Do Aspies necessarily have trouble dealing with change?

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I was diagnosed with ASD by my shrink, but I don't see myself in all the symptoms I read on Wikipedia. Yes, the social and communication difficulties are there, but I have no problems dealing with change (quite the opposite, my parents were frustrated that I didn't structure my daily life at all) and I have no obsessive interests. Do I have ASD or some similar disorder instead?

I don't know if you have an ASD or not, but keep in mind: Not all aspies have every aspie trait. As a commonly mentioned expression goes, if you've met one aspie...you've met one aspie.

ASD is certainly a varied 'spectrum'. Kind of reminds me of a buffet of symtoms- some I can completely relate to; others not at all.

BTW, trouble dealing with change happens to be one of my difficulties- I prefer sameness.

I think is also a matter of degrees I can deal with changes in my schedule a lot better than changes in my environment. My roommates decided it was time to re-organize the house and start throwing stuff out. I am frightened that they will go through the storage room and throw stuff away because its supposed to be there, not in the trash. And the idea of reorganizing our bedroom is really upsetting.

gradual changes like the grass growing or the seasons and traffic do not bother me as much as suddenly finding something moved. My areas look pretty cluttered but I KNOW WHERE i put things. Why cant they leave them there?

For me it depends. I had more difficulty with it when I was younger but I got better with it. I still struggle with it sometimes. My husband still has to pull teeth with me to make a change in our apartment and if he wishes to rearrange our furniture, he has to not tell me about it or else I would be worrying about how the change may effect me and worrying about not liking it. But if he does it without telling me and he does it when I am gone and I come home and see it, I end up liking it because of the way it looks and it looks better than before.

Three months ago when they decided to change our hours at work (from 8 hrs to 12 hrs every day) I quit. The disruption of my routine completely unnerved me and took me by surprise. Hopefully I'll be working again in a month or two.

Im flexable with change at work but would melt if some one moved stuff around in my shop at home.

I can be great with change - I'm actually quite open minded and quite flexible - as long as it isn't sudden or unexpected... it takes me a while to get use to the idea (longer than most people, and with stronger adverse reactions initially) but once it's had time to settle in my mind I'm fine.

I also hate it when people move my stuff or whatever because then when I want it I find, unexpectedly, that it's not where it should be and I often overreact and make an idiot of myself. If people tell me they are going to move something, and where they are going to move it to, then that's usually OK.

As to whether having trouble with change is necessary for an ASD diagnosis ... I don't know. But rigidity of thought is fairly classic I think ... and often leads to trouble with change.

Yeah, that's me. I'm moving from Maryland to California with my boyfriend in August, which is a HUGE change, as I've lived in Maryland my entire life, but I'm very calm about it. My NT boyfriend, on the other hand, is very nervous.

Push back dinner plans last minute, though, and I'll burst into tears and start rocking back and forth. Dealing with unexpected change is one of my most severe traits. It's as if my brain goes into shock, and it takes forever me to adjust to the idea of the change. I'll usually have a crying fit or anxiety attack first, even if I do come around to it eventually. This nearly drove my boyfriend and I apart, until I went to get assessed for AS and we began coming up with solutions for that issue.

Well, that Wikipedia page pretty much reads like an autobiography for me, with one big exception: I also have no problems dealing with change. In fact, I tend to be very impulsive, and have a lot of trouble sticking to any kind of routine... So no, it doesn't necessarily mean you don't have AS.

(Although, what Yellowbanana said about people moving her stuff made me LOL because I'm exactly the same way on that.)

I used to be worse with handling change when I was younger. My city has a parade each Independence Day, and one year my family decided to watch it from a different place along the route. I refused to watch it; I sat on my mom's lap with my eyes closed the whole time. I disliked in when my mom would rearrange the furniture; I had a meltdown in my Kindergarten classroom when the teacher moved around some of the tables that students sat at.

These days, I still tend to get peeved if someone decides to mess with my routine or workflow, or changes plans at the last minute, but it's less of a problem than it used to be.

I'm fine with change when I agree with it, which generally means that I like change when I decide it. Someone else's changes on someone else's schedule? Not so.

I've always had trouble with change I get unnerved when my routine is disrupted nowdays I can cope better with it but when I was younger it was very hard.

I remember when I was working in a factory and they decided to change the sections around I got panicky and when our lunch times changed I didn't like that either.

When I first moved out of home and into my own unit it was hard at first now I'm glad I did as it gave me independence.

As others have said;
A. It's a spectrum disorder so it can effect us differently.
B. Not everyone on the spectrum shows every characteristic.

I would also add that the clinical characteristics you read on Wikipedia are different to how these characteristics present themselves in the real world - if you're newly diagnosed you may find after some time talking to others that in fact you do have certain traits you previously didn't think you had, because you may not be a walking talking autistic stereotype.

Hard to come up with examples to explain this point, but say with the characteristic of 'trouble dealing with change'; a stereotyped example may be someone having a meltdown over being given their morning coffee in the wrong cup. A less stereotyped example may be finding moving house easy to cope with but it takes you time to reach the decision to move and get motivated to get the ball rolling. Another example may be that you're flexible about what to do on a day out with friends but find yourself getting annoyed at a sudden change of plan, what you may view as normal irritation or an unexplainable feeling of discomfort may in fact be a result of trouble dealing with change.

you really should try 12 hr shifts. you get to work 3 days one week and 4 the next so lots more days off... I have worked 12's before and loved it....

You should take the Aspire qiuz. the diagram/graph at the end of it will show you where you have stronger and lesser AS traits....