Pls excuse my bad grammar, i am not a native english speaker. This will be a very long post so i apologize in advance.
Hi,
i wanted to ask for advice on this forum about the issue of autism/aspergers, and whether i can really be affected by that "disorder" when i have multiple traits which seem like the very opposite of what an autistic person is commonly said to be like. I was officially diagnosed as a child, but i don't think i
actually have it.
I was diagnosed
with ADHD when i was about 4 i think, but when i was about 9 or so they
said i don't have it but i have aspergers instead.
I am seriously confused about all this, going from
thinking i might have it to believing i definitely don't. I have done
online tests and they are generally all negative, but i have an official
diagnosis, so i must have it right? at least that is what people (on
the internet) always say. I am definitely not "neurotypical", i mean i
have OCD and maybe ADHD, but i think the person who diagnosed me with
aspergers back then might have been wrong.
Of course the best way to
find out would be to go to a doctor, but my social anxiety kind of makes
this an impossibility, plus i wouldn't even know how to do that without
help, and i certainly can't ask someone for help with that kind of
thing now (i am 19). I don't "have" a doctor of any kind currently and i
don't know how to get one, so i had hoped people on this forum who will
be much more knowledgeable on this topic than anyone i know could help
me instead. Looking for posts from other people online doesn't help if
they don't have the exact symptoms that i have.
Traits i think i share with people with autism:
I
am very introverted. I have moderate but not extreme social anxiety,
and i generally don't need social interaction. When i was younger i
found school mostly boring and couldn't wait for the time when i got
home and could finally be alone. I had some few friends but they weren't
very close, and i never interacted with them outside of school. Now
that i don't go there anymore i have none whatsoever, but i don't really
feel like i am missing something. I never had the "need" for friends
like most other people. To be sure, a friendship feels nice, i get that,
but i can live a happy life without any. Not that i live a very happy
life currently, but my lack of friends isn't the reason for that. Its different
with a romantic relationship, that is something i'd genuinely like to
have, but for multiple reasons i think its unlikely i will ever get
that, and i do feel sad about it. This is actually a point where i might
differ from most autists, from what i read people with autism/asp.
usually aren't interested in intimate romantic relationships, although i
could be wrong about that.
The whole "special interests" thing, i
think i might have that. It isn't one specific thing, but often a
number of topics that interest me intensely. I have like 4 or 5 more
"scientific" things which interest me most currently and have for some
years, which i think about often and like to learn new things about.
Most of them have to do with biology. And yes, i do have those moments
where i would love to talk with someone about one specific thing that
fascinates me in that moment. When i was younger i did just that with
people at my school or even my mother and grandparents. I can tell when
someone gets bored with what i am saying, but i couldn't help myself, i
just had to tell them about why in the future most people will be living
in giant rotating habitats in space rather than on planets and what an
o'neil cylinder is or how spin-gravity works. They just had to know. I
never overdone it though, i was never too "weird" about it. Most of what
interests me is more aesthetic however, and i am interested by
fictional stories and art. I also want to get better at the later and
become an artist myself.
Weird low verbal abilities. I often when
i write or talk have problems with my grammar, both in english and in
my native language. I just forget how to structure sentences. I also
very frequently just can not remember words. Sometimes i feel like i just
"can't do language", as it were, its really frustrating. My "tonal"
abilities however, which words to emphasize or when to speak in a higher
or lower pitch or the speed at which to talk at, are normal, maybe even
above average. Those kinds of abilities where i think i could
be a public speaker or a voice actor, as long as i had to read from a
prewritten script, and not come up with the words myself. I don't think a
had those problems when i was a kid, they have only really appeared
since i have isolated myself more, so maybe they are more environmental
in origin and not so much a sign of any neurodisability. Almost
everything i read and watch is in english, i even think and probably
dream in english, yet i never talk to anyone in english obviously,
everytime i speak to someone it is in german, and even so i talk rarely
with anyone because of my isolation. Maybe this explains why i am now
bad at both languages.
I didn't think this was a thing with
autism, but i saw that somewhere in another post so i will write this to: I
daydream quite often. I have a relatively strong imagination, i can lie
in bed imagining fantastic scenarios, thinking up whole stories and
worlds, sometimes for hours. Though i often worry i am not creative
enough. I it sometimes hard to come up with new things and that bothers
me, because i see creativity as one of the most important traits to
have, at least for me personally.
Things i think i don't share with people who have asp/autism:
I
never had any problems with motor skills. I often read that autists are
somewhat "clumsy" and "uncoordinated" in their movements, i never
experienced anything of that kind.
I don't have a monotonous voice. I don't have the opposite of that either.
I
feel no strong attachment for routines. I currently have mostly free
time, so i don't have any routine at all. Infact i don't even have a
sleep cycle, sometimes i sleep at night sometimes at day, whatever it
happens to be. Not that i don't do stuff, i already mentioned i want to
become an artist, but the times i do anything differ from day to day. I
also like to be spontaneous.
I have no problem reading peoples
facial expressions, i think. I also have no and never had any problems
understanding sarcasm. I often hear that autists have a problem
understanding lies. I must shamefully admit, when i was younger,
especially when i was in preschool, (6 to 10 years), i lied a lot. I lied
constantly, mostly about small things, and most people, children and
adults alike, believed my lies. I stopped that later for moral reasons
of course.
This one is a bit of a neutral point. I think i am
somewhat more sensitive to stimuli than the average person, i feel both
negative and positive emotions stronger. An example for the latter would
be when i listen to good music. I am very high in disgust, especially
of certain things, i have misophonia for example. I am also very high in
shame and easily ashamed, which ties in with or causes my social
anxiety, and also my OCD compulsions. And yet i never have been
"overwhelmed", the concept sounds completely alien to me, i also never
had a panic attack. From what i have read, most autists have those
moments when everything around them, all the stimuli, gets to much, they
get "overwhelmed", and have to withdraw from everything. I can not
relate to that, it has never gotten that bad for me.
Right,
so those are the points i wanted to state, i hope i didn't forget
anything important. I don't know if anyone will read all of this, but if
someone could and wrote a reply i would be very grateful. Most of this
information i have told no one yet, you are literally the first and
maybe the only people who will ever know of this, this has only existed
in my head until now.
I hope i haven't annoyed anyone but i would
really like some help with this, i really don't know of a better way to
find advice with this.
I am male by the way if that helps
TLTR i guess:
I was officially diagnosed with aspergers, so i must have it, but can i really if i
/
don't like routines, / have no problem reading facial expressions, /
perfectly understand sarcasm / and even lied as a kid & had no
problem knowing when someone else lied
