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tomaszidek
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Joined: 10 Jan 2018
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Posts: 4
Location: Prague, Czech republic

10 Jan 2018, 9:55 am

Hi everybody,
Male, 26 years old,
I was certain that I am an Asperger, whole life I knew I am different and people kept reminding me of it. I was not bullied, probably because I am very tall and played basketball from an early age. I scored 132 IQ in Mensa test. So I was good at school. Frankly speaking I had zero empathy, I just couln't understand that other people have feelings different from mine.

So I had this mechanism that I was making fun of people over and over again. It was like a way not to become bored. I thought other people also think it is fun because I thought its super funny. Lately someone told me that it's bullying. I couldn't understand how fun can be bullying. I understood this and stopped doing it after puberty.

My wife told me that I should consult my strange behavior with a specialist.

The weird behavior consists of:
-hyper correctness
-interest in logic, arguments and verifiing the truth of every claim I hear
-I love research, I can spend 2 hours without even noticing studying life of Orcas or mechanism of high speed trains
-I love to look for patterns, analyze everything and make conclusions about it, so I can consider the topic to be understood by myself
-I like my days to be structured and repetitive
-I had strange interests, started reading books about Buddhism and Holocaust when I was 12
-I have strong know how in some fields e.g. spirituality, animal facts, but I am ignorant to facts that are commonly known e.g. current prime minister, capital of Sudan, how many weeks does a year have
-I tent to communicate just with my wife, other relationships seem to me as a nonsense and superficial. I concentrate just on my wife.
-I have no idea about social chit chat, only way I can participate is that I start to ask questions, which is often considered rude by others which I also don't understand. My wife says that I always dominate the dialogue and it is all about me.
-Outbursts of anger
-When I get interested, I cannot stop talking about the topic and I keep bringing it up again and again. Many people told me that it's annoying and tiring, but I can't understand how, I just find it super interesting and want to share.
-I find social relationships hard to keep, unstable
-I fall in love with images of some beatiful stuff of my interest, e.g. cars, animals and so on
-I can get super excited very fast about some ordinary random stuff
-I don't like eve contact, It is too straight, I prefer to stend next to people, I hate when someone is standing directly towards me
-I get super curious about stuff, then I can't help myself, I go to a stranger and ask him what I want to know
-I get overwhelmed with visual stimuli when I'm in place with a lot of people, e.g. shopping malls, squares, I get literally over excited and feel like I want to go to every interesting person and investigate
-Bad short term memory, I am never able to asnwer what I wa doing yesterday or how was do weekend, I forget stuff, but probably have a good long term because I am fluent in mandarin, have a law degree and work as a IT project manager
-Cannot multitask

Yesterday I went to see a psychologist.
The examination took an hour and a half, it consisted of an Rorschach test, where I haven't seen anything, all of it looked like a stain. But it really is stains in the pictures, so I was correct, right? :D 3x times I have seen vagina, which made me super nervous, because I got scared that I will be diagnosed as some aggressive rapist, but I told her that I just see what I see.

The remaining parts where all IQ tests like puzzles, relationships of words where I told her that there is no relationship between enemy and ally, a fly and a tree I said that they are both on the same planet, Math test, and last one was knowledge test where I did not know who was the first czech president, because I honestly do not care about people who died ages ago and when she asked me to name all the continents I forgot about Africa. After this I went to the toilet.

I returned from the toilet after 2 minutes. She told me that she has the evaluation and that it is OCPD (Obsessive–compulsive personality disorder).

Why do I have an OCPD and not Asperger according to the psychologist? (Let's ignore the weird testing method and be critical)
-Mainly because I am too good at social interaction, Asperger would not be able to dominate any social group
-Asperger is not able to make friends
-Asperger is not able to be a leader in a class or some group
-I am really good in communication, I do not have any problems with it
-I make my routines and list and schedules to surpress my own anxiety
-Beign precise and systematic is my way to control things, way to cope with my anxiety
-I had a normal childhood, I had not been kicked out of school
-I analyse things just because I want to control them

I want to be sure what problems do I have, so I naturally have to criticise both sides, myself and her conslusions. What's more, she suggested me to start taking antidepressants and start psychotherapy. That's why I need to be 100% sure that is OCPD and not Aspie. You don't want to cure Aspie with antidepressants and psychotherapy right? You probably don't want to try to cure stuff which cannot be cured right? That's medieval.

My problems with the diagnosis:
-In my view of an high functioning asperger, why cannot he learn how to communicate and function in a social situations? Sounds stupid to me, let's consider I have an 132 IQ and am high functioning, strong learning and percieving ability. Is it really impossible for an Asperger to learn some basic stuff? I have read Carnegie's books and he is absolutely right. Most times with NT, it's 100% sufficient just to not talk at all and listen to their ordinary stuff they want to chit chat about. If you every couple minutes ask something which is not completely weird I'm sure noone can tell that you are on the spectrum.
-People with personality disorder have lack of self-reflection and they see mistakes in others. I think a have strong self-reflection and I self-reflect often, reason I wanted to be diagnosed was that I realized my wife is having a hard time with me and I wanted to become a better person.
-Most of all I DO NOT HAVE AN ANXIETY? Which was not a problem according to my psychologist. But how can you have an anxiety disorder when you don't have an anxiety and consider yourself a happy person.
-She ignored like more than half of the facts and left them without any explanation
-I love to go for a same walks, wear the same clothes, but I do it because I love it and I enjoy it. I definitely don't do it because I am worried about something or that I fear that world will end if I do it the other way. My motivation is purely positive and I do not worry about any negative scenarious.
-I do not have any obsessions or obsessiive kind of thoughts
-OCPD seems like some perfectionist, I leave my work at 5pm, I do not care about it and I do not check my work 100 times.

Please help me, I am really confused.

Do you think I have an OCPD?

Thank you all!



komamanga
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Posts: 1,343
Location: CzechRep.

10 Jan 2018, 10:39 am

Yay another person from CZ!

I think your psychologist is not very knowledgeable about ASD. The psychiatrist I used to see in Prague diagnosed me with OCD too (however it's not a wrong diagnosis for me). I was later diagnosed in my home country with Aspergers as well.

Your behaviour indicates both OCPD (which is not an anxiety disorder but a personality disorder) and ASD to me and I'd recommend seeking another professional's opinion.

Also antidepressants and psychotherapy can help people on the spectrum a great deal because most of us live with co-morbids like depression, anxiety or OCD.



League_Girl
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10 Jan 2018, 12:51 pm

Don't ASD people have anxiety if they don't have routines? So it would be logical to say they have routines to avoid anxiety because they like to know what to expect.

I am not saying you don't or do have it nor am I saying you don't have OCPD.

But there are some things wrong here what the doctor said about ASD. Aspies can make friends. They just need to find the right people and it is possible. They might have a hard time keeping friends and maintaining them.

I have seen plenty of aspie leaders, Roger Meyers ran an aspie group, that is being a leader. I have seen Karla Fisher in the ASAN group being a leader at times. If aspies couldn't be leaders, there would be no autism groups being formed by them.

I have never been kicked out of school either and I thought only kids with behavior did. Plus a kid can't be kicked out of public school unless their behavior is so severe and a danger to others. I have been rejected from a private school and that was it and my school tried to get me in a behavior class and that was it. I also had a normal childhood.

You are still welcome here and you don't need to have an ASD to be here. If you can relate or have any similarities, you still belong here.


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Son: Diagnosed w/anxiety and ADHD. Also academic delayed and ASD lv 1.

Daughter: NT, no diagnoses. Possibly OCD. Is very private about herself.


ASPartOfMe
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10 Jan 2018, 2:41 pm

tomaszidek wrote:
Hi everybody,
Male, 26 years old,

Why do I have an OCPD and not Asperger according to the psychologist? (Let's ignore the weird testing method and be critical)
-Mainly because I am too good at social interaction, Asperger would not be able to dominate any social group
-Asperger is not able to make friends
-Asperger is not able to be a leader in a class or some group
-I am really good in communication, I do not have any problems with it
-I make my routines and list and schedules to surpress my own anxiety
-Beign precise and systematic is my way to control things, way to cope with my anxiety
-I had a normal childhood, I had not been kicked out of school
-I analyse things just because I want to control them

Iblems with the diagnosis:
-In my view of an high functioning asperger, why cannot he learn how to communicate and function in a social situations? Sounds stupid to me, let's consider I have an 132 IQ and am high functioning, strong learning and percieving ability. Is it really impossible for an Asperger to learn some basic stuff? I have read Carnegie's books and he is absolutely right. Most times with NT, it's 100% sufficient just to not talk at all and listen to their ordinary stuff they want to chit chat about. If you every couple minutes ask something which is not completely weird I'm sure noone can tell that you are on the spectrum.
-People with personality disorder have lack of self-reflection and they see mistakes in others. I think a have strong self-reflection and I self-reflect often, reason I wanted to be diagnosed was that I realized my wife is having a hard time with me and I wanted to become a better person.
-Most of all I DO NOT HAVE AN ANXIETY? Which was not a problem according to my psychologist. But how can you have an anxiety disorder when you don't have an anxiety and consider yourself a happy person.
-She ignored like more than half of the facts and left them without any explanation
-I love to go for a same walks, wear the same clothes, but I do it because I love it and I enjoy it. I definitely don't do it because I am worried about something or that I fear that world will end if I do it the other way. My motivation is purely positive and I do not worry about any negative scenarious.
-I do want to be sure what problems do I have, so I naturally have to criticise both sides, myself and her conslusions. What's more, she suggested me to start taking antidepressants and start psychotherapy. That's why I need to be 100% sure that is OCPD and not Aspie. You don't want to cure Aspie with antidepressants and psychotherapy right? You probably don't want to try to cure stuff which cannot be cured right? That's medieval.

My pro not have any obsessions or obsessiive kind of thoughts
-OCPD seems like some perfectionist, I leave my work at 5pm, I do not care about it and I do not check my work 100 times.

Please help me, I am really confused.

Do you think I have an OCPD?

Thank you all!


I can not diagnose you but it is possible to have Aspergers and OCPD.

By adulthood some Aspies can learn effective social skills.

Not understanding other people have feelings or look at the world differently is called poor theory of mind and is considered a core Asperger trait. Again Aspies can learn that others look at the world differently because of maturity, experience, pattern recognition.

Aspies can and do make friends(and get married and have careers) but not as easily as most people.

Aspies can get through mainstream school without being kicked out. They can thrive in mainstream schools especially academically

OCDP compulsive thoughts are intrusive, Aspergers "special interests" are like yours loved

Aspie routines and hyperfocus most certainly can be a way of controlling things.

I would agree with her that Aspies would have a very difficult time being a group leader. Aspies do sometimes dominate a conversation by endlessly talking about their special interests and not giving the other people a chance to speak.

The psychologist does seem to have a dated understanding of Aspergers. These type of clinicians usually will not pick up "mild" autism.

There is something called the "Broad Autism Phenotype". What that means is that the person has enough Autistic traits to make life difficult but they do not have enough traits for a clinical diagnosis.

I would use drugs only as a last resort. I would not use an anti depressent unless you are clinically depressed.


_________________
“Self Acceptance is a process not a performance”
“You are autistic enough. And you always have been”

Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity.