Am I an Aspie?

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hello.
I'm very much sure than I might have Aspergers, an wish to get a diagnosis. However since this would mean interacting with people, and given the fact I haven't had many good experience with people in a professional capacity, and I suffer from Agorophobia, I need to be very certain it won't be another awful experience to add to many.

Now my mother believes I might have Aspergers and a Psyciatrist told her, he believed she had a form of autism, my mother and I share very similar personality traits, and she the only one in my life who's ever made complete sense to me. I thought before I knew of Aspergers that I might have Autism but dismists it because there were not enough evidence of that syndrome. Whilst not wanting to appear a Hypocondriac, once I heard of Aspergers I looked it up on Wikipedia and to many red flags came up that began to explain so much of my life....

However while on holiday my favourite aunt, who I respect very much said that I was jkust looking to label myself and that I was just trying to explain away character quirks, so my confidence in my belief has been dashed, so I leave it up to you, the real experts in my opinion to decide,

are the following a case for aspergers, or am I just looking to label myself.....

-One of my early memorys is of being two years old and wondering why it was nessecary for my to be at nursery school, as I was perfectly content just to spend time with my mum, but I trust her as she had brought me, so didn't complete. But I felt seperate from all the other kids, and didn't really socialise.

-I believe the world would make so much more sense if people would just sing there emotions out, like they do in musicals, and as a child thought if I started maybe they would join in, needless to say they never did, luckily you can get away with alot more "oddnesss" when your a child.

-I've only ever had one real friend who's contact I initiated, she's shy, and socially withdrawn, doesn't demand much attention, and lives in China, while I live in England.

-All other friends I've had have been because they wanted to be around me, I tolarated it, but got out of it as soon as I could, mostly because I felt they were intellectually inferior to me.

-While I consider myself to have the intellectual age of someone a decade older than me (as my teachers have done since I was 4 years old) I have the emotional immatuarity of someone a decade younger than me. Also despite that fact I dropped out of school with not real qualifications and have been unemployed for 6 years.

-I tend to talk about what interests me even if I know the person I'm talking to is not interested and wont stop until the tell me they don't want to talk about it anymore.

-I've been told that I tend to be overly pedantic (If want can in fact be overly pedantic, isn't the pedantic in it self, overly) and that when I write emails they tend to be filled with the Queens English.

-Quite often I don't get jokes, or I'll get them on a intellectual level, but don't understand why I have to laugh to appriciate the joke. Also along the same vein, I tend to make people laugh when I being serious and then the can never tell me to my satisfaction why it was they found it funny, and vise versa, they'll say something, I'll assume that they are being straight forward, and then they'll wonder why I haven't found what they've said funny. Jokes must be logical or at least have a rational point to me. However my mum and I can laugh at thing and people can look at us as we're insane, they inturn not getting the joke.

These are just a few things that I can think of off the top of my head, well rather from inside my head actually. So if people from here can write what they think so I can know whether or not it would be worth my while to see about getting diagnosed or not.

Thank you in advance.

Welcome to WP!

Tim

You DID list like 6 points that fit. If they are as striking as you think, you MIGHT be AS!

Thank you for the welcome Tim-Tex

Thank you for the response 2ukenkerl, I'm much more incline to believe those that have AS than a professional who doesn't. I'm actually surprised than no one else has brought it up to me since I've seen social worker, counsillors, and one Psyciatrist, due to my Agorophobia, Social phobia, and constant depression.

Well, I think I am the stereotypical aspie. I hide so much, and other parts are personal, that it seems like just my personality. I have said all my life that I am just shy and smart and learn what I like quickly. My obsessions were just called hobbies. As for the other points?

The curiousity is hidden and/or gone because of past experience.
The sensory skewing was never brought up because nobody understood.
The chatter, etc... is almost expected because of my job.
The stimming is subtle and borders on normal.
Sports are avoided.
Some even questioned if I was straight because of my lack of real dating, etc...
etc....

So people see an incomplete picture when they look at me, etc... Anyway, AS only became official in like 1994.

ALSO, it is VERY misunderstood! A friend of my mothers, who has a child that is diagnosed AS said he was quiet. My mother then spoke of how I can chatter A LOT about computers, etc... Her friend said her son is the SAME WAY, when speaking about an interest! So SOME think AS people are QUIET(which is CORRECT)! Others think AS people are BOISTEROUS!(ALSO CORRECT)! The correct answer is that they are often quiet until an interest comes up, and they can chatter away. That was even in aspergers original writings. You should see me in meetings!

BTW getting involved with an interest can really help your depression.

I suppose if I think about it logically, it does actually make sense that no one has pointed it out by now, given that I sometimes get stuck on my default setting around people, having spent so much time watching television to see how people react to different situations, and after studying human behavior, anyone who probably sees me just puts anything that deviates from "normal" behavior, as character quirks. Sometimes I act to much its hard to put that mask down and become my real self, I forget who's real and who's not.

That also would explain my aunt thinking I was just trying to label myself and was being over-analytical, she sees my 3 weeks a year at most, and only around my father, who I have a complicated relationship with, as he doesn't understand my way of thinking, and can't handle any more than chitchat with me (anything deeper and he claims his head hurts!) which I hate, but in order to have some semblence of communication with him I indulge him. So basically I guess she's not really qualified to judge me, since she's only met the mask.

The question then becomes, how do you take of the mask, to then become diagnosed?

Thanks you, 2ukenkerl, for the tip on combating depression, unfortunately with the depression comes a general sense of apathy and disinterest in life, which make getting involved with an interest a bit hard, but thanks all the same!

\YEAH, THAT is why they call it DEPRESSION. Hey ASPIES generally have interests, even if even THEY don't notice them!

Last edited by 2ukenkerl on 31 Jul 2007, 7:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ah, so I'm not the only one then. I've always wondered what it would be like if the world was more like a musical and everyone sang instead of talked. Welcome to WP.

That probably true, and probably a case of me defining interest, as what would interest someone thats NT, unfortunately 22 years of brainwashing myself to fit in tends to take a while to let go of.

Right now the only think I can define as an interest is trying to see whether or not I definately have aspergers or not, and then if so trying to figure out whether it would be worth my while to get a diagnosis, though I probably will try since I'll probably have my doubts until it's confirmed, like I said, 22 years of indoctrination, yadda yadda yadda.

The fact of the matter is, that since all these flags have come out, revelations if you will, that seem to connect my personality and behavial mannerisms to Aspergers, my depression has got better, because I'm finally beginning to understand where so much of my confussion and pain at trying to fit in to a world that I don't actually want to, but have to in order to connect, has come from.

So right now that's my only focus.

Thank you again for your reply.