Still Not Convinced... But...

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Started telling a few people about my suspected diagnosis (through unofficial third party expert).

They say "yeah, makes sense".

Oh great. So it's definitely me then. I do have Aspergers, or HFA, or ASD or whatever flavour de jour is.

Only problem I still doubt.

I find myself still looking at social anxiety, avoidant personality, even scizoid.

I find myself that I actually like people. I have a desire to be around people. I want to be nurtured, and protected, I want someone to hold me and tell me it's alright, I want someone to help me and move me forward. I want to do that to others. Im extremely protective. But I just find I haven't got a clue what to do around people. What questions to ask, what to say. But Im not convinced it's a problem with reading cues. Im not convinced it's a problem being unable to read emotion. It's simply, as one poster on another forum put it, Im thinking all this cognitively instead of intuitively. Im trying to establish rules as to how I should react. Trying to work out what is expected of me. What is the other person thinking.

My desire for this "acceptance" I think means I either go overboard and smother someone in being kind, or I sense some "distance" and end up backing off. And then I get real intense in friendships.

Im sick of it. I hate being like this.

I need a formal diagnosis.

In the meantime, can any other Aspie relate to this, or is this some other kind of personality disorder?

It's possible to be sociable and still be on the autism spectrum.

Wing & Gould, two autism researchers, described three subtypes of social behavior in autistic people - aloof, passive, and active-but-odd. The aloof subtype actively avoid social interaction, the passive subtype don't initiate but accept social interaction when others initiate, and the active-but-odd subtype initiates interaction in an unusual and socially awkward manner. It sounds like you're more likely to be the active-but-odd type.

You're unlikely to be schizoid, based on what you've said here, because the core feature of schizoid personality is reduced desire to interact with other people. Poor social skills aren't even mentioned in the criteria for schizoid personality.

Hi there, Reboot,

Regarding what you say about reading cues; I would say that what you describe is actually fairly typical for an ASD person who wishes to socialise, and has reasonable language and observational skills. Not conclusive, by any means, but nothing you've said would rule it out either.

The stereotype of autistic people lacking empathy and social cognition disguises a much more complex reality...

Many, if not most, autistic people are capable of what is known as "compassionate empathy". Once we have understood what mood another person is in, we can have absolutely no problem at all sympathising with them - in fact, some of us experience greater feelings of emotional connection than the average person. Of course, if we haven't recognised the other person's emotional state, this isn't possible - but non-autistic people are perfectly capable of getting it wrong too!

However, autistic people do often struggle with "cognitive empathy" - the ability to intuit which emotion another person is experiencing. The way you describe yourself is consistent with this. It sounds like you are consciously referring to an internal, rational, "User Guide for Humans" because it's not happening as a sub-conscious instinct. The fact that you achieve the same ends by different means is not an indication that you're definitely not autistic, just that you have learned somehow to compensate for this particular impairment. I have done this all my life, and I've read that many other people here do to.

Your doubts about your diagnosis are perfectly common, too. You will find many people here who were not diagnosed until later in life who had had the same "imposter syndrome", including me. However, it's not necessarily a bad thing at this stage. Folks on a forum can only share their experiences and opinions - however similar we may appear, we're not trained professionals, and it is possible that there is another explanation for your traits. Getting a formal diagnosis sounds like a good idea in your case. It isn't for everybody, but you have noted that the uncertainly is making you anxious, so I would advise you to look into it further, just for your peace of mind.

In the mean time, no-one here is going to chase you away just because you don't have a doctor's note to wave at them! If you have traits similar to those of other people here, then you'll still find a lot that's useful to read, whatever the underlying cause turns out to be.

Thanks both - and to you Trog. It's U4321 from the other forum

I've been reading something interesting which makes me continually doubt the Aspergers thing for me.

When I heard the title, I thought yes, maybe that's it!

The term - context blindness.

It suggests it's not mind blindness, it's context blindness. But then it referred to not being able to read the context.

Umm. Ok, Im actually quite good at reading context. I can take all the bits and pieces and put it together. In fact, Im a little too good at it, a little too aware. But there are times in relationships, I don't have any context. Someone does something, but there is no further information . My brain needs to know the context. It's not happy. It's a subtle difference. It's not a case of not getting the context, it's actually that there's no context.

Hmmm.

Nice to know I'm not the only that is 'parochial' in my forum habits, nice to find you here!

Coincidentally, I've been reading a little about the way people work out the big picture. As with the social cognition, I think that sometimes how we arrive at the context might be as important as if we can.

My understanding is that the more common way to do this is 'from the outside in' - recognising the overall context, then focusing on ever deeper levels of detail as the need arises. Naturally, this suits a cognitive style that is able to make a good approximation of the situation very quickly, to be further refined as the situation plays out. A very handy skill, if one can do it, as it limits the amount of information from the senses that needs to be processed.

In contrast, other people work 'from the inside out' - piecing together the details in order to arrive at the overall context. This style seems to match your description more accurately. As autistic minds seem very often to be drawn to details, this style may be more common in the autistic population - though I haven't seen any hard and fast scientific research that is conclusive on this. This way around is, of course, the more difficult one - until the context is known, there's no way to tell which details are irrelevant, so there's much more data to crunch through (maybe, as you say 'a little too aware').

One common sign that might indicate such cognitive issues, which I seem to share with many late diagnosed adults, is that even when I have really enjoyed socialising, it leaves me feeling absolutely exhausted the next day. It seems that much of this is caused by the extra work needed to 'work out longhand' the social and emotional context that those around me just seem to soak up with hardly any effort.

Hmm. Explain what you mean by reading from the outside in vs the inside out and how I would recognise such in me? Certainly, I do get bogged down in the details, and I am sort of aware of every minutae of detail.

So for example, driving, Im constantly scanning ahead, behind, left, right, I see cars driving on the other side of the road and Im looking at their position, speed, direction, the driver, what they appear to be doing over a period of time, things around them, whether something around them might cause them to move suddenly, looking under cars, around cars.

That's just for driving.

I don't know if this is cognition or intuition. But Im sort of aware Im doing it. Like Terminator 2 - I see everything.

When it comes to social interactions, I look around, I see people out the corner of my eye in my huge field of vision, Im seeing who people are talking to, where they're going, what they're doing. If I want to speak to one of them, then I look a bit more closely. Try and listen. Who are they talking to, what are they talking about. Does it sound like a long conversation. I note that they don't glance around. They give me no opportunity to talk. Even the people they're with don't look around.

Now someone might say they'll meet me outside my house at 11.00am. I'm outside at 11.00am. If they're late, as long as it's someone I trust, I don't stress about it. But if they start doing that regularly without telling me what's going on, just leaving me in the lurch, then I have no context. My mind goes round and round in cloud cuckoo land and which conclusion I come out with is a surprise even to me. I can be angry at me, angry at you, or something else. I haven't quite figured it out.

Im not sure if I feel exhausted after socialising. I feel like I get a buzz out of it. I like being around people.