...and still I am not sure. For more details, you may look at my post in "Getting to know each other section". It was written long ago, though, and now I may think a bit differently.
But generally:
Nowadays I think I may have NLD. I am auditory, can remember melodies and songs easily, I'm good at languages, at least when I like a particular language. My visual intelligence is much lower, although when I was young, many teachers and other adults used to say I can draw and paint very well. But I suck in visual memory tasks.
I don't think I'm oversenstitive when it comes to SI, and I'm not sure whether my stims (as I read everyone does it, including NTs) are more Aspergian than "normal" stims or are just nervous movements. I'm not sure whether I can concentrate on visual tasks like a typical Aspie- I have generally always had problems with concentration.
I think that since my childhood I have made a huge step in my social and emotional skills- maybe thanks to some good teachers, group games (especially those when one person goes out for a while and does not know something that the others do know), books (chiefly novels, fictional stories) where sometimes the characters' emotional expressions were shown on illustrations; interest for psychology since I was 14( I've read then "Emotional intelligence"by Daniel Goleman and "Challenging your emotional intelligence" by Jeanne Segal), and diaries or journals (they are synonyms, aren't they?)- I have been writing them since I was 8, now when I'm 20 years older, I can see a great difference in thinking since then-of course everyone is different as an adult then in the childhood, but I see that my theory of mind has developped a lot.
I was never diagnosed with anything akin to autism or AS (nobody knew about it in my country until very recently), I went to a normal school like most other kids, then to a very good-level high school, graduated from a univeristy and now I am studying the next subject. I worked as a teacher for 1,5 year, although, to be honest, had problems. But did I actually overcome Aspergers, or my social and emotional development was just slower than in others? When I was a child, other children used to say that I'm stupid/unnormal/ weird/daft/freak, (while teachers told that I am "gifted"), now some people just say I'm a little immature for my age.
The only argument that I may have Aspergers and not NLD, could be the obsessive interests- with a character, fictional or real, that I used to imitate a lot, or with historical period or cultures I used to talk a lot about, which got on nerves on the others and I didn't understand why... But now I don't show my passions for any characters or cultures so explicitly/evidently/extrovertily (I don't know which word would be linguistically correct).
And, most important: I have always been "into" people, just did not know how to make friends and made a lot of faux pas because of lack of knowledge of social rules. I also enjoyed reading aloud or speaking publicly, role playing and often wanted to be an actress; as a teenager I wanted to be a politician; now I know I wouldn't be any good at it. Still, I think I like challenges.
It is very difficult to diagnose AS in adults where I live, I mean- it involves many months of waiting until seeing the specialist. Since I know it, I feel too discouraged to consult them.
I wonder whether my biografy can be similar to anyone with a diagnosed Asperger's Syndrome? What do you think?
08 Apr 2012, 3:21 pm
