Am I an Aspie? And does it matter?

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Would a 30-something Aspie who's learned how to play the NT game come across as an introverted, slightly eccentric, but generally "normal" kind of person?
The background: I became aware of Asperger's about a year or so ago, and thought the description sounded vaguely like it could apply to me, but figured that, as an adult, living a more-or-less normal life, it didn't really matter if I got a formal diagnosis. Then I recently found out that my sister has long suspected that I may be on the autism spectrum. I was a little surprised by this, but then I began obsessively researching Asperger's, and now I am beginning to wonder about myself. At this point in my life (I'm 33), I think I'm reasonably socially well-adjusted, but I certainly had a very hard time as a kid, and I still have to work hard with a lot of social conventions. I don't like to look people in the eye, and I hate making small talk (although I've gotten to the point where I can and will do it). I remember people's names, but not their faces, and people often tell me that my facial expressions don't seem to match my mood. I do have a tendency to scratch my head or play with my hair while doing things. However, I'm happily married, have a few very close friends and some close acquaintances, and am usually regarded as a friendly, but somewhat shy, person. I was much more socially inept as a kid - I was constantly embarassing myself, picked my nose, and although I always had a few friends, I was bullied and teased to no end. I have passionate, somewhate esoteric fascinations, I don't like to multitask, and I dislike bright light. I learned some time ago that others don't necessarily want to hear about the conjugation of Tocharian verbs or the life of composer Morton Feldman or the provinces of the Byzantine empire. My wife is definitely NT and she puts up with my quirks, some of which she finds endearing. (Others, she doesn't - it drives her crazy when I throw a fit because she's moved a piece of furniture.) I love animals and spend a lot of time with my cat. I didn't have a driver's license until I was 30.
But then there are other patterns which I just don't fit: I've never been a creature of habit; in fact, rigid schedules and structures tend to drive me crazy. (On the other hand, when I expected somewhere at 4:00, I like to show up exactly on time, not 3:59, not 4:01.) I'm not particularly literalistic - in fact, I love metaphors and I read and write poetry. I don't get dumb humor (I don't think Will Ferell or Adam Sandler are funny at all), but many people think I'm pretty funny (I love to make puns). In certain settings, around people I feel like I can trust, I can be pretty social. I worked in IT in a mall for two years, and although I absolutely hated the mall and felt very uncomfortable there, I managed to show up for work every day and do my job.
So, where am I going with all this? Well, based on what I wrote, does it sound like I may be an "Aspie"? And, if so, does it matter at this point in my life? (I've made it through high school, college, and grad school, and I have a job and a wonderful, understanding wife.) Is it worth getting a formal diagnosis? If so, how would it benefit me? Have any of you been diagnosed as an adult?

You could have AS. I don't think a formal diagnosis will do anything for you. My psychiatrist didn't even want to diagnose me despite the fact that I've got moderate AS. He did and I got on disability so I wasn't forced to look for work.
I was diagnosed last year when I was 23, but I still live at home and have no work history, unless you count making $160 one night by taking live band photos or getting $50 for assisting in wedding photography.
You seem to have your life in order. You can still post here and share experiences, but I wouldn't waste money on a formal diagnosis.

It probably doesn't matter in the medical sense. A diagnosis is what they give you when you're having problems and you need help; and you say you're coping well. (The "doesn't remember faces" thing is called prosopagnosia, or face-blindness. It's not too unusual on the spectrum.)

As a kid, maybe you would've been called Asperger's, when you were still learning all the things you know now. It's not uncommon for a kid to grow out of a diagnosis like that. You might or might not be diagnosable; but if you are doing this primarily to get to know yourself better, and don't need help from anybody, then why bother with a professional evaluation?

Growing out of a diagnosis doesn't mean you've grown out of the neurological arrangement that creates autism. That's still largely like it was when you were a kid. As far as your thinking style and learning style are concerned, if you were autistic as a kid then you're still autistic now. You've just learned to adapt to an unfriendly world.

WP has a great many adults who don't need or want a diagnosis. I guess I might call them "culturally autistic", because with the shared experiences and shared thinking styles, they've generally got more in common with autistics than with typical people. "Autistic culture" is not actually an oxymoron, believe it or not--ever since the Internet, we've been able to get together and talk things out just fine, socially isolated or not!

Hi tonmeister!
You a musician?

Like you, I've been made aware of my connection to this pattern later in life. Specifically, 4 months ago, aged 28. A highly experience neurologist diagnosed me, and your descriptions seem more pronounced than mine. So it's a pretty dang good chance that you fit right in there.

It seems to me that by now, both you and I have both become fairly acclimatized to our lives, and how we move about in the world. We have our quirks, which people might notice, but come to accept more as a piece of personality, and not as any kind of disorder or deficiency.
Now, in my book, that reduces the importance of this surprise diagnosis - It has little impact on what we expect for the rest of our lives, yes?

On the other hand, that's not the end of the story, because if most people are unlike us in those particular ways ... Well, that does represent something to be aware of, and perhaps something that deserves specific adaption. And there's probably little things that can be done to ease some little details of life, if you check the patterns and find little fixes that people have found. But beyond that notion, I'm just as lost as you are.
At this point, maybe it really doesn't matter at all, and you'd be just as well never associating yourself this way.

I guess it depends on how happy you are, or if there's things you'd like to change that are related to these quirks.

*shrug*

I don't know how much it would matter tbh, I was diagnosed when I was 14 and the main thing that it helped me with was pointing me in the direction of books that taught me where I kept going wrong and what I could do to get around that. Since I've been at uni it's not really been mentioned and just having a label now has made absolutely no difference to the way I've been treated (apart from getting a few emails from the disability office in the first year to ask if I needed help, and me replying saying everything's fine) because most people don't know and I don't see the point in just randomly telling them. If you've already managed to become sufficiently well adjusted to get by in life then it might not be so useful for you.

Welcome to WrongPlanet.

Mein Herr Tonmeister -

A. you sound like me in many ways.

B. are you really up on Tocharian verbs? I never could find AND squeeze into my limited time frame adequate info on Tocharian, only enough to agree that yes, evidence says IE but weird. Recognition factor maybe about the same as for Albanian.

C. I would gladly hear about Tocharian verbs - I try not to go overboard about NigerCongo, AfroAsiatic, the classification of Basque, homeopathy and the distribution of sacred fig trees.

D. Am I / are you / are A and E and I and L Aspie or nay? Mi no savi, baas. I DO know that hanging around here I am finding more bits and pieces like unto me than I have since I found out about Enneagram 5s. I figured out a while back I am a swan not the ret*d duck I was told I was; not sure yet what KIND of swan, but enjoying it.

I think you should go to a trained medical professional who can diagnose you. Self-diagnosis isn't reliable, and it could be possible that you don't have Asperger's. NLD has a lot of the same symptoms as AS. Or you could just be socially awkward.

Maybe it would matter if you were having trouble at work and could use accommodations per the Americans with disabilities act (if you're in the US). Therapy for ADHD saved me from losing a job once.

Also, if you just really want to know for yourself, maybe that's reason enough to see if you have it. I suspect I have it, but I don't have extra money to go to the doctor right now. Right now I'm just happy to be looking into it on my own and finding others like here at WP. Maybe you could try out the quizzes... they're in the General Forum and the thread was started by Scientist. The quizzes are very interesting!

Good luck!

Why go for a diagnosis if you don't need treatment, though? It's just extra expense, and if you didn't need treatment, most doctors would say "you have autistic traits but I can't diagnose you" simply because of your lack of impairment. I guess if you had the money to blow, you might do it for the sake of self-knowledge; knowing you should've had an autism diagnosis as a child might tell you more about yourself.

'Course it's also possible to need treatment for something else, and have autistic traits that don't need treatment but need to be taken into account. Like, say you had depression--your doctor would have to know that your lack of emotional expression was an autistic trait and not a depressive one, so he'd know whether or not the treatment for depression was working. This is one of the reasons why I support the addition of a "sub-clinical variant" category in the next DSM. It may not need treatment, but the docs often do have to know about it.

Welcome to WP!

My life had been such a mess and such a mystery that a diagnosis WAS needed. But maybe, if you function adequately and are able to cope rather well, it isn't needed?

Unless of course you want a formal dx as an explanation and an answer in and of itself - which is as valid a reason as any other, in my view.
Formal dx answers the "previously unanswerable mystery" issue.
For me, that was so essential. It has also led me to place of belonging - at least I do actually have a name for why I struggle so much and at least I do know there are many others similar (and not the same as we vary so much in or presentation of traits) to me around the globe. I have found this latter fact enormously important in my life.


And yes, it is quite possible to be on the spectrum and come across in the way your describe. I suggest you read john Elder Robison's book "Look Me in the Eye." He learned to compensate for his deficits as he grew, by watching, observing and learning and implementing various social strategies. That is also something I learned to do - although if you scratch beneath the surface of this with me, one discovers i live purely in my own world and with my own internal logic that makes little sense to others and a lot of sense to me. (Recently I was told by an AS woman online I was confusing, inconsistent, and made no sense. ) My ability to "fudge it" on occasions is personally exhausting and also a little clumsy and just off the mark.

When I first understood about an ASD in me (and I am a creative aspie and one who is VERY sensory oriented as opposed to very systematised and logical) I found it really helpful to read up on ASD's and I have continued over the past couple of years to work at developing a clear understanding of my own trait presentation so I can live more optimally. Regardless of diagnosis or no diagnosis, I hope all humans can benefit from living in a personal climate of self-exploration and self-knowledge. In my case it has helped enormously.

I hope that helps.

Thanks, all, for your replies. In response to a few questions posed about me:
1. Yes, I am a musician, but not much of a performer. I studied composition and musicology, and I work as an audio engineer (probably a pretty good Aspie career choice in some ways - it requires focusing on minute auditory details, in a quiet, windowless room, and audio engineers tend to be fairly eccentric people who are tolerant of others' quirks.)
2. No, I'm not really all that up on Tocharian. I've read a bit about it, and obscure languages fascinate me to no end, and I threw that out as an example of a wierd obsession of mind that even my friends have a hard time relating to) but I certainly can't read Tocharian without assistance. I can, however, often spot the cognate words and constructions across languages.
Anyway, I took a few of the tests online. Rdos's Aspie-Quiz gave me a score of 169, indicating that I fall with Asperger's range. I also took the Cambridge Face Recognition test; I scored 53% (typical is 80%, with lower than 65% indicating impairment), so there's a pretty decent chance I would test for prosopagnosia.
I should probably mention that as a child, I was diagnosed with a form of dyslexia. At least, it was considered a form of dyslexia at the time - I believe that the actual condition is now considered something else entirely (this was over 25 years ago). I was a very precocious reader and speaker, but I had a very difficult time learning to write, and extremely poor spatial and hand/eye-coordination skills. I was treated for this condition as a child. Could this be related? Also, I have a sister who has epilepsy (she's nowhere on the autism spectrum, by the way), and takes medication for it. While I have never had a seizure, is there any kind of genetic link between epilepsy and autism?
At this point, I don't think I'm going to persue formal diagnosis. Since I don't really need treatment or services for the time being, and am able to function reasonably well (with some effort and an understanding family and group of friends), I don't really see the point. It might have been more useful to me when I was younger - but, then again, there was no formal definition of Asperger's until 1994, and I was already 18 by then. I've read a bit on this site and others, and I can relate to a lot of people here, so a diagnosis may confirm some suspicions, and explain some quirks and personal history, but I guess, for now at least, knowing that there's a distinct possibility that I may be AS, or something similar (NLD, whatever), is good enough. Who knows, though, I may change my mind eventually.