Possible Aspie contemplating seeking professional diagnosis.

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Hello all. This is Crow, hailing from the deepest, darkest regions of the southeastern US.

While having a conversation with my sister the other day, she told me she's "almost certain" I have Asperger's. Granted, my sis is a pharmacy student, not a psychiatrist, but I've had similar thoughts myself in the past. Upon doing some research, I think I may have found a legitimate cause for my "weirdness" and difficulty in dealing with social situations.

When I was in grade school, my teachers often commented to my parents that I seemed "removed" or disinterested in what was going on around me. I didn't learn to tie my shoes until I was ten (though I WAS reading "grown-up" books with my dad when I was six), and I'd frequently have "meltdowns" (my parents just called them "tantrums") when I was overstimulated, or had my routine broken. I also hid from other children at recess so I could make up stories and tell them to myself -out loud; I've talked to myself since I can remember.

As an adult, I'm clueless in social situations and can't make smalltalk for the life of me. I have "scripts" that I follow when dealing with people, and get all tongue-tied when they don't play out as expected. I'll literally walk around the building to avoid one particular (well meaning, I think) coworker, who likes to tease me because I never know how to respond (other than "Ha ha ha..." and staring intently at my feet). I'm obsessively interested in things to the point that I spend more of my free time researching my interests than I do actually participating in them. Also, my AQ score is 40, for what it's worth.

So yeah. Short version: I think I may have Asperger's, and I think hanging around here might be a good place to learn more about it, and decide if I want to pursue an official diagnosis.

Nice to meet you all.

Sounds like you might be onto something. That's how I found out - someone emailed me a link to a web article and said 'Read this, it sounds like you.'

It sounded so much like me it gave me the creeps. It made me feel as though someone had been secretly following me around with a camera for years videotaping everything I did and analyzing it. That was at age 45. It wasn't until 49 that I finally had the opportunity to see a professional Psychologist and be tested.

Of course it wasn't the shock it might have been, because I remember watching stories on 20/20 back in the early 80s on kids with autism - once a reporter asked a doctor why the children rocked back and forth all the time and I was home thinking 'I know why they do it.' It seemed obvious to me because I'd been doing the same thing all my life, only for me it was mostly swaying from side to side - a habit which had caused coworkers to remark more than once "Can't you stand still - what are you, autistic?"

Turns out, yeah, I am, actually.

Anyway, welcome to WP.

welcome, crow t robot,

i think i have asperger's because when my nephew was diagnosed, i looked up the symptoms on webMD and i'll be darned if it didn't describe me.

there's a brief test based on the DSM - the diagnosis book psychiatrists use - at
www.iautistic.com/test_AS.php. on that i come out "probably autistic". maybe it can give you some insight, too.

i already have another mental health diagnosis and don't want to add asperger's to my doctor's list of reasons he shouldn't recommend me for work, so i'm happy to be unofficial. my family and a few friends know. i bet past acquaintances suspect. i do better now, having learned to small talk in my early 50's. at 40, overhonesty cost me a career, so i'm much more careful about that. i'm glad to be in the closet about asperger's. i'm sometimes a little slow to process other's emotions. i'm lucky that a late expression of empathy is often still welcome. folks who know me now think i'm just "quiet", which is true enough. like you, i sometimes avoid acquaintances because it's easier than thinking up something to say.

Heh. I took the test and came up "likely to be autistic" as I am. When I figured out that I was supposed to go by how I was as a child, I could check every box.

Welcome.

It's worth considering, to balance against the almost complete practical worthlessness of diagnosis as an autistic adult, that it's the hidden mass of undiagnosed autistics that weighs against the cultural shifts that'll be needed to make the world a place where we're not freaks and outsiders.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Welkome to WP!

Mick

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Welcome to wrong planet hope you have a great time.