Am I an aspie?

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Do I have Asperger's?

Hello to all, I'm completely new to this site and to Asperger's syndrome too. I've seen some documentary the other day on a channel with a guy who had this syndrome (I believe a more serious form of it), which made me think that perhaps I'm an aspie too. I've read many pages about the usual symptoms, which made me even more sure about it, but there are certain symptoms that are just untrue in my case, or I'm even the opposite of that.

So please let me tell some things about me that I suspect to be related to Asperger's, and let me know what you think. I'm not really afraid of the answers, I'm 31 now, learned to live my life how it is, but if I'm an aspie that would explain many things from my life at least!

- I've never had more than 2 friends during my life at the same time. To be true, most of the time I had maybe one, or none at all. Currently I'm married, and my wife is my only friend. The weird is, that when someone gets too close to me, usually the whole relationship starts to get on my nerves, I just feel uncomfortable and want to escape the friendship.

- I've only been to a party once in my life, during my teenhood. I was just sitting in the corner, although I knew that one of the girls in the party wanted to date me.

- I'm an active cyclist, regularly attending races. I'm an Ironman finisher too. When they asked my why I choose to go for Ironman, I said because it's about my own skills and limits, as I must not depend on others and they must not depend on me. I train on my bike alone 100% of my time. While racing, I usually find myself either before or after the pack, or between two packs of riders. No matter what, riding alone. I feel stressed to ride among others, listen to their stories, and so on. Even as a kid my favourite activity was to go out cycling alone. When a friend asked my about 10 years ago why I ride my bike, I said it's because there's only me and my bike on the road. Only me and my toughts.

- I always shop in malls where I don't have to interact with the personel. I've never in my life bought anything in a mall fresh from a seller, but only pre-packed things that I could just take down the shelf in my own. I usually go to stores before the crowd, as I can't stand it. If there's crowd in a mall, I usually get stressed, and it happened to me that I got panicked, and finished shopping without buying all the stuff I wanted.

- I never in my life kept eye-contact while talking to another, I always felt stressed if I tried to. I usually watch people's mouth instead.

- Sometimes others tell me I'm talking too much, and I have to admit that especially about things that interest me I can talk hours (eg. cycling, astronomy), usually not noticing that others are no longer interested.

- When looking at some stuff, I always think over how it is made and what makes it work. Usually I think about whether I could make one or not, let it be a boat, telescope or even a house.

- I'm extremely interested in astronomy, currently building my own observatory. I've been to an astro-party last weekend. I found it weird, because while all the others were walking around looking at eachothers telescopes, I kept standing by my own all the time and did what I usually do even without such parties: sketching objects (see later).

- I have some weird habits, the weirdest is that I can't stand if something is asymmetric. Let me put here an example: if I touch my left arm, I MUST touch my right arm too at the same place with the same pressure. If I press my right arm with higher pressure, then I have to press my left one again to compensate the difference. I keep doing this until I feel that the two sides are equal. Or another example: if someone says 'Hi' to me, I say 'Hi' back. If he says it again, I say 'Hi' again too. If he says it three times, I MUST say it three times two, because the two 'Hi's must be equal in number! My wife is constantly making fun of me because of these, keeps touching me because she knows that I will start to do my symmetry games, or saying 'Hi hi hi hi' to see if I can say it the same number of times too.

- I can't stand if things are not working right. If something is not going as it should, I feel very stressed.

- I've read somewhere that aspies usually don't care about what they wear, or if their clothing fits together. Well, this is totally true for me.

- I have insomnia or sleeping disorders since my childhood. Sometimes serious ones, sometime I'm quite allright. When I was a child, I kept urinating why sleeping sometimes even when I was in my early teen years. Some say I'm a typical night owl, because I operate best at night. Too bad, that there were years not too long ago, when I had such a bad insomnia that I slept only about 2-3 hours a day. I went to bed at 10pm, and yould not fall asleep until 2-3am. Even if I was sleepy, I just couldn't sleep. Those were terrible years. Some said that probably I'm stressed because of something. But in fact I had no such problems with my life that time.

- I've also read, that Asperger's syndrom people are often clumsy, or have bad motoric functions. This is not true for me, I'm moving perfectly good, although I've started weirdly as a baby: I started to walk very soon, but I've never walked, but ran instead!

- Lot of times I just can't remember of things I know otherwise. For example, even after working at the same place for over 9 years now, I keep forgetting the names of my colleagues. But after a moment or two I remember again. Sometimes this is the same with words.

- I've read that aspies are usually bad when it comes to fantasies. Well, this is untrue for me, I've even wrote stories when I was a kid.

- As a kid, I was using interesting words when I was speaking, my mom found it very cute that I'm not talking like kids do, but like small adults most the time.

- I have a sense of humor, although sometimes I don't laugh when others do. But I understand the joke, I just don't laugh loud. Most people say I have a great sense of humour, although it's very weird, a bit like Monty Python's.

- I have an above average IQ (in fact it is usually measured as extremely high. But frankly speaking, I don't really believe in IQ tests.) I started to read at the age of 4 and write at age of 5. Noone ever told me how to do it, I was just reading signs on the walls as my mom told me, and once she realized that on a picture about my family I wrote "dad mom sister" above the heads of the figures.

- I'm interested in many things. Too many if you ask me. Interestingly I put all my energies into one at a time, and keep them rotating around.

- When I was in kindergarten, the lady working there told my mom that I go into details at extreme levels on my drawings, like buttons, zippers, facial hair, shoelaces, while others at my age only draw stickman figures.

- Even today I enjoy drawing maps of fictious places (my wife keeps on collecting them, I usually want to throw them away once finished), to the highest details. I also do astronomical sketching, sometimes takes over an hour to finish a sketch of an open cluster that consists a high number (hundreds) of stars. I also drew cars all my life, all very detailed.

- Sometimes I feel like I'm just talking too plain... I mean that I keep on saying what's in my mind, and I don't care if I get into trouble because of that. I thought it's because I like to say the truth only, but now I think otherwise. Sometimes it would be better to keep some things inside, but I just can't resist. The problem is that it happens here and then that I hurt someone I like because of this behaviour. I hear what I'm saying, and I know that it may be painful, but I just can't stop. It also happens that someone tells me that I went to far, how couldn't I see that I hurted the other's feelings.

- My colleagues are making fun of me, because if there's a corporate party, they already know that I won't show up. They keep asking me if I have friends at all. I keep answering: who needs friends. In fact, I do need friends. I just can't maintain a friendship.

- My eyes are better than average. I see objects (astronomically speaking) about 0.5 to 1 magnitudes fainter than the others. But I keep having problems with my eyes (redness, tears, etc).

I could go on with these but I already took too much of your time so I stop now. Do you think I have Asperger's syndrome? Or I'm just a totally neurotypical person? Please let me know what you think. If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Thanks for your time (and sorry for my English, I'm not a native speaker).

Yes.

Yeah I think so too. Show us your eyes (in the pic thread if it is only allowed to post it there). Then we can tell.

English isn't your native language? I had absolutely no idea until you said that at the end of your post. I don't think you need to pre-emptively apologize anymore.

I don't think anyone here can definitively tell you if you have Asperger's or not. It certainly sounds possible, as the traits you have listed sound very AS-like. The things that you listed that you believe aren't AS typical (such as your imagination) in fact are widely disputed as to whether they are typical AS traits. Clumsiness, for instance, is not always present.

This won't help you much, but I can tell you that you sound very much like me but with different interests... in particular the parts about having a broad range of interests but only focusing on one at a time, the shopping habits, the cycling, the mapping of imaginary worlds, the talking too much, the talking like an adult as a kid, and the dressing poorly.

Welcome to WrongPlanet. It ultimately doesn't matter what side of the AS/NT line you decide you fall on; you are most welcome here. Enjoy the exploration!

I doubt that.

how does looking in someone's eyes prove tey have autisism I am freaking glad your not a doctor your MO medical objective sucks lol

to the OP life sounds quite good for you does getting a diagnosis really help you? Its easy to relate to something when we watch tv and their life seems similar it does not sound like yu have autsism to be frank you seem absolutely fine I kow many people who throughout their life with only one or two friends and some people naturally do not like eye contact

I think you are AS, but if you want it confirmed then you should seek a professional diagnosis. Your English is very good, I wouldn't have guessed that it wasn't your first language.

Sorry, but an Internet diagnosis is not accurately possible. You would have to see a professional. I will say that I share a lot of the things you listed, and I am most certainly Aspie.

Hell, just being interested enough to track through the diagnostic criteria is enough to qualify for a diagnosis, isn't it?

Not remembering faces is significant, not liking change fits in there. You're either aspie or some other more complicated construction that finds it convenient to convince you you're aspie.

Wow. I would guess a big Yes.

What you need to do is print out your post from above and take it to a Psychologist or Neuropsychologist and let them read it. It's too significant to leave to strangers on a forum, or to lists of stereotypical symptoms from a website.

I think it safe to go ahead and welcome you to the fold though

I would say to do this only if it's going to bug you if you don't have a professional opinion, or you need a diagnosis for some sort of formal assistance. If your life is fine and you're happy with it, you'll save yourself a lot of money.

It's definitely something to investigate further. Do you have any sensory issues?

I've always wanted to build one but don't have the room. I've attended star parties and could only interact when others approached me.



Do you mean you don't believe the tests can provide some indication of cognitive ability? It's unlikely you would score extremely high if you did not have excellent cognitive abilities. It's quite common for children with high intellect to teach themselves to read.




Very interesting! Post them here if you like. I'd really like to see them.

It sounds like you do have Asperger's. I'd recommend seeing a psychologist to get if officially diagnosed though.

I think peterd is right!

Like fiddlerpianist though I also think that whether you need to go and get a professional diagnosis depends on whether ultimately you actually need to have that diagnosis for anything. You might need it to access therapy that would help you, or you might decide that just for personal reassurance and peace of mind you need to have your suspicions confirmed by someone who is objective about you and has the right sort of professional experience to make that judgement. If not, then perhaps your time and your money would be better spent on something else.

It sounds like you might be.

Take a test:

http://psychcentral.com/quizzes/autism.htm

Then if you want to be sure go see a professional.

BTW I'm doing Lake Stevens Ironman in about 2 weeks. I hate riding in a bunch so that's why I switched to triathlons.

You should try for an "official" diagnosis but if what you have said is true, I think it's less likely that you're not autistic.