I need some help/advice (I may have HFA/AS)

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I guess what I'm here for is to get some help or advice on my situation. I know you can't make medical diagnoses (this is the plural form, right?), but I'm not looking for one. Should I seek a medical diagnosis? How will it help? First I guess I'll describe myself:

I am seventeen years old, and I live in the extreme north of Canada (we don't even have trees). I haven't gone to a public school fulltime in five years, though I've gone part-time for some courses. Now I don't go to a public school at all, and my education is carried out at home. That's probably enough back story.

A couple weeks ago, I watched a television program on CLT called "Beautiful Minds". It was a very interesting program, and I was much enlightened by it. Last week, I watched a continuance of the program, and yesterday I managed to catch 30 minutes of what I believe was the final installment. The show was mainly about autistic savants, and Kim Peek was featured amongst many others.

After watching it last night, I did some research online. I ended up reading late into the night, and I was shocked. I've known that I have some sort of mental difference for a long time, but I assumed it was just avoidant personality disorder/social anxiety disorder, depression, and perhaps bipolar (I was diagnosed with the first three, but not the last). I'm no longer certain of this, and I think the doctors may have been wrong (none of them were specialists anyway).

The thing is, I fit so many of the symptoms of autism or AS. I never thought about it before, but I can even recall parts of my childhood that seem to reinforce this. I'll detail a couple situations that I feel may be relevant.

When I was young (I'm not certain of the age), I was at the house of one of my mother's friend. She had a cat, and ever since I can remember I was fascinated with wildlife of all kinds. I played with the cat and enjoyed it, but I tried to pet the cat with my foot. I don't remember exactly how, but I accidentally hurt the cat while trying to pet it with my foot, and it let out an unholy screech. My mom's friend immediately started asking me accusatory questions, and I didn't know how to respond. I wasn't an infant or a toddler, I was in elementary school, but I couldn't deal with that at all. I just ran downstairs and told her I didn't try to. But then I sat in a chair and worried for a long time. I felt horrible. For some reason, that she had had to think that of me, that I would harm the cat on purpose, well, it made me very distressed and anxious. I thought about the incident for days.

When I was younger still, I used to play oddly. I mean, I was capable of imaginative play, and I enjoyed it. But sometimes I'd also spend hours setting up toy cars to create a metropolis, which I wouldn't play with, I'd merely enjoy the perfection of the positioning.. Or the same with legos, or action figures, or dinosaurs, any toy really. I just enjoyed setting them up in certain ways.

When I was in kindergarden, the teacher left the room for several minutes, and for some reason people in the class started giving other people "bear hugs". I tried to join in and give some girl a bear hug too, but I ended up just hurting her. She started to cry, and wouldn't stop, and I didn't know how to respond. I even tried telling her there was ice cream for her (an attempt to make her happy again). Instead, she kept crying and I had to sit on a chair facing the wall for hurting her. I was extremely angry, because I hadn't tried to hurt her, but I couldn't explain myself.

I can remember back to when I was nearing the age of two. My sister was being born, and I stood in the kitchen at home with my father. I asked where mom was, and my father told me she had gone to buy my new sister.

All throughout my life I've had these passions. I don't really know how to explain it, actually. I believe the earliest one was dinosaurs, and it lasted for several years. I had dinosaur toys, stickers, movies, books, whatever my parents could afford me. In kindergarden I had a large book about dinosaurs and it was my favourite book in the world. The subject matter was probably more appropriate for a young teen, it was rather complex. Other passions I've had over the years: Computers, role-playing video games, emulators and roms, religion and spirituality, anthropology, the human brain, zoology (when I was nine I chose zoologist as my future profession, which morphed into ethologist, writer, psychologist, neurosurgeon, etc. I still want to be all of them, actually, despite the tremendous impracticality involved.) and various others.

School was always hell for me. I hated it. I never understood other people, not really, and I've never had a real friend, until, perhaps, last year. Last year I made three friends, actual friends. One moved away, one has become my girlfriend (we're very similar in many respects) and the other remains my friend. I don't like going out in public much. But worse than that is actually having to physically deal with strangers. I get extremely anxious, but can cope with it usually. I've never been able to hold down a job. I end up quitting because I get too anxious about co-workers and my bosses. I just can't deal with them. To make it worse, at every job I've worked people have invariably ended up somehow coming to dislike me, despite the fact that I never insult them in any way (as far as I'm aware).

At seventeen years of age, I still can't handle normal conversation. I can't start conversations well at all, and continuing them is nigh impossible. I bore people because I enjoy talking about things I've read (usually science and/or philosophy), and I often end up talking for long periods of time without letting the other end of the conversation get a word in edgewise. I think what I have problems with in conversation is the "give-and-take" that I've read so much about. I'm just not comfortable in social situations or conversation about nothing in particular.

I've read about stomach problems being potentially connected to autism. I do have stomach problems. And I think I had them as a child, I just didn't have a frame of reference to recognize them. It was always there, so I never realized it was different. Usually the stomach problems are manifested as nausea and nonspecific pain. I take prescription Losec for this. I'm also vegetarian (with vegan tendencies). I don't drink milk or eat any meats. I did read about casomorphine. It interests me greatly, because as a child I loved milk. My favourite food when I was very young was spaghetti and milk. Later on in my childhood, and up until I became vegan (I used to be vegan but I had to revert to vegetarianism for reasons I'd rather not go into), I would drink 1-2 litres of milk per day. I simply loved milk.

I'll bold the symptoms I have in the following list from Wikipedia's Autistic spectrum article (or a comment in brackets if I am unsure):

Social impairment

* Lack of observed desire for friendship
* Poor ability to make friends
* Indifferent to the feelings of others
* Social awkwardness
* Indiscriminate social interaction (not sure what is meant)
* Lack of eye contact
* Brief response to questions
* Gullibility

Language impairment

* Odd or monotonous prosody of speech (maybe, I'm unsure)
* Overly formal and pedantic language
* Echolalia (No, but when I was younger I was possessed of palilalia; I whispered each phrase after saying it out loud. This persisted until 4th-5th grade, I suppose.)
* Pronoun reversal
* Visuospatial thinking sometimes preferred
* Use of rote chunks of language (not sure, don't think so)
* Late or no development of language
* Difficulty or inability to translate thoughts into words (sometimes, but not always)
* Poor use and understanding of nonverbal communication (i.e., facial expressions and body language) (this is debilitating)
* Taking things literally, e.g. when told "Pull your socks up", they will do this.
* Being questioned, may or will have a delayed reaction (not sure, but maybe)

Imaginative impairment and repetitive adherence

* Concrete and literal use of language (not sure)
* Poor understanding of abstract thought, metaphors and symbolism
* Preference for routine
* Absorption in detail; inability to understand meaning or the whole of a concept (Sometimes, but it's more a difficulty understand the whole, rather than an inability)
* Perseverative interest or focus

[edit] Sensory integration disfunction

* Hyper- or hyposensitivity of the various senses (Smell and perhaps sound. However, hearing words is much more difficult than hearing sounds. Sometimes I have to concentrate to understand what another is saying, and, like my father, I definately prefer reading to hearing. Even when concentrating I can miss words or even whole phrases)
* Peculiar clothing and food preferences (until grade seven I'd have fits/tantrums because I didn't want to wear jeans, only sweatpants. After grade seven, I only wanted to wear jeans.)
* Self-stimulating mannerisms (not sure)
* Fine or gross motor discoordination (how can I tell?)

I don't know. There's lots to be added, but I could sit here for hours and hours simply detailing things I think may be important. If anyone needs more information, please, don't hesitate to ask.

Thanks.

If this problem continues,I think you should seek a diagnosis,because them you will know for sure that you have it,and it CAN be treated with medication and therapy.

And yes,your situation DOES sound like Asperger Syndrome or High Fuctioning Autism.

I think I need more information,though: Is whether or not you need an actual diagnosis all you want to know,or is there more? ALSO,did you have speaking problems as a young child,such as stuttering,HORRIBLY mispronounced words,broken speech,etc.?

If you can answer these questions we can help you out more.


-SpaceCase

Well, I don't know. I'm pretty confused at the moment. I really don't know what I want from this. I'm probably going to try to get a diagnosis, but I don't know yet how to react to the situation.



Actually, I have some mild stuttering problems even now (worse at times but usually easily managed) and mild broken speech. Neither of these presents any significant difficulties.

That sounds like High Fuctioning Autism.They will give a diagnosis of AS to ANY age,but I'm not sure about autism.


-SpaceCase

But my speech developed fine. In fact, I'm looking at some of the phrases I said as a child, and it appears that even before the age of 2 I was capable of sentences. My vocabulary was at least ~110 words when most infants knew ~10.

Isn't speech delay a diagnostic criterion of HFA?

A couple sentences recorded:

I likes beer, you know that (slightly after two, and yeah, I did say "likes")
Daddy, don't go to work, I don't have a daddy.

This seems suffice enough.