Concerned mother seeking answers about daughter's condition

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Your daughter's story sounds a lot like mine. It took me a bit less time to learn to drive and get my license, but it was a major struggle for me.

It sounds like she may have an anxiety or panic disorder as well. As someone who has social anxiety disorder and atypical panic disorder, I recommend talking to a doctor. I can remember the first time I took my medicine and not feeling anxiety over driving my car for the first time and it felt so incredibly liberating.

Don't judge yourself for not getting her diagnosed early, if that's what is going on. My mom basically said she felt guilty for not noticing after I was diagnosed with ADHD last year, and then again now that I'm 25 and getting screened in February for ASD. She and my dad were always extremely supportive of me, even though they didn't know there was something else going on. I get the feeling you're the same way- I've known kids whose parents would have just ripped them out of their rooms because they weren't "acting normal". You're at least a step ahead of them in the game as far as letting your daughter be herself.

A few things to keep in mind: Aspergers technically is the same thing as Autism; they now both fall under the category og "Autism Spectrum Disorder". The "spectrum" part is important. It means that there are traits that all ASD people share, but how they are manifested in the "real world" and "to what extent" they experience those symptoms will be different.

The sarcasm one is my favorite example; when I am in an environment where I'm not expecting people to be joking, sarcasm can really take me off guard. I am less likely to notice sarcasm when I myself am being serious, and even if I do, I sometimes "correct" something that I realize is sarcasm too late, or agree with a caveat when I catch it in time.

In general, though, sarcasm is one of my favorite ways to express myself, so I thought this one stereotype was enough for me to dismiss the myriad other symptoms.

To get back to the spectrum thing, my point is that there are people on the spectrum that learn to deal with things in different ways. Even though I "get sarcasm", I still find myself asking "why do you say that?" or "Why did you say that about me?" or "What do you mean by that", not because I am offended or upset, but because I loosely understand that the thing being said is not literal, but I can't figure out the motivation for saying it is (are you being a jerk? are you giving a compliment in weird way? are you agreeing with me?). I can get that there is a joke, and even why a joke is funny if it has a political, scientific, or pop-culture reference that I am aware of, but understanding the motivation of the joke eludes me fairly often.

There are people on the spectrum who might never understand sarcasm or humor, there are those who love comedy and joking, and there are a million expressions in-between. That's what a spectrum is.

I am in your age group and "it is just a phase that they will grow out of " was the conventional wisdom to explain things back when we were growing up. Autism is not like that, it is a lifelong condition. Then does not mean that an autistic person can not mature or change, it means the person will always be autistic.

The Autism Spectrum idea the others are talking about while a bit confusing is very important. The idea of the spectrum was not well known when we were growing up. Even today a lot of clinicians unless they are experts in adult autism or adult female autism do not seem to grasp how it presents in real life. Autistics having no empathy is an old belief that is still believed by to many people. We can have it to a lesser degree or even greater degree then typical but often experience and show it differently.

People on the Autism Spectrum often have OCD and body issues also. Autistics have what is called "special interests" they differ from OCD compulsions in the we love our special interests while OCD are compulsions that consist of intrusive and unwanted thoughts.

You seem very concerned about the body rocking and hand flapping. This is known as stimming. I am posting a link to a you tube video by a young womem that explains this.