People say I "seem" aspie

Post Reply New Topic

Ok, so I'm new here- and I really don't think I have Asperger's but I've had numerous people online tell me I "seem" aspie. This only happens on Internet forums (and it's happened like 5 times) but it's never happened in real life. The only reason I'm giving it any thought is that my grandfather does have Asperger's, and I also have ADD and OCD which I know co-incide with Asperger's sometimes.

I have been to many therapists in my day for OCD and ADD and none of them have even brought up Asperger's. This was all in the late 90s-00s so within the time frame that asperger's was recognized in people.

I've taken the online test and I got a score of 17 (26-31 is borderline) which would imply that I do not have it. However, I have always had trouble socially. To this day, I only have one friend from my childhood. I have very close, intense relationships with family members but I find myself alienating other people pretty often without knowing why. My boyfriend jokes that I am really socially inept, but says he can't put a finger on what I do that is so weird. Maybe there is some undiscovered disorder that could explain this!

Interestingly, I've always gotten along really well with men, but with fellow women I feel very confused about what to say next, what's the "right" thing to say, etc. It drains me, emotionally, to converse with most women, and I often find myself becoming a wallflower when I'm around new women, just because it takes too much effort to relate to them or impress them. Not to sound rude, but I'm a very attractive girl, so I'm wondering if the reason things are easier for me with men is that they excuse me social weirdness because I'm cute, but women don't give me the same grace. My best friends are girls, but those friendships were strangely enough, facilitated by my boyfriend. He kept having to remind me to text them, follow up with them. I'm terrible at texting/followup.

I was bullied all through school, often for seemingly no reason. Sometimes I feel like there are all these social rules that I just don't know, and can't understand. Often I find myself forgetting to ask people how their day was, and talking non-stop about myself. I don't want to be selfish or self-obsessed, and I do care about other people's lives (I spend a lot of time thinking about other people) but I feel like I only talk about myself. I also just talk TOO MUCH. I also have a hard time knowing which topics are taboo. A while ago I told a stranger on a bus (we were having casual chitchat) about the fact that I was going to the pharmacy to pick up my birth control, and she was really freaked out.

I've also gotten overly connected to people immediately upon meeting them...not to the extent of "stalking" them but just forseeing a great friendship when there has only been one conversation and then sharing a lot of personal info with them.

And yet, I'm a very social/creative person so many people in real life don't see me as having any asperger's spectrum issues. I love writing/reading fiction and as a kid, if I wasn't socializing I was lost in some story I was making up. I'm terrible at math and science and always have been. I can become fascinated with statistics, but not dates or schedules. It's also hard to tell how much of my "obsessions" are just my OCD!

What do you guys think?

Maybe it's just social anxiety?

That would certainly make sense, since I have OCD (which sometimes presents itself more like pure O or just GAD). Other than the social stuff, there have only been a few times in my life when I did something typically "aspie" (like I used to have a weird obsession with categorizing nail polish colors, I wound up cataloguing like 600 nail polishes on my blog, wtf)

It's just something that is interesting to me because I get this SO MUCH when I'm online (the idea that I'm on the spectrum) but in person people say, "You? DEFINITELY not." probably because I'm such an extrovert. Makes me wonder if I do something online that is different from how I behave in real life.

Look, you can't go by what people say or by online tests (although I admit your low AQ score would tend to indicate you're not an Aspie). There are plenty of quirky NTs out there. OCD is a difficult diagnosis. It can make you obsess over all sorts of things, including "maybe I'm an Aspie."(repeat, repeat).

You might just be a young person trying to make sense of life.

Hi! Thanks for summarizing much of my existence.

As another commenter said, while online tests can give an indication, they are hardly diagnostic. Another consideration is that Asperger's often manifests itself differently in females than it does males. This page has a couple graphics that give an idea of what Asperger's in girls and women can look like:

http://www.help4aspergers.com/pb/wp_a58 ... d4f6a.html

Rudy Simone, who runs that site, also wrote a book that discusses the topic in more detail:

http://www.help4aspergers.com/pb/wp_c41 ... 2f5cb.html

Also, I find this e-book to be a valuable resource—it's a good getting-started guide on what to do if you suspect you might be autistic, written by someone who went through the whole self-discovery process herself. It includes a plain-English description of the diagnostic criteria, and lists traits associated with each section of the criteria.

http://www.amazon.com/Think-Might-Autis ... 00DAHF48I/

Hope this helps.

Where you ever evaluated for any neurodevelopmental disorders?

A lot of people have also mentioned to me that they thought I was on the spectrum as well. I saw a psychologist a little over three years ago and he diagnosed me with a nonverbal learning disability even though I mentioned Asperger's Syndrome. Unfortunately he never gave it a second thought.

Well, I was given a boatload of tests from psychologists from the ages of 7-15 usually just to explain why I wasn't doing amazingly in school (my parents couldn't fathom that any kids of theirs could get Bs- oh, the horror). What came out was that I had mild ADD (not ADHD) and moderate-severe OCD/anxiety, but nothing else.

I took a look at that chart and there are only a few things that apply to me- I taught myself to read for the most part and I have a lot of anxiety but other than that it doesn't sound like me. I am almost disappointed, because I really would like to know why everyone thinks I am so socially inept and weird! haha

You sound like my husband. He's NT but very introverted. He hates social stuff more than I do and is equally awkward when it comes to relationship stuff. I know a few other NT people who are like that, too.

I would say that unless these people who tell you this are qualified MD's and they tell you this after you have been fully evaluated for AS, then just ignore it. If you really have concerns about it, talk to your primary care doctor or mental health professional and ask for a referral for evaluation.

I suspect that has much less to do with any behaviours or characteristics of your own and rather more to do with their not understanding what Asperger's actually is. There are plenty of people out there whose sole basis for making an 'off the cuff' amateur diagnosis of someone is something they saw on a fictional television show or read in a facebook post.

Have you considered actually asking them specifically why they say it? Ask those people what the specific traits or behaviours are which they are basing their opinion on, then you might be able to get to the heart of things.