Is it an autistic thing in me? My experience. Long post.

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Hello everyone!

I'm 21 and live in a country where children don't usually get evaluated for ASD or something like this if they are what is called 'high functioning'. People don't know much about Autism or Asperger's here. The media often portray autistic people in a distorted and one-sided way. That's why I didn't know until recently i might have Asperger's syndrome.

I might have Asperger's, but let me first describe my mom: she can be confused and not recognize faces, i.e. she's got prosopagnisia (she saw a girl on a photo I'd posted in social media and thought it was me, because the girl was painting and I also like painting), VERY narrow choice of foods she eats and may not like the same food if it is cut differently; almost never goes out for fun and works from home; has no friends, often says the same jokes&listens to the same songs. She told me she was a weird kid and changed herself to cope with life.

Anyway, last year I knew nothing about autism. I fell in love or something like this. I don't know. To answer what feeling it was i decided to be more attentive. I always ponder myself, and decided to track some features that come with that state of mind. I noticed some physical changes and I think I have always had them. That tension in fingers and toes, hands and feet in general. Is it an autistic thing? When I have intense feelings my fingers, toes, hands and feet become extra sensitive, sometimes slightly painful. This sensation of electricity is not brief. I even noticed that some impulses hurried down my body from both sides of my neck. If it familiar to any of you?

I have good cognitive empathy, I guess. I also don't seem to have sensory overloads. When I cried or had hard times there was nobody around to tell me if it's a meltdown or not. I perceive sounds fine. Bright lights seem to be difficult to cope with, I think, for everyone.

As for clumsiness, my mom says I used to be clumsy as a child, and then I started attending dance classes. Well, I remember dancing waltz, samba and stuff, and sometimes I couldn't maintain eye contact with the partner as demanded. Dance did me a good job, improved my posture and I had companions there. Speaking of eye contact, I actually can do it, but not with all people. When someone approaches to ask me the road, I will explain looking elsewhere, turning my body towards the route where the lost person should be heading.

And as a child, I was chatty, outgoing and wild. I would always question authorities and social rules. Now, when I'm typing this, I'm having vivid sensation of electricity on my fingers again. And I also stim. Sorry if this word offends some of you guys, but at least everyone recognizes it. I know neurotypicals stim as well. My stims (stereotypy) are very diverse and usually don't happen at home where I feel safe. When I attended step-dance classes, I would as well dance solely with my feet when I was sitting at my desk in school.

When I get immersed into something, my grades get much lower. I will be obsessed with it, spend my whole days doing it, sacrificing food, study and self-hygiene. I don't often do chores, but it is easy for me to wash dishes because I'm used to it. And when I eventually approach cleaning my house, I do just everything. There's no 'in between'. It's hard to switch activities.

I don't have true friends and usually have information-oriented conversations. If the guy I seem to like will ever tell me he loves me, I don't know what I will do. I just don't know what people say in such situations. He's a lot like me but better -- a programmer/actor/researcher/artist (well, I do arts much better). He's got encyclopedic knowledge in many areas, does historical reconstruction and has a seemingly AS friend who shares his interest in history. Having a great interest in words, which I also do, he has profound knowledge in our native language lexis (and this actually attracted me), whilst I like writing down and memorizing peculiar English words (especially those describing people and emotions), which is probably not so vivid from this post, as I use languages worse than I know them.

Now, I have extremely abusive parents, especially when they are in tandem. I'm still not sure what can trigger their foul reactions. I have even ran away from home to escape physical abuse.

I don't always get the vibe when people talk and I want to join, and I stay aside from my groupmates at Uni as I find their chit-chat boring. I don't get dating and flirting. I don't think I will ever be content in company of someone as close to me as a lover, becoming more introverted each day.

Now, you can see that I'm confused. Please feel free to comment on. Do you have similar experiences? Can you affiliate? What about that finger sensation?

P.S.:I can tell more about my obsessions if you ask.
P.P.S.: If my grammar/word use is funny, you can contact me in private messages. Thank you in advance.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Hello and welcome to Wrong Planet

Some of that was familiar and some quite different, but autism is a very broad spectrum. There was a lot there that does suggest you could be autistic, possibly Asperger's, and I recommend either trying to get an assessment or continuing with researching autism until you are able to diagnose yourself. If you get an assessment it would need to be by someone experienced in recognising signs of autism in adults. It does not sound as if this option is available to you at the moment, so I think you should go with the second option. If you continue on this site communicating with others on the autistic spectrum across different subjects, I believe you will soon come to a conclusion yourself as to whether you are Asperger's or something else. So I hope you stick around

My fingers are not extra sensitive but my skin overall is particularly the back of my neck.

Thanks a lot for your opinion, Fluffysaurus!

Turns out I do stim at home (most of the time). The best stim-toy is a cat. I mean, cats are my family, not toys by any means; I respect them, but damn their fur is magic. The worst stims are zit-popping and scratching my scalp. There are bald spots on my head because of this habit There's also staring at water and bubble related things, aquariums. I would just visit a pet shop to gaze. Had to stop because I wasn't buying anything.
I've been checking my childhood photos and videos and it seems my hands always do something whimsical.
It occurs to me that guy ended up thinking I'm a dork.

Can you please change your username so it doesn’t look like mine?

OMG, how is it even possible
I'll try

Your username cannot be changed. That's what it says. Hi Smudge
I'm really sorry. I should have considered that someone has very similar nickname

Well, thanks for trying.

And hi. I used to question authorities and social rules too, still do to a point. I don’t like it when people treat me as below them for no reason. Self-righteous people really touch a nerve in me especially. Like how my nan tonight had a go at me, “I might have cancer. So perhaps you should think of others instead of yourself for once”. It was the worst way to inform me she could have cancer. It’s guilt-tripping and manipulative all into one, all intended to shame me and upset me. I thought, “F*ck her” and told her what I thought.

^I am very self-absorbed, I think this is common for Aspie's, but people often take this for selfishness. I care very much about other people but because I am trying to follow things in social interaction I often forget to ask about the other person. Sometimes I even forget that someone close to them has died or that they have a big problem because when I've bumped into them they have immediately asked me about me and I've concentrated on my reply and then they are off and I haven't asked about them People often accuse me of being selfish.

It might be worth it to get a professional opinion.

I can clearly sense the results of being raised in an abusive environment in you and as for autistic traits... the symptoms you describe can easily be psychological. It is going to be difficult to find out if your difficulties are due to autism or due to abuse.

Check this out: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-tian- ... 00572.html Perhaps it fits you better than autism?

You can have both though. Especially since your mom seems autistic.

It was hard to read. You're right, a professional opinion would be better than that of my own, probably delusive.