A few people bugged me about possibly having it.

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A few people have suggested that I might have a very mild form of it.

Well first I'll just admit that I'm not comfortable at all with the thought of having a type of disorder. I'm an adult well into my 20's. The reason as to why this is a sore subject is due to childhood issues of dealing with other non-autism/asperger disorders running in my mom's side of the family.

So I come here with a request. I'd like to be questioned with an experience so I can relate or not relate. So I can find out the truth. Centers are no good for:
A. No medical insurance/money.
B. I'd rather keep this far away from my life as possible.

Now the problem is that tons of resources exist for the extreme forms to tell if you so you can properly self diagnose. But there are very few if any examples of very mild cases.

I lurked a little bit took a couple of tests etc. But the tests only have options for yes/no/a little as if I actually have a clue what average or normal is. Greenturtle's cartoon guide seemed neat so something like that would be helpful. Not pictures but a short little description of a circumstance that you had along with a question. Here is a hypothetical example of what I'm asking:

Do you have trouble recognizing the faces of people?
12 years ago I used to play the pokemon card game at a card shop. Recently one of the people who I used to play with noticed me and said hi. I didn't recognize his face at all, but right away he knew it was me. That's when I knew I must have an autism spectrum disorder because I didn't recognize his face.

So yea if it's not too much trouble I hope you can help me out here. Thank you for your time.

Do you have other traits as well?

Because if you only have face recognition problems, you're prosopagnosic, not AS. Prosopagnosia can go along with AS, but they're separate conditions.

Do you find it hard to tell what people are feeling?

Did you have to consciously learn social rules?

Do you have odd mannerisms or repetitive movements?

Do you have trouble looking people in the eye?

Do you tend to stick to a certain routine, and get upset if this routine is disturbed?

Do you have a strong interest in a certain subject?

Do you tend to talk on and on about the same subject, and find it hard to tell when people are getting bored?

If you have a bunch of those traits, you might be on the spectrum.

Read this book:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Complete-Guid ... ny+attwood

It's a fairly complete guide. It describes outward traits others can observe you doing, and has plenty of short examples of peoples' stories like the ones you're looking for, as well as inner traits that only you will know if you do or not ie thought processes, sensory perception issues w/ hearing/vision/touch etc. If you read this book & you have even mild AS and are very high functioning you'll just know.

And if so, get comfortable with it.. because it's not going anywhere. It is what it is. You can't get rid of it, so no point in dwelling on it - that's a complete waste of time. You can learn to manage it & control it as best you can via knowledge, practice, diet, exercise, counselling/therapy, pharmaceuticals etc - whatever combination of things brings you balance. The more you can learn about yourself the better.

As for age.. boohoo, 20's.. yeah yeah, I know, I'm being insensitive. I only figured this all out in myself 6 months ago just after I turned 30 & it's all throughout my mothers side of the family from my grandmother on down. My uncle is in his 60's and I talked to him about it, he suspected he might have it but never really knew before I told him more about it. My grandmother is 92.. I didn't really get into conversation about it with her (not much point.), but I believe she's had it all her life, too, and has never known it. At least if you do have it you get to know in your 20's and can start making better sense of yourself & the world and make more forward progress in life/education/work/finances etc for your efforts than may otherwise be possible if you were to remain ignorant of it. It's one thing not to know.. 'cause you don't know what you don't know, but to possibly be on the right track to finding out and then remaining willfully ignorant? That's ridiculous. So what if you have a "disorder"? If you do, whether you want to admit it, accept it, learn about it and deal with it or not it's still going to be there. Denying it would simply do yourself a massive disservice and your life may be a train wreck for it.. all to prevent having to have a "label," of some disorder's name. Ridiculous. With or without a name for it, if you have it it's still going to affect you so you kinda owe it to yourself to find out first & foremost, then if you do, learn everything you can about how to get it under control and just keep working at it. That's what'll yield the best possible outcome.

For a very small amount you could contact an autism expert on "Justanswer" (Susan Mcphail or Elliott among others).
They´re ok.
Tell them your story, your observations and your test results. They will give a professional answer.

Tests: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt113459.html

Don´t forget this one: RAADS-R (The Ritvo Autism Asperger Diagnostic Scale-Revised).
Good luck.