Sorry I have to ask this

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I am sorry, I did not see this part of the answer you have send me.
I also think that SocOfAutism is fine.
My cats are doing really fine!! !
They do their own ballet, still beautiful jumps.
I love them veryvery much and I am happy that they are here with me, I am greatful every day that they are there!
And they are funny as well!
Thank you for asking, kraftiekortie!

Cats are very lucky to have you as their caregiver. They thrive under your care.

I am very happy that I manage giving care to them, in practical things I need a bit help buying food and cats-litter, and sometimes they come to me and they are so sweet and cuddly and then I see they only do it because they want food

Sometimes i forget it but not seriously because they are a bit overweight

Cats love you...but they love you on THEIR terms.

Cats are said to be the ultimate Aspies! LOL

NO, they are not Asperger's but just wonderfully being feline!! !!
Thank you for make me smile this night!! !
Good night!

I know, I was just trying to make a joke.

Oh it must have defaulted back to that when I removed my age from the up front profile.

I do not know about other people's experience, but for me, masking autism is NOT about covering up autistic symptoms with well acted neurotypical behavior. I do not look neurotypical, I just do not look stereotypically autistic either.

I do not hide my anxieties behind an outgoing smile; I just never display them on my face (flat affect).

I do not hide my sensory sensitivities by tolerating triggers; I secretly avoid places, people, and things that trigger them.

I do not hide my language impairments using scripted speech (mostly ); I just limit my conversations by being passive, answering questions asked of me but never actively engaging people.

I do not hide my social impairments using scripted behavior (eye contact, body language, etc.); I just limit my social interactions to my mom, sister, (they have social issues themselves) and short, predictable interactions with workers in the service industry (they do not really care) (not other family, no friends, and NO SOCIAL MEDIA sites).

I guess I am not "masking" my autism. I guess a better description is that I am hiding my autism in the shadows.

Last edited by Knofskia on 28 Dec 2016, 11:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I should mention that my family did know about some of my symptoms:

• Speech delay (I had speech therapy for a while in elementary school)
• Monologuing (after I started to speak, I always did this to my mom and my sister )
• Stimming (I was always yelled at for scratching at my face )
• Need for order and routine (I was teased for it )
• Sensory sensitivities (those are just me being picky and spoiled, right? )
• Meltdowns (those are just tantrums, right? )

I do not know how they interpreted this.

This is a good point and one that I think applies to my family. I wasn't diagnosed with Asperger's until I was about 33, even though I had difficulties as a child and continue to experience difficulties as an adult, although very few people can see that because I mask. In my family autism is prevalent on Dad's side. Although only my cousin and I have an official Asperger's diagnosis, I'd bet money that several members of the older generations are on the spectrum, including Dad himself. Because he's so used to people with autistic traits it's easy to understand why he wouldn't automatically think there was something wrong. Of course, the main reason I wasn't diagnosed is because Asperger's didn't exist when I was a kid. But I suspect that if I were going to school now it would have been picked up by teachers rather than my parents because my father would have seen autistic traits as normal. Teachers certainly noticed my social difficulties, as they commented on them in the report cards from my early school years, but back then it was shrugged off as quirky or eccentric, especially since I was otherwise well-behaved and a top student (at least below grade eight).

There were a couple of additional factors that could have prevented an earlier diagnosis. I was an only child and all our other family is overseas, so it was difficult to compare my development with that of other children. On top of that, Dad thinks psychology/psychiatry is quackery. That meant, as far as I remember, I was never taken to a psychologist or psychiatrist for the social and other difficulties I had as a child. I imagine at least some other undiagnosed autistics would have similar experiences.

This has huge regional variations. Some places there may not be a single person with ginger hair - everyone may have black hair, so much lower than autism rates, other places it may be even more common than 1 in 10, definitely much higher than autism rates. Autism doesn't have concentrations on certain populations and non-existent among others does it?

One thing I've been thinking about is autism and negative symptoms.

I watched a video on youtube that showed an autistic toddler playing with a toy and a neurotypical toddler playing with a toy but also interacting with an adult when the adult made contact. The autistic boy ignored the adult.
I had to watch it several times to pick up on what the difference was. My initial reaction was like, two kids playing with toys, so what? The only thing I reacted to was some of the interaction between the adult and the neurotypical boy, which I found a bit....I don't know, freaky? I was like, wow, he actually enjoys being interrupted....yeah.

Anyway, my point is that a lot the manifestation of autistic symptoms is things that the autistic children don't do, rather than things they do. They don't make eye contact, don't ask for attention from adults, often don't show pain, emotional or physical, or they show a reaction a long time after something happened. Also, when adults are not emotionally connected with the child, they tend to be dismissive of their struggles.

I watched this in a kindergarten. There was a girl who I have strong reason to suspect is autistic. I was really surprised at how harsh the kindergarten teacher was with her. I remember thinking, this girl is just out of toddlerhood, and you are treating her like she is a schoolgirl and should know better. I remember this as a child, that people treated me as if I was older, for some reason. It may be that people pick up on intellectual ability and confuse it with emotional maturity - this girl is certainly unusually intelligent.

What is so strange is that this teacher is often warm and caring towards the children, yet she turns this side of her off when dealing with the autistic child, who really needs a bit of love and understanding.

Didn't the video point out differences? The ones I have seen have always told what the differences are between an autistic child and a "normal" child. I call them subtle differences because I think anyone would miss the signs, even me. I would probably think the toddler is so into his toy he isn't paying attention to the adult. My son did that and he is NT. I would say his name to see if he looks up and he wouldn't or I would say something random to see how he would respond and nothing but I figured maybe he is so into his playing he is zoned out and too hyperfocused. I did tell the pediatrician this as my concern so he would say his name an that time he would look his way and he would say everything is fine. I wasn't worried or anything but I know you are supposed to tell the red flags to them when they ask about concerns and they will tell you if it's a red flag or normal. I am sure another parent would have kept on trying to get their baby's attention because they all seem to want to make that connection and yes my mom does blame our son's late development on us because she says we didn't interact with him enough but he is all caught up.

Well, the video did explain, but I had to watch it a few times to understand what they meant, because I'm a bit thick, yeah?

And yes, I agree with you that you can't make an assumption of autism just based on this. If you hang around toddlers a lot, you'll see a lot of different styles of interaction. Lots of kids like to play in a corner by themselves without being autistic. Some are sensitive, and some are introvert.

Also, Americans seem to interact a lot with babies and toddlers. Where I come from, it's less intense. That said, people here have crappy social skills, I have to be honest about that.

I don't know if this is true, but in my case I don't think it is - I live in a very sociable community yet with typically Eastern family ties... yet I always had very very few friends, and now after those friends moved/married , I spend most of my weekends alone - I am a total lone wolf now.

I live way less sociably than the typical fellow countrymen.

I did spend some time, during work travels that lasted for weeks, with Europeans. Most of them Czechs, which you may consider them as Eastern/Central Europeans, but they are pretty much Westernized - they are only slightly less sociable than my fella countrymen, but still the gap between me and them feels big.

One reason of my doubts is because I don't have an official diagnosis, and I am not dying to seek for one for two reasons:

First Reason:

I found out about AS around 2006; I emailed a doctor back then, residing in UK, telling her details about my life, childhood, and current situation ....everything, and got this reply (yes, I just found it in my email):



Then I contacted "The Lebanese Autism Society" ( which is the only local entity concerned in this matter) asking her the same detailed question - , because back then I was thinking to seek for an official diagnosis and contacting them and didn't know where to start so contacting those was the logical first step -

Her reply was (Translated):




My reply was "I ll contact you when I can" and I left it at that, I didn't pursue it any further because I could tell that she would have lectured me how that I am functionally fine and I shouldn't worry about it ; It was very obvious the direction of this conversation would had taken place.

and this came from the head of this organization.

After further pondering, it was pretty obvious that those autism experts do not really view HFA/AS as Autism, as the long the person can talk, have a job and functional, and if it's not visually obvious to people (ie. you look normal to me) then, for them, it is not real Autism.

They only treat and cater for the *obvious* Autism cases, the Classic Autism.



Second Reason:

I don't have faith in Psychiatry in general, I have read enough about it and their methods, and I don't really view it as a real scientific medical field, and the way they do stuff sound pretty pseudo-scientific , too trial-and-error and unscientific.
They get things right sometimes, but they get things wrong, extremely and oppositely wrong, at many times.


And both Autism and AS are Psychiatric diagnoses only; there's no "biological definitions" of these conditions.

Classic Autism, even if it is still a Psychiatric diagnosis is obviously a real disorder, even a disease perhaps, because its symptoms are very obvious (even obvious to those who know nothing about Autism) and impact greatly functionality in life. It is very obvious to everyone that there's something "wrong" in those people.

But AS/HFA ? Especially those who can work, drive and compute? There's really no biological proof that what they have something wrong. It can be simply a personality/brain variation (and personality might be partly biological after all) which got socially constructed as a disorder because it is a rare variation.

There's no real final proof that HFA and severe autism are the same, caused by the same biological causes (in case HFA turned to be a real biologiacl disorder) - the whole "spectrum" idea is a Psychiatric theory.

I would only pursue a diagnosis when ASD diagnosis becomes a fully medical diagnosis, and stops being a Psychiatric label only.

A good example for this transition is the Rett Syndrome, Rett Syndrome was a Psychiatric diagnosis (so Psychiatrists got this one right somehow) and it was lumped with Autism conditions, it was known also as "Autism for girls" - but they found out its real biological cause, they know now the exact mutated gene and its location in the DNA.
For that reason, it was removed from DSM 5 and it is now a real medical diagnosis in medical books studied in real med schools, and it can detected by a genetic testing.

People here should understand that a Medical diagnosis is by faaaaar strongly more credible than any Psychiatric diagnosis.

That's why I am not interested to pursue for a diagnosis, ASD is still a Psychiatric diagnosis, and since there's no genetic/blood testing to make sure whether one has it or not.

If one day they find an accurate genetic/blood testing for it, like the case of Rett Syndrome, then I would certain sprint to nearest lab for it, otherwise, not much interested.

OMG. Several people on my late dad's side of the family including him and his dad had noticeable traits, and I have two cousins diagnosed on his side of my family.

I will quess based on your age posted your dad grew up when I did or a bit earlier. It was considered unmanly to look into oneself and thus seeing a proffessional was stigmatized. Only those truly "crazy" or the idle rich saw "shrinks". While it was recognized everybody had difficulties you were expected to figure it out, deal with them, and not burden others with your "personal business".