Diagnosis worshipping

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This may be of some significance in analyzing what is going on.


There are rare instances when I have correctly read the body language of an NT and they became angry/upset that I did so.
Apparently the intent was either for me to not be able to read it, or to react completely differently afterward.

My intuition tells me that these exceptions have much to do with the built-in deception that is intended for NTs' outward behaviors, and is a critical part of social/emotional manipulation.

If you see through these deceptions, then apparently the NT thing to do is to let it slide. If you bring it out into the open, then you become a serious threat to their identity and the power it wields.


If the above is anywhere near accurate, then the issue of body language being used for diagnosis criteria may need a more specific description.
That is, it may not be that a flat-out lack of sensing body language is required as a criteria, but that the sensing is not being processed in a certain way by conscious thought.

Try to follow me here, but if you're born such that you almost always process what you sense as body language incorrectly, then you would likely quickly become conditioned to develop a filter that would just have you skip the process. There would be no chemical reward being supplied in the brain, and so no pressing "need" to further develop the process.

Yeah... Even though I'm diagnosed now, I can't say I felt a different way compared to others... I mean sure, I never spoke much and perceived to be an outcast to others and so on... But I never looked upon myself differently at all, since the Asperger diagnosis I can look back to see things retrospectively.

I don't know... But with the Internet, kids tend to self-depreciate themselves in the face of others, negatively look upon themselves as broken while the majority of the self diagnosed are probably completely normal and that's just how their personalities developed.

I agree with this 100%. And most of the time on here people don't definitively give an opinion, they just say it is is a possibility, point them towards some online tests and the tony atwood book which I think is the most helpful thing to do.

Also I think it is important to note that people aren't always aware of their traits or realise some things they do are not normal, for instance when I first started exploring it I would have said I do not have the restrictive behaviour, after reading more and relating and really reflecting I realised that I really do (not as severe as some but definitely enough to meet the criteria) but because I thought I was normal I never questioned it. So if some one comes on here and it seems like they don't meet the criteria it may just be that they haven't gained self awareness about some aspects of themselves yet. I am not saying these people should be told they have it, but I don't think they should be dismissed either, just pointed towards more information.

This is damm important and not recognized enough.

It is a neurotypical trait to pick up how others feel without them saying so during real-time interactions, so if someone regularly can do this in interactions as some posters say that they can, then they are not autistic. There has to be a line somewhere, and having a strong neurotypical trait like this one should preclude autism.

The trouble is, most people can pick up some degree of nonverbal communication, even if all one can do is be confused by the angry face as one's host asks one to stay longer, because they don't really mean it.

If you'd asked me if I could pick up on how others feel 15 years ago, I'd have said yes, I'm good at it. Since then people have told me so many times I'm not good at it that I finally get it, I'm not always good at it. But this isn't black and white. And most of the time, I don't see how one would see what one doesn't see. Obviously if you think you're good at this and so do other people, that's another story.

But I don't think this is necessarily a neurotypical trait. We pick up some ways people feel that are clear. Though not the same way, it requires conscious thought when you have ASD more than intuition which I think is primary for NTs.

Spontaneously reading people is a trait of neurotypical people and people who have it as they themselves and sometimes other people say are unlikely to be autistic

Yes, the spontaneity is a big difference. It amazed me when I discovered NTs don't even think much about reading people. I can sometimes read people, but I can explain exactly why I think they feel a certain way. NTs just.......know.

This is the thing that keeps me from being able to really accept that I am on the spectrum; I can be very perceptive and know there is something wrong with someone long before anyone else says anything and often when they don't see it. People have asked me how I knew and are often shocked that I could tell someone was worrying about something. But these instances are few and far between but I zero in on them and focus on them, thinking that I am very good at sensing things from people. I can definitely sense strong emotions; anger and yelling are very obvious to me and so is tone of voice, but my problem comes in trying to make sense of tone of voice combined with facial expression: the tone says one thing, the face says another. I think I really am getting by on "logic" more than anything else. Often times, so often, I have sensed something that actually wasn't there I find out later or maybe the person just didn't want to say that they had this or that feeling, or maybe they weren't aware of it themselves. I am told that I am very perceptive and would make a good counselor, but it takes a lot of energy out of me. I actually shake with nerves when I do manage to "read" somebody like this; I get really tense. I can have meltdowns afterwards and hate myself for being so "good" and "kind" and "empathetic" with someone and then suddenly get so angry and irritated with my sister or my family and not be able to handle any sound or touch or movement. It made me very happy to be able to connect with someone and to have helped them and I often had to go somewhere alone to calm my "happiness" down too, but then meltdown later still. I was pretty mean to my sister and she was pretty mean to me. Nothing in common. I can have excessive amounts of empathy and at other times and most often, not have any much at all despite wanting it. I am probably not making much sense here; my perceptions and emotions are so changeable and so "unpredictable" this probably sounds contradictory maybe. And I used to be very trusting and "naïve". So much so, that other kids in high school got another kid to tell me that they were suicidal just to see what I would say, to watch me switch into "counselor mode". I know they did this because it was a big joke to them and they told me about it immediately afterward. The boy who did the "lying" seemed ashamed of himself because I had actually believed him; I don't think he expected me to. After this, I couldn't tell if they were lying or not or playing some stupid psychological game and so naturally I distrusted them. I distrusted myself even more after this.

I didn't have a lot of "autistic" social symptoms when I was very little but had a lot of sensory stuff (eating ice all the time, picking at food and barely eating, fear of balloons and blown-up toys, fear of people to some degree, spinning in the swimming pool in a swim ring? after I got over the fear of blown-up toys), and food sensitivities (worse behavior after drinking dairy and more anxiety with eating chocolate/caffeine). I don't know what my eye contact was like and I don't feel I can trust my mom's opinions on that because she herself does not make much eye contact with people. At age four I got hit with severe anxiety and OCD and became very obsessive. It wasn't until January 1991 that my mom took me to see someone after a breakdown at a family gathering at age 6 when I freaked out because my uncle yelled at the other kids to behave at the table. I suspect it was family pressure that prompted her to take me and to acknowledge that I really needed help; I was six. I wasn't diagnosed with anything that my mom remembers, but at the time they probably weren't into labeling kids that young? I was also very sassy, stubborn, bossy, and "helpless" at home and these character traits I have read in research studies are typical in kids with OCD. I won't talk about all of it; it probably isn't that interesting. I saw this counselor at age 6 for a few months and when the OCD and outlandish fears subsided, I quit going. I should have gone when I was older, but finances were tight and my mom said recently when I asked her why she didn't really pursue help for me that because I got over "it" when I was six (no, I really didn't, it just wasn't all-consuming anymore and I had learned to keep it to myself) and she didn't think the psych helped me much at age six, so she didn't think it would do much at age 13 and 14, but there were other problems showing then and patterns that could have been picked up by a professional and I should have been seen. I am confident that most people who knew me thought that I needed to be seen by a professional for the OCD, but I wasn't, except for two sessions because my sister had gotten into some "trouble" so I saw this person as an "aside" you might say and I didn't say a word to the counselor either time so my mom quit taking me. I chalk that up now to pathological demand avoidance and selective mutism. I was plagued by mutism around people at church, especially other kids. I don't know when that started but I definitely remember it by age 9 and onward. I still have it around people I knew back then.

I don't want to tell my whole story, but by the time I was older, I started to keep journals, and I read them recently to see if I could make more sense of myself given what I know now about ASD, and it was extremely painful to read them, but also very revealing and to me the ASD traits were very obvious and I never realized til now just how obsessive I was about so many, many things; I didn't view them as obsessive then, but now I can see how it was obsessive. There was a very strong current of depression and anxiety, OCD, and some very bad social issues that I now recognize. I was really messed up. My high school teachers knew there was something off and wrong with me and I misinterpreted some of their reactions that were actually sympathy and worry about me as being that I had hurt their feelings or upset them somehow. I think I should have been able to distinguish between those as a junior in high school. I have a bit more self-awareness now as far as past events go; self-awareness in current events, I'm not so sure of. Several people tried to help me, by pulling me aside and telling me that I needed to look at people and not at the floor and other things. But there is another side of me I don't get. As a teenager I was more comfortable with adults than my peers; peers seemed very childish to me, very inexperienced with the negative things of life, and very obsessed with their socializing. I don't get how I could do so well with adults and in some one-on-one situations, if I was autistic. Adults had very different opinions of me than peers did. I had "friends" in high school, but most were outliers and I wasn't hated or strongly disliked as most of them thought I was "innocent" but also one of the nicest people they knew. After freshman year, most of the 'popular" girls had decided I wasn't a threat to them so for the most part they ignored me; I didn't respond when they'd do things because I had always been taught to ignore bullies because they feed off of the reaction and I didn't want to look stupid by reacting.

The other thing is parents. I am pretty certain my mom is BAP and I don't think anyone could argue that my Dad has ASD. His traits are "nearly textbook", with the exception of stereotypies. He has mental health problems on top of that resulting I now see from a lifetime of "failure" and inability to cope with some things and confusion and loneliness. My mom thinks she is inattentive ADHD and my sister thinks she herself is also inattentive ADHD. My father was hospitalized a couple years ago for suicidal ideation and they asked my opinion: I told them I had for a few years thought he was autistic. They didn't pursue that and my mom said that when she told them she thought he had ADHD, they said he was "too old for that". I bet they used this same reasoning to skirt the ASD thing. So dumb. They think adults can't be autistic? Really? Where do all the autistic kids go? They grow up and are suddenly no longer autistic? Laziness and chosen ignorance, led them to label him as having schizoaffective disorder, I believe. I can tell you, that obsessive interests and obsessive anxieties can create their own unique brand of "psychosis" that really doesn't fall into the schizophrenic category as far as I am concerned. And for the things they saw as "psychotic", well, they don't "hold water". Say, as an example, he thinks the world will end on X date. So what?! Why is this considered a psychosis? Just because others believe it to be false? One who is an atheist could easily say that anyone who believes in God is psychotic, just as a believer could say an atheist is psychotic for not believing in God.

I am writing a book here with this post, figuratively speaking. This post is getting long. But if you have read this far, I hope you are still alert.

This is a link to an article I found about a month ago that I find to be very, very interesting. I think it really explores what might be going on with us who wonder about our status as NT or spectrumite. It is about the interrelations and correlations amongst OCD, ADHD, and ASD:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2855859/

I tend to think that there is something about OCD that makes you neurologically different and I believe that OCD, mostly childhood-onset OCD, is different from other "mental illnesses" in that I don't believe the dysfunction lies entirely with neurotransmitters. Maybe someone else knows more about this.

As far as asking the "am I autistic?" question, I often want to do that for my own sanity and comfort, but am too embarrassed to and over the internet, or even face-to-face, it feels presumptuous. I didn't even write a post in the "getting to know each other section" because I feel stupid introducing myself. I don't even do that in real life. Walking up to someone and telling them my name, is kind of creepy-sounding to me; I do it sometimes because I know it's what you are supposed to do, but it's weird. And addressing someone else by name, unless I am used to hearing myself say their name and know them well, is very weird-feeling. It's like wanting to jump out of your own skin-weird. I feel it in my back the most. It's hard to explain. And I don't know what to say about myself in that context here online and that I'd just be saying the same thing that has been said over and over again, "hey, I'm new here..." Kind of redundant.

Just got back to this thread, used the word OBVIOUS back there for a reason - I had read a couple of really annoying posts just previous to posting! agree with devilkisses, people should not get convinced into thinking they have autism - quirky doesn't always equal aspie. I like quirky, no matter what the cause. But the effects of ASD can be severe, even in its milder form its a pain in the ass!

I have made a total fool of myself many times this way, being totally convinced I knew what was going on with someone and missing it by a trillion miles - thinking I knew someone and not having a clue as to who they really were. Painful and humiliating, and in a couple of cases downright dangerous.

I think this is complicated by the intuition vs compensation, an adult with decades of experience of interaction might be able to learn. When I do they eye test quickly I get extremely low scores, with a little more time I get very high scores, I think most interaction gives me enough time to figure it out, I can get the right answer but it is through thought rather than just knowing.