I have come to realize that I probably DO have Asperger's

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i have done a lot of reading on the internet, and i think i have asperger's. after 2 months of denying it, i realized i most likely have it, or some variation of it.


p.s. i didn't know where to put this thread, so could one of the mods, or someone else move this to the correct location? thanks

Welcome to the team ...

Welcome to the club.

Why were you denying it? Somebody diagnose you and you didn't want to be labeled or what?

Personally, I have no problem with the diagnosis. I always knew I was different, now I know why. Besides, I've seen plenty of 'normal' people and I'm quite happy not to be one of them. They suck.

Welcome. It can be traumatic to realize this; I know it was for me. I would seriously recommend a professional diagnosis. You are likely right, or close to right, but psychiatric diagnosis may discover something different or in addition to AS. I am also bi-polar, and research shows that we are more inclined to have other disorders as well. A diagnosis could lead to finding help for other things that may be affecting you.

Mind if I ask how you view AS? I view it as a condition that has affected my life in good ways and bad. How about you? Know that you don't need to feel ashamed about how you feel, good, bad or neutral, and you can't let others criticize you for it. Welcome again!

When I discovered AS, I finally felt like I had answers after twenty years of unanswered questions (on my parents' part---my unanswered questions started much later since, to me, I'm perfectly normal!) Six or seven years later when I first got my official diagnosis, part of me thought: no big surprise there! Another part of me wrestled with the: so I am going to be awkward for the rest of my life and there is nothing I can do to change that. I was in denial for awhile before that, even thinking perhaps the AS was all in my head and I attributed everything to my insecurities about my looks. Not so...I was right the first time. Now I have come to realize that it is who I am and always has been. I think I've even been able to release some of the self-loathing I've built up over time because I know that it is not really my fault anymore.

Now that I've proofread above, I realize that that is an Aspie trait: high jack the thread and talk about yourself! LOL Anyway, whether you have it or not, welcome!

Well, after two years I have come to the realization that I may be in the wrong club

My find is that I'm an ADDer inattentive type with SCT. I believe my 'similar' executive problems in cognition are all centered in this type of ADD.

How can one tell if you have these concurrently I wonder?

I had enough trouble with the above and having both together would have floored me I believe.

I believe there are similar symptoms, but with different reasons behind those symptoms. A lot of people do has AS with comorbid ADD, but a lot of people just have one or the other two. I hate to say it but....the only way to know for sure is to get evaluated. If you don't want to do that, you can try some self-reflection into the reasons behind your symptoms and see if they fit in with AS as well as ADD.

I still have no idea if I have aspergers, as I'm not rich enough to seek a psychiatric evaluation but yet the evidence seems to directly suggest I am vastly different from the majority of my peers in a way that makes me "socially ret*d", so I'm trying to create a prediction calculator that's been calibrated off the scores of many autistics and neurotypicals alike to settle the question once and for all!

Interesting project, but I don't know if that you could tell you if you have it or not. It could tell you that you have similar scores as others who have it, but it won't be able to account for similar symptoms you may experience for other reasons.

Well, the theory behind it is a little bit more complicated than that (It takes test scores from those who have been diagnosed with aspergers and from neurotypicals and then finds patterns in the scores that distinctively separate the aspergers and neurotypical groups, and then it compares your scores' patterns to those two groups to see which it is more similar to derive a likelihood you have aspergers. It's made astonishingly accurate by the magic of Linear Algebra.), but you're right that it wouldn't be "100%" accurate. But, short of a $2000 psych assessment, I'll take something that's 95% accurate over my possibly biased hypochondria.

I understand it insofar as one might get scores that pin one down as AS along with all the other people who get similar scores (and the NTs who get their similar scores as well), yet I still maintain that a number of online test scores is hardly akin to having a real diagnosis. Such a person would still be self-diagnosed, and you can do that without comparing scores with a bunch of other self-diagnosed Aspies....Still it would be an interesting project, but I would probably consider the results to be as valid as I do all other scientifically-based tests, etc that they have online. I would still try it out if it was created though for fun.

How you personally regard it is your choice. As far as accuracy and validity goes, I can only say statistics don't lie (And the norm group would be largely "officially diagnosed" aspergers, so it's not exactly 'comparing ones score with a bunch of other self-diagnosed Aspies').

Nothing online is a substitute for an official diagnosis, so I really hope you do not portray it as such when you post it. Also, people can say they are officially diagnosed when they are not--you really know nothing about these people that you are testing...once again, with inaccurate online tests! You're right-- it is my choice, and my choice is to see it as something that could be interesting and fun like the other online predictors/tests, but never something I could use to justify as an official diagnosis.

swbluto, you previously told me you were neurotypical and "undiagnosed" me saying that you "could just tell" that I was neurotypical as well, citing behavioral characteristics you claimed were abnormal for someone with AS. You even tried to do this using statistics, but your method was flawed. I don't mean to sound harsh, but you should probably read a few books on AS before trying to create an "AS probability calculator" that works online and is supposed to be accurate. You claimed, for example, that I couldn't have AS because I often type with emotion, and because I'm stimulated by chaos and sensory overload...that's just not true.

No hard feelings, just saying, you can't diagnose someone over the internet using probability, and even an in-person diagnosis could be wrong.

There are so many pitfalls with that. You could fall anywhere on the spectrum, and either be a hardcore videogamer Christian shut-in, or a pot-smoking risk-taking athiest musician who goes out every weekend, or anywhere in between; I've been both in my life, and I've seen many examples of both on here. Both personalities are caused in some way by Asperger's, but life experiences and the individual dictate the rest.

I see a lot of these online tests asking questions like "Do you prefer being by yourself or with friends?" Well, I don't feel right if I don't go out to a party on the weekend, but I hate group projects, and after a Friday out I spend most of Saturday by myself, or I feel exhausted. Where's the checkbox for that?

Yes, that's important: not even all professional psychologists and psychiatrists get it right, so someone with limited knowledge on the subject cannot create a system that is one-size-fits-all based on online tests that are not accurate to begin with.