First post. Wierd normal?

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This is my first post on this forum. I am 57 years old and did one of the online tests for Asperger's Syndrome yesterday, scoring 132 out of 200 points. So now I am wondering if maybe I am an undiagnosed case. Some of my autistic-like traits include: spending huge amounts of time on my own learning to read foreign languages (since 33 years ago). I have in the past had no problem spending a week or more alone, just learning. I have a very part-time job and a steady (weekend) girlfriend but would be completely overwhelmed by a full-time job and a family. I often think the ideal life for me would be as a Buddhist monk learning Pali from dawn till dusk every day. When I go to the school to teach I seek to be back on my own in the street as soon as possible, although I relate in a friendly manner with my colleagues and students while there, so that I don't think they realise how wierd I am in my absence of social behaviour. If my timetiable is changed at all I feel completely stressed-out, almost a kind of panic. When I don't get enough time on my own life becomes almost physically unbearable. As a child and even teenager I used to sit for long periods in my room on my own looking at pictures and flapping my hands, imagining various aesthetically pleasing patterns of events internally. I have spent decades minimising social contact to focus on learning, although it does not benefit me career-wise in any way, quite the reverse. I would be grateful if any of you who know about these things could give me a layman's assessment of all this. Thanks.

You might be onto something, there are some of us here who only sought diagnosis after discovering what AS was online (someone actually emailed me an article and said 'this sounds like you') - since it wasn't made a part of the Diagnostic Manual until 1994, anyone who went through the public school system before then would not have had an opportunity to be diagnosed. However, an armchair diagnosis from strangers on the Internet isn't worth much in the real world.

Without that professional stamp from a Psychologist, it can't be classified as an official disability. The real trick is, most Mental Health workers today are trained to recognize High Functioning Autism in children and of course the symptoms and behaviors are not identical in most adults, because we have been forced to mask many of them with 'coping mechanisms' over the years in order to function and (pretend to) fit in. But there are some who understand that, so diagnosis is available.

Long story short, it would not be fair for strangers online to try to say yea or nay, but you're welcome here in either case.

Thanks a lot for your reply. I'm not looking to be classified as disabled or anything! You're certainly right about armchair diagnoses. On the other hand, my partner has said repeatedly over the years that I'm like 'one of those savants', not in a critical way, just as a matter of observation. She is exaggerating, I think, but my obsessive, repetitive patterns of behaviour and need for fairly extreme levels of solitude are definitely outside the mainstream. I would like to understand why I am as I am, because it isn't really voluntary, I think. On the other hand I don't really know that I fit any recognised syndrome. Ideally I would like to do a psychological test for mild autism/Asperger's, just to know, but I would be too embarrassed to ask a professional for one. I imagine a lot of unconventional people can identify with people with Autism and Asperger's without having either. I am not aware of any cognitive deficits I may have, but had to work very hard to learn to deal with group situations and had many traumatic experiences of being horribly silent while people talked about complete 'trivia'. I do cope with life by now but it alwys seems to me that society is designed for a kind of person not at all like me (in terms of unsociability, focussed solitary activities etc) and that there must be a minority out there somewhere in which I would correctly be included. My reclusiveness feels normal to me and people who aren't reclusive are something of a closed book, as well as being horrendously unaccepting. I definitely feel I am on the 'wrong planet', but it could just be a cultural thing (ie the extraverts control all the systems in society). I don't know.

If you feel it would be helpful you should try to get a diagnosis at all events. Look for a professional you feel comfortable with. But be aware, if you ask 5 pros, you might easily receive five different diagnoses, if not six.

Anyway, you're welcome and appreciated here. There are no true aspies vs. wannabes, and there are huge differences. I'm here for about six months now and figured aspies are not from another planet but more or less from another universe with countless different planets.

E.g., many are downright social guys and take a lot of effort to improve their social skills. I'm a loner by nature and never missed that social stuff.

For outsiders aspies may appear as homogenous group, but actually we are fairly different from each other.

Thanks for the welcome. I wrote a reply but somehow the internet connection went down and I lost it. What I wanted to say was that I wouldn't have started thinking along these lines if I hadn't done the online test and if it hadn't turned out positive ( "You most likely have Asperger's " ), but then again I wouldn't have done the test if I hadn't thought it might. I'm really sceptical about the test, though. No idea how I'd find a competent psychologist. It's pretty easy here to get appointments to exclude physical syndromes, but I'm not too sure how my doctor would react if I came up with a major developmental disorder out of the blue and asked for a referral! I'll have to see what I can do using other channels. This has been a really confusing few days.

Welkome to WP!

Mick

Welcome.

I'm still finding my way around this forum. I decided I wasn't at all autistic and posted on another section something about the validity of the tests, because I thought they must be inaccurate if they included me in the autism spectrum. So my 'do I belong here' thread is in the General Autism Discussion section under a scientific-sounding title although it's really about whether I belong here and not about anything scientific. Maybe I should come back to this thread. Thank you all for your welcome.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

To WrongPlanet!! !

I am the same age as you and pretty much in the same boat. I discovered AS the same way by taking the same quiz. I always understood that this was not a scientific evaluation. That was over 3 years ago now. I more or less brushed it off. After all, an autistic person is someone who sits in the corner, bangs their head against the wall, can't talk, and needs 24 hour care. And certainly no autistic person could possibly talk, or hold a job, or have any sort of independent life, or have any friends, or drive a car. Right? Well no. I continued to read articles and books about it and browsed the various forums. My thinking and perceptions have changed much in 3 years thanks to places like this.

I came to realize that there is no hard division between NT and autistic. What helped me the most was the section in Tony Attwood's book on Asperger's where he says to view Asperger's as a 100 piece puzzle. Typical people have up to 20 of the pieces and Aspergers have 80 or more. That leaves a big gray area. I've come to feel that I fall in the area of 60 or so pieces, not enough to qualify for a diagnosis, but certainly not a typical person either. I have no interest in pursuing a diagnosis anyway. At this stage in my life it wouldn't get me anything and would likely cause me problems with friends and family that I don't need.

Studying the subject has provided a lot of insights, especially as to why my personal relationships are so atypical, why social interactions with more than one person at a time don't work very well, why interests I had as a kid stick with me today, not liking sudden changes in plans or routines, need for a lot of downtime, certain sensory issues, the common relationship between AS and anxiety, and lots of other little things.

Whether you seek a diagnosis as an adult is certainly a personal thing. It's helpful for kids because they can get the sort of help and accommodations they need. Most of those things are not available for adults. I have noticed that some adults seek a diagnosis for a different reason. A diagnosis seems to give them permission to accept who they are and stop beating themselves up. For others, like me, it's more of an answer to the question "Why?"