Question. Is This An Autistic Trait Or Not?

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Ah. Ok. But if I needed to I could start a thread for him to see.

^All members use the forum differently so there are no guarantees but I'm sure he'll check back in on this thread to comment.

I suppose you could title the thread "Cooee Mr Trogluddite , Please Read This" if your need is great.

Don't worry, you'll get used to it after a while!

You're just discovering that some things which you accepted as perfectly unremarkable turn out to have more significance than you thought - and that psychologists like to give them strange names! They've been your version of "normal" since you were little, so you didn't pay them much attention before, that's all. I've had quite a lot of these moments since I joined WP, and still do occasionally even now. I was in my forties before I realised that not everyone feels their head change shape when they walk over patterned carpets, or gets confused which is their real hand and which is the reflection in the mirror when they shave!


As SaveFerris said, I have PMs disabled in my user account. It's not that I don't want to make friends with people, just a particular anxiety/attention problem I have with managing inboxes and e-mails which I don't want spoiling my time here. I log on most days and always check "posts since last visit" and I always try to respond if I'm tagged. If you feel you need a little extra privacy, one of the members-only areas might be more appropriate - if that isn't really private enough, then my apologies for being an awkward bugger!

Last edited by Trogluddite on 15 Jun 2019, 8:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Being assessed does tend to seem quite difficult. My big concern is those tick box type of things as I find them difficult to answer. I mean... Questions where I write an answer I would be fine. It is trying to make an on the spot decision can get me stumped... Like do you drink alcohol was one I couldn't answer. I ma not a tea totaller... I don't even like tea! But apart from that I have a glass of wine once a year at Christmas, so I can't put I am a tea totaller. Yet the next question is how many units I drink in an average week which I just can't answer.
I often get stumped and stuck on questions that no tick box has the actual answer I need in them.

No problem Trogluddite in regards to PM's. I was just puzzled how to contact you... I have always wanted to go to Holmfirth one day.

^ I always asterisk the ambiguous questions and let whoever gave me the test know that I can't answer that question without further clarification.

That's a good idea.

And that's fine. If you find some questions ambiguous, or you have a "brain freeze" in the middle of the interview, those can be useful clues to the diagnosis; so as Ferris said, just be honest about it. The answers themselves are only part of the assessment; seeing how you go about answering and which questions you find easy or hard is part of it too. There really is no need to put on a performance at all; it's your natural behaviours that they need to see. Also, it's with a professional who specialises in autism, so however you end up behaving, they will have seen it before and recognise it for what it is. The psychologist I saw could even pick up when I was trying to mask by forcing my eye-contact. I was really nervous at the start, but I ended up quite enjoying most of it.


Hmm, a Yorkshire thread maybe? Or maybe a combined Yorkshire/Wales one - our people's have much in common, for example; being the.. ahem... innocent... victims of sheep-and-wellies related insults! I rarely travel anywhere that I can't walk there and back in day, and there's a glut of places that being with "H" around here which I get mixed up; so I can't say for sure if I've been to Holmfirth, but I'd be surprised if I haven't been driven through it at least.

Ooh. I could bring my wellies. I am always wearing wellies around here, though I can't if I am round town... My mum insisted I don't wear them round town...
I tend to wear out wellies quicker then many people.

I do have walking boots, and I have walking shoes like walking boots but not so claustrophobic... I also have "Burk feed me" white trainers. (Remember Burks feet in Trapdoor? These trainers make me look like that! Haha! It could be the funny aay I walk when I am wearing them!)

I did have myself some steel toecapped trainers for railway work but they are a bit beyond repair. I also have black shoes somewhere for weddings and funerals though they are a bit hard now and rigid. Also have sandals but I don't use them. Uncomfy.
I usually take two pairs of shoes with me thogh to cover all eventualities, but the walking shoes I normally wear as they are go anywhere sure footed machines!
I do have another three or four pairs of wellies, but I tend to only use the best pair. The others are either worn out or leak or cracked etc. I let other people use them but no-one is to borrow my best pair! Grrr. That would be soo anoying!
In a similar way I try to keep five or six bicycles working and ready to use so I can choose one to ride. The only issue is it sometimes takes me ages to make a decision! Haha!

You're a Trapdoor fan! Oh, Globbits!

I had to go and find a couple of episodes on YouTube when you said that. Me and a couple of friends watched it so many times on video that one-liners from it were in-jokes for years - in our 20s this is, not as kids!

For anyone who doesn't know what we're talking about...

You don't need to have lots of pages. I wrote about sixty pages of stuff to start with but then ruthlessly edited it down to seventeen, which I then rewrote in the style of a more formal report. The two clinicians who assessed me said my report had been very helpful.

I took the rest of my notes along to the appointment and asked if I could refer to them during the assessment which was allowed. I found this very helpful as it ensured I didn't miss anything that I thought was important.

The hours don't necessarily have to be all in one day. I had a series of testing appointments, one or two hours per appointment. Different practices schedule things differently.

Sounds very familiar How much of the 'in jokes' do you relate to echolalia ?

Not sure. On one hand, none of the other friends are autistic or similar so far as I know, and we also used to do it a lot with Red Dwarf quotes, and a few other shows. But my whole life, I've had a thing for words spoken in a certain way and for making up nonsense words (between me and my last cat, his real name was "Smneketibomp").

My Mum does this as well - we have all sorts of little joke phrases, and saying them in a particular funny voice or accent is essential ("little baby lamb now" and "little legs at the back" have to be spoken like an incredibly condescending nanny talking to a toddler while her mouth is fully of jelly.) This is definitely true of the Trapdoor ones; saying "Oh, Globbits" in the wrong accent just wouldn't be funny at all.

I wonder whether some of it is just our brains practising different prosody - making sure that how we think the words in our heads and how they actually come out of our mouths match up.

Yep, I too ran into a lot of multiple choice questions where none of the answers were accurate.

I would suggest making notes on a separate piece of paper about the questions for which there is no accurate answer. Choose the answer that comes closest to truth, and then, in your notes, reference the question number and write out a more accurate answer.

Offer to give the assessor your notes. They may or may not be interested. If they are not interested, keep the notes for later, for reference, in the event that you are given what you consider to be an inaccurate report.

Thanks for the reply. I guess I sometimes am a little impatient so will overthink... Which does not help. Is a good idea of yours.