Is that Asperger? Has somebody a similar experience?

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I discovered Asperger just a few months ago. I had red before about Autism, but I never thought that it would have any relation with me. I had the classical idea about Autism (the one that most of people out there still have. You know, Rain Man) and it just didn't describe me.

For years I have been struggling with the question 'how my mind works?' without any real clue. I had elements of ADHD and OCD, but they didn't explain the way I feel. My mind is a very hard system to manage: it's bloody difficult for me to keep concentrated in something I'm not really interested (what looks like ADHD), but at the same time I can keep working in something I’m obsessed, without even eating or sleeping (what looks like OCD). That’s not the only stuff. I have dyslexia. And a slight prosopagnosia: it’s very difficult for me to remember faces, up to the point that, when I have met somebody I didn’t know previously and I have to leave, I always say ‘be aware I won’t recognize you the next time we meet’. People always take it as a joke, but it really takes to me several times before beeing able to recognize him or her. However, I’m very good with numbers, ciphers or spatial locations.

So, when I found Asperger, it was like finding something that could explain quite a lot of things. I red several books about it during the last months and they really helped me a lot. After hearing for years that kind of ‘self-help’ tips that I feel (most of it) like part of an alien psychology, for the first time I was reading something that made sense! But at the same time, there’s things that doesn’t fit. People with Asperger says that they think in terms of details, individual and specific cases, while my mind is just the opposite: it’s like a system that constantly looks for patterns everywhere.

When I made the aspie quiz I got quite a bit strange result: according to it, I’m fully AS in the intellectual side (specially talent and compulsive) but NT in the physical one (like hunting or perception). Up to a point, that makes sense: I had problems with socializing when I was young, but nowadays I’m even succesful at it, though I still prefer to be alone. However, I just never understood people. I still don’t. I guess apart completelly reasoning and emotions and even today, after years of having observed people out there as daily life was a kind of lab, I still feel unexplainable why people mix them or why they have this ‘emotional blindness’ (it’s how I call it).

For example: with regard to this ‘emotional’ stuff, years ago, I usually had conflicts with my flatmates. Conflicts that I never fully understood (I was absolutelly considerate with regard to cleaning or bathroom using or loud noises or anything that could bother other person). After some experiences, I figured out that what they needed was some kind of minimum emotional fullfillment, too. I just have emotions for some people I choose (and I’m incredibly loyal with them). But for the rest, even if I’m polite and kind, I have no more emotional link than I could have with a pebble. For some reason most of people finds it annoying. So, of course, I hide it now.

I red too that Aspergers have sensory problems. I feel fully indentified from the auditive point of view (being in a noisy place is a nightmare for me. I can’t guess apart between voices and background noise). But I don’t have any problem from the visual point of view (the glow effect).

Furthermore, Asperger people usually have problems to understand sentences in a not literal meaning. I have no problem with it. I can play with second senses and I even have quite a ironnic sense of humour that makes people laugh. But at the same time I hate the lack of precission. I can’t understand why people is so emotional or indefinite or inconsistent when they speak or make any statemente or any kind of reasoning. Of course, most of people is like that, so I just smile and take it with patience. As Wilder said, nobody is perfect.

By the way, small and recent anecdote. Last week I was spending a weekend visiting a foreign big city with a good friend of mine. We use to meet having beers with other friends and in parties. And those times I usually find it difficult to understand what she says (just when there’s a noisy background, that in parties and pubs is quite the usual). The same with remembering other people’s faces. Although I have explained that I don’t do on purpose and that my mind just works this way she kept thinking that I’m absentminded and a bit unkind sometimes. This weekend, when we were walking around the city she was surprised that I could remember every address, timetable o any data without effort, as long as to know where we were exactly in every moment. So she said me ‘hey, then it’s true when you say that you’re not that absentminded’. Bloody patience, I had said it to her dozens of times!

So, the Asperger is the best explanation I have found by now. But at the same time, it’s slightly different in some ways. Have something here a similar experience?

Remember that Asperger's is diagnosed by running through a large checklist of possible problems and behaviors and concluding that the person in question has SOME of them. The thing is that no two autistic people are alike, or display the same behaviors, so it is necessary to list a lot of possible behaviors and leave it to the shrinks to figure out the proper diagnosis. Not very precise, I know. But this means that you don't have to have all possible or listed behaviors and problems, and in fact no one really does. So yes, from what you have described you may very well be an Aspie. Don't take what I say as gospel though.

Thanks

I wont' take it as a sure thing. Indeed, I always work in terms of probabilities, and I just evaluate according to the probabilities and act accordingly. The concept of 'believing' and why this is so important is something that I never understood very well (but it's quite usual for most of people, so I suppose I'm the exception!).

Anyway, even if I feel very identified with the AS stuff, I find very curious about why I have not all those problems about managing in social situations that look like one of the keys of it. Though probably I'm just lucky about it.

The beginning of your journey there sounds a lot like mine (with the exception that I don't have dyslexia.) I've had customers get very insulted when I don't remember their face from the last time they came in, two months ago. What? Sorry, am I supposed to remember every single one of the hundreds of customers I see ever week? Though even worse was when I worked at Home Depot and occasionally had to grab a coworker from a different department to answer a question I wasn't knowledgeable about (like someone in Garden asking about patio lights, and I need to get someone from Electrical.) I used to make a conscious effort to remember the person's shirt color, since otherwise I wouldn't be able to pick them out of the crowd once I returned. So frustrating! And nobody else seemed to ever have that problem!

I also have a fair number of OCD-like traits. I'm not even going to get into describing them, but suffice it to say, they can be VERY DISTRACTING, but still nobody believed me when I told them I felt like I was a little OCD (mostly because my room was messy. No, it wasn't messy. It was organized chaos. There is a difference!

Anyways, I'd realized long ago that I was just "different", and that it was something in my brain. Outwardly, I look like any other person. It's in my head that the differences are striking. I remember when I was about 16, I told my then-boyfriend that I wished I could be studied by some scientists, since I knew my brain was odd, but had no idea why. (He responded by saying that such a thing "sounded scary." I didn't say I want them to tear my skull open, silly. I meant do tests in a lab with an MRI or something, see what parts of my brain light up to different stimuli.) Just like you, I always thought of "Classic Autism", even with the word "Asperger's." But oddly, the subject of autism always interested me. I loved how there was a strong community with it, that there was autistic pride based on the fact that they are unique. However, it wasn't until earlier this year, after watching a video that an autistic friend of mine had shared, that I realized I might have Asperger's. One video linked to another, then to another, where a very normal-looking kid talked about how he was diagnosed with Asperger's years ago and denied it until then. The way he described himself... "Omg," I thought, "That sounds like me..." I also used to think you had to have the entire checklist, rather than X-number of traits. But this kid explained that you DON'T have to have the entire list. I was blown away. I continued to research and became more sure of it. Then I found this site, saw how many experiences I had in common with everyone here, took the tests, saw how much I matched up... and yeah. Long story short, I know why I'm "different" now. It seems you just discovered why you are, too. Congrats!

Yeap, I know what you say. I'm very chaotic, but at the same time extremely organized. I thought that it would be great to be able to study my mind too, because I just don't understand how it works!. It has those OCD traits, but at the same time works in a very intuitive way. If I had to describe how I think, the word I would choose would be 'abstract patterns'. I even have used the expression 'organized chaos' myself, sometimes.

Anyway, looking 'normal' in the outside has its advantages and disadvantages. It's much easier to integrate, that is without question an advantage. But at the same time people really find very hard to understand that you can look 'normal' in the outside, but think in a completelly different way inside. I have been talking with some close friends about the 'Autism/Asperger' stuff since xmas... they are starting to believe me NOW. It's like 'hey, you're a funny guy, what you're talking about?'.

I discovered that I could have Asperger recently, though I remember I suspected it when I was reading the Millennium novels. I remember, when the swedish movie was released and everybody was talking about how unusual the character of Lisbeth was, finding myself thinking "Is it me the only person that finds her 'normal'?". It's weird when you're talking with some friends after watching the movie and the talk goes about how her character should have some kind of disorder and you're thinking 's**t, I suppose that it's not really a good idea to say now that I feel kind of identified with her'

But anyway, I agree that sometimes it's kind of annoying to see people becoming slightly mad because things you can't control. And in some way, it's unfair. I have skills that other people don't have: should I be mad at them because of it? But I assumed that they represent what is 'normal', so it's up to me to be patient and comprehensive. But life is ironic sometimes: It's me who has a disorder and it's me who has to be comprehensive and patient! It was not supposed to be otherwise?

PS I found a very useful tool in the 'british humour'. It's definitely great to introduce humour in a situation and relax it, while being absolutelly serious at the same time. I got over a couple of weird situations this way.

What are your dyslexia symptoms? From which i've read many dyslexia symptoms are very similar to Asperger's

I have two ones.

First one, a very high difficulty to guess apart between two things when I learn them as a pair. I manage well by now with the left/right stuff, but still need a mnemotecnic rule to know where is east and west. I have to be concentrated to remember, for example, that in a traffic the light red light means 'stop' and green means 'go on' (I hate this). Or funnier things like to know two people with similar names in a party (so I assign: those two names for those two people), to see them quite often after it and even when time has passed I still can't say (without using a mnemotecnics) which name correspond to which one.

Second one, a kind of 'weird' writing: changing adjective's number and genre (specially in romance languages -the latin derived ones- English hardly declines), using a incorrect word (usually conjunctions and prepositions), swapping two words, changing the place of a word or even writing a sentence where every word is completelly out of place. A few times it happened to me to write a paragraph and when I read it I was unable to understand what I had written. The weird thing is that I can remember perfectly how I was thinking in the right words, but I wrote the wrong ones!. It's like you're thinking in a sentence, that is perfectly clear in you head, you write it, and when you read what you wrote... well (sometimes, not always) it's a mess.

None of it is hard, though, just using mnemotecnic rules, avoiding learn things by pairs and reading carefully after writing figure it out.

I have dyslexia too but i don't have big troubles reading. From which i know there are many famous people with dyslexia and with Asperger's too. They might be comorbid. Here's an article about dyslexia symptoms - if you pay attention they are very similar to Asperger's:
http://www.dyslexia.com/library/symptoms.htm

Btw, is there any chance that you're left handed?

I was left-handed when I was a child. After it I was ambidextrous and then I became right-handed. Nobody knew why and I was not forced. Only thing that remains from my left-handed phase is the way I use cutlery (it shocks some people that ask me suddenly 'wait, weren't you right-handed?' )

Anyway, I don't feel identified with most of the symptoms in here http://www.dyslexia.com/library/symptoms.htm. I thought about dyslexia before, as long as ADHD or OCD, but none of them look like more than 'addons'.

I don't know enough about Aspergers to tell you anything about wether or not you have it, as it's my boyfriend, not me, that is about to start the process of finding out if it may be the right answer for him.

However, I can tell you that I do have adult ADHD, and I have to point out to you that several of the symptoms you mention also does fit with ADHD.

I'll try to break it down for you..because ADHD is very misunderstood, and it's taken me a long time to both figure these things out and to accept it and my diagnose.

First of all, hyperfocus. Hyperfocus is a trait that Aspies and ADD'ers share! It looks a little bit different in the two however.
-From what I've understood (correct me if I'm wrong), Aspies hyperfocus on the same topics most of the time, their special interests
-ADHD hyperfocus happens with whatever "draws you in" that moment, and is extremely engulfing when it happens, so you easily forget to eat, go to bed, follow whatever routines or plans you have while time just flies without you noticing.

Secondly, social problems.
- Aspie social problems, as far as I've understood, occur because socialization isn't "natural" to an Aspie. Language issues and "reading between the lines" are part of these problems
- ADHD social problems stem from two sources: 1) You can be inadvertently rude because you speak on impulse and 2) You don't actually hear certain sentences or words because your focus shifts in and out. The result looks very different in different people, so you need to look into what may be the source for you.

Thirdly: Memory problems
- Aspergers doesn't really seem to come with memory lapses? Instead, the memory works "differently" and things that are important to you are moved to the forefront of your memory
- ADHD comes with memory problems, which doesn't only affect short term memory (where are my keys? I had them two minutes ago) but can also include things like remembering names, dates, faces etc.

Fourth point: Thinking processes
-No point in splitting this one in two. it is my understanding that a prime cause of neurological disorders like ADHD and Aspergers is HOW the brain works, and thus how we think. Aspies and ADD'ers alike will feel like they think "differently" from NT's.

Fifth point: Sensory problems
- Again, neurological disorders seem to share this one. But it irritates Aspies and ADD'ers in different ways from what I can understand. touch and sound may ruin my concentration and make my mind a chaos, but they can drive an Aspie over the edge(?) Many ADD'ers are oversensitive to light, sound, etc.

Other things to note:
ADHD can make you "ignore" people as well as mess, situations etc. you litterally don't notice. I don't know how this works with Aspergers
ADHD-I doesn't have the hyperactivity trait
OCD is common as an ADHD comorbid
Even though I have ADHD I love maps, and like organizing certain things, and can find my way around most of the capitol city here, though if you drop me somewhere new, without access to google maps, or in a big building with long corridors, I will get lost quickly.

Please note: I am NOT saying you don't have Aspergers or that you "just" have ADHD; I'm trying to point out that if you haven't already, you should give ADHD a second look-see to see if maybe you will find some answers there too? I really hope you find your answer, living without knowing what it is that makes things so much harder/more annoying for you is not fun!

Thank you very much for this recap, it's really interesting.

So.

Hyperfocus. I focus in the same topics again and again. Match: aspie.

Memory Problems and Thinking Processes. They are linked for me. I have been trying to decode how my mind works for years. If most of aspies say that they think in images or similar, I would say that I do in abstract patterns. It's like my real 'mother' language were those 'patterns' I can't explain. I don't have memory problems... as long as I can find a bigger structure or pattern in which my mind is interested and where this info has a place (and 'me' and 'my mind' don't share the same interests sometimes, so many times I have to think about how to 'make' my mind interested in something I want to learn, like for example a new language). It's very difficult to explain, since the language it's basically derived from 'normal' and 'usual' experiences and I can't 'translate' it appropiately. And besides this is very very simple summary. It's much more complex, for example: I can forget a face in a few days but I can orientate in any city where I had been only once years before. Match: ?????.

Sensory problems. I fully fit in the aspie description when it comes to auditive. Not at all in visual. With regard to touch, I don't like it, but it doesn't drive me to the edge (at least, not in an unpleasant way). Match: ?????

Social problems. Well, that's complicated too. Though I don't like that much socializing (I like to be focused in my interests full time), I don't have real problems with it. One of the good things of having a mind that is looking for patterns and relations constantly is that you can give witty answers o make witty remarks quite easily. I'm very aware that I'm 'forgiven' some other bizarre moments because of this. My official social image is 'eccentric but interesting' (I have been told several times). So, match: ?????

Anyway, I found your post very interesting. Probably what I have is a kind of 'mix'. But, since ADHD can be medicated (if I'm not wrong) it could be interesting to look for it. Something that helps, even if it only helps just a bit, a small percentage, is always good.

Yeah, ADHD can be medicated, but it doesn't solve everything for anyone, it basically makes it easier to focus for longer, and lets you keep an overview better. In that sense, it works on impulse as well. it works on the hyperactivity in a few people as well, but far from everyone. In actuality, ritalin helps approximately 80% of everyone with ADHD who try it, and Strattera (a different drug) works on about 70, though some of those can be the ones that don't get help from Ritalin. So it's possible to medicate, but ritalin not working doesn't mean you don't have ADHD, if that makes sense =)

I agree with you that you probably have a mix. My BF has the same problem as you, he fits with a fair few of the diagnose criteria, but he's rarely clumsy in social settings, though he spends a lot of energy "acting" to avoid it. This makes it hard for us to find a psychiatrist that will look past the "successful" behaviour, and see that it's very analysed, a bit unnatural and rehearsed, and focus on the other symptoms.

The problem is that Aspergers is very, very, very linked to social behaviour, whereas ADHD used to be very, very, very linked to hyperactivity. Today psychiatrists operate with three, sometimes four different types of ADHD, and the main diagnose critera has shifted from hyperactive to inattentive. to MY knowledge (it's limited), psychiatrists admit that Aspies are different, but there's only one "diagnostic set", or one single "type". Who's to say later down the line, they won't break Aspergers into sub categories to fit more different people into it, perhaps remove the "mild autism spectrum" umbrella diagnose, and shift the focus from "social clumsiness" to something more at the core of the brain function that follows?

In my personal opinion, which you may feel free to disagree with, both ADHD and Aspergers will sooner or later be revealed as genetic disorders with a specific cause, and the rigid list of "look for these symptoms" will give way to a more medical approach of diagnose. When that happens, they may discover that some ADD'ers and Aspies in fact have different disorders, perhaps they'll discover several syndroms with similar symptoms in both groups, or perhaps they'll simply streamline the diagnostic process by offering a blood/gene test. Where I'm going with this is, that my boyfriend's father and sister very clearly fulfill every single "requirement" for Aspergers, while my BF doesn't at first glance. But since he does have a lot of the traits, and his father and sister have them all, wouldn't it make sense if he, too, has the same genetic disorder they do, and thus Aspergers?

Perhaps that "philosophy" and looking at your own family can get you closer to the truth as well! My father has ADHD and Tourettes, my brother has ADHD and Tourettes, I have ADHD but no Tourettes. So clearly it's hereditary.

Sorry for the delay.

I fully agree with you. Yeap, AS and ADHD are both of them quite misunderstood by current medicine. Of course, it's likely that after some years and when the causes are known it can be managed much better (just like real medicine). But for today, it's much more closer from psychology than from medicine.

You're right: psychiatrists operate according to symptoms. And symptoms can reflect the real causes... or they can't. And besides that, they consider only the most visibles symptons. AS focuses in social behaviour because social behaviour is a very obvious symptom to notice. And probably the same happens with ADHD and physical hyperactivity. I read several times about AS from a psychiatric point of view, but I didn't think that I could have it until I listened to people with Aspergers talking about it from inside. In my experience, 'normal' people just can't understand what means to have a different process of thinking (I really don't understand why is that so difficult). But the issue is that psychiatrists are, usually, 'normal' people.

And besides that, what is a symptom of a psychiatric disorder?. For example, in my experience, 'normal' people are just unable to handle reasoning and emotions together. When they become emotional about something, they find difficult to think in a logical way. From my point of view, this is a disadvantage. So in some way it could be considered a symptom of a disorder. Of course, this is part of what is considered 'normality' or 'humanity'. Most of people are like that, probably because that's beneficial to the group so it is some kind of Dawkins' 'selfish gene'. Now, tell a psychiatrist that 'normality' is a kind of psychiatric disorder that involves problems to separate logic from emotion. I don't think he'll agree!

With regard to what you said about your BF, bloody hell, I understand it too well. It could appear that not having very 'visible' symptoms is a gift. Well, probably it's better than having them, but it brings its own problems too: if you look normal, you're supposed to be normal. So any reference to any problem, difficulty or just difference causes skepticism. You don't get the 'crazy' stigma, but instead of it you get the 'moaner' one. And at the end you just give up and don't talk about it because, holy god, you become exhausted of trying to explain the same again and again. It's like banging your head against a brick wall.

No way to look at my family, unluckily. Though it's possible that my mother could have had AS. Anyway, I just saw her a couple of times, but if this comes from my family this is the more likely origin. But this is just speculate.

Did the medication helped your BF?