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Anybody have Aspergers?


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UncommonNonsense

I'm HFA.. I was initially diagnosed at 3, way back in 1979, but my parents refused to accept that diagnosis and never informed the schools I went to and sure as hell didn't tell me. I always knew I was different, and grasped at some pretty strange straws in my attempts to figure out why as a kid, so knowing would have been much better for me than not.

When I was 22, a friend asked me to compile some research for her after her grandson was diagnosed as having Asperger's, since she wasn't good with computers and the internet. The info I found was shocking... it was like looking in a mirror! Suddenly, it all made sense. I asked my GP to refer me to someone who could assess me, and she told me that I'd been dxed HFA as a small child. I confronted my parents, and they finally told me the truth.

I qualified as being HFA despite starting to speak at 4 months old because I had very idiosyncratic language. I had my own private language that employed some standard English words (but often used in odd ways, independent of their usual meanings), and words from other languages I was introduced to on Sesame Street (French and Spanish), but had a very unusual syntax and grammar that were more like those found in Latin (maybe why I loved taking Latin in HS and university!) I could switch back and forth between English and my own language, but I far preferred my own.

I also went through periods of situational mutism. I often did not speak at school at all. During HS, I spent three years not speaking at school except to 2 particular favourite teachers and 2 friends. I taught myself Sign Language to get by, as 2 other teachers in the school knew Sign and could interpret for me. Otherwise, I wrote a lot of notes. I was tolerated by teachers, even in honours classes, because I always had very high grades and maintained a 95% average... even though some teachers clearly resented having a kid like me in their class. After all, kids like me were what Basic level courses and the self-contained Life Skills classes (the classes that were for cognitively disabled kids) were for, in their minds.. thankfully, those were a decided minority and I only ran into that kind of thinking with 3 HS teachers and 1 elementary school teacher. Most were ok. A few were stellar.

Most of the time, as an adult, I like my autistic mind and my quirks. I like my imagination and creativity. I love my ability to literally fall in love with particular topics. I love my special interests and the euphoric highs they give me.

I do find the comorbid depression and anxiety problematic and would love to be rid of those. I don't like the odd and intense phobia of crowds and the mistrust I have for people that comes from my past experiences with abuse, bullies, and how quickly a crowd can become a mob that turns on someone they see as different. But most of the time, I like being autistic. If someone offered me some potion that would make me 'normal'. I'd refuse it completely.

did sign really help?

Somewhat... granted, if I really needed to talk at length to a teacher, I had to run out of the classroom and go find either the teacher for the self-contained cognitively disabled class or the TA for that class (the only 2 teachers in the school who signed), convince either of them to leave their class and come with me, and bring them back to whatever class I'd just run out of. Just so they could interpret for me.

But, as big a pain in the ass as this was, it was the only option sometimes. Especially if I ended up in a conflict with a teacher or was about to get into trouble for something that wasn't my fault.

But sometimes it was useful. There was one other student in the mainstream classes like me who signed. He was Deaf and read lips and *could* speak aloud if pressed, but since so many people made fun of him for the way he spoke (and just think how hard it is to learn to speak if you can't hear either the sounds you make yourself or the sounds of others' speech) he almost never spoke. Since I signed too, he and I were always paired for group work in every class we had together. We ended up being friends, of a sort.. we had little in common except Sign, but we were someone to hang with who actually understood what we were saying. I also volunteered to assist the cognitively disabled students over lunch, getting students to and from their school busses before and after school, and whenever they needed an extra chaperone on field trips. Some of those kids had some basic sign, since a lot of them also had hearing impairments or were non-verbal. Since I signed and could help out, I was basically treated like an unofficial teacher's aide in that class. Since I was seen as useful and considered unusually mature for my willingness to help in the class for cognitively disabled kids when most students considered those kids nothing more than the butt of their jokes, I was given a lot more freedom and yes, privilege, than every other student.

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J. van Deijck

I'm going to learn the sign language for both my mutism and my hearing impairment. It should be useful. :3

Making eye contact or addressing people by name is really gross and difficult. I use nicknames for most people I know because using real names is hard.

This! I never call people by their names while directly talking to them, and rarely while referring to them in third person. I can't even explain why is it that big effort to me, especially that I do have a great memory for names.

I remember I've sent a card to my boyfriend before Christmas, and it was a real battle to write his name there :lol:

For taking notes, I've been doing it rarely while studying at the university because I just had no idea what to write. Which information is the most important, which one is less? To me, all of them were equally important, but there was no time to write it all :(

Otherwise, I make notes all the time. I enjoy making lists, the last one was the list of my favourite songs :D

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UncommonNonsense

I'm going to learn the sign language for both my mutism and my hearing impairment. It should be useful. :3

Making eye contact or addressing people by name is really gross and difficult. I use nicknames for most people I know because using real names is hard.

This! I never call people by their names while directly talking to them, and rarely while referring to them in third person. I can't even explain why is it that big effort to me, especially that I do have a great memory for names.

I remember I've sent a card to my boyfriend before Christmas, and it was a real battle to write his name there :lol:

For taking notes, I've been doing it rarely while studying at the university because I just had no idea what to write. Which information is the most important, which one is less? To me, all of them were equally important, but there was no time to write it all :(

Otherwise, I make notes all the time. I enjoy making lists, the last one was the list of my favourite songs :D

I'm the very same way about names! I almost never use someone's name when speaking to them, and I dread having to call a person over a distance or noise, since I'll inevitably have to call them by name. I thought this was a faceblind thing... yes, I'm faceblind.. can't recognize people by their faces and don't easily link names to appearances. But I am damn good at matching voice, gait, mannerisms, catch phrases, items of clothing, and jewellery to identity, and that lets me tell who's who, so being faceblind doesn't cause a great deal of hardship for me. But that name thing... I never thought to link it to my autism, but it makes just as much sense to pair it up with autism as it does prosopagnosia.

Gee, now I have something new to ponder.

Yeah, eye contact bothers me too. It feels so horribly invasive to me. I have learned to fake people out by actually concentrating my visual focus on the bridge of their nose or one of their eyebrows. This works amazingly well. They can't tell the difference, and you don't get someone's eyes drilling into the deepest core of your identity.

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I'm going to learn the sign language for both my mutism and my hearing impairment. It should be useful. :3

Making eye contact or addressing people by name is really gross and difficult. I use nicknames for most people I know because using real names is hard.

This! I never call people by their names while directly talking to them, and rarely while referring to them in third person. I can't even explain why is it that big effort to me, especially that I do have a great memory for names.

I remember I've sent a card to my boyfriend before Christmas, and it was a real battle to write his name there :lol:

For taking notes, I've been doing it rarely while studying at the university because I just had no idea what to write. Which information is the most important, which one is less? To me, all of them were equally important, but there was no time to write it all :(

Otherwise, I make notes all the time. I enjoy making lists, the last one was the list of my favourite songs :D

I find that I don't really use peoples names that much either but then that mostly became a thing since I use the internet a lot and don't really communicate with people that much offline.

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No, but my best friend has it. She's never been officially diagnosed (probably because her parents want her to be the "perfect" child), but it's pretty obvious.

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No, but my best friend has it. She's never been officially diagnosed (probably because her parents want her to be the "perfect" child), but it's pretty obvious.

I find that some parents tend to be this way where they don't get the kid diagnosed because they don't wanna believe that there kid has anything wrong with them. Its not anything wrong per say it just means you need help in certain areas.

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Ouch.

I was never diagnosed, at least not that I'm aware off, but I scored 37-34 on the AQ test online (had to do it twice and took me more than 2 hours) and some stuff on the big list fits me well.

At the age of 6 I filled up 2 note books in a couple of evenings at home with maths ( + - * / self invented exercices) because I just discovered this stuff and it was fascinating. I'm not going to explain what happens when I discover a new fascinating subject, challenge or game.

I can't multi-task so for me looking someone in the eyes while listening or talking is simply impossible. I've to watch movies at least twice because of this too. When I look someone in the eyes it's just that, looking at someone's eyes.

My "empathy" is close to zero. Sorry but I don't even feel sorry, I just don't feel anything at all. I'm not being rude but that's how I'm, sorry again even if I'm not really sorry.

I'm hypersensitive so don't touch me, don't talk loudly, don't stink and don't make any kind of terrible loud noise. It fucking hurts me, yes, it does.

If I ask you to repeat the question two or three times it's because I've no clue what you're talking about or I'm not certain. Even after that it's a 50% miss and me answering something completely different than expected. If I don't laugh about a joke it's because I didn't get it.

I don't and can't chitchat about subjects I know nothing about or I'm not interested in.

It's not that I've a hard time making friends, it's I'm not interested in making new friends. So please go annoy someone else with your chitchat, I don't care about your problems or achievements.

You're the seventeenth person telling me the weather is bad today. Thank you, I've noticed it too you know, I'm not blind.

I don't like traveling, I don't like to go to new places. I don't like meeting new people. I like my daily and weekly routine and I'm often lost when it's broken or changed.

My sense of orientation is at the same level as my empathy so don't ask me where to go now, except if you want to get us completely lost.

Bad short time memory with lots of gaps. Don't ask me what we were talking about half an hour ago as I've probably already forgotten. I don't remember phone numbers, birth dates, dates, ages, names.

I wasn't being rude, I thought it was funny or it was the answer you expected.

Stop telling me to stop thinking as I find it extremely annoying. I can't make my brain stop thinking. I've tried everything I was told to try out, nothing ever worked, except being completely drunk and falling asleep once in bed.

I'm not sad or miserable or sick, I'm in my own little world, inventing new stories in my head or thinking about something I'm the only one that cares about around here. Please, leave me alone with my beer(s) and a shot of whisky.

I know that

I'm always re-arranging my beer, pack fo smokes and lighter at the bar. It has to be in the right order and place and it changes over time.

I speak with my hands feet, elbows, legs, arms, make strange noises sometimes. Get used to it or go talk to someone else. And no, I can't sit quitely as my body is like my brain and I can't put it on hold. I just can't.

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I have a mild case of Asperger's. I was diagnosed when I was six, and found out about it when I was twelve.

I've always known that I was different, and I think it comes across when I talk to people.

My only real symptoms are bad handwriting (unless I write in capitals, you can't read anything I put to paper), a fascination with certain subjects (formerly trains, planes and ships, now it's simply a mild interest in mental disorders), a fondness for routine, a great eye for detail and I also get very anal-retentive about what I write/say/draw (I'll write out/say a sentence or draw a drawing several times over until it sounds right).

Also, I like reading books about autism or Asperger's. I like learning about what it's like to have more severe conditions so that I can sympathise and relate more to them.

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The A+ Student

There is no such thing as "mild" (or severe) autism and such language is quite hurtful to the autistic community. The labels applied are misnomers given by neurotypicals who want to rate how well we pass. It is not a benevolent rating system and, besides that, more fantasy than fact. That was your first sentence. Don't take it the wrong way, but had you used the search function, you would have found plenty of topics covering this question. Just pointing you in the right direction with that! Many autistic people are asexal, actually. You should read and ask plenty of questions. For reference: http://askanautistic.co.uk/resources

What makes me autistic? My brain wiring. My resulting sensory hypo and hypersensitivies. My completely alien perception and experience of existing. My internet was a little shitty and I wanted to edit something in:

I have never been officially diagnosed, but 4 different doctors have had such suspection while diagnosing me, but they weren't sure if it's HFA or Aspergers, or maybe a completely different neurological disorder.

Irrelevant. The sole difference is that a HFA diagnose would given if the child did not speak before the age of 4. They call this language delay and that is the sole diagnostical difference between the two! And Asperger's, since it does not have "autism" in the name, is the much preferred term sought by cure-my-child-moms and other idiots. This is actually something which the person who lend his name to this condition, Hans Asperger, deliberately did in Nazi Germany. So less autistic people would be massacred by the regime.

Many people have this firm belief that Asperger's=schizoidism or antisocial behavior, but that saying "My child has Asperger's Syndrome" is better than saying "My child is autistic". And let's not even get into how autists who are non verbal are immediately labeled "low functioning". It's a rotten system. In my oppinion, PDD-NOS (Pervasive development disorder not otherwise specified) is where it gets very interesting.

Oh, I've been saying I have mild Asperger's since I was diagnosed in 10th grade... That's what the therapist told me and my parents. I never even thought about it being a problem, although I always knew it was because I can "pass" as neurotypical. Oops.

And now I'm wondering why I wasn't diagnosed as HFA instead, seeing as I didn't really talk much until after 4. I don't remember it at all, but my parents tell me they finally got a speech therapist to test if something was "wrong" with me and she determined there wasn't, but I was just not speaking because apparently my parents were letting me get away with it. Once they started refusing to respond to me when I made non-verbal noises, I began to use words. Nowadays I "allow" myself to be nonverbal sometimes again, mostly when I'm really excited or distressed, and usually when not trying to communicate with others. I also generally won't do it in public because I don't like drawing attention to myself, unless I'm extremely distressed and for some reason can't safely remove myself from the situation (but this is an extremely rare occurrence). If I'm nervous, sometimes it takes me a few seconds to manage to spit words out of my mouth and I stand in front of the person either making odd noises or opening and closing my mouth without sound, but I only do this with my parents and close friends (otherwise I don't approach the person at all until I get a handle on myself).

The more I think and write about this, the more autistic I seem to myself. When I was first diagnosed and for several years afterward, I didn't realize how different a lot of this behavior was except for sometimes not getting sarcasm. I think now I just assumed everyone else was like me and high school was neither particularly exciting or distressing so I didn't notice any significant difference. It's also possible I was partially in denial :unsure:

(P.S. I think you meant "So fewer autistic people would be massacred by the regime." I was really confused for a minute or two because "less" modifies "autistic" and "fewer" modifies "people".)

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Not that this is related to anything but I just parted ways with the oldest childhood friend I had. I guess I can turn it into something related and say that we blatantly have nothing in common anymore at all whatsoever. Dunno about anyone else but if I have nothing in common with you I literally gotta force a conversation every time so I think parting ways with her was the only way.

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Its highly likely i have some form of it, but i have never been diagnosed with it, but its likely, from what i have heard about it.

But seeing as i do not care about labels, i really just never cared about it.

I am socially very very introverted, like maybe alot of you too, but labels do not interest me. I am normal to me, although i may seem very odd to others, but why should i care about that. The way you are is the way you are. We all have different social skills, and people like me, have none.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I do, I was diagnosed when I was 11 and was immediately placed on various different medication trials every 3 months (just for them to figure out what worked)...

not really sure what to say other than I was treated like shit because of it and that i hate it...

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I'm not autistic, but both of my parents are. My mom refuses to get diagnosed, but she has a brother who has Kanners, is completely non verbal and lives in a State hospital. That's about as low functioning as you can get. She thinks she can't have autism because she's nothing like her brother. And I'm like..99.9% of people with autism aren't as bad off as your brother. But... there's no point. She's kind of high strung and not fun to be around because she not only has poor social skills, she's totally unaware that she has poor social skills. So to her, people just randomly get creeped out or angry at her and she has no idea why.

My dad is totally different. He's diagnosed with Asbergers, but he refuses to believe he has any sort of "disorder". He admits to having all of the symptoms, but he said autism wouldn't exist if our society wasn't so inflexible about what "normal" means. He says that him getting labeled as having autism is a sign of how sick our society is and thinks it's everyone else's problem for not being able to deal with him. He's got a point. He works for Bank of America and writes machine code for them. He telecommutes and only needs to work an hour a two a day,so he can travel anywhere in the county he wants with his laptop and a connection. He makes buckets of money and basically gets to play all day. He's never lonely (because he doesn't care if he's alone) and does whatever he wants. You tell me who has the problem. If that's autism, give me a double dose.

Anyway, I grew up a bit eccentric and I don't have the best social skills, but I'm pretty OK-ish.. I guess. People think I'm warm and friendly in person even though I seem to be a jackass online. The best thing about having autistic parents is that I get along really well in person with people who have autism. I'm almost never surprised when they tell me, but I don't really care. I can't explain it. It just never seems to be an issue for me. But I'm very aware that it's always been an issue for most of my coworkers unless they are special Ed teachers. I do get surprised when they tell me that they don't like some kid and I'm like, What? He's the best kid in the school!

Parents will tell me that their kids have horrible tantrums and won't talk to anyone except them. I just hang out and sit near the kids and after a while, they are telling me all bout this novel they wrote and put on Amazon and they want me to download it and tell them why nobody is buying it.

That's a true story. This mom said her son never talked to anyone. I had trouble getting him to stop talking to me about his novel. He followed me into the women's room once and if I didn't tell him to get out, he probably would have had no issue with talking to me while I sat on the toilet. I'd have to tell him "I'm getting in my car. I'm going home. That means you need to stop talking now." I miss that kid like crazy, btw.

Anyway. I think my dad is right. Except for a few outliers, for the most part autism is just being different --sometimes REALLY different, true. But I think our society needs to learn to stop being obsessed with everyone being average. The world would be boring without autistic people.

One last thing. My dads favorite quote on autism is, "When you meet one person with autism, you've met one person with autism" (it means that people with autism are so unique that you shouldn't assume that you know anything at all about them. Just like everyone else.)

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There is no such thing as "mild" (or severe) autism and such language is quite hurtful to the autistic community.

Sure there is. Whatever sort of offense you're taking to there being so is not intended.

When I got my diagnosis of ASD level 1 (which I am pretty much calling Asperger's, even though they don't diagnose Asperger's specifically anymore; Asperger's is the diagnosis I likely would have gotten prior to the DSM-5), they told me that there's three levels of it, of increasing severity. I was explicitly told that what I had equated to a mild form of autism spectrum disorder (with the other two levels, I'm guessing, as moderate and severe)

My mom has worked as a teacher for autistic children, and it is plain as day that the kids she had to work with were at a more severe level of autism than I am, or ever have been. That's not intended to be demeaning to those kids at all. It is just stating cold, hard fact. These kids needed a level of help and support that I never did. There is a difference.

As was pointed out by someone else, that's precisely why it's called autism *spectrum* disorder

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There is no such thing as "mild" (or severe) autism and such language is quite hurtful to the autistic community.

Sure there is. Whatever sort of offense you're taking to there being so is not intended.

When I got my diagnosis of ASD level 1 (which I am pretty much calling Asperger's, even though they don't diagnose Asperger's specifically anymore; Asperger's is the diagnosis I likely would have gotten prior to the DSM-5), they told me that there's three levels of it, of increasing severity. I was explicitly told that what I had equated to a mild form of autism spectrum disorder (with the other two levels, I'm guessing, as moderate and severe)

My mom has worked as a teacher for autistic children, and it is plain as day that the kids she had to work with were at a more severe level of autism than I am, or ever have been. That's not intended to be demeaning to those kids at all. It is just stating cold, hard fact. These kids needed a level of help and support that I never did. There is a difference.

As was pointed out by someone else, that's precisely why it's called autism *spectrum* disorder

Either you have it or you don't, there's no question about it. To say you have "a little bit of aspergers" or "a little bit of autism" is like saying you're a "little bit pregnant" it just doesn't make sense at all whatsoever.

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Either you have it or you don't, there's no question about it. To say you have "a little bit of aspergers" or "a little bit of autism" is like saying you're a "little bit pregnant" it just doesn't make sense at all whatsoever.

Taking aside the fact that wasn't what I was saying (there definitely is a sliding scale of severity of autism; I wasn't necessarily saying that translates to having a "little bit" or a "lot" of autism)... sure it does. People who are 7-8 months pregnant are a lot more likely to at least *appear* pregnant than someone at 1-2 months.

People will say it that way all the time (as in, someone who is late into their pregnancy or otherwise appears to have a large "baby bump" will often be referred to as "very" pregnant; likewise, that someone who barely even appears pregnant yet might be referred to as just a "little" pregnant), even though obviously literally speaking one is not "more" pregnant than the other.

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I don't even know the classification I was put under. none of my medical stuff really explains it apart from I was diagnosed in 2004ish.

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I was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome when I was about eight-years-old. However with the introduction of the DSM-V, I now have Autism Spectrum Disorder (Asperger's Syndrome was removed) which I don't really identify as (I prefer Asperger's, partly out of habit and partly out of a desire not to be confused with some who have severe autism).

I also have ADHD(-PI), which is apparently common among people diagnosed with Autism.

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I don't even know the classification I was put under. none of my medical stuff really explains it apart from I was diagnosed in 2004ish.

Maybe it was still a thing even back then because that childhood friend I mentioned that I kinda parted ways with and what not was diagnosed at 10 or 11 and she's about the same age as me. Whether she actually has it or not I never really questioned because at the time she told me about it which was like I said around the time we were both 10 or 11 or so I didn't even know what that was. If anything the first thing I asked her was "what kinda burgers now???".

Looking back on it the only thing I never picked up on with her was special skills. They always say those with aspergers have some kinda special skill like with art, numbers, or something along those lines but I never did see that in her so I don't know xD She definitely had and still does have the "special interest" thing going on which is why at this point in time we barely have anything in common enough to communicate anymore.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I may have a slight case of it, as I'm recently finding out. I don't know if I do for sure, but there are certain traits that I have that raise the bells though. I took that first quiz and it said I "seem to have both neurodiverse and neurotypical traits". I got 27 on that second one. So if I do, it might be a very, very tiny case.

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  • 3 weeks later...
pennyinmysock

I wasn't diagnosed until seventeen, but my family was always great with allowing my "eccentricities" it was just part of me. ^_^

I am happy I was diagnosed though because it makes college so much easier.

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I wasn't diagnosed until seventeen, but my family was always great with allowing my "eccentricities" it was just part of me. ^_^

I am happy I was diagnosed though because it makes college so much easier.

it probably does considering the fact you weren't diagnosed THAT late. Though it depends on when you graduated because for me I graduated at 17 and was diagnosed at 19.

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The more I'm reading this, the more I'm thinking I should get checked out to see if I have Aspergers or some kind of autism. My interests were always intense and prolonged to a point where other people took note of it (not always in a positive manner)- and my interests still are like that, but I can control it more. I always came on too strong when I was younger and was terrible at social situations, and people didn't wanna be friends with me, even going so far as going out of their way to say it's because I'm weird. I was also a selective mute when I was real little, which therapy helped me overcome, but I've heard lots of people who were diagnosed talk about as well, so that makes me think, too. I've learned to interact much better socially with others as I've grown up, but I feel like it's still an effort, and some things in particular still aren't easy for me at all. And some people who are diagnosed with either/both of those things have gone out of their way quite a few times to tell me that, due to their diagnosed condition, they have shared similar experiences to me, even if the conversation wasn't of that nature. So between all that, getting some scores on some tests that might suggest it, and reading all the stuff people are saying on this thread, it really makes me think...

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Yea I think now's the time to get tested.

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