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Hello. It's kind of hard to begin this, and I apologize for the length. To be honest, I never thought about whether I had any autistic issues until recently. I've been married to my wife for over 11 years, and over the last several, she has told me that she has an increasing sense of isolation and loneliness. We came to the realization over the last two years or so that both my mother and sister suffered from some form of ASD, and knowing that it has a genetic component, she began researching it, suspecting that I'm affected by it to, to a somewhat lesser degree. Since she had the courage to broach the subject with me, I myself have looked into it further, and after doing all of the usual online tests, it appears clear that I have a mix of both AS and NT tendencies.

As background, the ASD gene is definitely in my maternal line. A few years back, doing some genealogy research, I discovered that my grandparents were inbred. It had always struck me as odd that they had the same last name before marriage. How inbred, you ask? Try this: uncle and niece. They had 6 children that lived into adulthood. The two oldest, my uncle and aunt, were autistic and not very high functioning. They lived with my grandmother until she died, and thereafter lived in her residence being cared for by other siblings, until each passed away. Neither ever drove a car or even held a drivers' license. They worked at menial jobs, and were able to get there and back by bus. My grandmother, and then later another aunt, managed their finances and basically ran their lives. We always referred to them as slow. Let me say that the face of autism, for me, for many years, was Dustin Hoffman's character in Rainman and Corky in The Wonder Years. I did little research into it. My mother, in retrospect, was HFA. She had few friends, rarely socialized, spoke in a monotone, lived by her strict routines, and had a great deal of difficulty expressing affection, even to myself and my sister. She and my father, who was a definite NT, never showed any affection for each other, never kissing, never holding hands. She couldn't sing. At all. She couldn't even sing Happy Birthday on key. Later in life, when I tried to show my affection towards her with hugs and kisses, she all but recoiled. She frustrated the hell out of my father, and also her younger sister's husband, another clear NT. At family gatherings, that uncle would occasionally have to step outside, and remark to anyone who was in the yard, "This is the crazy house". My sister shares many of the same traits as my mother. She also suffered a stroke about 3 years ago, and this has further affected her thought process. She also is a compulsive hoarder, as were my autistic aunt and uncle. Another autistic trait they both shared was the inability to refer to any of their siblings by their given names.

Getting to myself, looking back now at age 60 to my childhood, especially at my grammar school years, I was a textbook aspie. I was also extremely intelligent, always the smartest kid in the class. To complicate that, I was very tall for my age, extremely gawky and clumsy. Socially, the best way to describe it was inept. I was introverted, afraid to speak to other kids, reluctant to play at recess (I would stand to the side and watch). In the presence of kids I didn't know, I was almost terrified. You can imagine that I was teased mercilessly, but because of my physical size, other boys were very reluctant to try to fight with me. I was 6'2" tall by age 14. My mother, being either an aspie or HFA herself, saw nothing wrong. In fact, I was her model son. Straight A's in school, glowing reports from the teachers, so respectful of authority that I never had any disciplinary problems at school. Of course, Asperger's wasn't even on the radar back then. This got somewhat better by high school, but, because of my grades and IQ (around 140), I went to a private college prep academy, which was boys-only back then. Not being with girls during the onset of puberty and my mid teens help me socialize better. I always had problems approaching girls. I dated the same girl all through high school. But I started getting along better with my classmates. Going off to college, I still didn't enjoy going to dances, or dorm parties that were going to have a lot of strangers. I played the trumpet fairly well, and was in the sports band and student orchestra, and most of my friends, as well as my then-girlfriend, were also involved in those activities, so we had some commonality. After graduation, I went down to NY City for law school, and after graduation, went into public sector law, where I've remained. I had some socialization problems there. My first boss used to refer to me as "an enigma". But little by little, I began to fit in better, and since then have thought that my social skills were good.

My first wife, and my present wife, are NT. Isolation--my tendency to wrap myself into my little world to the exclusion of her, and focus intently on my own interests instead of common ones--basically ruined my first marriage. I had two kids with her, and I don't see any ASD tendencies in either. As I said in my opening remarks, my present spouse also began to experience those same feelings. It also gradually be came clear to us that there was definitely something amiss with my sister. I should say that I had very little contact with my family between college, and our moving back to Massachusetts several years ago. I had basically put my childhood, and my memories of my childhood life, in the vault. My wife would marvel at the way that my mother and sister would sit at the table, for when my dwindling family got together, and talk at but not with everyone in the room. We'd joke about it on the way home. She made the AS/ASD connection well before I did. What confounded me about myself, for the longest time, was that I had achieved a great deal of social comfort at gatherings. Over the recent holidays, my wife began to seriously consider my situation, especially my tendency to monopolize conversations, talk repetitively about the same subjects, interrupt others (I do it with her, too), lecture rather than converse, my limited sense of space (I have this talent for standing in her way without realizing that all I have to do is move a foot or two to either side), rely on routines, and the fact that some of her friends make comments to her like "he's a real trip" or similar terms of eccentricity. She read Atwood and other texts, and then, a couple of few weeks ago, raised the courage to address it with me. She thought that I'd either experience either anger or denial. Instead, I listened. And began unsealing the memory vault. She pointed to the chapter in Atwood that discusses intellectualizing social behavior rather than doing it intuitively, and I realized that over the course of about two-thirds of my life, that's exactly what I've been doing. I won't go as far as many here do and say that I'm faking NT behavior. It's more of applying experience and thought to be social, when my intuitive reaction is to withdraw and avoid. When I started taking the various AS/ASD tests more objectively, with a view to how I was before learned behavior took over from intuition, it was clear that I'm in the mix of AS/NT traits. My highest NT scores are in the areas of contact and perception. I 'm not subject to stims. Noises don't bother me. I'm actually a pretty sensual person. I enjoy tastes, smells, music, fine art, and I thrive on physical contact. I enjoy feeling my wife's skin on mine, and I've always enjoyed sex. I've slept naked since I was 14. I love the feel of sun and air on my body. I've gone to nude beaches most of my adult life. I'm not inhibited sexually. I'm no longer clumsy. I rarely trip, and when I do, I never fall. I ride a bike fairly well. I don't race, but I can participate in fast group rides without conflicts with other riders. I've been an attorney for almost 30 years, and can use inflection and varying degrees of speech in court. And as I've recently discovered, I can sing very well, well enough to perform in choral groups, and can stay in pitch although I have a bass/baritone's range limitation (hence, the user name here). My AS/HFA tendencies are in the communication and social area. All of the usual ones---monopolizing conversations, talking over others, repeating myself, steering conversations of others to topics that interest me. And in the social and interpersonal ones. My intuitive reaction to social settings is to avoid them. I can function very well in familiar, predictable settings, but unfamiliar ones still cause me anxiety. And, of course, the one that has caused the most relationship stress, my tendency to get so wrapped in myself and what I want, at any given moment, to cause my partner to feel isolated and lonely.

Anyway, thanks for your patience. That's me. In a nutshell. Well, maybe a coconut shell.

hi,

my AS tendencies cost me a medical career. I'm glad you have been able to navigate the politics of your job. I'm happily married. I have learned to be an active listener and be genuinely interested in the interests of others. part of that is that I'm just naturally curious. part of that is training in listening from med school. part of it is that I'm a Meyers-briggs infj. helping people is my reason for being. you have to know about them to help them.

even if you're not all these things, now that you know your tendencies, you can moderate them, paying attention to your wife for example and making her feel valued.

Welcome

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Greetings, and welcome!

Welcome!