AS and social anxiety?

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Hi everyone, I'm new to posting here (been lurking for awhile) and am a self-diagnosed Aspie currently pursuing an official diagnosis.
I had my first meeting with a psychiatrist today, which unfortunately didn't go as well as I expected. After talking for quite a while he basically told me that I can't have AS because of my shyness/social anxiety. I tend to worry about or over analyze social situations and worry whether I'm doing the right thing, and he said that people with AS never do that. He also said that I can't have it because of the fact that I am aware of my social deficits and want to work to improve them.
Right after he said that (and a few other things) I immediately knew I wanted a second opinion.

So my question is do any Aspies worry about what to do in a social situation (I'm sure some do) and are they ever aware of their lack of social skills?

I've been told I may have AS but have never pursued an official diagnosis. I have been diagnosed with Social Anxiety though. My therapist is willing to help me pursue an AS diagnosis if I so choose.

As a kid I wasn't aware of my social difficulties or difference, but as I hit adulthood it became clearer. I liked it better when I was a kid - I was blissfully oblivious. Now socializing is painful. Before, I was just weird but never realized it.

I think especially when you get to adulthood it's possible to have AS and know you have social difficulties. And if those social difficulties caused you to be teased or ridiculed, then it's likely you'll have at least some anxiety around socializing.

I was misdiagnosed with social anxiety for years, despite the fact that approaching people was the only thing that really caused anxiety. I was exhibiting many more traits of Asperger's (scoring 198 out of 200 on one test and 48 out of 50 on another) and my current psychologist finally diagnosed me with Asperger's. As for being aware of my social deficits, I'm usually not aware until later that I said something that was probably interpreted as rude or insensitive, that I rambled on about a subject and bored someone to death with it, that I was making noticeable repetitive motions with my hands, and so on. I'm not impressed with your psychiatrist's reasoning, and would suggest getting another opinion elsewhere.

I have been officially diagnosed with Asperger's 7 days ago. and when it's comes to socialising I'm rubbish so I get social anxiety about looking stupid and not knowing what to say especially with peers i dont no very well, and I feel uncomfortable and paniky, and I feel like they don't like me. My close friends are usually girls or people that are more tolerable (safe people) and dont give me funny looks for being socially rubbish but I don't meet many people like that. I'm slightly better now since I had to live with peers at university you just become more self aware I think of mistake but that comes with experience I tried to push myself to hang around with my peers and I just thought I was rubbish and it was just a social phobia but I found out there's more to it, I had asperger traits which have been there all along. I still get a bit of anxiety even with the close friends which I rarly see now. When I'm in a group of people I can't keep up with conversation or take much of what their saying in.
It's usually my friend or aqaintence that tells me some girl I was just talking to was flirting really obviously and I had no idea! So I'm more aware I'm rubbish socially. I start social skills training soon. xD yayyyyyy

When I've been with people it makes my brain feel tired so I need some quiet time on my own with my hobbies.
About 8 months ago I tried to find out what the problem was and asperger's was the only possibility that fit me. The research said "If you think you have AS you probably do."

Last edited by jonnysound on 07 Jun 2011, 8:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Time for a second opinion! Psychiatrist no know AS.



People with AS do worry in social situations and are aware of their lack of social skills.

When I worry about social situations, I usually do it before or after. Before, I'll be nervous about going to a social event, but I'll still go, because I'm not extremely nervous to the point of social anxiety. I'll do all my usual AS cluelessnesses at the event. Aftewards, I'll replay the interactions, realize some of my mistakes, and analyze them for what the other people were trying to tell me and what they might have thought about me. I'll worry about them for awhile, maybe until I go to sleep that night, but the next day, I won't care anymore.

During the interactions, I don't worry. I don't feel anxious. I just walk and talk/no talk like myself.

I think people with AS and SA are similar before and after the interactions, with SA at a more severe level of anxiety. But what's going on inside the mind during the socializing is what differentiates the two. They look similar on the outside, except AS doesn't have the physical manifestations of SA, but my understanding is that not all people with SA have the physical manifestations either.

I think people with SAD tend to be introverts. Given that there may be some overlap in symptoms between introversion and ASD as suggested here, http://etd.fcla.edu/CF/CFE0003090/Grime ... 005_MA.pdf it can sometimes be difficult to distinguish, especially if sensory issues and obsessions/interests are strong.

Here are just a few of many pubmed articles on this topic suggesting a link between introversion and SA/SAD:

"Genetic factors that influence individual variation in extraversion and neuroticism appear to account entirely for the genetic liability to social phobia and agoraphobia, but not animal phobia. These findings underline the importance of both introversion (low extraversion) and neuroticism in some psychiatric disorders....Social phobia and agoraphobia have particularly strong associations with both introversion and neuroticism....Finally, our results indicate the importance of both introversion and neuroticism as personality endophenotypes for social phobia and agoraphobia. Though geneticists often seek a single basic dimension for an endophenotype, our results suggest that the greatest genetic risk for social phobia or agoraphobia involves genetic liability to both low extraversion and high neuroticism."

"The extent to which introversion and neuroticism index the genetic vulnerability to social phobia and agoraphobia here is particularly noteworthy (estimated at 100%). For comparison, when we used this cohort and similar methods, estimates of the extent to which neuroticism indexes the genetic vulnerability to major depressive disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and panic disorder were 36% (rg=0.60), 59% (rg=0.77), and 48% (rg=0.69), respectively; none of these conditions was associated with introversion."

http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/...64/11/1714.pdf

"Social phobia was also positively and moderately correlated with introversion and neuroticism. Thus, shy persons with social phobia were shyer, more introverted, and more neurotic than other shy people."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12547381

"Social phobia, agoraphobia, and dysthymia were associated with low extraversion, and OCD was associated with high openness to experience."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15390211

"Those with the generalized subtype also had significantly lower extraversion scores, and those with the specific subtype had a significantly higher frequency of traumatic conditioning episodes."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7673576

I have a rather constant "background noise" of anxiety. While I'm fairly sure about the ADHD, I'm not as sure about the AS. I do have a documented history of social and communication difficulties, though, and I share more in common with those on the spectrum than I do with ADHD people.

For me, the anxiety is most noticeable because I am very withdrawn and sometimes unwilling to engage others in conversation. I get anxious when I am first approaching others, to the point that I sometimes avoid social situations altogether. It's not so much that I care strongly about what they think of me, but more that I get the unrelenting desire to escape from there. Once I finally am in a conversation, I don't often feel anxiety. However, I will need downtime afterward and group situations are particularly difficult for me. It gets overwhelming, and I find it difficult to keep up and constantly shift my gaze from one person to another. For this reason, I am sometimes completely silent when in group situations. I don't think anxiety is the main cause for that, though.

Like you, I am mostly aware of my social mistakes, though I was not always aware when I was younger. I frequently say things that are inappropriate and it can get very frustrating to be misunderstood. This also doesn't help with anxiety... Oh, and I definitely over-analyze situations. When I goof up, I am more concerned with how to prevent a mishap from preventing in the future. I've come up with some solutions, but it's been a long and difficult road.

Anyhow, what I wanted to say was... don't let your doctor completely ignore the possibility of AS. Many people on the spectrum are misdiagnosed with social anxiety and some even have both. Keep making your argument and see if your doctor doesn't change his tune. If he still insists that you don't have AS even though you are positive you do, get a second opinion... find someone who is used to working with people on the spectrum, if possible.

Best of luck!

I would have thought that social phobia was one of the likely co-morbid conditions of AS, along with sensory processing disorder, general anxiety, depression, OCD, ADHD, Tourette's, ...

That's what I thought too...that it is common to be diagnosed with 2 or more of these conditions together, since there is so much overlap of symptoms.
The doctor mentioned that I have traits of OCD and ADHD but not enough for a diagnosis of either of those.