Do you think Timmy has ASD?

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Disclaimer: I'm Timmy. I'm not looking for a formal diagnosis here, I'm just looking for some insight. I kind of randomly bumped into this subject and ASD kind of feels like a convenient explanation, at least to me, the dots connected. I'm unsure about how much this is my subjective view, I think I did a good job of picking up facts of my life for this story. If this breaks any rule or someone think I'm sharing too much, just shut down the thread.

Do you think Timmy has ASD?

Timmy is 25 and unemployed. The most employment he's had was 3 days long. He didn't pursue education after high school because he did not have money for it and his family didn't want to try to pay it. He didn't want to pursue some technical formation because he's quite restricted to the same industry and thought it would be painful to watch other people studying and doing things he would like to do himself. It bothered Timmy whenever someone shared some career story about it.

As a kid, before 10 years old, Timmy repeatedly had problems in sleepovers. He would often wake up in the night and call his parents crying, wanting to go back home. At that time, Timmy liked videogames and trading card games, and did not enjoy shuffling his game deck. He liked cards in the same order as they came when his dad bought it.

Later as a teenager, Timmy struggled with love. He was attracted to girls and it took him a long time to get going in this department.

- at 11 or so, he never expressed his feelings to the first girl, a classmate. Some friend did it for him. Timmy did not know at this time how these things worked.

- He never expressed his feelings to the second girl, another classmate. Timmy still did not know how things worked. Eventually she found out on her own and told him she didn't like him.

- He never expressed his feelings to the third girl, an older classmate who he shared a class with. This time, Timmy asked his sister if it would be a good idea to leave a love note for her. The sister said it was not a good idea, so Timmy never did it, or anything else until they were no longer sharing a class.

- Timmy then had a years long crush on the fourth girl. He stared her often in class breaks thinking about how pretty she was. After some time, she noticed and eyes met sometimes. Timmy always looked away. He asked his friends how he could try to do something about these feelings, and Timmy couldn't make any sense of what they were saying. He thought the answers were vague, ambiguous and not really helpful in any way. After a couple years, Timmy moved to a different town due to his dad's work and never expressed his feelings to her.

- A few months before moving, the fifth girl became attracted to Timmy. They had a lot in common and often chatted online. They went on three dates. Timmy had no idea on how to behave on them. At this point, Timmy has no idea about what he's supposed to do. Sometimes the girl touches him, and Timmy doesn't have a problem with that. But Timmy doesn't even think about kissing, even though he's seen people kissing. Timmy does not know how these things work and does not have an opinion about kissing. Timmy also does not compliment the girl or try to get closer to her, he thinks the girl will advance. Timmy ended up never sharing his feelings to the fifth girl.

Somewhere in between, some older girl approached Timmy and proclaimed Timmy her boyfriend. He went with it but had no idea about what to do. She and her friends would often smile to Timmy, flirtatiously wave and interact with him. At that time, Timmy did not know he was being bullied. It never really bothered him and the girl eventually lost interest. Timmy liked her and her friends.

- About 15 by now, Timmy never expressed his feelings to the sixth girl. She was actually into Timmy, taking him by the arm in school and hanging out. Timmy had no idea what to do in these situations and just went with it. She eventually lost interest.

- The same thing happened to the seventh girl. Timmy noticed this girl would sometimes hint that he could do "something", but she never asked anything directly or approached in a more objective way. This made Timmy upset, so this time he distanced himself from her.

- Timmy never expressed his feelings to the eighth girl, in a crush much like the fourth girl.

Timmy decided he had enough and some change was needed. He employed his best skills for tackling this problem and started researching online. He found out about pickup artists and gave it a shot by downloading a book. Timmy was amazed with the amount of brilliant, eye-opening information he found in some of the contents, specifically about body language and interaction patterns.

Timmy felt like this time he had the right tools for the job and studied the subject thoroughly, searching for more information on how body language works, he became obsessed with it due to how amazed he was. This is because Timmy was able to give meaning to some of his previous experiences and there was an explicit, algorithmic approach to do things. Timmy didn't exactly feel confident, but he had never felt so empowered in his life.

He practiced talking to strangers on the street, employing these pickup routines and seeing how things went. He consciously paid attention to people and started profiling them at every occasion. He connected the words from the books to the real world and now had a way to better understand people. This turned out to be much more meaningful for Timmy than simply "gaining tools for picking up chicks", he made it his personal screwdriver and always polished it and practiced maneuvering it. To this day, years later and a grown adult, Timmy believes this is still the most important tool in his toolbox.

Timmy did not rush things with girls and slowly gained ground in this adventure. He didn't take long to figure that sex isn't the exact science that pickup artists sold in books. He was fine with this.

- Timmy never expressed his feelings towards the ninth girl. This time, Timmy actively approached her and often tried to make small talk. He was not good at getting closer and there's only so much these interaction tricks could do at school. While maybe Timmy could take things where he wanted, he did not know this at that time. Due to this disillusionment, Timmy had depression.

After a small self mutilation episode, Timmy got psychiatric help and now had a professional looking out for him.

- Timmy never expressed his feelings to the tenth girl. He had another long crush on her, a lot in common with her and he was no longer a rookie in this department. But Timmy still never understood how to connect the missing dots on getting closer, even with all the tools he had acquired and practiced. Timmy just felt that it wasn't something natural for him to get close to people like this, and he was terrified by the idea of being too blunt and screwing things up. There was a school trip with the tenth girl and Timmy got to sit next to her in the bus. At some point, the girl laid her head on Timmy's shoulder. He had no idea what this meant, if she was asleep or being lazy or something. Timmy had a history of freezing in situations like this and it wasn't different this time. He actually can't describe if he likes it, although his chest feels cold. Many situations of contact like this have happened at this point, but Timmy is still clueless. Eventually the tenth girl had to move out of town and Timmy never expressed his feelings to her.

- Timmy finally kissed the eleventh girl in a somewhat typical school romance that lasted a week or so. Eleven is the charm, right? Timmy had no idea why the girl broke things up with him at that time. Nowadays, Timmy thinks he was too blunt about things, saying how he was horny and how he thought she was hot at that time.

Timmy is now a much more confident young man, and after many years, feels like there's no sky that can hold him back.

- The twelfth girl was a classmate that actually never interacted to Timmy again after she was grossed by a joke Timmy made about sitting. Timmy was trying to express his feelings in a cool, confident way. Her dad actually threatened Timmy due to how out of line it was.

- The thirteenth girl was also grossed by Timmy's direct approach. Still trying a honest and confident approach, Timmy openly told her that he thought her breasts were amazing. Timmy did not know it at the time, but she probably never had a clue that he wanted to hold hands, hang out, sit close to one another and do lovey dovey things that don't necessarily involve any sex. Some kids bullied Timmy for this but he never cared, at this point he's a man with a mission, and that mission is love.

- The fourteenth girl became Timmy's girlfriend. She was amazed by how good Timmy was at Fortnite and she loved playing with him. Fortunately for Timmy, she was quite straight forward and made advances on her own. Timmy at this point knows best that an opportunity like this is the opportunity of a lifetime. They dated for a few years. Timmy **forced** things to go slowly even though he had a history of looking like he was a sex symbol of sorts. He often lied about having experience, he needed to play an act.

Years later, Timmy figured playing an act is not worth it, there's only so much energy to be spent and he kind of learned how to navigate things. It doesn't really make sense to him, and he still goes through awkward situations, but he can now be a part of it, and understands how all of his theoretical and practical knowledge work together for this. It never really became a natural thing for Timmy, but he does think it became automatic with experience.

So, what do you think. Do you think Timmy has ASD? He's too broke to pay for professionals at this time.

@DifferentTrip50
Maestro DifferentTrip50 or should I say Timmy

Welcome to WP. I hope you have some time to read through the many stories, rant, discussions and questions here and find some helpful advise.

First things first: As you yourself stated, this is a public internet forum and NOT a qualified or sound medical tool, nor is it a good way to approach getting a diagnosis. Simply the medium of anonymous distant messages shared, tough heartfelt as they might be, cannot, by design, be a valid way to asses someone on a neurological condition.

Next: after reading your story, and thank you for sharing it. It seems to me that Timmy defines much of what he is or how he is against or through the filter of romantic-relationships. Which for males is still the cultural norm. But what is, (as you have already figured out, seeing as you are here in this forum ) hinting toward neurodiversity is the fact that it seemed to be the sole path or approach Timmy had/has to social contact, everything goes through the lens of romance. This is seemingly what defines social acceptance for Timmy. A second hint I read is that Timmy has a strong tendency to hyperfocus. For instance the sole approach Timmy seems to see 'available' to constructing a romantic (thus social) bond with a peer is trough a path of self-modification and intense focus on learning the scripts/methodologies that are reported to 'work'. Both of these characteristics are very 'in line' with ASD-symptomology. But other diagnosis (as stated) still remain on the table.

Finally: as initially stated feel free to browse around, find communalities and or differences. I am unaware how important diagnosis is for you, but my best advise would be to search out what the local social support services are available to you specifically psycho-analystical ones, as a diagnosis is sometimes better than none at all, especially if accommodations are required.

Best of luck and see you around the forum,
Kada

Thanks for the input, it's really helpful. The diagnostic, at least for now I'd say that it isn't not particularly relevant, even it it "came positive" I more or less found a way to deal with how interactions with other people go so it doesn't feel like "knowing exactly why" would change much.

I found it interesting that you put in perspective that I might define much of what I am through these relationships, it's not something that crossed my mind. For now, it's great input for self reflection.

It's worth saying that I chose to focus on that, though, because from my understanding, the social communication differences are central to AS. It really picked my attention that I didn't learn it on my own and had to seek external and explicit help. I'm absolutely on board that this alone doesn't say anything, I'm no certified specialist, so rest assured.

For conversation sake and feel free to share your thoughts about it, or my attitude here, after writing this post (which was originally intended for somewhere else), I remembered about an evaluation I did a good 8 or so years ago. I didn't even remember what was in there, but something caught my eye, it says I'm consistent with OCD characterized by a ritual of washing hands and fear of germs.

I thought the fear of germs part sounded ridiculous and I genuinely have no idea how they got to that conclusion because it doesn't sound like me. Ironically, after I started reading about ASD, it took me a while to notice what some of these things mean. Long story short, I've always hated it when my fingers slipped through the computer mouse or phone if they got sweaty. I don't like it when I press a key and they don't have the texture they've always had due to fat buildup drying up, so I often wipe these with whatever just to remove it. If germs were relevant here, I'd actually be sanitizing these, I think, but I'll just pick whatever cloth available, even my clothes. I like the recover their original texture, simply put. There's a whole complex system in my body that'll protect me from pretty much any expected germ, in the remote event they get in.

So yeah, there's a few more things but I didn't put them there otherwise it would feel like I'm looking for too much here, I probably extended myself too much in this reply too. But while I did focus on the relationships part, other small things added up as I read about AS. There's at least another different subject out of sight here, but since I see the biggest challenge ever in dealing with people, that's the central point.

Thank for your feedback maestro,

Your voyage bears many resemblances with mine and I know it can be straining, to be "on" and summarize in depth, so I truly appreciate it.

I find it a positive point where you stated that a diagnosis will not change much about who you are or how you perceive yourself. That displays that you've walked the path of introspection many times before. And it is true:
- that even the content of labels changes.
- that all of us are unique.
So walking the path of self-discovery and development IS the most rewarding life experience we can have in my opinion. But having a clear idea (via diagnosis, life experience or other) of where the edges/our limits lie is always useful as well. so keep on growing maestro

Combining the sensory sensitivities along with your earlier statements does make the probability of a positive diagnosis grow. As it is a relatable attribute many of us share.

Lastly: Touching base again on the romantic endeavors and social experimentations; I can but use myself as an example because as stated I have had similar experiences; I was at one time so fully lost in my wife (my 9th girl) that "I" was no longer, I had effectively made her my special interest and as special interests with ASD peers do this level of intense focus could not hold forever... So after I lost her, along with our relationship she took my entire sense of self with her. That is and extreme example of the danger I was pointing to earlier. I felt void and more an automaton than human only trough small step by steps discoveries, I dared to open up again and see/become who I am today.

Kind regards,
Kada

AQ

While what I experienced is obviously a different degree of intensity, I can relate to that. She had to move to a different town and it devastated me at the time, it took a long while for me to find some joy again. Thanks for sharing your experience.



I've gone through these early in this pursuit for insight, I did AQ, RAADS-R, Aspire Quiz and CAT-Q (this last one felt particularly relevant). I've found multiple people stating that these have a high false positive rate due to comorbidities being present though, so I never really thought too much about them, even before finding that out.

For what is worth, I haven't gone through one of these without being told by the results that I'm in the AS.

Online tests can't give you a diagnosis. However, they can give you confidence that you might be right in wondering if the diagnosis might apply. Beyond that you'd need a formal adult autism assessment.