The Story of a Could-Be Aspie

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Hi,

I'm 21 years old, and within the next couple of months I will undergo psychological evaluation to see whether I have Asperger's or not. The story so far is this. When I was a kid, a little kid, I was strange. When I was about 20 months old, I was able to make complicated sentences, yet hardly able to walk. Soon after, I developed interests that were weird for someone my age. Interests isn't the right word, actually. Obsessions would be better. Car types were my first obsession, I was about 2 to 2,5 years old by this time. Very often, older kids in my neighborhood would come to my door to ask my mom if they could take me along to 'watch cars', and to see if I could properly identify them. Soon after, I developed another obsession, namely space, and specifically space aviation and the solar system. I was about 3 to 4 by this time. I was well known in my neighborhood because I could name all of Jupiter's moons from the top of my head, and stuff like that, and because I would lecture people on the Soviet-American Space Race in the 60s. At the same time, I developed obsessions for classical music and church architecture. By the time I reached the age of 5, even teachers considered me an expert on the solar system, classical composers and church architecture. All the while, my motor skills developed slowly. For instance, I could only ride a bike when I was 7 or 8 (I'm from Holland, and usually kids here can ride bikes when they're about 5), I was a very slow writer, I absolutely detested drawing pictures and I sucked in PE class. My obsessions, however, continued. To name but a few: geography of the Netherlands, dinosaurs, the Dutch national football team, World War 2, fighter planes from the World War 2-era, plate tectonics, etcetera etcetera. By the time I was 12, I was an expert on a wide variety of subjects, well, not really an expert, but let's say, extremely knowledgeable for someone my age. Between the ages of 7 and 9, I taught myself English through the television. In the Netherlands, tv shows aren't redubbed, they're subtitled, so once I was able to read, I was able to teach myself English. When I was about 11, Americans would generally believe that I was American myself when they heard me speak. And all throughout my childhood, I displayed some very weird tics. For instance, straws, as in, drinking straws. I would fold them up and twist them between my thumb and index finger. Actually, I still do that, there are a couple of straws scattered around my laptop as I'm writing this. Also, I had the tendency to flap my hands and jump around whenever something excited me. My parents already told me when I was very young that I shouldn't do that around other people, and I never did. But in private I couldn't help myself. Again, this is still true today. And it's not just hand-flapping: it's also the tendency to stand up suddenly, walk to the other end of the room, turn around, and then return to wherever I was sitting.

Socially, I never had major problems when I was a kid. I was never really part of the group, but I didn't really mind. In the playground, I just observed other kids playing, or hung around with the one or two friends I had. I was never bullied, or anything like that. If anything, my peers respected me because I was so knowledgeable and, in general, good at expressing myself verbally. All this in spite of the fact that, in general, my motor skills sucked. Instead of participating in a game of football (that's soccer to you transatlantics) I would stand on the sideline and pretend I was the commentator. Everyone loved it. All this continued through high school. I was never socially awkward, or anything like that, but people often told me, and they still do, that I'm rude and that I can be extremely dominant, even intimidating, when I'm arguing with someone. I've also been called an arrogant narcist. But I never really cared. I only ran into trouble when I moved into a student house about three years ago. Whenever I was drunk, I would get into fights, hurt people's feelings, etcetera. I also became addicted to marijuana. In the last two years, I have become depressed, and have been diagnosed as such. As a result, I left the student house, and currently live with my folks again. I quit drinking and smoking pot, and I feel a lot better now, I can tell you that much. And now I have to wait for (yet another) psychological evaluation..

I'm wondering if all this sounds familiar to anyone on here. Could it be, that I'm an Aspie? I mean, I've never felt completely detached from other people, I've always been able to get along fine with most of them, although I have a strong tendency to be rude, arrogant, mean and extremely to-the-point.. But you know, in spite of my natural introversion, I'm not scared of making eye contact or stuff like that. On the surface, I come across as quite normal. But nonetheless.. All this just makes me sigh a bit, actually. Although I've been aware of Asperger's for quite some time, and always recognized at least some of the symptoms, it really is something else when a professional tells you that you might have it. Of course, I have to wait for the results of the evaluation, and for the entire evaluation to occur in the first place. But I'm already bracing myself for impact, if you know what I mean. Asperger's. Could that really be it? What do you think? And how should I cope?

Why are you being evaluated? Curiosity? Life challenges?

The first part of your story sounds Aspie. But the social part doesn't. You may just be gifted. There are some schools of thought that place the two very close together.

Life challenges, mostly. It's funny you mention the social bit, because in fact that's one of the prime reasons they're going to check if something ASD-ish is going on, specifically Asperger's.. It's because I used to observe other kids, rather than interact with them. As far as they've told me, they think that through observing other kids I might have learned how to behave in social settings, while kids usually learn this through interacting.

Sounds pretty Aspie to me, except for the social aspects. But as you say, it's possible that you learned to operate successfully through intense, protracted observation and careful mimicry rather than normal instinct.

What I wanted to comment on was this:

"I'm 21 years old, and within the next couple of months I will undergo psychological evaluation to see whether I have Asperger's or not."

Other will disagree, no doubt, but although this is the way the process appears, my hunch is that 9 times out of 10 it's a sham.

What I mean is, if you go without already having done all of the research yourself, all of the available tests and with no personal conviction or clear idea if you are or are not an Aspie, then it's quite possible you will not be diagnosed as an Aspie and will walk away thinking "Oh, I definitely must not be an Aspie then". Which could be totally false.

I've had a lot of interaction with pychs over the years of various types and I actually don't have very much respect for most of them. They can often be quite opinionated, and wrong, or very easily lead. If you go totally relying on their insight and their ability to correctly direct the process, ask the right questions etc, then the ideal (but, IMO, unlikely) outcome is that you will be lucky enough to see a very experienced and insightful psych who can accurately asses you. More likely, IMO, is the following scenario:

You will see someone not very experienced, or not experienced in diagnosing adults, or not experienced in diagnosing when the individual deviates from the Aspie cliches due to environmental differences or adaptation etc. The diagnosis will therefore be of little more real value than a coin toss and will be their opinion which you may take away as if 'fact'.

Countless people here have described going from psych to psych over the years being given countless different diagnoses until finally someone identified Aspergers, but if they continued the process, seeing other psychs, then no doubt other diagnoses would be given, each one presented as 'fact'. So what does that tell us?

IMO, It tells us the psychs can rarely be trusted to properly control the process or to be given sole responsibility for determining our condition.

I think that having a clear research based opinion on whether or not you are an Aspie before you go for the assessment can have a truly huge effect on the process.

It would be wonderful if we lived in a world where we could absolutely trust psychs to make accurate evaluations so that we could hand all the responsibility to them with full confidence in the validity of their process and their conclusions, but we don't and, IMO, can't.

I think in most cases it's more wise to have the attitude that you either definitely do or do not meet the criteria, after having done much research and self-reflection, and you are going just to have someone "official" validate your conclusion, because the likelihood is if you went to see someone else you could well get a totally different diagnosis. So, you might as well get the one you believe is right. You have lived with you all your life, The psych will have observed you in an unnatural setting for a few hours.

I'm not sure I expressed that clearly, but I did my best. I know it's also a tangent. Sorry about that.

Thanks for writing that Maolcolm. I think you have a really good point. I'm also thinking about getting an adult diagnosis and what you have said is really useful. Basically, I have a pretty strong feeling that I have an ASD but I'll keep researching it and maybe make a post about things until I'm really sure. Then, if I get an assessment done I'll know what I need to say so that I can the right diagnosis. Basically the diagnosis would help in terms of having disability status because I do need that at times.

Thanks again