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

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Dokesi
Hummingbird

Joined: 19 Sep 2011
Gender: Male
Posts: 19

20 Sep 2011, 11:01 pm

Sibyl wrote:

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.

Yeah, maybe it's just a mutation or it was somewhere far in my family tree. And I don't have problems with languages, I speak fluently Arabic, French and English without any difficulty and also some Spanish and Italian so that's not a barrier.

And yeah, I guess everyone tells me the same thing about the eye contact and that's what I thought too but I didn't think you could learn it somehow.

Dokesi
Hummingbird

Joined: 19 Sep 2011
Gender: Male
Posts: 19

20 Sep 2011, 11:02 pm

65536 wrote:

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.

I am glad I am not alone in this

, it feels better to know that other people don't have answers too and when you see that other people are wondering if they have Asperger's when they obviously do, you get more confident about your own diagnosis

Dokesi
Hummingbird

Joined: 19 Sep 2011
Gender: Male
Posts: 19

20 Sep 2011, 11:03 pm

The_Znof wrote:

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

I am very glad this is helpful for people who struggle with the same question as me

Dokesi
Hummingbird

Joined: 19 Sep 2011
Gender: Male
Posts: 19

20 Sep 2011, 11:08 pm

Willard wrote:

Dokesi wrote:

Anyway, yeah, I do have many symptoms but those counter symptoms bug me alot, they're like the basic things you'd see on an Aspie, it's what others define Asperger's as, I don't know what kind of Aspie I am if I can recognize faces and sarcasm. Anyway, I would just like an explaination for those counter symptoms

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)

I guess that's very true, I had much more symptoms when I was younger, they seem to fade away in time and I do my best to learn how society works around me.

Willard wrote:

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. :jester:

Seems to have worked out for Dan Akroyd, too.

Thank you, that's very encouraging

, that an Aspie could go through all that to have a good sense of humor, I guess we can learn pretty much everything and I hear you on that first sentence, lol, I must be the most unfunny guy you could see, I always have things floating in my head that are funny but don't say them because I don't want to embarrass myself, I still don't know what is right and what is not.

Willard wrote:

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...

I am quite convinced I have the majority on the list now.

Willard wrote:

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.

I actually understood what my psychologist was saying and it made sense but I obviously know myself better than him.

Dokesi
Hummingbird

Joined: 19 Sep 2011
Gender: Male
Posts: 19

20 Sep 2011, 11:21 pm

draelynn wrote:

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.

Yeah, I obviously know that and looked for such a long time, even my parents did but they didn't find anyone.

draelynn wrote:

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

I guess the reason why I can't remember if I understood sarcasm when I was young is because I think I didn't even know what sarcasm was when I was younger so I probably didn't pay much attention to that but when I started understanding the concept, I didn't have any difficulties.

draelynn wrote:

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

Yep, I am quite positive about that now.

draelynn wrote:

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.

Some other poster said that it was only a myth and you say it depends. Well, any way, in both cases I can have a lot of empathy and be an aspie.

draelynn wrote:

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!

I find it quite offending that all of you guys think that I live in some kind of medieval Europe where we think that mental disorders mean that one is possessed by demons and that mentally ill people get labelled as demons or whatever. Well, that's not true at all. I'm sure the majority of my family is more educated than many people in the west, my uncle is a philosophy professor in one of the best universities in Morocco, my other uncle is a physics professor in a very prestigious university, my dad is a lawyer and my mom too is a lawyer and my family doesn't treat me any differently when they knew about it, not at all and even the small changes that occurred were all positive and my family is very open minded. A good example is even though they are religious, they didn't care at all when I told them I didn't believe in God which isn't the case of many Christian families in the west. So please don't think I'm living in Iran or something. And actually, I am not ashamed at all, it's not a question of being ashamed of having AS or not, I just want to be sure that I do or do not have it, I wanna clear out my mind from this question that keeps coming into my head.

draelynn wrote:

Best of luck to you.

Thanks a lot for your reply and thank you for wishing me luck

League_Girl
Veteran
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Joined: 4 Feb 2010
Gender: Female
Posts: 27,205
Location: Pacific Northwest

20 Sep 2011, 11:29 pm

Dokesi wrote:

League_Girl wrote:

What does being white or Jewish have to do with AS?

I used to have troubles with sarcasm but I have gotten better at it. I have learned to pick up on it. I still miss it but doesn't everyone? So I count it as normal when I miss it.

No one has been diagnosed with AS in my family either.

I used to be very emotional because of my hormones. Some aspies are very sensitive and my ex who was aspie was very emotional. He cried a lot because I was too honest and kept saying the wrong things. But maybe he was just too sensitive so I didn't do anything wrong. But my husband says I say things but he knows I don't mean it. Same as how I say things.

Understanding facial expressions, I can understand them sometimes. Some aspies are better at things than other aspies. I have seen aspies on here who are good with metaphors and I am not.

Sorry for bringing ethnicities :/, I noticed I wasn't clear enough. What I meant is since no family member of mine is on the autistic spectrum, I had it in my genes from my far ancestors, that's why I brought ethnicity.
For sarcasm, I miss almost none, well, for the most part, it's very rare that I miss some.
And for the family, but why? It is well known that Asperger's is genetic, but why don't we have anyone with it in our family? It just seems very weird :/

For the emotions, my emotions aren't related to hormones, I was over emotional for ever, not when I hit puberty and also, I'm a male, it's different for you.

For facial expressions.. But I understand most of them, I don't struggle almost at all with them, well, sometimes, but not often.

Does anyone in your family have traits? Any sensory issues or poor coordination? Any anxiety? These are all cormorbids (sp) of AS. Anyone with poor social skills or obsessions or rigid to routines? Anyone with language or communication problems?

Sometimes traits or other things run in the family that are common in AS but none of them have it. This is what it is in my family and I have relatives who could have it but were never diagnosed. My dad has traits and my little brother has very little and my mom has some sensory issues.

Dokesi
Hummingbird

Joined: 19 Sep 2011
Gender: Male
Posts: 19

21 Sep 2011, 8:06 pm

League_Girl wrote:

Dokesi wrote:

League_Girl wrote:

Hmm, no to pretty much all of them. No one with sensory issues, they're all normal. No poor coordination. No one with anxiety, I am the only one. And I already know about these and already compared but nothing, which I find really weird :/

Australien
Deinonychus

Joined: 17 May 2011
Age: 41
Gender: Male
Posts: 301

21 Sep 2011, 10:46 pm

Willard wrote:

I developed a sense of humor to hide my autism. Voila! Occupation: Foole. :jester:

Intentional George Carlin reference, Willard? :lol:

Dokesi, you sound fairly Aspergian to me. If you don't need any kind of interventionist help, you might be a sub-clinical Aspie. If so, you would probably still benefit from reading the literature on the topic and occasionally asking your friends about your behaviour. Be aware though, it may become an obsession... :lol:

pippylongstocking
Emu Egg
Emu Egg

Joined: 13 Nov 2013
Gender: Female
Posts: 1

14 Nov 2013, 6:05 am

i am new to this forum and wonder if you could help me can I ask how you got a diagnosis in morocco. I have a family member adult who has been looking for a doctor in morocco who could offer a diagnosis thank you

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