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billegge
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29 Oct 2017, 2:47 pm

I am not sure if I have aspergers and I wanted to ask the community if they thought I have aspergers.

I am 48, male.

I took the online test and scored 41, but it is too easy for me to choose the right answers to make me look like I have aspergers, so I can't go by that score.

Something is very different about me than other people and I want to understand. I will just make a list.

*
Through my whole life I have had only one friend at a time or none at all. I am 48 and I have had about 4 friends. Most people seem to have a lot of friends. Its not because I cannot make friends, it is because I rarely find anyone I can have a conversation with.

*
Social situations are very exhausting to me and I just stay alone because I don't know what to say to people. I don't understand what they are laughing about when they laugh. In order for me to be social, I have to watch people and learn social patterns and then imitate those patterns. A long time ago someone told me I need to smile, it took me a long time to figure out when I was supposed to smile. The only conversations I can truly have in a social situation is about technical or intellectual topics otherwise I am clueless and have to follow a social pattern. When I was little, kids made fun of me and people look at me like I am weird sometimes. That is when I started trying to follow social patterns so they would not think I was weird.

*
I never played pretend with action figures. I always preferred cars, electronics, and mechanical things. Once in about the 2nd grade a kid brought this action figure set to school and all the kids gathered around it. I simply felt a strong and tiring boredom about action figures and so I just stood alone apart from the crowd.

*
When I was maybe in the 5th or 6th grade the whole school was given a test that measured comprehension, mechanical reasoning, and many other things. There were about 10 categories. My scores were generally average but were a little low in the English category (40th percentile), however the mechanical reasoning was at 99th percentile. I remember the test overall was hard but the mechanical reasoning was so simple to me that I did not understand why it was part of the test. I was baffled by my 99th percentile score because I thought it was just as easy for everyone else.

*
I always loved science and electronics. I would spend the whole day in my room building things and experimenting. This is not a normal thing for kids to do. I have always wanted to know how things worked. I would take apart my toys to see what was inside. When I first saw a compass in the dollar store, I was 7, I wanted to know what was making the needle point in the same direction. I did not feel or see anything and I could not block some invisible string that might be pulling on it. Since then I have been fascinated with gravity and magnetism. My sister got angry at me because I always asked "why" about everything, so I stopped asking why.

*
Since I was born, God or Santa Clause never made sense to me. Santa Clause sounded more probable than God, but I could not believe in Santa Clause because it did not seem possible to go around the earth with flying reindeer. When I was 4 I remember arguing with my father that Santa Clause did not exist. Most children easily believe in Santa Clause. As for God, I did not see a God - thus it did not exist and no argument for God was complete. Most people seem to believe in God, I do not understand how.

*
My Myers Briggs personality type is INJT

*
When I see movies or documentories about people with Autism or Aspergers, its seems much more extreme than me.

**

I do not know what other things to say.



SplendidSnail
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29 Oct 2017, 2:59 pm

From the description you give, it seems pretty plausible.

I'm curious. If you do the AQ test and deliberately try to score as low as you can without outright lying, what do you score then?

I scored 37 the first time I did the test, and when I deliberately tried to score low without outright lying, I managed to get my score down to 29.


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MaxE
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29 Oct 2017, 3:04 pm

I would say what you report is typical of those who self describe as "undiagnosed AS". Remember, AS is a set of symptoms. Diagnosing it is a judgment call. I suppose it's possible for the same person to be diagnosed as "AS" and "not AS" by different clinicians at different times.

The one area in which some people might challenge your self-diagnosis has to do with sensory overload. I suggest searching YouTube for "sensory overload". There are those who will say that if you don't recognize your own experience in one of those videos, then you're not really on the spectrum. And others will disagree.

Try to consider whether a formal diagnosis will benefit you. There's no real treatment, although many Aspies get medication for depression, anxiety, etc. Depression and anxiety, unlike AS, have more clearly defined definitions and are directly treatable. Unless you hope to use an AS diagnosis to get government benefits, you show probably think twice about getting formally diagnosed, as AS is generally associated with traits that are usually seen as making a person less employable. There is a big difference between simply having poor social communication skills (that can be "worked on") and having Asperger's syndrome. My personal recommendation is to fly under the radar if you can.

But don't hesitate to join in on the discussions at WP!


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SplendidSnail
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29 Oct 2017, 3:24 pm

MaxE wrote:
The one area in which some people might challenge your self-diagnosis has to do with sensory overload. I suggest searching YouTube for "sensory overload". There are those who will say that if you don't recognize your own experience in one of those videos, then you're not really on the spectrum. And others will disagree.

If you do have these issues, I absolutely agree that it's extremely likely that you're on the spectrum.

At the same time, I wouldn't discount the possibility simply because you don't have these issues. It's listed as an elective in the DSM-5, not something that's mandatory.

In my case, as far as I know, I don't have any severe sensory issues. I'm annoyed by tags on clothing, and squeaky foods such as green beans and pickles annoy me even though I like their taste, but I certainly don't have anything like what you will see on the youtube videos. And I do have a formal diagnosis.


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rowan_nichol
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29 Oct 2017, 4:38 pm

billegge wrote:
I am not sure if I have aspergers and I wanted to ask the community if they thought I have aspergers.

I am 48, male.

I took the online test and scored 41, but it is too easy for me to choose the right answers to make me look like I have aspergers, so I can't go by that score.

Something is very different about me than other people and I want to understand. I will just make a list.

*
Through my whole life I have had only one friend at a time or none at all. I am 48 and I have had about 4 friends. Most people seem to have a lot of friends. Its not because I cannot make friends, it is because I rarely find anyone I can have a conversation with.

- I have noticed my friends come under 'Quality' not quantity. I have a friend of 27 years who is like an honourary sister.
*
Social situations are very exhausting to me and I just stay alone because I don't know what to say to people. I don't understand what they are laughing about when they laugh. In order for me to be social, I have to watch people and learn social patterns and then imitate those patterns. A long time ago someone told me I need to smile, it took me a long time to figure out when I was supposed to smile. The only conversations I can truly have in a social situation is about technical or intellectual topics otherwise I am clueless and have to follow a social pattern. When I was little, kids made fun of me and people look at me like I am weird sometimes. That is when I started trying to follow social patterns so they would not think I was weird.
- I find the same. Never knowing what to say to initiate in Unstructured social situations. Intellectual and especially technical topics are my choice as well.
*
I never played pretend with action figures. I always preferred cars, electronics, and mechanical things. Once in about the 2nd grade a kid brought this action figure set to school and all the kids gathered around it. I simply felt a strong and tiring boredom about action figures and so I just stood alone apart from the crowd.
-- My favourite toys were Lego, electrical and electronic components, and modeling railways, to the level of making overhead catenary from scratch and having it work.
*
When I was maybe in the 5th or 6th grade the whole school was given a test that measured comprehension, mechanical reasoning, and many other things. There were about 10 categories. My scores were generally average but were a little low in the English category (40th percentile), however the mechanical reasoning was at 99th percentile. I remember the test overall was hard but the mechanical reasoning was so simple to me that I did not understand why it was part of the test. I was baffled by my 99th percentile score because I thought it was just as easy for everyone else.

*
I always loved science and electronics. I would spend the whole day in my room building things and experimenting. This is not a normal thing for kids to do. I have always wanted to know how things worked. I would take apart my toys to see what was inside. When I first saw a compass in the dollar store, I was 7, I wanted to know what was making the needle point in the same direction. I did not feel or see anything and I could not block some invisible string that might be pulling on it. Since then I have been fascinated with gravity and magnetism. My sister got angry at me because I always asked "why" about everything, so I stopped asking why.
-- My mum and dad and grandmother heard that word 'Why' an awful lot too. Also questions such as ;Say what it does' 'Where does it go?' (about any pipe I saw when we were out). My bedroom was a bit of an electronic junk room. Some of the stuff I made worked, some didn't, I earned a bit of pocket money mending next door's telly, I could draw you a telly circuit. Funny enough I ended up working as an electronics engineer at the other end of the tv and Broadcast chain maintaining studios and such like.

*
Since I was born, God or Santa Clause never made sense to me. Santa Clause sounded more probable than God, but I could not believe in Santa Clause because it did not seem possible to go around the earth with flying reindeer. When I was 4 I remember arguing with my father that Santa Clause did not exist. Most children easily believe in Santa Clause. As for God, I did not see a God - thus it did not exist and no argument for God was complete. Most people seem to believe in God, I do not understand how.
--Belief in God went at age seven for me.

*
My Myers Briggs personality type is INJT

*
When I see movies or documentaries about people with Autism or Aspergers, its seems much more extreme than me.
-- Check. I had far too many moments of recognition watching "My Experience of Autism", a lecture given by Temple Grandin on you tube back in summer 2014. It kicked off a lot of research, starting off with that same wee quiz (for a laugh) and the laugh came to a stop when the score came back as 32. It lead to having an assessment in November 2016. "No doubt, could see it a mile off" the assessor's spoken quip at the end.






**

I do not know what other things to say.



strings
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29 Oct 2017, 5:31 pm

Your situation sounds very similar to mine. I had one friend when growing up, possibly two depending on what counts as a friend. And that was really only because of a common interest in electronics. My bedroom when I was growing up was basically a laboratory, and I spent almost all my free time when not at school in my bedroom, building electronic devices, fixing radios and TVs, and doing chemistry experiments. There must have been quite a lot of mercury spilt around the room, but I guess it never did me any harm. Hahh!!

I didn't see you make mention of sensory issues. Any of them? I have quite a few, including extreme sensitivity to irritating human-generated noises (chewing, slurping, coughing, snuffling, etc.); smells like perfumes, herbal teas, scented candles; being in a room with lots of people (like cinemas, concert halls, lecture halls, etc.).

Your comments about not smiling struck a chord. All my life people have commented on what I now learn is my "flat affect." Often people would ask "Are you OK?" because they thought I looked sad, when in fact I was feeling fine and just following my own train of thought. I've even occasionally had people fearing for their safety because they thought I looked "threatening."

Interesting question SplendidsSnail raised, about what AQ score you get if you try hard, without being positively untruthful, to get a low score. My normal AQ score is 44, and I just now tried to engineer a low score without actually lying. I managed to get it down to 38.



ASPartOfMe
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29 Oct 2017, 5:40 pm

You need not have every trait just most of them

What is Asperger's Syndrome? by Dr. Tony Attwood

Do your traits mess up your life? If they do you should try and get assessed by a clinician experienced with how Aspergers presents in adults. The purpose of the assessment should not be to be diagnosed with autism but to find out your condition to explain why and what is impairing you for the purposes or treatments and coping mechanisms.

The movies and TV programs about Autistics are not for assessment purposes but to entertain a mass audience so the characters often are a checklist of Autism stereotypes and exaggerated traits.


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billegge
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29 Oct 2017, 5:42 pm

SplendidSnail wrote:
I'm curious. If you do the AQ test and deliberately try to score as low as you can without outright lying, what do you score then?


I scored 33 when trying to get a low score without lying. I was not sure how to answer some questions because, I take adderall and it really really helps so some questions I answered as if I were taking adderall - which would have given me a lower score.

I was a little surprise because I expected to see a near normal result. But 33 is right in the last group.

Thank you for making that suggestion, I never thought of doing that. I definitely feel more confident in my result.



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04 Nov 2017, 2:32 pm

INTJ not INJT*
Sorry, I had to. 8)

From the look of it you might just be a gifted, without having Asperger. Check it out: http://mumsinthewoodeducation.com/teach ... -syndrome/



thebelgradebelief
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04 Nov 2017, 10:49 pm

From your description, it sounds like you may have Autism. Please keep in mind none of us can make a formal diagnosis for you.


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billegge
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17 Nov 2017, 11:05 pm

Kiriae wrote:
INTJ not INJT*
Sorry, I had to. 8)

From the look of it you might just be a gifted, without having Asperger. Check it out: http://mumsinthewoodeducation.com/teach ... -syndrome/


INTJ :)

The link is interesting. I seem to have a mixture of both sides, some more strongly on the Asperger side but I seem to relate more to the gifted side. I don't feel gifted though. I think very slow, but its very deep. In class, people always start out way faster than me and I feel embarrassed but I keep thinking and then I figure out some core thing and then I become the class genius (that hows others perceive me).

My strong parts on the aspergers is social situations. For example, I don't know how to end a conversation, I end up doing some weird ubrupt out of place thing like "Ok, um bye". I honestly have no clue how to do small talk, if someone says its nice outside I have no clue what to say in return. Really, not a clue. There is nothing inside me that can respond to that.

Oddly, I believe I have a near philosophers level of perception of culture. For example I think America, culturally, is avoiding moral judgement and this is the underlying cause of "Political Correctness", the hatred of hate, not offending someone, etc. But I can't do small talk or know how to end a phone conversation.

* I'll expose inner self to everyone, I am done typing what I want to say and don't know how to end this post. I'm done. :)



billegge
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18 Nov 2017, 12:11 am

MaxE wrote:
The one area in which some people might challenge your self-diagnosis has to do with sensory overload. I suggest searching YouTube for "sensory overload". There are those who will say that if you don't recognize your own experience in one of those videos, then you're not really on the spectrum. And others will disagree.


I looked at the videos. The sensory overload versions is how I perceive things, not the "muted" side. I am confused, doesn't everyone perceive things like the sensory overload version of these videos? I should ask my wife or daughter to tell me what they think.

I do hear everything and I cannot think if I hear someone talking or typing on the keyboard. I have my own office with walls, not a cube, and sometimes I hear the guy on the other side of the wall on the phone and then my productivity drops down to 25% because his voice and my inner thoughts are at the same level. Then when he is done talking, he might start typing on the keyboard and that drives me batty. Yesterday I plugged in headphone and listened to high volume binaural beats to drown out the keyboard and voice. I find simple noise calming, like white noise, static, or binaural beats without added music.

I also feel instant anger when I hear a car horn. A couple times I have heard someone put what seemed like a train horn on their truck. I felt like a volcano inside when they blew that horn. However, I love the sound of thunder. I feel calm when I hear thunder.

Loud noises feel painful, like dogs barking.

When I was a kid I had to rock myself to sleep because if I layed still I could feel sensations all over my skin, or I would start to focus on how the sheets or my clothes was touching me. Rocking back and forth kept it from bothering me and made me more relaxed. Since I got married and had to sleep with someone I finally stopped rocking.

My hair bothers me when it touches my forehead, I keep my hair short with gel. If someone touches my head and breaks lose part of my hair from the gel then I can feel the air moving that piece of hair and it bothers me a lot. My wife does not understand, and my wife's best friend couldn't seem to understand why it bothers me. That was a clue something was different about me.

Eating noises. I practically cannot handle certain kinds of eating noises, like swallowing or crunching on chips.

Cell phone light in the movie theater. I absolutely cannot watch a movie if I see even a tiny part of a cell phone screen somewhere. I will get up and go ask the person to turn off the cell phone.

I have a prescription for Adderall, when I take Adderall some of these problems go away. For example, we had a fire drill at my office and it was so loud that it sounded distorted. I had taken Adderall about an hour or so earlier and it was around its peak effect, I could handle the fire alarm perfectly well. So well that my eyes did not even flinch when it pulsated. Normally I would just be thinking about how bad I want to get away from the sound.

Adderall is an amphetamine, but it makes me feel calm and sedated. It makes me feel more like a normal person.

So, I don't know what kind of brain I have but its not like others. I also would not want to be any other way. I would like to understand though if the problem is because I am at fault or if I am just wired different.



billegge
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09 May 2018, 6:11 pm

FYI - I got a diagnosis with Aspergers. The testing cost $800 and took 5 hours. They gave me an IQ test, a questionnaire, and also observed me while interacting which I did not know they were doing.



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09 May 2018, 6:42 pm

billegge wrote:
FYI - I got a diagnosis with Aspergers. The testing cost $800 and took 5 hours. They gave me an IQ test, a questionnaire, and also observed me while interacting which I did not know they were doing.


I hope the diagnosis will be helpful to you.


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billegge
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09 May 2018, 6:56 pm

ASPartOfMe wrote:
billegge wrote:
FYI - I got a diagnosis with Aspergers. The testing cost $800 and took 5 hours. They gave me an IQ test, a questionnaire, and also observed me while interacting which I did not know they were doing.


I hope the diagnosis will be helpful to you.


Thank you. It is helpfull. I have been self diagnosed and always wondering if I am AS or not. The diagnosis, especially by their own observation, gives me confidence that I am AS. The confidence gets rid of the uncertainty, and now I can start solving problems by looking for the ones related to AS. I get some kind of strength out of knowing some particular problem is an aspect of AS. Also, it helps a lot more with my relation with my wife to have a diagnosis rather than me telling her "I am overloaded" and I think this "might" be aspergers. She has been much more understanding when I tell her I need to be alone for a few minutes where before she would just follow me and keep asking me questions and then at some point I would explode from being beyond overload.



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09 May 2018, 7:24 pm

Likely, with masking.

However I feel the need to mention, religion has nothing to do with autism. Questioning the world and social patterns is, but religion isn't necessarily that.


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