Is it possible to be "aspie" without knowing?

Post Reply New Topic

I posted this on the welcome board but I had a feeling I wasn't going to get an answer because a few other people asked similar stuff.

So I was reading about Aspergers through various sources and I all of the symptoms and situations I have come across daily in my life. I read about what you guys go through and I have the same problems.

I can't work with people because I don't really understand the goal that is being achieved and I end up doing something wrong because I am slow.
I do very eccentric things for no reason like sleeping on the floor and closing doors every back and forth before I go to sleep to feel it correctly on my fingers.
I never really enjoyed social stuff because I don't know how to respond to other peoples conversations in a flowing matter but people just get bored of what I am trying to say.
I am left handed kind of at least I write with my left and I do everything else with my right. I could also write with my right if I really worked at it I mean it flows ok. But I also do some things with my right and some with my left but they are not equal.
It takes me a while to learn things that others learn quickly.
I wake up in the night since I was younger and I still do it and I can control what time I wake up naturally because of my clock on the inside.
I tend to be into details like collecting every videogame on the NES and I like to go into details about unknown games.
I don't look at people in the eyes and when I talk to people I don't follow up the next day.
I don't know I could be wrong...I am just confused...How do you find out for sure if you're "aspie" or anything for that matter? I mean a doctor or a physicist or what.

to answer the basic question, yes. my SO is aspie, which we didnt realize until our youngest was being diagnosed this year. he spent the first 38 years thinking he was "normal", but that people were pretty dang crazy.

as to how to get diagnosed, depends where you live. there are psychologists, clinics, etc that will diagnose adults, you just have to find one. not as easy as finding one to diagnose children unfortunately. we are still looking for one near us. try looking for autism resources near you, autism society of america or something, other local groups. they may be able to help point you in the right direction.

I'm not sure a physicist could help you. If you're into time travel though, you may find one useful.

Try asking the bloke who's doing the DX on your son. He'd be most likely of anyone to know of someone who could help you.

If nobody ever tells you there is such a thing as Asperger Syndrome, you could go through your entire life without knowing. I believe my Grandmother on my Dad's side was an Aspie and she died several years before I even heard of AS.

Anyone over the age of twenty was likely not diagnosed as they went through the school system, so unless they saw a Mental Health professional for some other reason who happened to notice it they might still not know. And a lot of those Mental Health pros don't know enough about it to even notice it on their own, much less diagnose it - they often see some of the symptoms - Social Anxiety, Depression, ADHD and OCD-like behaviors, etc, and diagnose and treat those, without ever realizing those things are part of a larger and more pervasive Syndrome. Those of us who grew up in the 60s and 70s being called weird, lazy, stubborn, useless and so forth, most of us have made into our 40s and 50s before the Internet led us to discover what Asperger Syndrome was and have that "Holy Crap! That's ME!" epiphany.

If you're in the US and don't have Health Insurance, look for a Mental Health Facility in your area that deals with low-or-no income patients. They'll help you fill out the paperwork to get treatment and evaluation at minimal cost. Just tell them you're suicidally depressed because you think you may have Autism.

First off, don't ever tell a mental health professional that you are suicidal, because that gives them the legal right to lock you up in a mental hospital for observation.

The other thing I would like to mention is that I am not aware of any mental health facility for low or no income patients that has any services whatsoever for people with AS. If they have any services at all for people with autism, they are only for people (mainly children) with low-functioning autism.

No facilities for low income patients that I am aware of have anyone on staff who is able to diagnose or treat AS, nor do they give any referrals to anyone who does. I am a Medicaid patient in NYC and I am diagnosed with AS (which I had to get from a private specialist at my expense) and even being diagnosed I still can't even so much as see a counselor who knows the first thing about AS, because there are none that take Medicaid in all of NYC as far as I am aware. And I have looked, as well as asked the AS specialist who diagnosed me and my current therapist (who takes Medicaid but knows absolutely nothing about AS other than what I have told her).

I was diagnosed for 10 years, before I knew I had it. My mum told me, at the age of 15, that I was on the spectrum.

I was in question for most of my life, but due to my weak external symptoms I kept people guessing until just 2 years ago. It didn't mean that I was any different than before, they just did much more extensive testing.

"Re: Is it possible to be "aspie" without knowing?"

Yes.
It was around 30 that I began spending the energy to bring more comprehension to the differences that I constantly encountered when running an analysis between myself and nearly everyone if not everyone else that I encountered.
While it might seem trivial, the larger piece for me was during the late teens when I noticed that I never responded to the contagious yawning fun. In other words, I noticed a pattern when people would yawn and shortly after others would also yawn. Just reading about yawning could induce it, which it didn't for me. Then I found out that dogs will yawn as a result of us yawning! (not sure if one dog can trigger another dog).
I use this example in that there were all these little pieces that were symptoms in a sense and very clear. What I lacked was a way to put it all together until actual effort on my part to figure it out.

One amazing (hopefully that isn't over doing it) event in my life that validates that at the very least I have AS tenancies:
At the age of umm around 16-17, I had a friend, one that I got along with very well and would have eventually been a "best friend" I suppose. She dun got herself pregnant. I was and still able a bit heavy handed with what I consider acceptable choices and actions by friends, to remain as such. One of them is/was keeping a fetus when it's clear there is not a reasonable source of funds, intelligence and emotional maturity to take on such a responsibility.
This translates into she wouldn't abort, so I ended the friendship.

16 years later or so (a bit over a year ago), we made contact by semi-chance again. One of the first things she asked me was "Do you have AS?!?"

Now that was amusing to me, as I was just reaching the same conclusion to the point of seeking professional opinion.

She asked because her kid has it and she noticed that he acted VERY similar to the ways I did back then! And no, not my kid!


So, yes it is possible to be AS without knowing and my personality/symptoms were obvious enough that someone from the past was able to deduce it from many years ago.

I hope that helped in some way other than not helping.

I was an Aspie for over 40 years and did not know it, so my answer would be "yes."

Looking back since my diagnosis, I can say that yes it is true.

My father didnt even know about the existance of AS until he was 63.

So you're telling me that I imagined filling out all that US government paperwork and seeing a therapist for the past two years who, BTW, has never hinted that they might 'lock me up' for anything I've said, although they have asked if I felt I needed to be hospitalized for my own protection. I must also have fantasized that this therapist scheduled me for testing with that facility's licensed Psychologist (apparently HE was a phantom as well), who then spent two days administering a battery of tests and issuing a formal diagnosis, which was what qualified me for Social Security Disability, else I'd be homeless at this very moment - oh, wait - I must be homeless and delirious to have been seeing all these nonexistent Mental Health professionals for more than two years now. But...if I dreamed it all...where did the diagnosis come from that I have a copy of in my possession at this very moment!? Okay, come on out Mr. Serling, I know you're hiding around here somewhere...

Yes. I'm 22 and wasn't diagnosed until last year. Back when i was in middle school my first therapist thought i had AS, but soon after i first started with therapy and antidepressants i became determined to be a "normal" kid. The Paxil helped a lot with my anxiety issues, so i felt better about myself than i had in awhile, so i thought i could be normal. I bought popular girl clothes, studied teen magazines, and all that jazz. It was sort of a special interest, looking back on it. But since i was trying to be normal, it was concluded that it must have just been anxiety issues keeping me the way that i was and everyone forgot about the AS possibility. I liked that i felt more outgoing and thought i was "better" so i quit therapy that time around. Of course, no amount of trying make myself into a normal teen would actually make me truly normal. I became more outgoing, but that didn't change the fact that i just plain didn't know how i was supposed to interact with people. I talked some more, and even tried going to a school dance(big surprise, i ended up sitting by myself staring at the walls the whole time), but i didn't have any good friends. After about a year i stopped the whole "normal" thing, and i actually went into a kind of "goth phase"(not a normal one, though. i had an obsession/special interest in 80s goth rock and subculture. i'm still into goth music and dress in black when not in work clothes, though. lol) To look at me, you might have thought i fit in with some teen social group or wanted to be part of one, but i didn't. For one semester i even went on this "homebound" program where i didn't have to go to school and someone would bring all the work to my house for me, because i hated going to school so much and it was causing me so much stress. I kept attributing all the difficulties i was still having to depression and anxiety, though.. My mom had brought up a couple times throughout this that she still thought i had AS, and i dismissed it every time because i didn't want to accept that i really had a social deficit, i wanted it to just be anxiety. Eventually i started researching about AS and realized that i really DO fit the criteria. I brought up the possibility of AS to my current therapist. She agreed that i had a lot of AS traits, so we explored it further and she was convinced that i have it. So, i did some testing and got diagnosed.

Now that i know that i have AS, i'm always realizing that things i never really thought much about or refused to admit about myself are actually part of it. For example.. That thing about aspies being "pedantic." I thought "no, i don't match that trait" because i usually speak in a very casual way, not with "overly precise" language. But, i'm starting to see that i'm always quick to correct people about anything, especially if it has anything to do with an interest. In a discussion with someone at work recently, this was even pointed out to me... That i come of like i might be stuck-up because of how quick i am to correct people. This wasn't something i had thought about, because it's just something that i naturally do, and i certainly don't mean to sound stuck-up. There are also moments where something will happen that will make me realize that i'm more impaired than i ever thought i was.

I did not know what autism or aspergers really was until I watched some tv documentary about it. When I thought of Autism I thought of Dustin Hoffman in rainmain which I found out was an extremely wrong potrayal of autism. Almost everything they said on the show was something I went through or was feeling the day I watched it. The best part they mentioned WrongPlanet so here I am.

Yes! I've met dozens of people who were AS poster children but the term wasn't around when they were kids.

I don't understand the snarky tone of your response. I have described my personal experience just as you have described yours.

I did mention that services are available for people who are autistic, and perhaps the degree of severity of your AS is apparent enough that you can convince a therapist or government official that you are autistic and therefore qualify for services. But for people who appear to function relatively normally but are struggling with the social deficits and lack of understanding of the world that "milder" AS brings, there is very little available out there. In twenty years of visiting psychiatrists and therapists, no one has ever mentioned AS to me. After it occurred to me on my own, after reading about it, I wrote to a psychiatrist I had seen twice a week for 18 months and told her I though I might have AS, and she said in retrospect that she thought I was right, but she never thought of it on her own in all that time.

I am currently seeing a therapist and psychiatrist at a mental health clinic for low income patients, and while they have both accepted the AS diagnosis that I received from a private AS specialist, they have no referrals to offer me, and are simply treating me as if I have "generalized anxiety," Since my AS does cause me quite a bit of anxiety, that is somewhat helpful, but it is not the same as receiving services specifically for AS. The private AS specialist I saw also tried to find a referral for me but couldn't find anyone in all of NYC who took Medicaid or treated patients at low cost. AS is her only field, so she is presumably knowledgeable about the AS specialists and services available.

And it's simply a fact that if you tell a mental health professional that you are suicidal they have the right to check you into a mental hospital for a short period of observation, so it's an area where you should tread very carefully, especially if you're dealing with a therapist who doesn't know you yet. I have never had a psychiatrist threaten to lock me up, but I did have one warn me that she would have to if I were to say I was suicidal and had a plan for carrying it out.