AS or NT? Confused.

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Well, I'm still quite new

I suggested an answer to your question about two thirds down page three of this thread, but it didn't seem to get noticed. From what I have read on this thread I think the answer is still a good one. You are a bit like a pendulum at the moment and a pendulum ends up in the middle if you leave it long enough, not at either extreme. I won't repeat my original post here. Sorry if I sound rude, I don't mean to.

Yeah, must've missed it. Sorry. And you don't sound rude. I don't really get it though, do you think it's bad to "end up in the middle if you leave it long enough, not at either extreme"?

Last edited by rebbieh on 20 Mar 2012, 5:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I suppose my point was (is) that one can oscillate between thinking one has AS and thinking one is NT, as though it is a black and white thing, whereas the reality might be that one is in the grey area where the two overlap. I tormented myself for months in the way you are tormenting yourself at present and found the way to stop tormenting myself was to take the advice of my girfriend and think of AS and NT as two circles (as in a Venn Diagram) which overlap to create a (wider or smaller) grey intersection in the middle. If one is in this intersection one will have both AS and NT traits. And in fact nobody is completely AS. For example: I can function in the NT world in a restricted sort of way, so that puts me in the NT camp, but I have some fairly extreme aspie traits which hinder my functioning and put me in the aspie camp. So if I think "I'm an NT" how can I explain all that aspieness (crippling levels of social overload over decades which never goes away, despite low levels of actual social interaction, making work and relationships very difficult indeed, spending hours alone in my room as a child stimming to go into my own private world, then learning to read 20 languages etc etc) ? While if I think "I'm an Aspie" then how do I explain all the things I CAN do and the fact that most people probably just think I'm rarely around or a bit shy or unsociable or something. Plus I think I can read people's facial expressions etc. It's not that I don't have a clue what people are thinking, as far as I can tell. So you end up oscillating between Aspie/NT, which is really stressful. I feel that the way out of the dilemma is to end up somewhere in the middle, like a pendulum. Even if one really is aspie rather than NT, putting oneself in the intersection of the two is a safer hypothesis (a weaker one and therefore more likely to be true). I've decided to do that because I couldn't endure the kind of self-imposed torture you are engaged in at the moment. Sorry if I've rambled, but I think what I say is good advice, even if you are aspie.

That seems a very good way to put it!

I think that sounds very reasonable. I'm very very good at black and white thinking so I never really thought about even seeing it like that. It's true what you're saying. I too can function in the NT world but in a restricted sort of way. Most people just think I'm very introverted, not so sociable and have some compulsive behaviour, but I still function even though they don't realise how draining it is most of the time (I'm sure it's the same for you). And then I have all those Aspie traits we've already talked about. So I guess that puts me somewhere in-between, like you say, even though I feel more Aspie than NT. I shall definitely try to think about being in a grey area rather than in just one of the camps.

Or you know, autism is a spectrum and you may just have mild Aspergers.

Or you know, autism is a spectrum and you may just have mild Aspergers.

Or you know, autism is a spectrum and you may just have mild Aspergers.

Like, if I'm an Aspie, how come I have no problems with eye contact? How come I've done quite a bit of customer service work & am, all due modesty, good at it? Work-wise, I've got good communication skills. It's not my idea of a 'grey-area', it's just complicated but haven't you already found life's like that, sometimes?

Just out of curiosity, what kind of job have you got?

To rebbieh

Regarding diagnosis and at the risk of going off topic, I did actually go for a diagnosis with a psychiatrist in January. She said basically "What makes anyone think I would be able to decide if you had that or not?" and sent me away. So I feel really bad when people on the internet just tell people to "get a diagnosis" as if it's merely a matter of going to a psychiatrist and finding out if you have it and that if you don't have a diagnosis it's your own fault. It isn't. A few months before that I got myself interviewed by a worker at an autism centre for children and young people. He said it was obvious I had AS but I'm assuming he was wrong until proved right (since he is not officially qualified to make a diagnosis). Ironically, the psychiatrist would have been professionally qualified to give me a diagnosis although she knew nothing at all about it whereas the health worker at the autism centre did not have a doctor's degree and could not make a diagnosis, just say what he thought on the basis of his experience. He (the health worker) also said that many people are disappointed with the whole process of diagnosis, though I didn't ask him what he meant by that exactly. I'm supposed to be on the waiting list to go on the waiting list for a diagnosis at a university clinic in a year's time but I think they've forgotten me or lost my application because I should have been given a date by now. Yes, there is actually a waiting list for the waiting list. It's a strange phenomenon, all these people (like us) who identify with AS when maybe we don't have it, or maybe we do, or maybe we half have it and half not.

Currently out of work & they put me on ESA, decided I didn't need to look. Recovering from a bit of depression & trying to sort other things out, while getting a lot of online life. It's difficult finding work at the moment, anyway.

Did she actually say "What makes anyone think I would be able to decide if you that or not?" and send you away? That's not very helpful.

What I'm thinking about doing is going to a psychologist and talk about all of this and see what he/she says. Not necessarily to find out if I have AS or not (which we've established they might not be able to tell me anyway) but to see if I've got something else. OCD for example. That wouldn't surprise me either. I don't know how it works here (in the UK) but back home in Sweden the kind of psychologist I'm thinking about going to isn't qualified to give me an AS diagnosis anyway. You have to go to one and then get referred to someone who is qualified. Which there's a long waiting list for. Anyway, I haven't made up my mind about it. Still just trying to figure out what my options are.

Um, you don't, generally, go straight to a psychologist, then? It's usually through your GP. On the NHS, bear in mind that they will do an official report &, if you goto such a person, they might decide you need to be diagnosed, whether that's what you went to them for or not. But, either way, the report will still be on your records. Which may or may not be a problem & it's not as 'bad' as a diagnosis. I'll risk saying they'd almost certainly agree with your OCD, though.