Subjectivity

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Hey WP. I've read the board for a long time trying to figure out whether or not I have Asperger's. I need some things cleared up though. From what I've read here, it appears widely accepted that every case of AS manifests itself differently. If this is true, surely there have to be some across-the-board symptoms that all w/ the condition share, or else how could the condition be defined? I've read the DSM IV definition and it seems extremely loosely-defined and subjective: all it takes to be diagnosed as an "Aspie" is a lack of social skills? And if autism is a "sliding scale," how bad do your social skills have to be to qualify as an "Aspie"? I ask because the boundaries of this disorder genuinely confuse me, and I turn to the experts here for clarification. Thanks very much!

I guess a sort of follow-up is, if you are self-diagnosed, what made you decide that instead of simply being "awkward" or "shy" neurotypical that you must have a case of Asperger's? Where was the "line crossed" for you?

Welcome to WP.

Things like developing a lot of Tourette's symptoms after forcing extended social interaction and other strange things that can't be written off to introversion. Pounding fists into the head, head against things (very rare, tho), hand flapping & biting hands as a kid, due to distress. Not recognizing people out of context. Finding speaking difficult and draining, and having it malfunction under stress or fatigue. And significant EF problems. And on and on. It's either a little of a 2 dozen different things, or one thing that fits pretty well. And the way ASC people seem to think, though that's a difficult thing to quantify.

(And that it's significant trouble -- with jobs I would have to put 90% of my energy into social matters, even if it was a technical job (and things would still go wrong). Eventually the stress broke down my health and I ended up on SSDI.)

Also that introverts can and do function socially fine, if it happens to suit them at a given moment. When I was a teen I thought I'd "found my people" re: introverts, but found out they were just like anybody else, functionally -- they just didn't choose to employ it as much. The difference was fundamental.

And also a neuropsych work up with a lot of stuff like a 35 point VIQ-PIQ gap, and other things -- the assessor didn't have knowledge about ASC's, so it makes no note such patterns in that context, unfortunately.


As far as "each person on the spectrum is different," that doesn't mean those differences are in the dx criteria. I think one problem there is that people try to understand AS as a personalty type, which it isn't. Some are introverted, some extroverted, though possibly neither in a 'normal' way. Not all are computer nerds or atheists, though some are. Not all are good at math, though some are. Some speak too loud, other too soft (and some are mute/NV). Some don't register others' emotions, others feel invaded by them. So the subjective overall impression can vary a lot, but that's different than saying the criteria are different for every person. Too much (staring) eye contact and too little are both considered 'abnormal gaze' even though they are opposites.

I never felt like I belonged to my own family as a child ...
I never really fit in at school or anywhere else ...
I best get along with myself ...
I work best alone ...
When I got to WP, I quite amazingly found myself on the inside of the window glass where my nose had previously been pressed.

Thanks for the information, Apple. It helps, but my main hurdle is this point:

I think this falls under the generalization that all neurotypicals can function "socially fine." Self-imposed isolation, misanthropy, social awkwardness, etc. manifest themselves in tons & tons of people, and of course not all of these people fall under the autistic spectrum. Are the external/sensory/tourette's issues necesary for a diagnosis then?

as for myself, I'm not a very social person, and I have a couple mild vocal/physical ticks that I have always wrote off as a OCD or anxiety. I'm still not entirely sure whether my generally misguided attempts at socializing are due to inabilty to process social situations or just typical shyness and self doubt. It seems a very blurry line.

My observation was just that introverted people could 'connect' and socialize very normally, given conditions or people who were comfortable to them. Those conditions might be rare, but once met, they seemed perfectly 'normal.' People on the spectrum seem often to get very exhausted and stressed even socializing with people they like.

No, the Tourettish stuff doesn't even show up in all people with AS. I just have never heard of it in any other context, and it's really weird. If you're looking at it strictly in terms of medical diagnosis -- the way a psych* will look at it, with the DSM in their lap, little of what I've said will be directly useful. I came apon ASC's before Asperger's existed, so my view is not a strictly in the medical dx direction -- it's more in the collective experiences of people on the spectrum that I've heard.



Well having trouble processing can lead to self-doubt, so yeah, that could get fuzzy. Maybe think about whether you can read people's non-verbal messages -- like do people ever blow up at you because you didn't pick up that they were bored and wanted you to stop talking at them?

And also consider the non-social stuff -- sensory issues, and obsessions. That can add some cross-reinforcing information. (Like not being able to hear people when there's background conversations. Or aversion to being touched/sensitive to certain fabrics.) Like you say, the social part can get murky.

That's just about the whole problem when diagnosing AS......its so subjective that you'll never know absolutely whether you've got it or not. The professionals get round that by using a scoring system with questionnaires, and the boundary is a somewhat arbitrary point on the score line. If you score close to the borderline then I guess it's always going to be very doubtful. If you score well into the "pathological range" then you can be more certain, but they don't give out a probability figure.

One thing they say is that you're only positive if the traits are significantly messing up your life - I "qualified" there because after 18 years I abandoned a seemingly promising career in which I'd always done well, and am feeling sorely tempted to do the same thing again with my current job, and because I've had 3 failed live-in relationships with women and have always got into problems with my love life, also because I've never kept any friends for more than a few years. Nobody knows quite why these things happened but from my descriptions of the details the diagnostician seemed satisfied that AS was at the root of a lot of it.