Am I autistic?

Post Reply New Topic

I have always felt different growing up. In retrospect, I feel that I had a lot of autistic traits when I was younger, and still do.

Here are some of the traits I exhibited when I was younger that might suggest autism:

1. I couldn't look people in the face until around 17 or 18, when I had to actively force myself to practice it.
2. When I was very young, I used to spin around constantly. I had a toy "spinner", where you spin yourself on a wheel around and round. I used it until I was too old for it, and my parents had to take it away from me to stop me from using it.
3. I rocked back and forth
4. I played with toys by holding them up and imagining what was happening to them
5. Was somewhat social, but was considered eccentric and was eventually socially ostracized for most of my childhood

Here are some traits I still have that I feel might suggest autism:

1. I still rock, in fact I am rocking back and forth right now
2. I become lost in daydreams all the time, I was diagnosed with ADD and given an adderall prescription. I stopped using the medication because it aggravated my anxiety
3. High levels of anxiety, especially in situations when I have to travel alone or go to a new place
4. Extremely introverted, rarely feel lonely and have only ever made 5 real friends in my life, all of which I met in college, and all of which are pretty eccentric by many peoples standards
5. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that at 23, I still play with toys the same way I did when I was a child. I hold up a plastic army man that I have kept hidden for a decade now in my room, and imagine elaborate scenarios, usually involving categorized information and technical processes (for example, I imagine a virus checker scanning for viruses, and finding dozens of fictional viruses, the likes of which I meticulously invent when I am imagining it. I find it extremely fun to do this for some reason). During this, I often repeat phrases repetitively. This is a secret I have had for over a decade now.
EDIT: I forgot to mention #6
6. I take things really literally, especially other peoples humor. My humor tends to be really absurdist, surreal, morbid, and obscure. I know how to make regular people laugh, but I have to try really hard to filter out the sorts of humor that I actually find funny.

Now it gets tricky.

I have taken some autism diagnostic tests available online. Here are the results:

1. Aspergers Quotient Test: I usually score around 22-25, which falls short of the autism range.
2. Rdos Aspie Quiz: My Rdos Aspie Quiz results suggest that there is a strong likelyhood of Aspergers. Unfortunately I cannot post the graph because of restrictions on new members, but it looks pretty similar to a lot of other aspie graphs I have seen.
3. Ritvo Autism Diagnostic Scale: This was 142, which is way above the average male neurotypical score, and is only 8 points away from typical male with aspergers score.

So the Asperger's Quotient Test has me below the Aspergers range. The Rdos and Ritvo both have me within the Aspergers range. I think the reason why the AQT has me below the threshold is because I score higher on the social side of it, but when I answer the questions, I am thinking in terms of social occasions amongst my few close friends, who are also eccentric. So to give an example, I would never go to a party where I knew few or none of the guests. I would gladly go to a party with my 4 or 5 close friends, and would sacrifice reading alone to do so.

The weird part is that when I take the empathy, voice, movie character mindreading and facial recognition tests, I actually scored better than neurotypicals do by quite a bit. This seems like a really puzzling result if I were autistic, right?

Is it just possible that I have a confluence of other disorders that come together in such a way as to emulate certain characteristics of Aspergers? I have been diagnosed with ADD and GAD. If not autism, what explains my bizarre imagination?

Any feedback is welcome.

Empathy doesn't rule you out. Nearly everyone on the spectrum has it, I think, though we often express it in ways that are different from neurotypicals.

Yes, from what you describe, I would say you are very likely on the spectrum. There is no one size fits all though. The ignorant cliched stereotypes about the autistic community present the ridiculous picture of carbon copy robots. "They are all geeks" "They are all good at maths" "They can't lie". "They can't make eye contact". The carbon copy descriptions which you find on the web so often is crap, as you will soon learn if you scan old threads here from thousands of WP members.

Those one size fits all cliches are as stupid as saying "all neuotyps are good at socialising or kissing or housework" - they aren't. Welcome to Wrong Planet. Hope you are in the right place.

try this brief test based on the criteria docs use.

www.iautistic.com/test_AS.php

According to that brief test it is likely that I have autism.

Should I go to a therapist and try to argue my case? Getting the diagnosis is kind of important to me, because I excelled in school, graduating near the top of my class. But then I fizzled out and am finding it hard to even work at my job where I am really underemployed. Nobody can seem to understand it, and I think people think I gave up or something. Getting a diagnosis would help explain it to people I think.

I wrote about this very thing on my blog...

HERE

According to that test I do not have an Autistic developement disorder because I started using simple words/phrases at the age of three. Is that accurate? When I check that box it says I have AS.

Not all criteria have to be met for a diagnosis. One size doesn't fit all. Delayed speech is not unusual in ASD development, though there are early speakers too: one size doesn't fit all.