the reason people think i'm normal

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some people have found it difficult to believe i have asperger's because they think i have good social skills and act normally in social situations. I think this is because there are a few situations for which i've learnt the social rules enough to appear normal in them, but as soon as i'm in a different situation it's completely different. the thing is that most of my socializing is done in these few situations (i.e. hanging out with friends, going to have a couple of pints at the pub with a few people. etc.) so they rarely see me in any awkward situations, and when they do i'm usually just quiet, maybe a bit awkward, but i don't stick out as someone who makes a lot of social faux-pas (better safe than sorry i guess) so they never take notice. they also don't see me stimming, spending hours researching my latest interest, don't notice my lack of eye contact or utter inability to read people, etc. since that is all either well hidden (i simulate eye contact pretty well) or it's done in privacy.

the other thing is that my speech hasn't really been affected. I don't have abnormal speech porosity, intonation, pitch, etc. and i tend not to take things literally when they aren't meant to anymore (i understand sarcasm and get jokes), however i do miss subtleties, hints, doublespeak, etc. so if they're trying to tell me something different from what they're saying it usually goes over my head.

i think part of the reason for this is that i've always observed other people. when i was in play group as a child i would first watch the children for a period of time (a few days) and then i would go play with them. if someone new would come to the group i would go off on my own and observe again until i eventually rejoined the group. so now if i'm in a new situation and/or am meeting new people, i'll usually be quiet and maybe a bit awkward until i know them, know what i can get away with, know how to act around them, etc.

most of my improvement socially has been in the past 5 or so years, so most of my friends didn't know me, or didn't know me well, before so they have no idea how i used to be. i switched schools, which stopped most of the bullying and allowed me to focus more on learning to interact with other people, as opposed to always being stressed out about bullying, getting into fights, etc.

anyone else like this?

I could have written exactly the same things...

Before knowing about Asperger I tried to explain to some very chosen people that I had something inside me going wrong, strange, maybe different and that this thing isn't new but is simply a part of me, the way I've ever been !

I was a really quiet and smart child. I never complained about anything or caused problems so they didn't really care to the symptoms...

In my case:

Even I self, do not know if I have AS or not.

When I read a description of the symptoms, I feel like if somebody were spying me.

But in my real life, I have a wife, 3 kids, and in the office that I work, I can interact with any one of them.

I know that I am diferent, always I have been the serious guy in any kind of group, even in my family, but I have noticed that among more I need to be with people, I can learn to deal with it.

I do not like the idea that is somebody new at a group, I know that i have a lot of things to do in order to feel that is everything normal again, I know how I feel about something like this, or with another of the stuffs that is hard for me, but, I do not think somebody else notice this is happening to me.

I tend to hold back in the real world... that gives the impression that I'm a silent type (although when I do speak, it's interesting and/or opinionated), but then I just let rip when I get home... often unloading my social issues here on WP...

I could easily have written the same thing too. My social skills are generally not bad. I'm 40 and have had years to compensate for my deficits. I also fake eye contact. I know I'm supposed to look at the person, so I do. It's easier to understand them if I don't look at them though.

I also have the stims, the special interests, the obsessions, the sometimes rigid behaviors, the overstimulation and the need to be alone a lot.

Sometimes, I do still come out with some pretty bizarre things in conversation though.

AS affects my functioning level a lot.

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that's the best summary of asperger's syndrome i have ever read...i mean, psychologists couldn't come up with a better couple of paragraphs, i guess thats because they've never had AS.

I'm glad you are doing so well.
It might be best to not mention asperger's among your NT friends again. Most people don't want to deal with it. Or at least, most of the people I know don't. I have a few good friends who find it fascinating.

sorry for the long post, i went on a bit of a tangent describing my social growth from my childhood till now. when i get going on something like this i tend to go on for a while.... i guess i haven't quite learnt to suppress my tendency to monologue online yet

I was mostly the same, minus the causing trouble. i was bullied and eventually started having violent meltdowns, which then got them teasing me about being "crazy" which made it worse. I never really understood why other kids did a lot of the things they did. I didn't understand why they teased people, it was wrong, i couldn't comprehend cheating, it was against the rules why would you do it, so i always felt a bit different.

i drifted through school, not paying attention in class, daydreaming, not doing homework, but getting better marks than most of the people in my class and getting some of the top marks on standardized tests, so everyone was more focused on finding out why i was having meltdowns than looking for a potential learning disability. I've now been diagnosed with ADHD and AS, but by your second year of university you're pretty solid in your learning habits so it's been quite a struggle to try to get some order in my life and to cope with the two disorders.

As I got older i became a bit less shy and quiet, at least in certain settings, and once i discovered that i have really good comedic timing i became somewhat of a class clown. this started around grade 5 when an administration error that was never fixed resulted in all the guys being in one class with a male teacher and all the girls being in the other with a female teacher. i didn't really know much about interacting with my peers at that point, i only had two or three friends at any one time, but this was a way to get a laugh out of people, which was better than getting picked on. i became two different people, i was the funny guy in class and the quiet, awkward loner outside of class who occasionally had meltdowns.

i reached a pretty low point in grade 7 and 8. I went from a school of maybe 400 to a school of 1200, and i was the youngest. i fit in even less there, i was still a joker in class but less than before. by grade 8 i had been severely depressed for about 4 years, i dreaded going to school every day, and finally i had a big meltdown that almost got me charged with assault (someone had been teasing me for months and i finally exploded and beat him), but it probably did me a lot of good. the officer who was responsible for my case had told me that if he caught wind of me getting into any more fights he would charge me with assault.

so i changed schools, my parents and i decided on a boarding school about an hour away from home (yes, i actually wanted to go to a boarding school, unlike most of the people there), and that change is probably the single best thing to have ever happened to me. I was pretty quiet and awkward for the first two years there, i still had my wit and still made people laugh but i didn't have a whole lot more. by grade 11 i started to be more social and was actually interacting meaningfully with a lot of my peers. by grade 12 i was leaps and bounds ahead of where i was just a year earlier. teachers liked me (although they usually have, or at least had a love-hate relationship since they liked me but hated my behaviour and lack of effort), people around me liked me, and a girl actually wanted to go out with me, although i couldn't read her hints and had low self esteem so i didn't think it was possible. i knew how to entertain a classroom without annoying the teacher (for the most part... my chemistry teacher didn't really like me for a few reasons, some of which may have been reasonable), i could interact with a group of friends without being left out or making too many awkward comments, and, thanks to my sister's instruction, i had learnt how to have a real conversation (i.e. i didn't dominate it with a narrative about my interest, i asked questions, etc.).

that's when i went to university. i didn't do so well in first year, i spent about the same amount of time studying but i didn't do as much schoolwork so my marks dropped, but i had a lot of fun socially. i seemed to have come out of my shell and became a bit more extroverted, which i eventually came to realize wasn't entirely a good thing. i wasn't as cautious around people so i made more awkward remarks and faux-pas than i would have, which made it difficult to get along with some people, but being in engineering means that a higher percentage of your peers have bad social skills so it wasn't that bad. in second year i got depressed, did really poorly, went back to being more introverted, and that's when i saw a psychologist. he diagnosed me with ADHD and said he saw symptoms of AS, but didn't want to diagnose me. I looked into it and thought it suited me so i went to another psychologist who specializes in ASD's (his colleague, which made for and awkward conversation with the receptionist) who, after speaking to me a few times, having my parents and I fill out a few questionnaires, and a lengthy phone conversation with my mom, diagnosed me with AS.

She said the diagnosis was difficult. She agreed that it definitely was there, my childhood was a clear indicator of it, but she wondered if a diagnosis would be beneficial to me. she eventually decided it would be, i could get help from my university, i could find support groups around where i live, etc. so she gave me a diagnosis.

And now here i am. I'm in third year university, struggling to make it through classes i should be acing, i get anxiety whenever i go somewhere new for a social event, i get nervous whenever anyone even mentions a club (there are two things to do at a club, dance and drink. i don't like dancing and i can find cheaper and more enjoyable ways to drink). I still obsess over things (although i haven't had a special interest for a while and it's bothering me), i still have trouble keeping my life organized (he types while looking around his room to see clothes all over the place, a desk that needs organizing, and remembers he's got dishes to do, a library book to return.... a few weeks ago, and an assignment to do), i have trouble getting anything done, and i still find it very difficult to make real friends. since starting university two and a half years ago i've only really made one friend that i hang out with on a regular basis, and that wasn't until this year. so i've still got all these issues but hey, i can appear normal enough that people don't believe i have Asperger's Syndrome.

sorry, i'm still a bit bitter about my education. i feel as though the school system has failed me, it failed to educate me properly, it failed to challenge me, it failed to recognize both my learning deficits and my gifts (my marks weren't high enough for the gifted programs but all my test marks were well above average), and it failed to help me learn to socialize properly. i only really started to learn social skills when i went to a private school.

I recognize me in this part of your post like in many others.

(but thanks my "don't loving to write in english" I have less problem to be succint here )

Same here, when I go out with a group somewhere I'm really quiet but then when I get home I'm rambling on for ages

Same here!

Thats EXACTLY how I am.

yep.

lots of family & friends don't think i have it, on the one hand - because they are uneducated about what it is, and only relate it to stereotypical extremes such as Rainman, or bratty little boys throwing tantrums, and on the other hand - because I hide it well and can 'act' well. people only can know you via what you show or reveal to them and if you've spent your life time observing how people behave and speak, and use this in order to 'act' normal, then it's hard for them to know any different.

Oy, i'm also pretty silent in public except when it's a passionnating subject in class and i feel the urge to speak up and ask questions to understand.

The few times i've gone out into bars or with people i'm usually alone in my spot... standing there silently... <.< and just drinking my booze every so often. It takes one to initiate conversation with me to get me out of this situation..

But yeah, generally people don't notice i have Asperger (online) but it shows quite much in public, since i often do odd stuff....like crouching while waiting for the sub (i used to sit down, but i read somewhere that it was prohibited...). Hrm...

I've always tried to compensate for my social deficits and in most cases I've succeeded. The problems I've had were when I over-compensated.