AS Traits

Post Reply New Topic

I thought it would be interesting if people on this forum listed there traits, i am still finding new ones, i thought my voice was ok, but having asked a few people they have said it is flat/monotone.

lack of eye contact.
Involuntary hand wringing.
fear of loud noises.
Cannot stand wrists being touched.
Anxiety attacks.
Strong feeling to collect things.
Obsess about a couple of things at a time.
Severely awkward in social situations.
Daydream go into trances.
Stressed with any change.
Unable to reciprocate.
Do not listen.
Flat/monotone voice.
Mood swings.
Always being silly with words ?
Feel like a boy when talking to people in authority.

Secondary traits OCD.

I get extremely obsessed with things.
I cannot control my emotions.
I'd rather be with people a bit younger than me.
I don't act my age or have my age's interests.
I have a hard time falling asleep.
I can't concentrate on something if it doesn't appeal to me.
I can be overly proper.
I am incredibly good in some subjects and really bad at others.
I can become extremely paranoid.
I hate being in the same place for a while.

No good in sports
Lack of eye contact
stuck on thoughts
Get obsessed with stuff
bothered by some sounds or noise
dislike of certain faberics against my bare skin
dislike of sweaty skin touching me and my sweaty skin touching each other
restricted routines
dislike in change
anxiety attacks
loud voice
very honest
no interest in having lot of friends
troubles with socialization
problems learning something that doesn't interest me
take things literal
literal thinker
dislike some touch
hate talking on the phone
hate being interupted for a long periods of time
i have no interests others my age have interests in
I'd rather do the same thing over and over
somewhat bad balance
always have to have things planned for my days
get tense when I don't know what to expect
can be eccentric
was a little flowry with words when I was in high school
have to take my shower at 8 everyday
get tense when too many changes go on
good memory
can absorb facts in stuff that interests me
say whats on my mind
can't read body language very well
don't know social cues (what r they anyway?)

Well doctor,it's like this...


Irrational anxiety
Socially challenged
Tendency to avoid initiating of changes
Tendency to avoid eye contact,thus missing facial
expressions as well
Look younger than my age and sometimes think as if I'm
still about 13 instead of an adult
Expressing emotions doesn't happen spontaneously
Empathy based on sense of fairness rather than feelings
Decisions based more on logic than emotions
Voice is usually monotone -but I find it easy to modulate
if imitating accents,which in itself is an AS trait
AS style of walking during adolescence (i.e. without swinging
of arms)
Perfectionist in workplace + too conscientious
Multi-tasking can only be done with copious note-taking
Didn't think seriously about plans for my own future
Obsessive solitary interests + collections
Aptitude for wordplay + puns
Attention to detail is intense but sometimes at expense
of seeing 'the big picture'
Too honest for my own good (should I really be admitting
all these personal traits to everyone ? )

Secondary trait - Synaesthesia

The above all sounds pretty drastic,but as I've only recently
discovered that AS must be the reason then that has actually
helped me to compensate.A lot of the anxiety and problems
were made worse by not knowing what was wrong in the first
place!

I agree with all of those, although I have greatly improved with some of them.

for me (lacking a lot of them):
* my mind is constand on hyperdrive (hence my name). extremely restless and noisy.
* i cannot choose, i dont know what to want.
* i dont show any emotions, and i dont think i have most of them. i do feel though, but i just feel horrible, and barren, but never sad. (i used to fake some)
* (consequently) i seem incapable to maintain or pertain close relations. i have many "friends", but not a single friend. im allways vague and distand
* i cannot concentrate, most of the time.
* things i hear or experiance too often seem like its only in my head (if that is an autistic trait)
* visually i can learn extremely easy, but only if my concentration allows. i store information explicitely well, but when i need to recover that information from my memory i cant find it.
* i am extremely rational and analytical, and guided by rationality io feelings, instincts that sort of thing.
* things that dont interest me, which is everything of practical use to me, i dont keep track of at all, so i blow everything constantly. thinking about uninteresting things costs a huge amount of effort and allways gives me a headache, though reasoning out the most complicated things i do effortlessly. (maybe more of an add thing)
* i am very accostumed to feeling like im still a little boy, effectively forgetting my age. (i hate that) almost a dissociative thing.
* though i know exactly what people want/expect of others, where they stand towards one another, when it relates to me i have no idea. cuase all my effort is in fighting selfnegative thoughts that can go as far as paranoia. so i think in my case this isnt an autistic thing.

but i have none of the change averse traits, or nonverbal communication issues.
and quite some other nonautistic traits.

hmmm:/, i listed more then i would v thought

Good question, stripey, and from the responses you’re getting, there is a lot of interest out there. Here’s my take on it.

A “trait” is usually considered to be an observable behavior. (Although the DSM-IV stipulates “diagnostic criteria,” those are only tangentially “traits.”) There are at least fourteen major categories of AS traits. If you look at the responses to your question, most, if not all of them, will fit somewhere in this list:

1) Solitude, isolation, being a loner
2) Spacing out (involuntarily)
3) Shutting out, blocking (deliberately)
4) A hyperaroused nervous system
5) A poor awareness of the outer world
6) Associative communication
7) Associative thinking
Specific-to-general thinking
9) Visual thinking
10) Poor social skills
11) Limited career choices
12) Relentless reading
13) Perseveration
14) Immaturity

The interesting thing is that EVERY ONE OF THOSE FOURTEEN is also a characteristic of one or two of the Jungian/Myers-Briggs personality types. The Jungian/Myers-Briggs types, are, as you might know, considered entirely normal. Not neurotypical normal, but normal nonetheless (more on that in just a minute). They represent optimum type development in a very small minority of the types.

There are also some AS traits that are considered less than optimum type development. They are:

1) Anger, regret
2) Reduced self-esteem
3) Rigidity
4) Overemphasis on logic
5) Confusion of feeling judgment and emotion
6) Talking too much

These are pretty clearly poor type development. However, if you teach the individual about type; help them develop their own type (as opposed to who somebody else thinks they ought to be), and coach them in becoming who they already are, the pathology goes away. That’s not to say the behaviors go away. The behaviors are characteristic of the types. But the tendency to pathologize the behaviors simply because they differ from the social norm disappears. You can be different – very different – and still be “normal.” The problem is in the definition of normal, not in the individual or the behaviors.

geezer

P.S. The software seems to have interpreted my number eight + a closed parenthesis as a smily face. Read it as "number eight."

g

I have thought of some more traits lack of empathy i suppose, as i have done the baron cohen empathy test twice and scored 12 and 8.

Faces seem familiar when registering in my mind even though i have just meet them.

If enough people were to list there traits we could compare which were the most common, which the most obscure, we might even discover new ones.

* Poor eye contact
* Lack of interest in people, lack of desire for friendships
* Extreme dislike of change
* Extreme attachment to objects, often very mundane ones
* Periods of obsession with things when I find it hard to think about anything else
* OCD
* Difficulty in understanding other people's humor and knowing whether they are being serious or not
* Sensitive to noise
* Sensitive to touch
* Face blindness
* Stimming (pacing, obsessive chewing)
* Getting words or phrases 'stuck' in my head
* Little interest in reading novels, preferring reference books
* Constant talking to myself
* Difficulty with social cues, unable to make small talk
* Poor memory for things I don't find interesting
* Failure to notice obvious things going on around me (yet I'll notice small things like an interesting beetle sitting on a wall)
* Lack of interests 'appropriate' to my gender and age

* insomnia, and sometimes sleeping too much, particularly when depressed.
* have a very hard time maintaining a sleep schedule that is synchronous with daylight.
* Loose track of time, of sense of time.
* tend to take things literally.
* daydream, postulate, theorize, sketch, design, "what if?" a lot. Can't control it.
* visual/3d thinker, very good with complex 3d things.
* I don't like social stuff, more than three people and I am over loaded
* I can't understand anyone's speech if more than one person is talking at a time.
* I get attached to objects/possessive/protective of my stuff
* I need to have things a particular way.
* Stimming -oscillating legs, hands, etc. I am told sometimes even when I am asleep.
* Obsess on various subjects, topics, hobbies
* If I am not interested, I can't fake that I am.
* Anxiety in social scenes, awkward verbally.
* Strong dislike of uncertainty, and of not knowing what/when/how things are going to happen.
* I have a tendency to horde, it's a daily fight to get rid of stuff that has no use-value.
* I avoid the world, I will go days and even weeks (currently unemployed) without leaving the house, talking to, or seeing anyone. It's exhausting to deal with people in the real, and I don't like it much at all.

* I am a stare'er (one friend said I get "stalker eyes", ) but generally try to avoid eye contact, because I am told I can stare unsettlingly.

* I see differently-- hard to explain. I see everything, except when focused on one thing, then I see nothing but that one thing. My normal is to see everything, focus is difficult. It explains my staring though, in that I am just taking big visual gulps.

* I am totally socially clueless, I have driven people to tears, with frankness without realizing it until it was too late.

* I am physically awkward, it's like my mental understanding of body dimensions and my actual body dimensions don't match, resulting in clipping corners, banging head, etc. I am tallish, and I have actually knocked myself out a couple times because of this and low-overhangs, or low signs, tree branches, etc., are a serious hazard.

* I am highly prone to sensory overload. Particularly sound, smell and touch. Have to pick my battles when going out, and generally limit my exposure to the world. I require ultra-quite/fanless computers, quiet appliances in the home. I sometimes have to shut off the fridge for short periods because it's hum disturbs me while doing other things in other rooms that require concentration, and it's very quiet. Running the washer/dryer/dishwasher are generally scheduled for when I am not around, because they are intolerable.

>dislike of certain faberics against my bare skin
>dislike of sweaty skin touching me and my sweaty skin touching each other

This is huge with me, HUGE! I can't seem to get my mental health professional, doesn't seem to understand how huge this is, how much it affects everything else.

*I hate any skin touching skin, sweaty skin is even worse (but that's different than wet skin, or wet things), and hairy skin touching skin (hairy or not) is the worst. I can't stand having my hair touched, and shaving (and having stubble) my beard is just as bad as having a beard (total lose/lose). I will itch a scratch till I bleed, and keep on itching until I bandage it such that it stops me.

* Clothing that doesn't fit and feel right can ruin my whole day and ability to do anything productive until I find what is comfortable for me at the moment (and it changes, sometimes I need loose, sometimes I need more fitting). Same with certain noises and high-distraction environments. I travel with my own sheets and pillow, 600 thread count minimum, etc. The need for physical comfort is almost crippling, in that it can keep me awake on hot nights for days on end, because of bad sheets, or in the wrong bed, or a nosy room, or wrong side of a bed, I can't stay comfortable in the heat and become utterly useless, and sensitivity severely limits my wardrobe, and makes clothing shopping agony, and very hit/miss.

* People are simply NOT ALLOWED to touch me, my friends and family know this, but it can be problematic in new social scenes, touching me is a red-flag moment, and I might react as if you just hit me with a stun gun.