Howdy from Texas :) I'm Amber and I'm new and I have ??s

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Hi

My name is Amber. I'm 28 and married with two kids. I have suspected for a while (several years) that I might have AS but we didn't have medical insurance that would cover mental health nor did we have the $250 it was going to cost to get tested.

Now I'm going back to school (pre med) and in a couple of months I'll be allowed 1 visit a month to the "counseling center" at my university. They said they have "licensed counselors" and one part time psychiatrist, so I'm going to make an appointment as soon as I can.

Maybe.

I don't know.

I have a question. Sorry if this isn't the right place to post this!

I was just wondering if I can describe myself and maybe somebody can say "Yeah that sounds like it might be AS" or "No, you're just weird."

I asked this question on Yahoo Answers but then a troll told me I was pathetic and lonely and I realized Yahoo Answers was not an appropriate forum for this kind of discussion.

Sorry this is long. I'll try to be brief!! Thank you!!

1. I didn't have friends as a kid. I had 3 other kids I hung out with, but looking back I realize they didn't like me and only hung out with me because their mothers forced them to. I didn't make friends until high school, and then I had 3 friends. 2 have since decided they didn't want to be my friend anymore. I had "friends" in high school and college but never, ever fit in - I considered it "having friends" that people would say hi to me in the hallway. It wasn't until recently that I realized most people don't count that as "having friends."

2. I WANTED friends. I didn't shun society, I just didn't get them. AT ALL. When I was five I declared that I had classified all my friends into their proper rankings and categories (like you would bugs or rocks). My mother looked shocked and said I couldn't do that, why would I do that? I'm going to hurt their feelings! I took her word for it, but I had (and have) absolutely no idea what she meant or why that would hurt anyone's feelings.

3. I like things done a certain way. Not every thing, just...a few things. But none of them were "typical." I didn't really care where the towel was when I took a bath as a kid, but once I started taking showers on my own (about 7 or so) I read the back of the shampoo bottle every single time I took a bath to make sure I followed the directions to the T. I did this until I was forced to stop in college (I joined an intensive ROTC organization and our showers were time-monitored).

4. I always wanted to play the same games over and over and over and over. With my friends we would play school and they would get really upset because I never wanted to change anything. I didn't want to play one way one day and a different way the other days. I would get absolutely IRATE and they would call me bossy and I would leave to go play by myself. My mom bought me a video game that was a science/math/logic game, and if she would have let me, I would have played that game all day, every day, for the rest of my childhood. I played the same level on the same difficulty setting over and over and over again. It was...soothing.

5. I used to have this habit my parents called "jump starting my brain." Whenever I would get overwhelmed (too many people talking at once, for instance) I would just shake my hands violently for a few seconds and it would "restart me" and I could keep doing whatever I was doing. It helped me concentrate. They forced me to stop in junior high because they said it made me a nerd and I was going to get made fun of. I replaced it with something more subtle - I rub my fingers together like there is something sticky I'm trying to wipe off. Constantly. I still do this. Constantly. If I get really stressed I just rub something like my head or arms, really really hard. My parents just decided I had a tic.

6. I can't touch one side of something without touching the other. I've been that way since before I could walk. It causes me intense distress to the point that if I can't fix it I feel like I'm going to vomit or pass out. I am careful who I tell this to because most people will "test" it and it's highly disturbing. I was diagnosed with OCD because of this in high school. I still contend it was a false diagnosis. (For one thing, it's not tied to anything. I don't think that if I don't touch both sides of something my first born is going to die in a fiery car crash, or something. It just makes my brain itch. That's how I described it to my mom as a kid (she told me to stop lying, that's not a thing, no one does that, stop trying to get attention). It's the psychological equivalent of the feeling you get when you hear fingernails grating against a chalkboard, only about 10 times worse.)

7. I could memorize entire picture books and play music by ear before I was potty trained - which I did to myself through repetitive activity in a single day when I was 2.

8. I don't like looking people in the eye. I usually bounce between their nose and mouth and ears or pretend to be looking for something. HOWEVER, I have absolutely no problem doing it with people that I know well (my parents, my husband, my children) and if forced to do it, I can. It doesn't cause distress or anything, it's just hard. I can't concentrate on anything else.

9. I have no idea what makes people think things. If there's no dialog in scenes in movies I don't know what's going on. I can't figure out what people are feeling or thinking unless they are telling me or their facial expressions are explicit.

10. I have always "lived in my own little world." My parents used to joke that I wouldn't notice the house was on fire until I started to burn. I once almost let my brother get run over by a truck on the highway because I was washing my hands and couldn't concentrate on anything else. I lived 90% in my own head and the other 10% was because I was forced out of it. I'm still very much that way.

11. As I kid I worried I might be a sociopath because I had learned the word "empathy" and realized I didn't have any. I cared about people, and I wanted them to be happy, and I didn't want to hurt their feelings, but I had absolutely no idea how to tell if someone was upset and if they were, I had absolutely no capacity to understand why. When I was a young teenager someone told me they were being abused by their parents (but didn't use the word abuse, they just described the situation, which was horrific and not mild at all, which I know because I heard a similar case on the news that got everyone upset) and I didn't know how to react. Not in the sense that I hear other people say, like, "Oh, what do you say to someone like that?" But rather in a "I have absolutely no idea how you are reacting emotionally to this situation. Is this making you sad? Angry? Happy? Confused? Tired? Constipated?" I had no idea.

12. I have always been told I "take things too personally" and "take things too literally." I have absolutely no ability to abstractly think about things. I absolutely can only take things literally, I have no other way to process information. I took a "what kind of learner" are you test as a kid when my mom was considering home schooling us, and I scored as a 100% visual learner. I can manipulate shapes in my head, but my dad saying "A hole in one is impossible" doesn't make any sense to me. I don't understand that statement. It's not impossible. There's a ball and there's a stick and there's a hole and there's inertia and gravity. Proper force applied at a proper angle with the proper conditions produces a hole in one. But those kind of things got me yelled at all the time as a kid. I was constantly being called a "smart a**" because of it. No one would believe me that I wasn't doing it on purpose.

13. When I was 14 I decided I wanted to do something with computers or programming, specifically so that I would never have to interact with people.

14. I scored a 40 on an online test to see if you should be seen for possible AS. Normal was 20, science/engineering average was 25, autism average was 32.

15. My IQ is 147. I took a math/science/visual reasoning IQ test when I was 5 to determine whether or not I should go to a new math/science magnet that was opening up on the other side of town. I remember taking the test. Part of it involved having to manipulate shapes to fit into blocks, and having to find simple shapes inside complex shapes. I thought the instructor was angry with me because I kept figuring out the answer before he could even get the stop watch started. I tried to make myself slow down and pretended to take a long time to find everything. After the test, my parents were called in to a meeting with the district officials. They told my mother that not only had I scored abnormally high on the test, higher than anyone else in the district, but I had one of the highest scores in my state. I think it was then that my parents took me to get me "tested" but they said I wasn't autistic because I was able to communicate very fluently. (This was 1988/89).

Okay there's more but I'll move on to:

Things that make me think I definitely DON'T have AS

1. I read somewhere that part of the diagnostic criteria is that doctors will have small talk with you and see if you can participate "with emotional reciprocity." I would knock that test out of the water. I would definitely be diagnosed neurotypical. In junior high I read a book (and took a formal class, actually) on facial expressions and body language (which I memorized), how to make friends and have small talk, and what makes social-construct based jokes (as opposed to math/science/linguistic based jokes) funny (I still don't get them though). I speak with perfect intonation and facial expressions, I am a bit awkward with body language but who isn't?, and I know exactly what to do when making small talk. You don't talk about yourself and you just keep asking questions about the other person. Though this flies in the face of what I want to do, doesn't it everyone? Doesn't everyone want to only talk about themselves and their interests? The books I read were not written for autistic people, so certainly everyone has this same problem, right? And everyone can correct it by reading these books and doing what they say? I have never had a problem speaking with proper intonation and I haven't ever had a problem producing the proper facial expression for the corresponding emotion (though I have had some problems interpreting them).

2. I really don't have a problem with language or communication at all. My friends always come to me when they need something explained because I can break things down so well linguistically that I am frequently asked to "mediate" when two people are misunderstanding each other. I can always reword things in a way to make people understand me. I was reading on a college level by the time I was 9 years old. The complexities of language have never eluded me as the criteria say they are supposed to. (What I do have a problem with is intent...what did something mean and how did that make you feel? But I totally understand linguistics.)

3. I have absolutely no problem maintaining eye contact with people I'm close to. (And doesn't everyone feel awkward having to maintain eye contact with strangers? Isn't that universal? Isn't the "eye contact" stipulation in the AS diagnosis specifically talking about intimate relationships?)

4. I have maintained a life long (well, kind of, 15 years and I'm 28 ) friendship and get along well with my husband and children.

5. I now love sharing things with people that I'm close to. I didn't really care too much to share things as a kid (for instance, I never told my mother I suffered sleep apnea for several years as a child, or when I was the leading role in a major play at school, and a frequent saying in our house was, "Why didn't you tell me about [insert accomplishment/major event here]?!") but now, if my son cuddles with me in a cute way or my daughter does something adorable the first thing I want to do is grab my husband so he can see. I LOVE sharing things with him.

Wow, that was really long. I totally understand if you haven't kept reading. I don't want to embarrass myself with a needless trip to the counseling clinic just to be told "No, you don't have AS, you're just really weird and that's why no one likes you." Which is pretty much what I'm expecting. And I don't really have anyone else I can ask these specific questions to. Sorry if that was too long.

Thanks for reading it all.

Welcome! It sounds like you definitely have some autisms. They run in families. Autism is not a singular condition of varying intensity. It is genetic and there have been over 130 gene variations liked to it. It sounds like you may have some.

Welcome to Wrong Planet and to the spectrum! I was only recently diagnosed myself. Now I write for the homepage here and am writing a book. The autism community is VERY interesting. Enjoy!

Welcome to Wrong Planet.

I certainly relate to the violent hand shaking, I still do that.

Well missy, I think you are a Smartypants. Intelligence alone can be socially isolating.

Everyone has some of everything, and sameness is what took a lot of my quarters playing Asteroids. I blasted all but one then took the ship for a joyride.

Old age keeps you from ever reaching disabled, the criteria for autism. As you describe, but three things to the point of interfering with life.

No doubt, part of the up to 30% of the Broader Autism Phenotype, but only one in thirty reaches disability grade, and you missed the boat at eight.

Now an IQ of 147 is a disability, but you could never convince anyone.

Go to Discussion, down near the bottom is a thread about Math, Science, and in there one on Paleoanthropology. Start on the last most recent page and go back a few.

There is an article by someone you would understand, about a Neurocentric viewpoint being a movable line between types. He writes about functional autistic science researchers, and how they have a common world view, and how Neurotypical researchers become the odd ones coming into his group.

Like you, high intelligence, science, broader autism phenotype, functioning in the world, but there is still a gap in thinking between people in the same field.

His view, everyone thinks they are right, the center of the thought universe, and takes that as a standard. So, people who think different must be wrong, and that is what they think of the other.

We have not mapped these Neurocentric groups, but I have seen some, and skills held in common between groups, Mechanics and IT workers do not have common neurology, but they do have common skills.

Autistic is just a view that the autistic see as making sense, just as Neurotypical does with it's self. How many Neurocentric groups exist is unknown.

Spatial relationships is a form of intelligence that relates to others of it's kind, which might vary in a neurocentric group. A group of Engineers will know which of their group should go explain it to the suit in the front office, because he/she, is mentally closer.

We are past the point where Neurotypical is right and everything else wrong. Neurotypical is not one neurocentric group. wrong is just other groups, who like here, understand the autistic point of view.

It is going to be a productive field of study. For too long Human Resources has tried to find team players, without understanding that their view is Marketing Team, Public Relations Team, and they look for the same in Engineers, Scientists, where neurocentric teamwork is very different.

Somehow we do overcome this, with a few disasters along the way, people always wondering, what is wrong with them?

Like the things you learned from books, yes, it does come more natural to some, but it can be learned. The trouble with natural learning is they do not know what they are saying, it worked in Third Grade, they kept it. It has become their dance, which is Me, but could be Us.

When I travel, I learn a few words, Please and Thank You. Within my own world I have learned to not talk from myself, but toward the person I am addressing. Just like I use another speech, body language, when addressing dogs, horses, small children, and bears met in the forests.

Being Autistic we have to learn an invisable language, by watching and mimicing. I am so good at it that traveling in Honduras, listening to other order in the dining room, the waitress was sure I was a local. I barely speak Spanish, but I picked up the local idium and accent.

The payoff, even after being discovered, I was treated as a real person.

I also say thank you in Arabic at the discount gas station, one word, I become real.

I studied Anthropology, learned a lot, there is no Anthropology of Europe or America, just those other people. The group we know least, is ours.

High IQ can be overcome, like autism it frightens people, but I have become accepted at my local Goodwill, run by Black people, who say I dress funny. I do, on purpose. I also speak to almost everyone. I bring the shopping baskets in from the parking lot, clean up broken things from the floor, hold doors when people are moving things in and out. I am passing for human. I repair computers, there I teach people to repair their own.

We do all fit in some web of life, we just have to learn more about where everyone is.

Sorry for the short answer, but I think you can fill in the blanks.

Autism Genetics, Paleoanthropology, in Computers, Math, Science.

Page 46, near the bottom, Jasper van Haasteren.

Welcome to WP from a fellow Texan!

Welcome to WP from a fellow Texan!

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

To WrongPlanet!! !

Welkome to WP!

Mick