Do I really have Asperger's? (REALLY important)

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Actually, I wasn't being stereotypical. It's because even my doctor suggested that I had AS because I lacked social skills, it's just the main thing that pops in everyone's head when they hear Asperger's and it's just how anyone can identify them. But thanks for telling me that I was misinformed , it's better to fix my knowledge.
And I did the criteria, post is above.

Also, sorry if I am being too annoying, but I have one last question before I can be 100% sure. Most Aspies have somewhere in their families someone who has autistic traits, but why not me? It just seems weird, most of my family is very social and don't meet almost any symptom.

Thanks again guys for all the help , I really appreciate it. Thanks especially to League_Girl and MrXxx, you guys helped me out a lot.

I've also been diagnosed and am without doubt an aspie, but nobody in my family is autistic.

While it is linked strongly to families, its not the only thing its linked to. At this point, we don't know exactly how autism occurs, we just know that it seems to be at least partially genetic and have theories about it.

As I said, I'm not a doctor, but these things seem to me may very well be considered "clinically significant:"

The fact that you took what she told you so literally seems clinically significant to me.



If this tendency interferes with making friends, or communicating with others fluidly, that might be clinically significant.



If this really only happens infrequently, as you said, it's probably not clinically significant.

The thing is, we can tend to over-complicate analyzing our own symptoms, breaking them down into sub-sub-categories that really don't matter so much. If you only have one or two things that consistently "fit" clinically significant impairments in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning," those two things fit. It doesn't matter that you might have numerous other things going on that don't fit this sub category (out of the sub-sub categories you're applying to it).

Last edited by MrXxx on 20 Sep 2011, 7:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You're not being annoying at all.

I wasn't implying that you were being stereotypical. I said you were "falling prey" to certain stereotypes. Those stereotypes I was referring to are things we hear all the time, not from each other, but from people who don't have Autism (even some professionals), who have a preconceived idea of what High Functioning Autism "looks like" to them. Most of those stereotypes involve the belief that certain symptoms MUST be present, otherwise it isn't Autism. That simply isn't true. There is no one symptom, or any particular group of symptoms that MUST be present. Proper diagnosis doesn't work that way.

It is a bit complex to figure out, but it looks to me like you're figuring it all out pretty quickly.

IMHO, if you keep looking over the criteria, and keep thinking more and more that you probably do have Autism, you probably DO have it.

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But, perhaps if the DSM-5 will what has been proposed, perhaps you will not match the new criteria:

Autism Spectrum Disorder

Must meet criteria A, B, C, and D:

http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevision/Pa ... spx?rid=94

Note the "for European/North American/Oceania standards" - AFAIK, Morocco is more poor than any western european country; perhaps you don't notice that, because you are used to moroccan reality (an analogy - I live somewhere in Southern Europe and I have an income of 1000 euros/month - like 1.400 dolars/month; I consider myslef upper-middle class, but I suspect that the forum memeber from USA will consider me as "poor")



But you had problems with that, meaning that your "good" eye contact is not natural, but learned



two words - "autistic meltdown" (search for it); I suspect that, with AS, you are thinking in some think "Dr. Spock-like", cold and unemotional, but this, if it is anything, is schizoid PD, not AS/autism.

You sound Aspie to me. And even if it's rare among your folks, you can get it. Just as an example, I get a side-effect from Zoloft that only 6% of the people taking it get. That sounds rare to me, but I happen to be one of the 6%.

And, as someone else pointed out, we can't evaluate you anyway. Even if one of us was a professional, qualified to evaluate for Asperger's, we still couldn't do it without talking to you personally. And the one who did had better be a native speaker of your language.

You can lack a _lot_ of the symptoms and still be Aspie. Even if you do eye contact now, that isn't because you've gotten over it, it's because you learned, especially since you remember being bothered by it before you learned that you needed to do it to communicate well with people. But being Aspie doesn't mean you _can't_ learn, it just means that you have to work harder at it. And you did.

OP: You're not alone, I've had some concerns too, because (for example) I can read facial expressions (at least in tests ). However, basing on my mother's interview, I meet all the criteria of DSM-IV and ICD-10 (not sure about Gillbergs speech criteria though).

Thank you for this thread. You seem to be Aspie and it makes me more confident about my diagnosis.

Yes I have found the OP and the replies to it very informative and helpful to my own situation. Thanks everybody

First, you have to realize that the DSM describes how AS appears IN CHILDREN.

If you are past puberty, you have already begun to develop unconscious coping mechanisms and to develop some skills and abilities that an Aspergian child does not have. There are parts of the disorder that we are simply slow learners at (like facial recognition and nonverbal cues), then there are other areas in which we develop skill to about the level of a 17-22 year old and that's where we peak for life (I'm talking Executive Function skills here)

According to the DSM, someone with Asperger Syndrome is not supposed to have much of a sense of humor, but I made my living for 30 years as a radio disc jockey and won awards for character voice comedy commercials. In fact, it was that early childhood tendency to take things too literally that first taught me to avoid embarrassment by pretending I had done goofy things on purpose when I really hadn't - then I realized that doing goofy things intentionally made people laugh, and I had bupkiss social skills, so I couldn't make much conversation, but I could make the most of being a weirdo by acting like a weirdo. My mind was great with words (especially interpreting them literally when they weren't meant that way), so I could pull puns out of thin air. I developed a sense of humor to hide my autism. Voila! Occupation: Foole. Seems to have worked out for Dan Akroyd, too.

Don't misunderstand what you're reading when you look at that symptom list in the DSM and think 'that's not me' - when I first read the phrase 'may see lights or hear sounds others do not', I thought that meant hallucinations. Later, I recalled a conversation I had once in which I mentioned to some friends the sound that old-fashioned televisions made back in the 60s - a tiny, hi-pitched squeal that I could hear even when the volume was turned down. They all looked at me like I was nuts, but a friend who worked on electronics explained to me what that was, a specific part attached to the picture tube, supposedly only audible to dogs and mosquitoes. And all my life, I thought everybody was hearing that noise. Nope. I could cite other examples, but you get my drift...

So don't let what look like discrepancies confuse you. You very likely do have some of those Aspie behaviors you think you don't have, either because you haven't fully grasped what the technical jibber-jabber in the DSM actually means (Psychologists speak a different version of English than the rest of us), or because you've developed unconscious ways of masking that behavior over the years.

Just to add to the mix - you say no one in your family has it. Perhaps it is just that no one in your family has been diagnosed with it. Ask family members if any one in the family was considered 'strange'. Most people can tell stories of uncles or cousins that were not considered 'normal'. Most adults with Asperger's will probably go undiagnosed.

Sarcasm is a concept. Many Aspies are good at learning concepts especially if they have an interest in them.

Eye contact can be learned especially if reinforced strongly in early childhood.

And the lack of empathy thing is completely subjective. Some do, some don't and everything in between. That is why autism is called a spectrum. There is no hard and fast rules, only degrees.

I suspect that you have some concern about the bias that may surround your dx. By your responses you seem to not want to be stuck with this label. Many people in the West forget that bias against those with 'mental' labels can have a much harder time of it in other countries. If the label is bothering you - simply keep it to yourself. It is no one elses business. I do not believe any law in Morocco will force you to disclose your dx to anyone publically. (please correct me if I'm wrong.) If it is a matter of your family treating you differently, smother them with the positives. AS isn't all bad!

Best of luck to you.

Thank you, that is a bit comforting . Maybe it's just a mutation in some gene and afterwards, our descendants will have higher changes of getting it.
Anyway, thanks

Thank you for the explications and clarifications MrXxx, I wish I could repay you, you helped me so much in this thread.
And yeah, I guess the most I go into symptoms and stuff, I get more convinced that I do have it.

Yeah, thanks to you and other posters, I am figuring this out pretty fast. Also, thanks for clearing my misconception, I now know better than think that those things are necessary for someone to have AS.

I actually don't qualify for all the things in the new criteria :/, could I still have it if I don't qualify for all?

For your first statement. No, not really. I currently live in Canada, I moved here exactly 3 years ago, sorry I forgot to precise that. Anyway, if I compare living here and there, I don't find much difference at all.

For eye contact, yeah, I guess so :/. I guess I just learned.

For the over emotional thing.. Actually, yeah, I had so much melt downs before, like so much. But I obviously can control myself. I guess I get like one in a year now.