NT Needs Aspie Advice!

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Hi, and thanks for being willing to let me pick your brain!

I'm trying desperately to scroll back through our past in my memory to understand my ex-husband who passed away Wednesday. I'd like to list some of his characteristics to see if you agree he fits the Asperger's Syndrome description. It's difficult for me to read, "has difficulty with social relationships" and translate that into specific behaviors without a little help. So, would you think a person with the following traits would be an Aspie:

1. Would usually get stuck polishing the radio buttons, etc. for hours when he went out to wash the car...didn't get the car washed.
2. Could not tolerate food touching on his plate. Even ate the piles of food separately...finish one pile, then move on to another, etc.
3. No eye contact with waiters/waitresses, doctors, salesmen. Left me in the room with service people at home.
4. Would not shop for clothes. I shopped and brought them home; he tried them on; I took back what didn't fit.
5. Holidays with families - he would find a magazine and choose an empty room to read it, avoiding the rest of us.
6. When he was ready to watch tv, he would change the channel, regardless of who was already watching a show.
7. LOVED automated musical instruments - jukeboxes, player pianos, antique music boxes (restored them all!), but could not carry a tune or understand the mathmatics underpinning music.
8. Poor posture - head pretty much stuck out of his chest. Awkward physical movement. My parent's lovingly nicknamed him, "Bungle".
9. Never once asked anyone how they felt or what they thought about anything, therefore lost track of who his children became as they grew.
10. Preferred a reclusive lifestyle. Was great at his technical job, but refused to have friends as a couple.

Those are the highlights. Like I said, he was my ex. If it's Asperger's, and I'd known, I never would have left. I just thought he didn't love me. What say you?

It could be. It could also be HFA (High Functioning Autism).

There are some tests online that are similar to the ones Drs do. I recommend you take those tests but instead of doing them for yourself as they are designed, answer for your husband. That should help you remember and might help you understand. There is a thread with links to many of the tests called something like Scientific Tests for Autism...or something like that.

I don't have AS but I've got kids who do. I hope my answer is helpful anyway.

Thank you, Kiley!

I just did the AQ test from his perspective (as best I could), then took it myself. His score was 35 (80% of non-NTs scored 32 or higher), and my score was 7. Even with a large margin for error, I think that's telling, if not definitive.

What a cool pair we'd have made had we known what we were dealing with!

I'm sorry, DonnaMyst, about your ex's passing.

My story is also that of "had we known". In my case, it was my aspie husband who left the relationship and only after he left did we realize he has AS. I wanted to make it work after this new knowledge, but he didn't want to anymore. As far as I know, he's happy now, and I'm happy for him.

Perhaps your children knowing that their dad was an undiagnosed aspie will help heal whatever pain, hurt and rejection they may have felt when their dad was alive. They'll understand better now, the way you are beginning to.

Thank you, Esther. So sorry to hear that things have gone in that direction for you. Thank you for your understanding about my children and their dad. You may be interested in reading my intro titled, "Puzzle Pieces Just Fit Themselves Together" on the Getting To Know You page. Your story isn't necessarily over, yet.

Could be AS or HFA.

I'm sure you made a cool pair even not knowing what you were dealing with. I was hoping it would at least help you remember even if the score wasn't totally accurate.

I'm very sorry for your loss.

OK. I'll give it a go.

Detail-mindedness. I have a problem like this; I notice things in very small detail. When you look at a car, you see a car; when he looks at a car, he sees door handle and window and bumper and tailpipe and tire and seat and floor mat and... etc... all the parts that make up a car. That naturally leads to being very good with details and not so good with big-picture things. Chances are, those radio buttons were perfect when he was finished, right?

Taste is a rather overwhelming sensation, and too much sensory information at one time can force us to freeze up or shut down. It's not surprising that he found this way to deal with the problem: Handle one flavor at a time.

No eye contact is normal. It's easier to talk and listen when the information from the face and eyes isn't blocking our processing of language; in fact, a good way to tell whether an Aspie who habitually avoids eye contact is paying close attention to you is to check to see whether he's making eye contact: If he is, he may just be faking listening! A lot of us learn to look past people's heads, so they can still get information from our faces; but for some, even that is too much. Leaving you in the room with service people? Frankly, I don't see why that's a problem... you weren't worried the service people were going to do anything, were you?

Shopping sucks; clothes shopping sucks worse. Stores are noisy, bright, and utterly overwhelming to many of us. I mentally map out the store and make a beeline for what I need; other people may not shop for themselves at all. Clothing itself is a big sensory issue, and the wrong clothing can drive us up the wall (I can't stand polyester, wool, and some types of silk). It's a filtering issue: Too much sensory information at one time, and the brain shuts down. For you, most of it drops out of attention as soon as you see it's irrelevant. We have to process it pretty much consciously.

And no wonder. Gatherings of large numbers of people are chaotic, overwhelming, and extremely difficult to handle. I'm surprised he went at all, really. Most of us--there are exceptions--like to meet people and interact in small numbers or one-on-one. An entire family may be too much for the processing power or the social skills available; and exhaustion or overload could drive us to do things we would regret later. Most of us get smart enough to avoid these situations by the time we're adults.

Probably didn't habitually think about what other people might be thinking. NTs apparently are constantly aware of the possible mental states of others; Aspies have to think about it carefully and figure it out manually. If he's going to watch TV, chances are he was thinking, "I want to watch TV," and considered the presence of other people as a fact unconnected to that desire. If he had had it explained to him that the standard procedure would be to ask the people already watching whether you could change the channel or whether they wanted to watch their shows, then he probably would've realized the problem and started asking.

Special interest. They're very strong hobbies that help us de-stress, learn something interesting, and basically define our lives. He probably loved the mechanisms; I'm not surprised, since it is not uncommon for Aspies to love machinery of some sort or another. Being tune-deaf is pretty unrelated to AS; we can be anywhere from completely tune-deaf to talented to musical prodigies with perfect pitch.

Probably dyspraxic. That's very common with AS, and means that he probably has difficulty figuring out where he is located and how the parts of his body are moving.

Probably didn't know he was supposed to ask. We don't really absorb social expectations. There have been Aspies who didn't know they were supposed to tell their spouses "I love you," because they thought that once they had told the spouse, it was a known fact and didn't have to be repeated!

Introvert. A huge majority of us are introverts and prefer to have only one or two friends, and see them only occasionally. If you are extroverted, it might have seemed quite strange to you not to want a great many friends.

I'm sorry to hear about your ex's death. From your description, he may have had aspergers. Or he may just have been an eccentric or even a typical guy with a few quirks. Aspergers can be tricky to diagnose, so don't beat yourself up because you didn't know about or spot the symptoms; even trained professionals get them wrong sometimes.

If you left because you didn't feel loved in the relationship, then that's a valid reason in itself. Aspergers may offer something towards an explanation for some of his oddities, but it's not as black and white as that; aspergers doesn't rule out making a partner feel loved, so don't let yourself feel blackmailed into staying in a relationship just because the other person has a 'condition' (even posthumously).

You gave your relationship your best shot wih all the information you had at hand, and sadly it didn't work out. His death must have been a shock to the system but that doesn't mean you did anything wrong or that in another life you should have forced yourself to stay in an unhappy relationship, even if armed with a diagnosis.

I hope your ex rests in peace and I hope you find peace yourself. Even if he had aspergers, he may have been aware to some degree how difficult things were for you too, so don't feel that he is holding it against you either.

Sounds aspie to me. I can relate to a lot of it too. My family always comments about how I eat one thing at a time. It never really occurred to me to take a bite of one thing, then take a bite of something else. I won't freak out if my foods touch, but I don't like it(unless it's some of the certain food I like to mix with eachother).

I'm getting no alarm bells for autism. It just sounds like a typical male, but quirky. There can be lots of different reasoning for the things you described. Be more specific, go through all the criteria individually.

He sounds a bit like my dad, whom I'm sure I inherited these traits from. I would say definitely he was somewhere on the spectrum.

I also cannot have foods touching each other on the plate. Even in the fridge I put it in separate containers.

I do things like that too! I will go upstairs to iron my clothes sometimes, notice a spot on the sink that needs to be cleaned, then some other small thing that needs to be cleaned. Meanwhile the iron is left on for like 30 minutes until I remember that was why I went up there in the first place.

From what all I have read and experienced, I'd say he definitely had enough characteristics to point toward the Autism spectrum. To me, the key points being his technical job, and his avoidance of social interaction. I'm not a doctor, so I'm not qualified to offer an official opinion. The part about "polishing the radio buttons, and not winding up washing the whole car", sounds like OCD and/or ADD. Both of those conditions are tied closely to Asperger's (and h.f.a.).

I'm an electronics technician, and I've been known to not only polish radio buttons, but remove the radio from the car, and clean the tubes inside with Windex . If anyone tries to take me to any social gathering, I'll find fault with something, or ask if the host/hostess needs their attic wiring inspected, and then I'll disappear and get all busy with whatever it is.

Charles

Wow!! Callista, that is more helpful, insightful information than I EVER thought I'd get from anyone - thank you! I don't pretend to understand all you've said, but I sure want to learn to.

Someone else explained this to me, once. He said, "You see a car passing you on the highway. We see headlights, a roof, a windshield, windows, side-view mirrors, car doors, handles, locks, bumpers, fenders, paint color, dings, etc." I related this to our youngest son (so far, diagnosed with ADD), who was thrilled that someone else saw it the way he saw it. More work to do there with him.



All the work my ex-husband ever did was perfect. It could take him forever to do it, but it was always perfect when he finished. That quality brought him letters of recognition for a job well done from big wigs in his field.



Actually, a carpet salesman at the house took note of my husband's exit, and asked if I'd like some real company some time. Awkward.



This is one I cannot understand. I understand the words, and I understand how things drop out of my attention when they become irrelevant, but I don't know what it means to "process it pretty much consciously". I'll work on that one.



Funny, you should put it that way. I understand now, but I remember saying when we'd been married a few years, and I'd gotten to know him better (but didn't have a clue about Asperger's) that knowing him now, I was surprised he even showed up for our wedding. At our reception, he kept asking, "Can we go now? Is it time to go? What else do we have to do? Can we go now?"




A more recent version of that was when our daughter was being his caregiver the last few months of his life, he would say, "Pillows" when what he meant was, "Would you please get the pillows and put them under my legs? Thank you." Our daughter thought the monosylabic orders were uncalled for and told him he should be saying please and thank you. Took him a few times to remember, but he started doing that and kept it up. It went far to make things better for them both. That's what I mean when I say I feel we would have done better as a couple if I'd known it was a "thing". The "thing" (Asperger's) would have been the target, not my husband. We would have learned to cope together, I believe.



In that case, our youngest son is next in line for diagnosis. He's already been diagnosed ADD, but there may be more going on there. From his earliest years, his aunt knew he was in her house when she heard, <thud> "Ow!" as he crossed a room. He was tall and gangly all his life, though. Might just have been part of growing up. Today, his love is skydiving, if you can believe it. He says it's the only place he can focus enough to relax. Do you get that? I don't. Please help.




That was a joke I heard for thirty years of our married life. Wasn't funny. When our first baby was born, my mother asked him if he were going to bring me flowers. Of course not - flowers just die. They're a waste of money. Took my mom forever to try to make him understand the point of flowers for your wife. He did it, but he didn't get it. Didn't get any more flowers, either.



During one discussion we had about our difficulties, he admitted he'd rather be a lighthouse keeper, surrounded by books and water, and pull the boat up so no one else could intrude. This, when we had three children napping in their bedrooms down the hall. Is this someone just being a little quirky, or this someone whose Asperger's (or something) is straining to express itself?

Y'know...today's conclusion is that he had some kind of difficulty that prevented us from figuring out how to conduct our marriage. I just wish I'd known it was a "something", rather than thinking he didn't care about us. I believe now he did care about us, and it's made all the difference. Just a l'il late.

Thank you so much for the time and effort you put into your reply, Callista. It has taken me two days to put this together because I bring my current husband to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore everyday to do battle with leukemia. There are periods of down time interspersed with crises. I have only the down times to spend on the computer. My current husband applauds my discoveries and insight about my previous marrriage. He's a gem!

kx250rider...Y'know, you don't sound like you're angry or anything during those times. Can you tell me how you feel that makes you want to disappear? When my husband disappeared to another room when the rest of us were celebrating, or telling funny stories, or playing games, it seemed he just either didn't approve of the activity, or didn't like us enough to spend time and effort with us. What do you think it was, really?