Hello
I'm new here, but this has so many people with some quirks like mine, so I just wanted to be a part of it and get to know other people who are just like me.
I think I have some mild form of autism, but enough to have some minor issues.
My brother was diagnosed with Asperger's a few years back and my father probably has it too. That's when I started to realise that my somewhat strange behaviour might be explained by some form of autism (whether it's Asperger's or another variant).
First of all: I took two tests on the internet.
The AQ-test, on which I scored 37 out of 50 (while most peolpe diagnosed with autims have 32 or more).
The Aspie-quiz, on which I had a aspie score of 145 and a neurotypical score of 45.
So that would suggest I'm not completely "normal", but it also suggest that whatever I have, I don't have it severly.
It's just the small things that bother me.
I'm not really social to say the least.
In conversations I'm starting to learn that I shouldn't pay attention what other people think, but to just say and do as I feel is right. The emphasis lays on "starting".
But I still try to understand other people in conversations. When I'm talking to one person, I'm able to focus on that single person and try to understand how they would react to some things I would say. When I'm talking to two persons, it's more difficult, but manageable; but when I'm talking to three persons or more, I kind of shut down and I barely say anything.
I also have problems just understanding people.
In busy places I barely understand people, but when I'm lucky, I can understand on word of what they are saying. When I ask them to repeat it several times, I eventually understand enough to make a sentence out of it. But even when it's not really that busy, I'm having problems understanding people. There's less background noise, but still enough to prevent me from concentrating.
I just don't understand other people. I know what other people like to do, but I just don't understand how that would be fun in any way. A while back I didn't go to the movies with my friends because I simply didn't want to go see a movie I don't like and because I don't like the feeling of my ear drums popping, but also because I already made an effort by going into town to a bar the night before. To tell you how much I didn't want to go: it was for one of my friends' birthday.
I'm also kind of a perfectionist. I used to play RPG's on my computer, but I squeezed all the fun out of them, because I wasn't really playing the game, but I was making the "ultimate" and "perfect" character. It eventually got boring, because most games aren't meant to be played this really, really repetitive way (but it was fun while it lasted).
Also, everything I do, I want to do perfectly. So mostly the goals I set cannot be achieved.
I'm also really nostalgic and I'm only 18 years old (I don't know if that is relevant, but I think it's strange).
And to finish, I would just like to say that I have been much happier (even while typing this) the last few weeks thinking I have some form of autism (as opposed to feeling depressed all the time and having breakdowns once in a while). It just gives me a reason why I just don't fit in properly. It explains why my efforts to be more like NT's were tottally in vain. And most importantly it explains my strange quirks and why I shouldn't feel ashamed of them (I'm still not telling anyone about it (not even here), but at least I feel OK with it).
PS: My native language isn't English and I'm not so good at languages, so my apologies for any inclarities.
09 Nov 2009, 4:26 pm
