Half Asperger, half NT, high IQ

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Hello,

I recently took the Aspie Quiz which gave me the result of 100 Aspie, 99 NT.
I was 'diagnosed' as a gifted child at the age of 6. As a teenager, I sufferd from several depressive episodes and a couple of eating disorders. Despite, or because of my high IQ, I never got an actual degree, but because of my hard-headedness and perserverance, I find myself to be a -almost- fully functional adult with a furfilling job and a wonderful (gifted) child that I take good care of. I have not, however, been able to be in a relationship more than a couple of months. And I don't feel a real connection with any of my friends.

I know I piss off my friends with my tendency to be 'correct', with my incapability to empathise, with my disgust with socially acceptable gossip and judgement. Mostly, I will comply and oppress my natural tendencies. I know how to behave in a socially acceptable way. I now understand social conventions, and if all goes well, I might be the best listener in the room, and I even have been known to give out really good advice to people struggling with life themselves. However, sometimes, I blank out. Sometimes, I'm unintentionnaly rude and I momentarily forget all the conventions.

Are there any other 'borderline autists/NT's' out there? Did you go into therapy, do you tell your friends? I know there's some kind of twilight zone between giftedness and autism, I know there's no clear 'border'. I just don't know what I should do with that information.

Thanks for your time.

The Broad Autism Phenotype (BAP) describes people who have a mix of autistic and neurotypical traits.

BAP people generally have autistic traits at a mild level and are not significantly impaired by their mild autistic traits.

Research studies have shown that many parents of autistic children are BAP. Many autistic people have relatives who are BAP.

You could be PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified). It's what they diagnose you as if you fit certain AS(D) criteria, but not enough to warrant an AS(D) diagnosis. At least, that's my impression, I could be wrong.

Consider your childhood more than what you have achieved now. I have AS, but you'd never guess it because I have developed extremely thorough coping tactics.

Yeah I have a similar result with my test. I was diagnosed as aspergers at 18, and was selectively mute through half of my childhood. Have a hard time making friends, and have a very hard time social networking, i have a hard time with maintaining acquintances and small talk. I get mistaken for being shy a lot. I've had people try to fix the social awkwardness and think they were just dealing with a socially awkward NT, never worked very well. I do have my bachelors and Im going onto my masters this upcoming fall. I am a workaholic and dont want kids. I'm convinced my aspie social impediments impair my ability to interact with children. Although I do know that a lot of aspies can still interact with children so no one ever believes me when I tell them I cant teach and work with kids. Academically I really took the hard route for some reason I dont entirely know myself. I do go to therapy which helps a lot because I cant work well with counselers without a background in autism or learning disabilities or else I end up fighting them. I am stubborn and hardheaded and do burn bridges when I get mad at people who dont understand. Authority figures either like me or not. The positives, Im a really hard worker. Negatives, I dont socialize much. If you put up a fight with me, I will hurt you (and myself) with my words.

I've taken that online test. I get a similiar ambiguous score to yours (forget the exact score but around 100 for each category- 'you could be either NT or aspie").

But I finnally went to a specialist who gave me the exhaustive official test- and Im officially an aspie.

From what you're saying you seem atleast as aspie as I , if not more so.

o/

l'm not gifted though so l'm in the twilight zone for other reasons, l suppose.

l think there's a good number of NTs like us out there. You can't really talk about it with people unless you have a label that explains it, l feel like.

Like if l talked about feeling like l sometimes live in another dimension(which l do feel like) as an NT, people would assume l'm crazy or schizophrenic.

lf l could say l have an ASD and l feel that way, they would accept that. But l don't. So there is a definite grey area l live in as NT where my abilities can really go either way on a whim, like you said.

lt's a strange feeling because it can be unpredictable, l can have finely attuned social skills and intuition sometimes and other times, be completely disconnected and off-putting to others.

l do have an ADHD diagnosis that doesn't explain all my traits but it doesn't need to, l will sometimes mention it to other people so it doesn't seem like l'm just really strange, l think they still think l'm weird.

l've adjusted to it, l used to think l was going to lose my mind someday before l knew anything about AS at all, l had no idea why l felt depersonalized.l think my outlook is influenced by my behavior in a way, if l sort of "play" NT l start to resemble one more and am thus treated like one.

lf l start to feel more on the dissociated side of things, l will then start to go inside of my head and people treat me like an outsider because l behave more like one.

I said it before. Ill say it again. You dont really know that you're not a full blown aspie until you get a real (not online) test from a doc testing you face-to-face.

I suspect that you're not 'borderline' , but a full blown aspie.

But you might be higher functioning than many other aspies.

Thank you for your replies. I'm going to read up on BAP and PDD-NOS.

@Rawsugar: It is true that looking at the way I was a a kid, I certainly was a little different. I remember not being able to say 'hello' until I was eight, for instance, but then again that could be extreme shyness. I've always been very sensitive to sound and visuals, but then again, sensitivity doesn't necessarily imply anything else than sensitivity. It's all very blurry. But maybe that's why they call it a spectrum.

@expecially: I very much relate to what you're saying. I usually tell people I have hyperaccusis, because noise, especially being in crowded places with many different noises, makes me edgy and nervous. It's a good cover for many occasions.

@naturalplastic: I filled out a form for a multidisciplinary test, but I never sent it. I can't really say why. I might print out a new one, though.

I don't know. Like people have said, the only real way to know if you are autistic is to go get a diagnosis. There could be many different reasons for a borderline score - that test is all about your internal feelings, and the way the diagnose AS is part interview, part seeing your behaviour and part childhood assessment.

As you can tell from my signature, I have a similar score, but was diagnosed with AS. Uh, I don't want to get into the details, but I have little AS-related impairment in my life, and so.... well you get the picture. I think that I was misdiagnosed. Even an assessment is not fool-proof in cases like this.

I told people around me when I was diagnosed with AS. They were surprised, then I felt isolated and like it made them feel awkward around me. So I've stopped for that reason, and also because I couldn't tell them how it impacts me or how they need to react differently around me.

I went to therapy for sure, but it was mainly for different reasons. I was quite young, a high school student, when I sought help and a diagnosis. I had a lot of problems, so I understand why they thought that I had AS. In university, one therapist said that he thought that I had the capacity to understand social relationships, but I was holding myself back. I think that he is right. It didn't hit me until now though. I also had social skills help for a few months but stopped because I felt kind of insulted by the whole thing. I think that it was geared towards grade-school kids because university friendships are not as simple.

I didn't find out that I had AS until just over a year ago, and it still seems like I have some glaring contradictions. What I found was that while I may not be overblown, it's still an important part of me. The fact that I'm now aware of it and accept it and have family and friends who know and accept helps to make me feel more balanced and complete. It doesn't have to define me, but it is part of me.
You are you and autism, whatever the strength, is a part of you, but it's not the only part.