Just turned thirty this week. What am I? (long)

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I just stumbled on this forum a few minutes ago. I hope it's okay for me to post right away. Perhaps this is more appropriate for the "other disorders" forum, but I have a gut feeling that some perspective from fellow adults is important.

My brother has Asperger's syndrome; he was diagnosed as a child. I'm fairly confident that I do not technically have any Autism Spectrum Disorder; I have worked with several psychiatrists, psychologists, and therapists throughout my life, and have been diagnosed with ADHD-PI and comorbid/seasonal/situational depression, but never any form of autism.

In person, people tell me that I come off as animated, empathic, and charming; "autism" is almost certainly not a term that comes to mind when most people meet me.

But, I keep having these moments.

Moments when I realize I'm living an experience my brother has described exactly, or when I embody a symptom of the spectrum to a tee.

I'm not after a diagnosis. Based on what I have read about the struggles of those with spectrum disorders, any professional would be hard-pressed to make one. However many symptoms I have, my life doesn't seem to be disrupted enough to call my patterns a "disorder".

But I keep having these moments.

And, I honestly could never really describe them succinctly until I saw the name of this website. Which is why I'm posting. Because I don't know if I'm from the wrong planet, but frequently, it really, really feels that way.

Moments like when I was doing my research today, and so many articles iterated symptoms like:

Sensory processing disorder. Sometimes, a semi will honk its horn right next to me, and my entire day is ruined. It's like I have a mini-anxiety attack in the space of ten seconds, and I can't focus or completely calm down for the next twelve hours. But I look around and it's like other people didn't even notice. When I get on the subway every morning, I dread the brakes squealing because it feels almost like someone's actually scraping my skin. (At least I usually see one or two other people covering their ears.)

Or, "topic hyperfocus and savant skills". I picked up a book on QBASIC when I was 10 and never looked back. It's not that I'm naturally good at the stuff--I actually find it quite challenging--but I just can't pull myself away once I get started. People have called me a "natural" ever since. I can type 140wpm with few typos on a mediocre day, and I use a code editor called "vim" that has no graphical interface and is designed to allow surgically-precise edits through strings of unintelligible nested commands. And of course, there's video games. Ask me about any League of Legends or Street Fighter character and I can tell you around when they were released, what their backstory is, how they fit into the game's strategy, quote most of their voice clips, and describe in detail all of their moves. For a while when I was younger, it was Warhammer 40,000. And let me tell you about Dwarf Fortress!

Or repetitive behavior. Everyone I know makes fun of me for always getting the same thing every time I go anywhere. Everyone. My excuse is that it's "more efficient", but really, I do it because it's predictable and comfortable. I have weird verbal tics that no doctor has ever managed to explain, like constantly needing to stretch out and stimulate the webbing between my fingers, sometimes until it's painful.

Sleep issues? I haven't had a consistent sleep schedule in... ever. I seem pathologically incapable of getting to bed or waking up at the same time more than a couple of nights in a row. If I read or watch Netflix before bed, there's a 75/25 chance that I won't be able to tear myself away--I'll be sitting there quite consciously thinking, "I should go to bed now; it's getting quite late," and then I will simply keep watching.

And of course, difficulty with communication.

I have disastrously torpedoed multi-year relationships over misconstrued sarcasm. I often have to directly ask people whether they're joking, and carefully craft my deadpan so they understand that I'm not joking. Sometimes I can hear people clearly, but I just don't understand the words. Talking on the phone is terrifying, because I know I'm going to miss half of what the other person says, and talk at the wrong time the other half.

Posture, eye-contact, facial expressions... they very rarely come naturally to me. I usually have to devote a conscious subprocess to this: "Look directly at their eye for a few seconds. One, two, three... okay, now look away before it becomes staring. When's the last time I nodded and said 'uh-huh'? I should stop smiling and look more thoughtful for a bit." Sometimes I get into a flow, but it's still exhausting. Some days I spend my entire 45-minute commute home obsessively replaying three seconds of social interaction from the day over and over again, unable to get it out of my head, convinced that it was a disastrous faux pas that has planted a seed of judgment in the other person's head forever.

But... empirically, I'm a great communicator. People love talking with me. My roommate comes to me with questions about how to handle his relationship issues. I spent all last year teaching in front of a classroom of thirty adults, and it was nerve-wracking and terrifying and awkward and so difficult that some nights I just came home and cried, but I did it! I did a great job, and my students loved me, and it was so rewarding.

I love people. I love meeting them, watching them, listening to them, learning about them, making them laugh and feel safe and accepted. And it's utterly, devastatingly exhausting, almost all the time.

So I'm still just wondering...

What am I?

I've been able to understand and treat my ADHD, and these... whatever they are... are not ADHD symptoms, nor are they known comorbid problems. And they hurt, and they're scary, and I don't know anyone who seems to understand, and honestly, I feel guilty asking for attention about them, because I'm doing fine. I'm lucratively employed, with a decent social circle and a healthy relationship, and something resembling a fit lifestyle. So I feel scared of showing up here and saying that these problems, seemingly benign as they are, deserve notice.

I just don't know where I fit in. I never have, and who knows whether I will here, but I really needed to get this thirty-year-long puzzlement off my chest. I don't suppose anyone will read through all of this anyway, since it's terribly long, but if you've skipped to the bottom, I at least hope that I haven't bothered you. I'm just a bit lost and passing through.

If you aren't clinically diagnosed AS, you still could be BAP (broad autism phenotype). That seems to be the fuzzy area where you have some autistic traits, but they don't hinder much in day to day functioning. Since ASD is hereditary, it wouldn't be surprising.

Of course I am not a professional Autism psychologist but the Autistic traits you mentioned are inhibiting your life. Yes you have a lucrative career, but a career is not ones entire life. Sensory sensitivities are often associated with autism. The hearing issues ruining a whole day. I would describe it as inhibiting. Great communicator? you are in certain ways but in other ways in such as messing up multiple relationships relationships you are not.

Teaching is similar to acting. It's something you have control over, that you can script. Scripting is a coping mechanism used by people to overcome social communication difficulties and it is exhausting.

One thing I would suggest you do is have your hearing checked. If you are not understanding words at all(as opposed to not understanding intonation) it could be a hearing problem that could be causing a bunch of other issues. But that could be lack of focus from ADHD-PI also. It is possible to have autism and ADHD.

There are two main paths professional diagnosis or self diagnosis/being sure enough you are autistic to make decisions on that assumption.

Pretty much all the problems you described people here deal with so you are always welcome to ask about coping strategies.

You need to decide a path or approach. Which can be difficult because of Executive dysfunction common in both ADHD and autism. We can give you the advantages and disadvantages of each approach and describe the best books on autism, what type of psychologist not to goto (Q basic pun intended) etc.

This is what prevents me from taking the concept of AS very seriously. Apparently, random events not clearly related to who you are as a person can cause you to fall within AS, when otherwise you'd be BAP, or just pass as a very slightly eccentric normal person.

A lucrative career means you choose whether to look for a diagnosis, or to waste a single second of your busy and otherwise fulfilling life considering you might actually be mentally diseased, and thus unfit for continuing to make all the decisions in your life yourself. I surely know what my choice would have been.

I don't see it quite so dualistically. I managed to function for 23 years with fairly substantial undiagnosed ADHD-PI; it was only when a buildup of health problems (from unknowingly self-medicating with caffeinated sugary sodas, resulting in hypertension and chronic fatigue), relationship problems, and increasing responsibility at work resulted in me almost getting fired from my job because I couldn't focus anymore, that I finally sought professional help and got diagnosed.

So, for me, mental illness has never been a binary choice of "mentally ill and unfit to make my own decisions" or "mentally healthy and fit to make my own decisions". I have always stumbled stubbornly between those two extremes, always inhabiting a slightly different gray area.

I prefer it over losing agency completely, but it can still get pretty scary.

No, it does not.

Your statement implies a lot of bizarre and unfounded beliefs about the meaning and implications of a diagnosis. I don't know where you got them from, but they are not based in fact.

1) Considering whether or not you might be BAP or on the spectrum because you have traits consistent with these possibilities is not a waste of time.

2) The career developed by an undiagnosed adult with autistic traits exists regardless of any research by that individual into autism.

3) Being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, or a specific diagnosis on the spectrum such as Aspergers, does not indicate that you are mentally diseased. It is a recognition that you have an atypical neurology, but this will be evident from the traits that were evident before the diagnosis.

4) Being diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, or a specific diagnosis on the spectrum such as Aspergers, does not indicate that you are unfit to "make all the decisions in your life yourself." If you have built a career despite the problematic aspects of your autistic traits, then you have a proven ability to make decisions for yourself and nothing about an ASD diagnosis invalidates that.

Please don't post this kind of pernicious misinformation.

I guess you're right... I'm better about the relationship thing, but offhanded comments can still really get to me sometimes. And I can develop a lot of social anxiety in the wrong mood, to the extent that it prevents me from leaving the house for events I wanted to attend.



Wow, I hadn't heard of that before. I mean, I definitely improvised a lot of my teaching, but overall it was the "performance" aspects and the lessons that I was able to plan out into the most detail that I felt best about.



You know, that is very good advice. I'm going to do this. Thank you. Worst case scenario, I don't learn anything new except that a few possibilities have been ruled out.



Yeah, I've just never heard of ADHD resulting in the microscopic lack of focus required to drop context between syllables and words... it's crazy enough to be plausible, and there has to be SOME explanation, so, who knows.



I guess it's worth actually discussing with a professional, once I do a little more research first. Maybe I can find someone who specializes in adult diagnosis and treatment.



Ha! Thanks for the pun. And, if you have any book recommendations, I'd love to hear them. "Driven to Distraction" deeply helped me come to terms with ADHD and how it affects me.

Thanks very much for this--I had never heard of BAP before, but it seems like a good next path to research on. I just have such a hard time reconciling the idea that I could be on the spectrum, because I'm used to what I know about my brother's struggles--it's incredible, honestly, the way he's worked so hard for his entire life just to keep up; he amazes me--and they never seemed quite the same as mine. I always figured I'm just eccentric and that explains everything, but as some of these problems continue to haunt me into my adult life, I don't know if that's good enough anymore, like how "I'm just lazy/unmotivated" stopped being good enough to prevent me from looking into ADHD.

What is a Social Script?

Wikipedia Theory of Mind

Tony Attwood "The Complete Guide to Aspergers Syndrome"
His website worth a look around
http://www.tonyattwood.com.au/

I programmed in Business Basic back in the 1980's and used Goto more then I care to remember.