Is there such thing as 'mild' Aspergers?

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I see a pattern a lot where people are told they're mild even when they're anything but. The thing is to many people including a disturbing number of professionals, mild AS ormild autism means you don't appear (to them through their set of mental blinders) to fit their stereotype of AS or autism. Sometimes all it takes is one little trait seeming a little different and bam you're mild or "You must be VERY high functioning." This even happens to little kids who meet every stereotype of severe autism/AS except they look at people or show affection or something.

Plus there are factors that cause autistic people to agree with them even if they're wrong. We frequently feel much more normal than we look. We often lack the social insight to understand our outward behavior at all, and worse, to understand the way people think about our outward behavior. By that I mean: We read that autistic people show no interest in people. We feel that we have interest in people. We fail to realize that our behavior makes us look as if we have no interest in people. And that all the autistic people said to be uninterested in people are being judged on outward appearance and not necessarily inward reality. And that what is written about autism is not infallible gospel. That's just an example. But I hope it's clear what I mean.

Combine all that and you get a bunch of people running around calling themselves mild AS not even sure I really have it etc. And that may not be an accurate picture of how that person's autism may fit current ideas of severity. (I don't necessarily agree with those ideas. I am just reporting on then.) I think one of the steps to self awareness (and I've been through this) is realizing how much of what is said about autistic people is just guesswork piled on top of more guesswork. And how much is appearances. And how those appearances come to be. And how who we are is not the same as how people see us. And combining that all together.

Wow, everything you just wrote is ME! I also have those exact issues with feelings and empathy.

The only difference is that I do enjoy discussing my friends/acquaintances' emotions cuz it helps me understand where they are coming from. I feel uncomfortable trying to describe my own to them unless they are very base I AM SO ANGRY or THIS IS FUN kind of feelings. My mother loves to tell me "I love you" or "I'm hugging you right now" in emails and on the phone. I always respond "Okay." I can show that I love her by knowing the things she likes and buying them for her or something like that.

In empathic situations, I am less concerned with my friend's/acquaintance's feelings than in getting to know the situation better. For example my friend wrote on FB recently "My mom is going to have a mass removed soon. Please keep her in your prayers." I posted "How long has she had the mass? Do the doctors suspect anything?" It seemed false for me to say I would be praying cuz I don't pray. And I genuinely was interested in her mom's medical condition. But that was definitely the wrong thing to say.

Anyway, it's stuff like this that reveals my Aspieness, though I appear quite NT.

Sorry, maybe I framed my question wrongly.

From what I have learned – and there is a lot of controversal information around – it is basically the way the brain is wired, which is very difficult to capture via brain scans and the like. So the only real way to diagnose it is looking at behavior, right?

Then you have all these tests, like the Aspie quiz. I score about 35% Aspie and 65% NT, which definitely makes me an NT. I am not claiming to be an Aspie, not even a mild one. Sorry if this was the impression I made.

I saw a lot of scores posted here by "real" Aspies and they score like 65% Aspie, 35% NT, or even higher, 80% Aspie and 20% NT. So there is no question to which side I am – according to these tests.

But I still have my question...

Blond people have normaly fair skin and can't stay long in the sun. Dark people with dark skins can stay much longer. Skin color and hair color and connected, as is skin color and sun exposure. They are two sides of the same coin. If you enjoy being blond, you must accept the fact that you can only have mild exposure to sun (without skin cream and sun blockers, of course.)

It seems that this "two-sides-of-the-same-coin" approach applies to Aspies. The positive sides (talent, high ability in science and art, high intelligence, etc) and the negative sides (social interaction problems, behavior problems, etc) are two sides of the same coin – either it's the way the brain is wired or it's a statistical coincidence, actually it doesn't matter if we don't undestand why it happens, but we know that these things come together.

You look at it as a whole first, at the whole coin, then you get down to the parts. You don't isolate one thing – say social skills – and try to improve it with therapy as if the other things didn't exist. You work in a context, which is the only right thing to do.

But if you are NT and have only a few traits, you normally get them explained individually:
• He's weird because of his intelligence, real bright people are all weird. Can't change it.
• A very organized person (when they observe your organization and cleanness) Did you see his closet? – or a nit-picker (when they are affected by it) always telling us how to do things.
• A loner, introvert, egoist. Should go out more and meet people.
• Probably had childhood problems and can't make real friends– therapy would help.
• Very methodical, give him the analytical part, can find patterns no one else can see.
• Egoistic guy, can't sop talking about things he likes, never listens to others, etc

And so it goes...


So my question should probably be:

"Are the two sides of the same coin always present, regardless of the degree of "NTness" or "Aspieness"? Or is the connection only valid after a certain degree of "Aspieness" is reached?"

Or maybe:

"Does the presence of certain talents and abilities always imply the presence of certain problems and challenges, the difference being only the degree they manifest themselves?"

Start right here. See if you recognize something of yourself in the discussions in the autism forums. If you are confused, ask specific questions.

I am 37 years old and am beginning to think I may have aspergers. I took the AQ test and scored 28 - it says that 80% people on the autism scale scored 32 +. The average score would be 16. I have always felt much younger than my age though.

There are aspects that I don't relate to though, particularly the sense of humour part. I consider myself to have a good sense of humour and fairly good at perceiving humour in others. Having said that I have a weird sense of humour about a lot of things and some of this goes over peoples heads. But, my sense of humour has been what has kept me alive through the years, and I'm proud of it. My observations often get laughs and I believe these are usually genuine.

Not recognising social cues? Sometimes things go over my head but I think I'm average on that score. I've always had problems with eye contact though, often I'm not conscious of missing eye contact but it's recently been pointed out that this is still an issue. It's not something I worry about hugely. I find it hard to talk about stuff and keep eye contact though, or know the correct amount. I'm conscious that sometimes I may over compensate and look a bit mad as a result.

I guess I am very much in my own world and always have been. I find it hard to keep attention, I often fake listening to conversations because I have drifted off and am over analysing something in my head. I am (I think) quite good at pretending to be listening, which is probably why this has not been picked up so much.

I have an imaginary friend who I have been talking to since I was about 9. I made him up at a time when I felt socially rejected. There were times when I chose to be alone in my own world and other times where I craved friendship. Around that time I used to play football with my friends and I would imagine he was inside the football, like it was a spaceship(!) His name was Tom and he was an android. Such was my vivid imagination. As time went on he stayed with me but the image went, he was just a way I conversed with myself. After a while I'd forgotten how I would have done this before, so it seemed natural to carry on this way.

I was never really a popular kid, but usually had a small group of friends. This remained the same through primary and secondary school. I went through phases of being bullied (first few years of primary and secondary) and I seemed to attract it. Part of my self imposed isolation was down to being bullied but I always felt very different to the other kids. I just couldn't place why. I guess I always got branded with the 'odd' stick. For the last few years of both schools I got on ok with most people though and generally socialised normally.

At the age of 9 I was assessed as having a reading age of 14. Until around the age of 8 I had been a bit of a slow learner, and then suddenly things dropped into place. I sailed through all the spelling tests to the point that teachers told me not to call out my score when they were going round, and friends used to get me to spell check their work. I struggled to absorb or be interested by any other subjects except art and was said to be a promising student until the art teacher at my next school knocked my confidence and I basically gave up taking it seriously.

I have always had the same special areas of interest and these are music and tv/film knowledge. I tend to remember dates very well. Ever since I was young my mind has documented things, I often reflect on them in a narrative like a tv soap, and the dates of events are easily remembered, music and tv dates for the same reason, often, but not always because they relate to events. I was a singer in a band from age 24 and a solo singer for the last 3 years, this was not easy because I was shy of performing in public but drunken karaoke helped me build this up, and also my passion for singing and music kind of cancelled out the nerves in a lot of cases.

I consider myself socially clumsy, I'm much more comfortable after a few beers. I've been fairly emotionally repressed since my mum died 14 years ago but I used to get upset and cry a lot. Often this was at home and due to arguments/fights with my sister but as I got older I calmed down.

I do think that people find me a bit 'random' at times and it's not great on the old self esteem, which has never been very high. I put on a brave front though and most people would probably say I am quite a calm person, maybe a bit shy but they don't see me from the inside like I do.

Anyway I've typed too much and got a headache from the screen, there's loads more I could put. I just wondered if anyone could offer an opinion or advice?

A psychologist suggested that I have mild Asperger's. I don't really care though. I am who I am.

In my opinion, if that person met me when I was 6, she would probably have diagnosed me as more severe.

yes

Was that a "yes" to my post?

After all that typing I still missed out loads of other symptoms/stories about me that could suggest me being aspergers. I know I need to seek a professional dianosis of course, but just wondered what other aspies would think.

I guess I do get annoyed at interruptions in my routine as well, and I have always been very much a creature of routine, and it has been pointed out by many people. I can be very short tempered, in fact I've always had a bit of a short fuse but since adulthood I tend to internalise it more.

I have no sense of direction! It took me 5 attempts to pass my driving test (I guess not that unusual) but for years I've had a fear of the unknown, so driving to far off places was a no no. I overcame this when sat nav came along and I started to do singing gigs further away, it was still very daunting though, particularly as I had to travel alone.

One important point is I have always felt I had to drag myself to do things, exercise and exertion generally, but I have been able to be relatively active in recent years.

I'm obsessive when it comes to grammar and spelling (and yes I'm sure you'll find some errors in this) and am a terrible nitpick generally, picking up on other peoples speech mistakes as well as written ones, often to the irritation of others. I have reigned this in, in recent years as it took a long time but I began to realise how annoying it was. I think it has taken a long time to realise many things, that others take for granted.

In my assessment, the psychologist wrote that my "presentation" of AS is mild, which I don't dispute. I had lived as an NT for 37 years before the diagnosis, and can pass as an NT on the outside.

On the inside, I think I'm quite Spock-like in my thinking. I will see someone approach me, they will talk to me and smile at me and I'll talk and smile back, but in my head I'm dreading the whole thing. What keeps me from turning and running are thoughts like this: " NT's are highly social. In fact, the success and fast evolution of our largely species is due to our social nature. People talk to feel connected, and this person wants to talk to me. I might not enjoy it or know what to say, but I can do it, and there's no reason not to do it if it helps this nice NT feel good." another NT in the same situation might think "oh, hey, here's Dave! I've been meaning to ask him about bla bla bla bla" (I'm guessing here, I don't really know what they think in this situation)

It seems quite clear that AS can take on any variety of forms and differing levels of severity of the more dysfunctional traits.

As you can see on my icon to the left, I seem to be a very mild or marginal case. However, as a child my symptoms were far more textbook in many ways. Either I am just exceptionally well-adjusted, I have a more marginal variety of AS to begin with, or some combination of the two. It's weird though, I still truly feel and internally experience almost every common aspie tendency I have seen being discussed on here at some level, but they are all easily controllable. I definitely do seem to have very clear aspie and NT traits.

You seem very much like me I'd like to elaborate with what you just said, but from my perspective.

Im a car guy, so I'll put it the way I know best....I hope I don't offend, I really don't mean to. This is just my way of viewing things.
It's like Im my 93 Mustang. It's not your average Mustang, it's bright green and has a four cylinder engine. Pretty odd in the car world, but fully functional. It's an oddity, but it only requires the normal maintenance procedure of any other car.
In my view (Once again Im really sorry if I offend ) people with higher levels of the Autism spectrum are more like cars with misaligned steering, and bolts that keep loosening up. Sometimes it's well enough to drive with a sturdy grip, and other times it needs to be tuned up by a professional mechanic. (Psychologist).
Yes, I have my own world. It's first person perspective, sometimes I pace back and fourth or around in circles, other times I actually act out what Im doing in my world. I love it and I hate it at the same time.
I have meltdowns and shutdowns as well.
I have things that I have to do a certain way, my routines, or it bothers me. (When Im seasoning my steak, salt has to go first. Don't bend the bindings of my books ect)
I also have things that don't relate to the Autism Spectrum. Iv always been able to tell the emotions of peoples faces, though not being able to competently interact.
I feel empathy towards others. Sometimes to a great extent even though it's a complete stranger on the news.
I could go on comparing and contrasting, but long story short, I can control my Autistic aspects VERY well. This is what I see as the main difference between me and more serious cases. 80 to 90% of the time, this side of me is completely secret. Although Im certainly not a social butterfly, I can integrate well enough to go on with my life without too much trouble.

I really like this. Both because I wonder how much of "the real me" people see and because I wonder how accurately I assess myself. My diagnostic testing is on 7/13. I wonder if I'll be dx'ed AS or PDD-NOS because I don't have repetitive behaviors that I recognize (probably an important distinction) or a need for routine--I know I function better with routine but it was never instituted as a part of my life and I wonder if thats why I don't use it on my own, and I question my executive function capabilities, and I wonder if that inhibits a tendency to develop routine. I know that my lack of social/communication skills impairs my ability to succeed as well as I might at my job, and I know that my lack of consistant interest in other human beings has severely affected my relationships with family, co-workers, and potential friends. But I'm not sure that the neuropsychologist will see how much my issues really impact my life, especially because I am female and 44 years old and have learned to adapt and hide my differences to a degree for survival purposes. Maybe I am not giving him enough credit and he will see through that surface stuff.
I also have my doubts about how well I assess myself in someways. I wonder if I have "mild" AS or maybe I don't have it at all. I think that I might seem a bit quiet and rather eccentric to most people, but no more. But that wouldn't explain reactions that I have gotten from people like " you're unapproachable, you're cold, you always seem angry, you're arrogant, you're very distant" and other impressions that completely baffle me. I generally have no idea when I am creating these impressions and in fact, I often think that I have been behaving in the opposite manner. And there's the whole not being asked to join in all "the reindeer games" (sorry, I stole that from another poster, I thought it was a great reference) aspect of the social world. If I have learned to fit in as well as I would sometimes like to believe, why am I still excluded, picked on, looked down on, and talked about behind my back? I think the main thing that I have thought while reading this thread has been that no matter how mild my AS is (or whatever my dx ends up being), it doesn't feel mild to me. Sorry for the lengthy post- thanks to any who had the patience to read it.

This is exactly what i was thinking! Because many people are talking about getting rid of Aspergers and such, and just using the term "artist spectrum disorder", so i was thinking that we could then use numbers to differentiate the securities.

Also, i like to visualize the spectrum as having NT on one end and severely autistic on the other, as you go from very NT towards the autist range, you go into what i Wuold call the "quirky range", meaning that you have both autistic and NT traits, and there is a very fine line that separates that quirkiness from autism (aspergers)

I have been diagnosed with mild AS in childhood. I have a lot of NT traits aswell as a lot of AS traits.

Also, there are several other conditions that also make someone not NT. "Spectrum" makes a good word to describe the fact that autistic people run the gamut, but comorbidities can make a big impact, as can being clearly not NT and not autistic (such as having ADHD). And even autistic people - as shown in Phonic's thread about functioning levels - function at different levels in different areas. So someone who might appear to be mildly autistic under one criteria might appear to be severely autistic under another area.

I find it difficult to visualize it as a simple spectrum with NT at one end and autistic at the other, but it's difficult to describe what I do visualize.

Not trying to argue or correct, but explaining my own perceptions.

I understand what you mean,but i am just trying to sort of give a visual idea of what the whole spectrum thing is. Obviously,there are many other conditions, but i was trying to work with autism alone. Otherwise, it would be impossibly complicated. And this is attempting ot use the average severity of a persons symptoms of autism, and only if they are actually caused by autism.
Anyway, i was really just trying to explain the whole fine line between NT with autistic traits and actually considered autistic. (by using a sort of visual tool, great for aspies! )