New here, am pretty sure I may have Aspergers.

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Hi,

I found this forum while searching for information about adult aspergers.

I found out about aspergers in adults upon returning home from a frustrating and confusing "intake appt" with the local sliding scale mental health clinic. The LSW who did my 2 hour interview said that she felt that I probably had Borderline Personality Disorder.

About 5 years ago, my family invaded my privacy and scheduled a meeting with my then-therapist at the time to find out if I was "capable of caring for my child"... she asked me for my permission to see them, I said "NO", but she saw them anyway. Last year, my mother told me that she told them I had Borderline Personality Disorder and was BiPolar. My mom said that they researched the diagnoses and realized that there was "no hope for me".

So that's two LSW's that brought up the Borderline Personality Disorder, but since that LSW allowed my privacy to be invaded 5 years ago I started seeing a Pdoc... she initially treated me for Bipolar, but none of the meds did anything. She then started treating me for GAD, but that didn't help with my problems, except for cessation of the agitated feelings. She also treated me for occasional depression in relation to my family's lack of support (I am a single mom), an abusive relationship I was in and got out of, and when my father committed suicide. 18 months ago, I started to degrade cognitively, could not focus, trouble talking and with coordination, severe anxiety, bothered far more than normal by bright lights, smells and annoying little sounds... she sent me to a neurologist, for full bloodwork, and MRI and an EEG (the thing where they put the things on your head)... the Neurologist told her I had adult ADHD. She was shocked until she did an assessment with me and realized it had been in front of her the entire time, in my records. So I have been treated with Adderall since then and doing better with the problems related to the ADHD.

But I still feel like I am in an alternate universe. My family can't understand me, they say I totally confuse them and they don't understand my feelings or reactions... and now unemployed, I have some extra time to really sit and think about what my core problems have been in the last years... and I realized, they all stem from communication, misunderstanding, perception and misperception- and my feeling like I am in a blender when the most bizarre things happen to me in situations with my family and they come back at me with responses that hurt terribly and shock me. I feel like it's all so surreal.

Anyway, when I started again curiously searching for any details I could about Borderline PD, I came across some information about adults being diagnosed with several different wrong things, borderline and bipolar included- when they really had Aspergers. I then googled Aspergers and ADHD, and found that they can go hand in hand, or ADHD can be yet another misdiagnosis.

So... I took all of the quizzes AQ, EQ and the like, and here are my scores:

Autism Spectrum Quotient: I scored 40 out of 50

Normal Female: 11-23
(Apergers score 31-45)

Empathy Spectrum Quotient: I scored 21 out of 80
Normal female: 37-59
(Most people with Asperger Syndrome or high-functioning autism score about 20.)

Friendship and Relationship Quotient: I scored 33 out of 125
Normal female: 74-106
(Those with Aspergers score is 35-78)

Systematic Quotient: I scored 35 out of 80
Normal female: 15-34
(Those with Aspergers score is 20-52)

Revised systematic Quotient: I scored 96 out of 150
Normal female: 25-70
(Those with aspergers score 50-120)



So in summation,

AQ- 40/50

EQ- 21/80

FQ- 31/125

SQ- 35/80

RSQ 96/150


All of my scores appear to be highly indicative of an individual with a disorder within the Autistic Spectrum of Aspergers.

Some more about me...

* I am female, age 40.

* I live in the Southern US

* My IQ is 164

* I don't have any real life friends... only some online. Even those are hard for me to maintain.

* I am a single Mom and my son is the brightest ray of sunshine I've ever experienced.

* I relate better to men than to women. It is almost impossible for me to have a conversation with a woman. I can only guess this is because conversations with men to me, seem more direct and about things I am more interested in?

* Oddly, I have always thought I was very empathic. As in- other people's emotional states severely affect me and confuse my own feelings, and I can easily feel/discern what someone else is feeling. I was surprised while taking the EQ to find that what I experience is not empathy. I am not sure what it is.

* I have worked for myself, freelanced or worked in online business (solo) for 20 years. I had a regular corporate job one in marketing, but it only lasted for 4 years, as I could not work on a team, and people did not understand my ideas.

* As a child, I played mostly by myself. I dreamt up imaginary worlds in my tree fort, or in the woods, streams and ponds I found on my long journeys I would embark on (and get lost on, and in trouble for)

* My interests as a child were baseball (I was obsessed with the Phillies and could name every player, number, stats, standings, etc), and astronomy. I had star charts and memorized the entire night sky of constellations, then moved on to a telescope looking for more remote objects to catalog. I was also an obsessive reader... I would go to the library and get 20 books out at a time and go through them all in a week. I tried many sports, and never excelled in any of them.

* As a teenager, I became severely depressed around age 17, and was hospitalized.

* As an adult, I've had a string of difficult intimate relationships with men, most of them failing due to arguing and misunderstandings. I've had female friends, but all short lived periods of time. I've found it easier to be alone, and now- spend time with my son, our dog, etc...

* As an employer, I've had so much of a challenge maintaining staff. I try to be polite, understanding and accomodating and am told that I am rude, pushy and say things in a tone of voice that sounds a "certain way"- which confuses me, because I try so hard to be nice and considerate to employees because I have worked jobs where I was treated horribly.

* Right now my obsessions are ancestry and Lumosity ... as well as becoming a minimalist... I am trying to sell or donate 75% of what we own or don't need... our house is for sale (probably short sale or eventual foreclosure), and I don't want to own- too stressful, too overwhelming. I want to rent, have limited expenses and a much slower paced life. So I'm reading as many blogs and ebooks as I can about minimalism and simplifying my life.


Anyway, I think I've written a lot because I can't remember all that I wrote... I have a call in to my Pdoc to see her and bring this information up to her. I saved the online tests I took as PDF files to show her.

I feel like I would like a diagnosis if that is what it is, because it would provide me with a lot of closure for what has been a very chaotic and confusing life full of misdiagnoses. It would help me to understand, if I do have Aspergers- how and why I perceive the world the way I do and why I have had so much difficulty with my family, relationships, work and friendships.

With my family, it would release me from the current stigma I have as the scapegoat for all their problems- the daughter that my mom doesn't want to admit is hers. The mental illnesses they *think* I have, that I don't. It would give them a valid reason for seeing me from a different perspective and understanding how and why things have been the way that they are.

My Pdoc visits have never been covered by insurance, so a diagnosis would just sit in her records, not anywhere else.

Anyway, I wanted to introduce myself, and talk about what I'm going through. For those of you who are diagnosed, or recently diagnosed adults, do you think that it's possible that I have Aspergers?

How should I present this info to my Pdoc? She was open minded enough when the neurologist suggested ADHD, although she at first felt it was wrong- I did some of my own research and asked her if we could please explore it more thoroughly.

I guess I'm worried she'll think I've gone battier. But in truth, it's having a 2nd LSW tell me they think I am borderline that led me to all of this... and the fact that my problems revolve around how I interact with, perceive and react to the world around me...

I don't have "chronic feelings of emptiness" like someone with BPD does- in contrast I have an insatiable curiosity to learn more and more stuff that there's not enough time in this lifetime to figure out.

This morning while driving my son to school I asked him what time it was, he said 8:24 AM. I then thought, what DOES AM and PM stand for, anyway? And we spent the whole drive trying to google it on my iphone... eventually my son asked me, "Mommy, why do you care what AM or PM stands for? Why does it matter?" I was stuck for a minute. I was just curious, I wanted to know, I told him...

This kind of thing happens to me all the time... sometimes my son gets it, other times, he doesn't.

So thank you for reading and for this forum, I have learned a lot from reading... but I am still so unsure.

What do you think?

Wow, big post and comprehensive.

I'm no expert, just another nutbar living on the wrong planet but I can relate to parts of your story.

First I would highly reccomend Tony Attwoods book - the complete guide to aspergers syndrome.

Now to try and respond to some of your concerns,

I am a 44 y/o male from a consrvative catholic working class family, when I was young I was considered disobedient, stubborn, evil, arrogant, self absorbed, a daydreamer, obsessive.... there was no such thing as aspergers, autism was suspect and barely recognised. My family and schools considered me to be mentally ill/evil [depending who you spoke to] I was considered highly intelligent but willful and lazy [I was selective about making efforts in overstimulating environments, I asked 'why?' to much] and was seen as insolent.

I was forever in trouble including with the law/court system and placed under social welfare supervision for a year and community probation for a year. I was given psychiatric evaluation repeatedly and while I answered honestly I could see my way through the maze set out before me and avoided institutionalisation.

I have the feeling that older people with ASD's are often mis-diagnosed or end up running into problems that lead to imprisonment, homelessness, substance abuse etc as they are unable to function in the NT world [straight world], I think this also tends to happen among the poor/less educated sections of society [within the richer echelons a certain amount of eccentricity is tolerated and obsessiveness can lead to higher value concentrations of talent etc...].

I would recommend a formal diagnosis, I got one about a year or so ago after self diagnosis about the time I signed up here, it has allowed me to come to understand myself and what to expect of myself, I am only slightly more socially functional but I am a little happier.

The empathy thing is interesting, I had thought myself empathic as I felt so much pain about other organisms sufferings, this is sympathy, empathy is an intuitive grasp of the subtexts in social interactions refered to as 'theory of mind'. I have learned some stuff through concious cognition as the years go by and this allows one to fake empathic responses but in my case I am in practice no more empathic - just a little more experienced, I can rationalise that saying A might lead to reaction B and attempt to moderate myself. Such is life, I take pleasure now in my incredibly strong feelings of compassion borne of my natural sympath - although I do moderate these through rational cognition.

enough for now, peace j

Im not a ASD professional and cant diagnose based on what you've said but have many years experience working in MH and AS it does seem to cross over with bpd in many ways, but I have come across many people with bpd trying to get an aspergers diagnosis because its less stigmatic. In all honesty, its probably more so. You will never be fixed or cured. At least with MH problems you can get well.

In the end its just another label and wont stop the feelings you have, the responses you have or the responses of others to you.

Its good to ask and have it checked out but be careful not to swap one diagnosis for another in the hope that you get rid of an unwanted but possibly more likely one. To be diagnosed as having aspergers means you will not have the same degree of mental health support unless they consider you to have a MH diagnosis too and then you have two labels, same problems and same struggle to overcome them.

Docs will happily add diagnoses but not so readily take them away.