Wondering about attachments

Post Reply New Topic

I don't know exactly where in the spectrum I fall. I am sort of self diagnosed but I have worked fairly closely to someone who is an expert in the Autism field and works closely with Autistic children in the school district as his job. He has told me after observing me closely for about 8 months that there is no question that I have some form of Autism and that it is very obvious to him. I have not bothered to get diagnosed because I am not a child and I don't want my insurance changed. And I was told that it would not really help me anyway.

But I also have some traits that are not typical to what I have heard is typical for Autism. Two of those traits is that I am very social and at ease socially in most situations. I can easily talk to and meet new people. The other thing is that I am very deeply attached to some people. I even suffer from separation anxiety if I don't talk to one of them regularly.

Even though part of the definition of Autism is having difficulty with social things and I seem to be okay with that, I have been told that I still have enough traits that there is no question I am on the spectrum somewhere. I am wondering if anyone else feels comfortable in social situations even though you might have other traits or if anyone else has deep personal attachments and suffers separation anxiety if you don't see or talk to them regularly.

I have had attachment issues, but usually chalk them up to routine or social deficiencies on my part. I've always been that way.

I can socialize enough to appear relatively normal. I always got along well with my peers at work, although I did not generally attend group social functions with them outside the workplace, unless it was mandatory. I did have a small group of close friends with whom I communicated on a regular basis, though in retrospect I feel fairly confident that most of them would also fall somewhere on the spectrum, as we shared many obsessive interests and all operated at, or just beyond the fringes of the normal social groups.

The thing is, while some with High Functioning Autism abhor socializing and others crave it, the one thing they have in common is that they aren't particularly adept at it. The fact that you like interacting with other people doesn't necessarily mean you're catching and correctly interpreting all the nonverbal cues and signals being passed all around you. Just because you feel at ease in a social situation doesn't mean others in the room aren't rolling their eyes at each other behind your back.

You don't specify your age, but Autism is a learning DISability, not a complete INability - which is to say, that while social skills do not come as naturally to us as they do to the neurotypical brain, with age and experience we can still learn to appear passably functional in social situations. Its called developing coping mechanisms and its the main reason that HFA and AS are sometimes difficult to diagnose in adults, even by trained professionals.

Personally, even though I can fake my way through a social encounter, the experience tends to leave me feeling drained and psychologically exhausted after just a few hours (even if I enjoy it) and I often require hours or even days of solitude to recuperate. There have been a few close friends I could tolerate for hours at a time, days after day, but as I said before they tend to be spectrum-type personalities themselves, so the socializing is not so demanding, as they don't expect near-constant eye contact, and they communicate mostly verbally, with a minimum of body language.

Willard, your post is very helpful to me, thank you.

It is very interesting because now that I think about it I know that some people have always considered me odd. When I was a kid I had some friends and some very close ones but they tended to be the kids that were not so popular. I was never one to be chosen for things and I think that a lot of people did not really relate to me. I always thought that it was because my parents were from a foreign country and when I was really young I think I had their accent. But as I outgrew that I noticed that I still never became popular. I don't think I was outright weird or freaky but just a bit odd. I even had one of my recent teachers tell me that he thought I was odd but could not place his finger on it. I am in my mid 40's by the way.

But I did have to learn to really be social and adapt because with my dad's job we moved a lot. We were always changing schools and we had to learn to fit in and make friends and sometimes our cultural environments would change dramatically if we were in another country. I have also heard that people at one job I had absolutely loved me even though I felt like I was different. In many ways I was and sometimes am even more outgoing than a lot of people probably because all my life I had to learn these skills in order to adapt to new environments. So your insight makes a lot of sense.

I also don't crave social events. I would much rather sit at home and read a book than go to a party but if the party is a nice party and the music is music that I can enjoy, I usually have a very good time. But I don't usually go out of my way to go to social events. It's not that I am necessarily uncomfortable at them, I just prefer to do other things and I love my alone time or time with just the people that I am very close to.

I need to read your post again and I may respond again because what you wrote is making me think a lot and it is helping me.

Are you attached to people or do you feel it is difficult to get attached to people?

Willard, I just reread your post. I think you may be right about the cues because sometimes people will tell me something later and I am really surprised by what they tell me. I did not pick up on it as it was happening. I guess even with well learned skills, like you said I don't always pick up on stuff. That is very interesting. And wherever I fit on the spectrum I think it might be pretty mild or High functioning as it's termed because many people say that all the time they have known me they never suspected anything. But I think that some of that may be due to trust because only people that I really trust see me uninhibited and totally me. There are parts of me that don't come forward if I don't trust people completely. I imagine that has to do with growing up constantly having to change environments and learning to adapt to new schools and situations and having to learn to fit in and do well. I was always taught that I had to do well and get good grades and not get in trouble at school so I had to learn skills to fit in.

Both, actually. I'm uncomfortable and overwhelmed in most social situations, so I'll latch on to someone I'm comfortable with for security/stability. Growing up I mostly hung out with one person, and she was a social bridge and anchor for me. I can recognize when I do this, but I either attach, or over compensate and don't spend enough time or attention.

I'm not sure if this is quite what you are describing though.

I understand. That makes a lot of sense. I think my attachments are more like a safety thing. I have this need to feel safe like a little child and when I get attached to someone it's because they provide a kind of parental unconditional very safe kind of love for me.

Agreed. Its funny, people I worked with for years even said to me at times (because I stim constantly, by rocking back and forth or swaying side to side) "Why do you do that all the time, are you Autistic?" At the time I suspected I probably was, but I had never heard of AS or High Functioning Autism. When I was finally diagnosed at the age of 49 and told them about it, almost all of them said "Really? You seem so normal." Because, of course, they still think of Autism as a childhood ailment that looks like mental retardation. But very few people ever knew me away from a professional environment, so they never saw me as I really am when I'm not having to pretend to be relatively "normal."

My family didn't start moving from place to place until I was already a young teen, but then we moved several times in just a few years and each time my abilities to develop coping mechanisms and adjust to new social environments improved out of necessity. The more different social groups and types I was exposed to (culturally and even in terms of language accents and colloquial expressions), the larger my vocabulary of communication became. My basic human social skills didn't improve all that much, as far as knowing what was going on non-verbally, or what reaction was expected of me in the moment, but I got better at faking it, so my deficiencies weren't so noticeable.

Someone who was only around me for an hour or two at a time would likely just come away with the impression that I was "quiet" and "standoffish."

Someone who was around me several hours a day from several months would observe that I was "smart and funny" but "keep to myself."

Only those who are around me nearly constantly, for extended periods begin to realize just how eccentric and quirky I really am. That is a very small number of people. And I drive most of them crazy.

although am at a different end of the spectrum,am also affected acutely in attachment to-except the opposite way,have got no attachment to humans at all even more so than profoundly autistic people.
am diagnosed with lifelong severe reactive attachment disorder;it had been caused by the way had been treated as a young toddler onwards due to being severely autistic and ID;unfortunately they had refused to diagnose at that point because of the hospital teling mum it was caused by brain damage and there was no sign of any on the scans of mine,they had treated mum as the sole cause and was resented by both her and dad, beaten,neglected and unwanted by them,was also beaten and roughly restrained every day at school by teachers plus caned to.
the RAD was worsened still when was taken out of the family home at twentyith birthday and moved into a LD institution,was beaten,mocked and neglected by staff as well as allowed to be sexualy abused by a resident, plus when that place shut down was constantly been moved around to different residential homes because staff said was to challenging,a burden on otehr residents and they coudnt cope.,
didnt get diagnosed with RAD till in twenties though,even now it isnt well known and almost everyone who does know about it associate it with kids who were adopted.

Kingdom or Rats that is really interesting.

Willard, I have noticed a lot more about myself since I read your posts. I have realized how there are certain cues that I really don't understand and they really have affected me. I had a conversation yesterday where I was able to ask someone to help me understand what it can mean when people yell because I did not know until I thought more about what you wrote that I really did not understand these cues. It was so good for me to figure that out and have this conversation and learn this. But you are right. The more I read on this site the more I can see that I have "learned" how to be social to a degree but there are many communicative skills that I just don't have. So this is really great. Thanks for posting what you did.

Willard, I keep thinking about what you said in your first post here in this thread and it is interesting how everyday I remember more and more instances from my childhood and teen years where I am recognizing autistic traits and behavior. Since I was so high functioning I never knew that all of those oddities were in fact from autism. But now it is all making so much sense. I could tell you story after story but I won't because that would just go on forever. But it is really amazing how much I am remembering and how everything is starting to fit into place. I don't really remember having meltdowns as a little kid though. But I thought I read somewhere that sometimes autistic traits can manifest and grow as you get older. It is also possible that I did have meltdowns and just don't remember them as such. I think knowing my personality and how I remember physically feeling many times when I was a kid, I may have had more zone outs and shut downs. But either way, it is so cool to remember certain things and now understand why I went through them the way that I did.