26 May 2013, 11:53 am
This is a long story about myself. English is a third language to me so bear with my grammatical errors. Quotes from my medical records are in italics.
Glock is family's first/only child who had problems with language development at first. Could say words when he was 2½ years old. He went to speech therapy for one year. Also children's neurological basic examination was done then. At day care, when Glock was 3 years old, the staff paid attention to the fact that Glock didn't understand things and he was subject to new children's neurological examination. Glock also had problems with motor coordination and at the age of 4 he was subject to occupational therapist's examination that he, however, could complete with results comparable to his age group. At the age of 5 he was, once again, subject to examination after the day care staff was worried about his social and emotional development.
In the primary school (grades 1-6) I got bullied, especially for the first three years. It wasn't as bad as some people have experienced, as there was only one bully and one close sympathiser of his (although not as bad as he) for the first three years. It had both mental and physical components. My stuff wasn't stolen and I wasn't ever beaten noticeably, so it took two years before anybody even realized what was going on. And when it went physical, it was always one on one. Funny thing is that I was clearly the tallest kid in the class for most of the primary school (the difference became less noticeable in the end, and nowadays I'm only medium size), which is generally thought to prevent physical bullying.
The bully got discharged after the first three years and the situation calmed a little bit. In the spring term of the 4th grade the sounds of people (in the following order) clearing their throat, sniffling, coughing, sneezing and blowing their nose started to annoy me. The sounds made me(, and still make me,) feel generally anxious and angry towards the source of them. I often commented something short (that I felt was reasonable with their "offense"), usually something short like "no" or "ugh" after people did them. How loud, that was dependent on the loudness of the sound they had made. Somewhere around that time some boys in our class started enjoying seeing me irritated. I can't list all the methods they used, but they usually grabbed my keys (that I had on a neck lanyard) and started throwing them to each other me trying to catch them. I usually got them back at the end of the break. This wasn't daily, but I think it happened like once or twice a week. They didn't call me with bad names or beat me, at least not that much that I would remember. Other than that they were usually somewhat nice, although I didn't have much in common with them as I wasn't interested in team sports (they played mainly football) or their other games that I sucked at. I spent most of the breaks wandering around the school yard.
I got one really good friend there and a couple friends who I occasionally met with in the free time (not very often though, maybe couple times a year with the friends and a three-four times a month with that really good friend of mine).
On the sixth grade I got sent to psychiatric evaluation for general unhappiness, prior bullying that still affected my thinking and problems in social interaction (especially in conflict stituations). The problems in the school heightened during the winter when the evaluation was still not 100% completed. The thing that got me into hospital care was when I ended up holding scissors on a schoolmate's throat after he had provoked me. You know what I did? I didn't slash, but just because we were face to face and I assumed that he would only get minor cuts and fall back. Had I been holding him from behind, no doubt what would have happened. I spent two weeks in children's psychiatric ward.
In the psychiatric unit Glock was calm, jovial, functional, fulfilled age group expectancies, well behaving and brisk. He stood out of the other children by his unusual behavior and formal speech. Some unusual habits came up. It was hard for Glock to talk about difficult things. He easily got excited or started crying. He said that he doesn't want to comment on things. In the unit Glock got along with other children.
Yep, there weren't very many children in the unit. I think there were three other children: one older teenage girl, who was like 13 if not 14, and then there was a younger boy, I think he was eight and then there came some boy who was maybe nine, I don't know. I didn't interact with the other two, but that eight-year-old boy was pretty outgoing, and he initiated our first contact. He asked me who I was and told me who he was. I asked him something general about the unit and we also had a couple little conversations later.
In hospital school Glock's conscientiousness highlighted. At the end of the two week term Glock told the teacher about bullying and got really furious as the topic resurfaced. There were no group situations at the school so they could not be analyzed.
Yeah, that's what happened. I don't exactly remember how it happened but I guess that I became angry and maybe hit the table with my hand. At least I'm pretty sure that I didn't hit anybody, otherwise they would probably have restrained me, which I would remember.
They decided to give me F32.9 and F94.9 as my diagnoses. They also ended up sending me to a neuropsychiatric unit for evaluation of the specialties of my social interaction.
At first I went both to my own school and the hospital school. After I tried (and failed) to kill a classmate in my own school, I went to the hospital school for the rest of the spring. There I didn't have any major problems. Okay, one boy in our three pupil class cleared his throat more often than I would have hoped, but I sucked it up and never mentioned about it. As I think it now, I got one pretty funny comment about me from that boy: ”Good thing in Glock is that he doesn't become angry easily.” But it was true: Just stay off me and I will stay off of you.
Couple weeks later I had the neurological evaluation. The tests were done on three or four different days and my mother was interviewed when I was doing tests with a neuropsychologist. I remember that the neuropsychologist was in an awful cold at least on one, maybe two days. I sucked it up and made it through the day(s). Then there was a doctor's interview, where I f***ed up one thing. The "one thing" is this:
-The Doc: Do you have a special interest? (I think she didn't really explain it, at least not properly. But I'm sure that she was speaking about "a special interest".)
-Me: (Thinking: I'm so glad that I'm interested in two things (explosives and firearms).) No, I don't.
Had I been asked the question a year earlier, I would have had only one interest (fireworks). I think that I read the papers some months later and realised the error. Or did it take a year? However, I never took action. I just didn't feel any reason to do anything.
My one man inside joke I have developed about this during the last month: I was too autistic to be diagnosed as one. 
My teachers were asked to tell about me, and the next is what they said:
Glock's own teacher from his normal school describes Glock as a concientious boy, who academically does well. In school Glock has spent a lot of time alone, aloofness has increased during the years. Glock may easily become furious about something. It irritates him when someone sneezes or blows his/her nose in his presence. He feel uncomfortable when his personal space is invaded. According to the teacher Glock stands out from the rest of the group and therefore the risk for becoming a target of bullying is present also in the future.
Glock's teacher from the hospital school describes him as extremely polite, usually positive and happy boy. Sticking to routines is important to Glock, and the changes need to be anticipated and justified to him. Glock is willing to work with other children but doesn't really know how get into situations. After an adult has guided him in taking contact, the social interaction with other children has been successfull.
Then the neuropsychiatric unit's final report:
Glock seems nice, makes eye contact nicely and gives a positive impression. School subjects that contain a lot of things to remember are maybe little laborious to him and in arts he finds it hard to create his own work from the topics given. Meets friends to some extent.
No special interests come up, there are no repetitive motor mannerisms observable and nothing special in mimics, either.
In neuropsychological evaluation Glock worked calmly and in good cooperation. Somewhat slow in exercises involving pencil. Verbal reasoning good, visual performance lower average-average. Mild problems with remembering faces, giving names to faces and recognizing emotions from pictures. Also mild problems in figuring out different social situations from stories but nothing overly special.
Glock has abnormalities in social interaction, problems have been present from early childhood, anyway, Asperger's syndrome's criterion don't completely fulfill at the moment.
They ended up blaming F94.8 for my social problems, as AS criterion weren't completely fullfilled at the moment.
After the neuropsychological evaluation I was transferred to adolescents' psychiatric care and I met regularly with a psychologist for a little over 1½ years. First we met like once a week, pretty soon once every two weeks and then at the end it was like once every 3 weeks. At first the focus was on improving my social skills. I don't exactly remember in what ways, but at least we debriefed situations that had left me into a state of uncertainty about how to act and we probably also went through some models about how to act in different situations. I don't remember us ever training facial emotion recognition, though. Probably explains why I still suck at "Reading the mind in the eyes". 
Towards the end of the treatment we moved more heavily to the life in general and what activities I could find to do on my freetime (other than browsing the internet).
In the upper comprehensive school (grades 7-9) I was in a kind of gifted class, although it wasn't meant to be one, but it had specialized training in one semi-scientific area and to get in you had to get into the top 20 of 40 applicants accepted to take the exam that measured mathematical and other skills that correlate reasonably well with IQ. (There was like 60 people willing to take the exam when I took it.) I recently asked my former classmate if I stood out from the rest of the people. He answered me "Not more than anyone else in our class." We were a group of slightly eccentric guys and gals. I sometimes got uncomfortable comments about my past from students of other classes, but it wasn't weekly and guys behind it were not always the same. I managed to navigate my way through grades 7-9 reasonably well. I believe it was partly because of the new, less stressfull environment and partly because of the psychological support I got on the 7th and 8th grades.
In my opinion I didn't hang with others quite as much as people generally did. I would say that I was in a company about 60% of the average time other people spent with their friends. However, I got one really good friend and a friend who I liked to talk with. I came along with my classmates reasonably well, and I often had short conversations, usually related to school, with them. I also learned to know many people from the other classes (we had lessons that had students combined from many different classes, for example German and Spanish lessons) and I came along with most of them pretty well. It was more often them than me who initiated the contact, though. I had problems with those sounds that I told about earlier. I couldn't make any team work with one guy because of it, but I never commented about the sounds and always just sucked it up. The sounds led to some problems and stress, and they contributed to a couple of meltdowns, but overall I enjoyed my time there. I could easily tell you 10 nice true stories from that time, only one from primary school. In the upper secondary school I didn't virtually ever meet them in my free time: I met couple times with that really good friend of mine from primary school and this spring I met once with that newer really good friend of mine who I met in the upper secondary school.
Now I'm studying first year in the high school (grades 10-12, no classes but rather you take different courses like in college) but it's not going nearly as well as in the upper comprehesive school. As we have no classes that most of the work would be done with, I didn't get to know people a natural way as I'm not one of those who go to talk with everybody and are successfull in it. I have a little, if any, in common with most people, as I don't watch/do sports or anything like that. And you can't talk about firearms with other people here in Europe! In the upper secondary school our class was mainly technically oriented (as I am), so at least we had something in common. Here there are like 120 first year students like me, and it took me pretty long to learn even some of their names. Now you could show me their pictures and I could probably name about 10 people with their full names and maybe about 30 with their first names. I could remember maybe 20 more first names if I got time to really think about them. I might have like one short (under 5 sentences) conversation with some random guy about once a week and that's it.
On the other hand, at least I have been left without hostile comments. Academically I'm not doing quite as well as in the upper secondary school but my grades are still quite reasonable.
The question, do i have it?
Let's look at the ICD-10.
A. A lack of any clinically significant general delay in spoken or receptive language or cognitive development. Diagnosis requires that single words should have developed by two years of age or earlier and that communicative phrases be used by three years of age or earlier. Self-help skills, adaptive behaviour and curiosity about the environment during the first three years should be at a level consistent with intellectual development. However, motor milestones may be somewhat delayed and motor clumsiness is usual (although not a necessary diagnostic feature). Isolated special skills, often related to abnormal preoccupations, are common, but are not required for diagnosis.
B.Qualitative abnormalities in reciprocal social interaction (criteria as for autism).
1. Qualitative impairment in social interaction are manifest in at least two of the following areas:
a. failure adequately to use eye-to-eye gaze, facial expression, body postures, and gestures to regulate social interaction;
b. failure to develop (in a manner appropriate to mental age, and despite ample opportunities) peer relationships that involve a mutual sharing of interests, activities and emotions;
c. lack of socio-emotional reciprocity as shown by an impaired or deviant response to other people’s emotions; or lack of modulation of behavior according to social context; or a weak integration of social, emotional, and communicative behaviors;
d. lack of spontaneous seeking to share enjoyment, interests, or achievements with other people (e.g. a lack of showing, bringing, or pointing out to other people objects of interest to the individual).
C.An unusually intense circumscribed interest or restrictive, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behaviour, interests and activities (criteria as for autism; however, it would be less usual for these to include either motor mannerisms or preoccupations with part-objects or non-functional elements of play materials).
3. Restricted, repetitive, and stereotyped patterns of behavior, interests, and activities are manifested in at least one of the following:
a. An encompassing preoccupation with one or more stereotyped and restricted patterns of interest that are abnormal in content or focus; or one or more interests that are abnormal in their intensity and circumscribed nature though not in their content or focus;
b. Apparently compulsive adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals;
c. Stereotyped and repetitive motor mannerisms that involve either hand or finger flapping or twisting or complex whole body movements;
d. Preoccupations with part-objects of non-functional elements of play materials (such as their oder, the feel of their surface, or the noise or vibration they generate).
D.The disorder is not attributable to other varieties of pervasive developmental disorder; schizotypal disorder (F21); simple schizophrenia (F20.6); reactive and disinhibited attachment disorder of childhood (F94.1 and .2); obsessional personality disorder (F60.5); obsessive-compulsive disorder (F42).
A: I'm not sure if I fill that, as I went to the speech therapy. At least I'm pushing the limits in that matter.
B: I'm little unsure if it counts, but I would say that ”b” and ”c” apply.
C: I feel that ”a” fits me. I spend an average of 2½ hours per day on firearm-related things (videos, forums, blogs etc). I can still remember when I first held a Glock 17 pistol, and thinking it makes me smile. The ”c” may have fit me slightly, as I used to lean back in a chair pretty often (in the primary school). Others did it too but not nearly as much as I did. I leaned too far back maybe half dozen times, but I never got injured as I kept my backpack on the back of the chair so it kept the back of the chair maybe 15 cm from the floor when falling. After the primary school the classroom equipment hasn't allowed leaning back as there has been nothing to hold onto, and I have redirected it to playing with objects like pens etc. It's subtle although I sometimes lose the control of an object and it falls onto the floor. I also have a distant recollection (could be the product of trying to remember too hard) of a classmate asking me in the primary school: ”Why did you rock back and forth [when sitting in a chair]?” At least it was not regular or otherwise other people would have pointed it out, too. In the upper secondary school I once had feedback after a presentation and I was told that I had been rocking in front of the audience but that could probably be attributed to general excitement. As I have now tried it, I have to admit that I like rocking back and forth, but so do probably 7 000 000 000 other people. Hand flapping, never, no. I can't see what some people get from it (and smoking and thousands of other things).
D: I don't think that I have any of those. If I had, it would have been recognized.
Lately this whole thing has started bothering me occasionally. How can it be that non-trained people see something odd in motor coordination and then there's nothing wrong in tests done by a professional? How can it be that a doc asks about something in a singular form even though you can have many? Why did no one do anything concrete, even though I raised concern, before I even went to school? I believe that I would be doing much better if someone had done something then and not years later.
Tell me what do you think, please!
Last edited by Glock on 27 May 2013, 5:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
26 May 2013, 4:42 pm
26 May 2013, 6:24 pm
First, welcome to wrongplanet and hope you get something out of this place 
I can not evaluate if you have an autism spectrum disorder or not, but I see the need in your case for a differential diagnosis because your history is rather complex and I do not find it unlikely that you can have another disorder than an autism spectrum disorder.
26 May 2013, 9:42 pm
27 May 2013, 10:52 am
27 May 2013, 1:11 pm
27 May 2013, 5:34 pm
28 May 2013, 10:17 am
I do not find it very likely that your answer to that question made a big difference in your case.
If the only source of information about eventual RRBI was that answer, I think that was possible decisive. But probably that don't decide if you had RRBI simply by one question.
They probably didn't get the info from any other source as I wasn't so open anymore. My mom possibly told about my previous interest in fireworks, but I doubt she did even that, as they would probably have asked me specifically about it if she had had told them. I had never (and I haven't as of 2013) told my parents about my strong interest in guns and explosives (not anymore in explosives though) because I had been rejected before (when I had tried to talk about the same thing for too long) and I had realized that explosives and guns are being disliked by the general public.
I can't exactly remember when I first developed an interest towards fireworks but I was nine years old when I registered my account on a fireworks forum. I was among the first users (<30, and nowadays it has over 5000) and thus I would assume that I was already interested in them when I found the forum. I used to (try to) talk to my parents & classmates about fireworks but my mom had a negative attitude towards them and didn't show much interest in me when I kept my speeches (not literally
) about them. My dad was worse as he would sometimes get verbally angry towards me when I tried to talk to him about them. My classmates didn't show much interest towards them (a little around the New Year), and they went to do something else if I tried to talk about fireworks. It took maybe two years after I pretty much stopped trying to find someone interested in them.Earlier my internet use (which started when I was seven) was mostly going through almost everything that came up from Google when you typed something like "first aid kit" or "fire extinguisher". I gave up the "first aid kit" part when I found fireworks but I was interested in fire extinguishers (and whenever I would come across one bolted on the wall in a public place, I would check whether it was foam or powder one and the inspection markings) until I was around 10.
I wonder what they meant, when they said the following:
At the moment? Had they fulfilled in the past? (Yes, I know, you can't diagnose something that's not present in the patient.) Could the criterion fulfill in the future? (In my opinion, no. You are born with ASD. If you start to fulfill them in the adolescence or adulthood, your illness is most probably psychiatric.)
I made a little mistake when I translated a word as "completely" (in the former quote from my medical records). After I did some research I realised that it's not the closest possible translation, although I can't find a better one at the moment. "Exactly" would be too strong word. If we think it as a clock, where "exactly" is one minute to midnight, "completely" is four minutes to midnight and "the right translation" is two minutes to midnight.
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