Did you hypothesize about your social problems before AS?

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Same here: "Gifted people are naturally loners."

"Uhhh, mom, there's a difference between loner by choice and loner because there's no other option."

...

And then on another occasion...

"You're just eccentric."

That *really* explains everything.

I thought I'm asocial, non-empathetic, aimless, lazy (a bad person, in one word). Then I went on as having a not very good memory, paying not enough attention bc of lack of motivation, dealing too much with my inner world and not enough with people around me, being not enough good for people who seemed to be able to do more things without much effort. I felt that I was ok this way, only I had to wait a little longer to catch up with them. Somehow I feared too much change in my life, giving up characteristics of myself. I had a faint idea about autism (saw Rainman, haha), but I thought I couldn't be one bc I had not a singe super ability and I was more connected to the world. In school I thought I'm alone bc I was shy (well, apparently not always), I knew I was well above average with my academic skills, and that reassured me, while I also knew I could not compete with the best (I tried it anyway when I had the interest). Please note that diagnosis is a rare thing in this part of the world even today.

Edit: And don't forget about parents. There was a time in my life when I blamed my difficulties on them, how they raised me. Bad, bad me.

Pyrite or fools gold for a very long time :

Yeah, I would hypothesize at certain moments in my life. I for some reason would find a related thought in my searching annals, and would hit upon autism and'or schizoid.

It would strike a chord in some way due to my isolation-- I live in my head.

But, my situation or condition is ADD with SCT with a moderate to a quite bad(?) case of executive dysfunction. I suspected I was ADD but I never realized that it could be all that, I never thought ED was or could be part of it until recently.

I realize now the source of these issues and am astonished as how serious this related condition can be. Factor in a random working memory and slow processing speed and you can mimick an Asperger fail in reading body language and the use of non verbal--my source of social and general anxiety.

Though I have an AQ score of 38, my thinking is that I'm solely ADD. This is the perfect fit. I think my obsessions or long term focused interests are inertia from a fail in executive functioning.

Last edited by Mdyar on 19 Apr 2011, 9:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

I blamed it on homeschooling, but then, my younger brother seemed to make friends fine.
Then I decided I was just a loner and never connected with people well. That they were shallow and ignorant, and that I was too deep for them. Or that they were cliquish and I just arrived too late to get in to their clique. But other people got in, and I always wondered what they had that I didn't. I don't think I was ever annoying to anyone. They all liked me well enough, but not well enough to be friends or to invite me to things. And I really didn't understand that. Or that I did things differently than others. I knew that I had to work on looking people in the eye and letting them touch me, but I don't think I ever came up with a hypothesis on why. And I thought something was seriously wrong with me for almost having panic attacks every time I went to church, but didn't know why. When I read a book and the main character had aspergers, a lot of the things she did were things I did, so I started to look into it, which is why I'm here.

all of the above

& it's the Archons, too

I kept hoping if I could just figure out this curious species and why it acts the way it acts the mothership would return for me, or me and my findings rather. Well, most of the time I was despairing because I was pretty sure there was no mothership - but what the heck, it was a nice thing to hope for as a kid.

I know exactly what that feels like. I also hypothesized maybe it was because I was "shy", but being a loud mouth or even initiating contact didn't really improve the "quality" of interpersonal connections, no matter how often I initiated. I also speculated maybe it's due to cheeriness/happiness, so I became cheery but that didn't really do anything PLUS it's obvious there are a ton of people who connect with others who aren't "happy" - People are spread all over the happiness spectrum. I also thought maybe it had something to do with confidence, so I've altered my mindset and body language to portray confidence, but that really didn't seem to do anything. I have to admit, though, AS or not, it's better to have more confidence than not, so I've stuck with that paradigm.

I always wondered why I was so socially dumb. I didn't put two and two together until last year, though. Even though I've studied Child Development and knew what Aspergers was 8 years ago. Despite knowing, I only had a rudimentary understanding of it and only as it pertained to children.

Last year, I suspected my husband of having AS, so I obsessively researched everything I could. That was my big "ah-hah!" moment.

I think I was mostly just bewildered. I couldn't understand how other people acted the way they did. I didn't understand how to participate, how other people always seemed to have something to say, just rolling off their tongue, and I didn't. I also didn't understand why some people seemed to be so unethical and inconsistent.

I didn't really have any explanations, except for ones related to specific issues. I thought I was shy and that was why it was difficult for me to talk to people. I had also moved to another country when I was little, so I thought it was cultural. I thought I was bad a sports and that was why I couldn't follow a game or keep track of the ball. I thought I was smarter than other people and that was why they fell into contradictions and created misunderstandings. But I never did have an explanation as to why people were unethical, and I still don't.

None of these explanations were entirely satisfactory, which is why I always felt bewildered.

I didn't even know I had social problems. I thought people just liked picking on me and singling me out. I didn't think I had issues and it was others with the problem. But yet I couldn't understand why I got treated so different and why it had to be me. I thought I can be normal if everyone treats me the same way and I wouldn't have a problem. I just thought I had to try harder. Back then everyone was out to get me. Now I know it's social cues I missed out on and I didn't read body language or any other cues.

And when when I did find out about AS, I still didn't know about it. I didn't start reading about it until I was almost 15 and I still didn't know about it. I was 17 when my shrink told me "You don't pick up on their social cues" when I be telling him about how kids treat me and how they are mean to me and don't want me to be social. I didn't want to believe him then because then it would mean I had more AS and plus he wasn't even there so how would he know? By then I had pretty much given up with peers and decided I was better off alone because I had nothing in common. So I am still stumped how aspies know these things after reading about it. They manage to put two and two together and I didn't. They seem to read up on AS and think "Oh so that is why people treat me this way, I have that issue there." I had to be told and it took me a while to admit it than deny it. I stopped being the victim. I also thought at 17 and 18 no wonder aspies have poor social skills, NTs won't let them have them because they keep pushing them away.


ETA: I also thought my issues were due to me talking funny and kids thought I was stupid or ret*d and that I was weird. I also had all these other labels on me like mean or selfish or rude. I just didn't know why then. Another reason how I knew I was different and wondered at age 10 what was wrong with me so apparently I knew instinctively but just didn't know it. At age eight mom told me when I was little I couldn't talk so I thought then maybe that is why I talked funny and stutter. But it still didn't explain everything else.

I'm still keeping that possibility open, actually. I think I understand what type of information might interest others (Because conversation is really just the exchange of interesting information, even though that can also include emotional information relating to communicating emotional states. Some people hypothesize the *real* purpose of conversation is to exchange "energy", which is really the same thing.), but my memory is too piss poor to remember what kind of things they're interested in and then too poor to remember the information that would interest them (such as jokes, certain types of responses, etc.) and then finally... not enough "verbal memory" to recall the 'right words' or the 'right phrase' and/or talk in a quick and fluid 'normal way'. That's partially why I'm going to professionally get memory tested this summer -- this hypothesis is further supported by my substantially lower than average history class grades (Which tests verbal recall), my difficulty in writing papers for English class and just about any other class, and traits of my childhood that suggested I had a expressive language disorder which has a verbal memory deficit basis (I would often use the word "stuff" when describing categories of objects / ideas when I couldn't immediately recall that particular category in real time. Most of the time, THOUGH, I was just thinking of a group of categories and couldn't find "one big word" that could describe all those categories plus any other category that would qualify for the idea I was thinking of so the general word "stuff" really seemed to be most appropriate. I eventually resorted to the word "entities" to get the teachers off my back.)

Also, another symptom of expressive verbal deficits is "seems to be saying a lot but not really saying much.", which I think some have implied in the past.

This is pretty much the stages I went through, except for the shyness (as far as I remember). I just skipped straight to extremely extroverted and "cheery." An outward showing a self-confidence, although inwardly fake, has helped me a lot in social situations. Sadly, though, it has made my rudeness and condescension problems worse.

I still have my doubts, though, that I even have AS. People around me tell me they don't see it in me. My mom still refuses to see it as anything but "giftedness." I just can't figure out, if everyone thinks the same way I do, how do they all seem to come to different conclusions and succeed in situations in which I fail. If I'm so damn smart, why can't I think of some way to be normal? "Gifted" has become an insult to me; "autistic" has become a compliment.

This, too, sounds very familiar to me. I remember the day I picked up the phrase "the other day" from my granddad. Now I never have to try to remember exactly when something happened. It just happened "the other day."

I may steal the word "entities" from you to replace my oft-used "things."

I took a series of tests every few years at a health sciences center, they even tested my hearing, lol. All I was told was I had bad hand/eye coordination. I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of three when we were living on an army base.
I had all kinds of problems socializing as a child. I found out I was autistic as an adult. It didn't surprise me because of all the tests I experienced as a child and I heard my mom talk about autism from time to time during my childhood, but it wasn't my autism. As far as I knew, I didn't have autism.
It was a confusing time.
My mom wondered if I had a hearing problem because she called my name and I ignored her.
My hearing, turns out, was fine.
Oh, another thing, my mom was convinced I would "grow out" of any problem I experienced, from the ADHD to the fine motor skills issues, so she didn't make a big deal out of it.

You used the phrasal fragment 'oft-' : I approve! I use it sometimes, too. I'm bound to copy your mannerisms one of these days, as imitation is one of my oft-employed forms of flattery.

It sounds like I might 'have' what you 'have', so once you learn what it is, please let me know.

(It sounds like the problem could be as simple as unintended verbal pretension; I'm not really sure if it's usually "intended" or "unintended" in my case. I often just try to 'sound intelligent' or it just comes so naturally to me (Maybe I've had too much practice!), but people often seem to take it in an 'a**hole' kind of way. )

Yeah. My explanation boiled down to "something is broken in my ability to "get" socialising and people".