Please help me clarify AS diagnostic criteria

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For me the 3'rd criteria is:

1. Problems with concentration/focusing on a boring task. I have been working with this all my life through school and work. I have "mastered" concentration somewhat, but the job got to be at least a little bit intresting to me, or i cannot do it.

2. Social interaction. Sometimes it just go wrong and someone may end up being offended. Also, i have little social needs and do not want to go out and drink with the workmates or "be part of the team".

Hope that helped to clarify it.

I suspect that's not AS, though I'm no diagnostician. To have no trouble with school seems odd for a start - unless it was a very orderly school with incredibly clear demands. Not sure where aggression fits in - I'm very calm on the outside, though on the inside there's a lot going on, and maybe it gets out in hurtful comments and insensitive actions. I feel kind of trapped, as if forced by society to bottle everything, The term "anger management" springs to mind. The "small talk" thing is very Aspie I guess - before suspecting AS I just felt small talk was pointless and that I was right to shun it in favour of more meaningful communication.

And I don't know the relevence of ability to perform under pressure, but the very thought of it makes me anxious. Yet, maybe in me it's more a morbid fear than a "true" reaction to pressure - like if an authority figure such as an employer piled on the pressure and expected me to cope with it, I think I'd crumble and be useless, certanly I'd expect it to impair my performance and cause me to make mistakes, but if there's a clear outside threat to me or my loved ones, then although I'd no doubt feel the strain of it bigtime, I'd dedicate my entire being to our defense, and would be courageous and remarkably effective. My mother was a bag of nerves and worried herself (and the rest of us) sick over what seemed like nothing, but in a real crisis she was a tower of strength.

I'd be very interested if you could let me know which parts of what I said made you think that...I wrote quite a lot!

I think there's a lot of truth in this philosophy about giving people their own way too much......sometimes it's a fine line between over-harshness and overindulgence. I had an extremely harsh mother and a relatively indulgent father, who I preferred - he was pretty strict as well on the important things. Later I noticed he gave himself problems in friendships and with his relationship with my mother by being too tolerant and nice, inviting disrespect - he would ultimately hit back, but by that time the disrespect woud be so great, and his resentment so deep, that the relationships were badly damaged.

Yours is a fascinating story......just goes to show how different people can end up with a very different take on flexibility. I'd suggest you be careful though - as long as you're sure you're not overdoing it, fine, but I'd hate to think you were pushing yourself too hard without realising it. I think it's OK to be gentle with yourself - not that I'm suggesting you aren't. More that you have a valuable trait that will serve you well, as long as it's not allowed to go too far.

Part where it's bolded where you mentioned about feeling being forced to walk on a broken leg when you said when someone tries to force you to be flexible. Maybe I misinterpreted it, I don't know. I hate making stupid mistakes like this if I did.

Well, maybe the analogy's something of an exagerration. I just meant to emphasise that if somebody tries to make me do a thing that I can't do, it upsets me a lot.

I can do all those things......but I'm crap at them all, apart from being able to sit in a classroom of people, if the people are quiet and friendly - even then if the stuff being taught doesn't happen to interest me, I'm not really there - physically present but my attention is somewhere else. I can take orders to some extent but it's a tense thing. Other people just get in my way while I'm working, pretty much. If I were really true to my own nature I'd just refuse those demands every time. But in my formative years, parents and teachers enforced it all with a will of iron. Resistance proved to be futile and a lot of free spirit was hammered out of me. As soon as I can afford to leave work, they won't see me for dust. Life on other people's terms is just a living death. I'll keep trying with people, but mostly it's got to be one-to-one so far. And I won't be doing any courses. I'll be doing things my way.

O yes.....it all helps. And I see myself reflected pretty well in your words.

I'm crap at doing stuff that bores me - mostly my brain just blanks out. I can do boring physical stuff to some extent (though not greatly), but boring mental stuff goes in one ear and out of the other. Luckily I have broad tastes, and I'm (paradoxically) very interested in people (psychology was the only thing I could see myself being able to do at university, but I didn't make the grades so couldn't go). It's like I can't take an interest in anything, it has to be there already, at least a little bit, or my brain screens it out.

I hate having to play the mainstream social game and mostly I just shun it. I get attracted to individuals, especially if they're unusual in ways I admire, or if they happen to share an obsession like music - I'll even tolerate being in a group of four if we're into the same music and the personalities are to my liking. The drinking rituals can get stuffed, I tried it a bit when I was very young but it just got boring once I'd proved I could get drunk.

Sport - I tried it when I used to care a lot about fitting in, but I never really knew what to do, and ended up pissing everybody off, and I never figured out why so many people get obsessional about it. I hate it when anybody I'm with starts talking about football and gets all enthusiastic because I feel embarrassed that I just can't feel that way. They always ask me some question about it that forces me to reveal that I don't know and care about it like they do. There's no point pretending to like it, they'll soon find out I don't. Snooker's not so bad, though even there I don't know all the rules. Cricket's OK to watch, I can just focus on the artistic appearance of the white clothes and the grass, I haven't a clue what the score is.