weeks to do something, I do a little bit every day.

- I do not take things literally, I can understand when someone is being sarcastic or not

- I do not intentionally hurt myself (I read that some aspies do this for whatever reason)

- I can understand when people think I'm rude and why (just not until after I say things )

- I tend to look at the big picture, and I never notice small little things

- I can't think of much else, If I'm not an aspie then what the heck am I?

Last edited by SammichEater on 14 Mar 2011, 12:33 am, edited 1 time in total.

I always think the same thing when strangers talk to me.


I didn't have delayed speech development, and always had a much higher than average reading level, but read slowly and have other problems reading, which seems to be dyslexia, and I have speech problems which seem similar to cluttering, which is possibly a result of brain damage (dyslexia too).