Another diagnosis-related question

I guess I can sense that there's something that I don't get or understand when I'm talking to people, I just can't work out what. Sometimes it feels as if they're talking in a different language!

I’m hoping it was digging

Thanks & that’s reminded me of something I said a few times in my interview. You said you feel that you’re ridiculous mind blind; how do you know? How do you know there’s something that you can’t see or know? I said several times “I don’t know how much I’m missing because I don’t know what I don’t know” :-)

Hi, two things spring to mind here, both reasons why you being able to pick up on the fact that your daughter is getting angry is not indicative of whether or not you are ‘on the spectrum’. The first is that having Aspergers, I personally, can not read the vast majority of the population, my daughters on the other hand I can read like a book. I always know if either my 21 year old or my 4 year old are lying and I’m very tuned in to my 2 year old. Perhaps it’s down to maternal instinct or just how well I know them. The second, is that there are different ways of reading people, even those of us who have ASD can learn that when person X engages in a certain sequence of behaviour it results in Y. Some behaviours are also more obvious than others. For example, I work in mental health, if I am at work and one of the patients is shouting/pacing/etc then they are angry about something and if someone doesn’t address the cause of anger in an agreeable way then that patients behaviour will escalate even further. I’m still ridiculously mind blind, but I have learnt to read certain, more obvious behavioural cues. I’d suggest it’s the same with you realising that your daughter is angry, you’ve observed the sequence of behaviour so many times that you can now predict the outcome. How did you answer the examiners question about this?

Not worrying is easier said than done and BTW over thinking things is definitely a sign of ASD :-)

Maybe she was just digging to try to understand you better. Your daughter is a close family member, someone who you have spent years with, so it's understandable that you can tell very subtle emotional responses after so much exposure to how she behaves. The assessment should be holistic and a few small things shouldn't make much of a difference, hopefully!

I honestly despair at some of the popular cliches about people on the Spectrum sometimes.

When NT people read body language they are not using some sort of innate psychic ability that people on the spectrum do not possess, they are merely reading audio visual cues & inferring probable causes & outcomes. For most NTs, doing this comes naturally so it is only the interpretation of such signals that is innate, rather than the ability to perceive them at all.

For many people on the spectrum, interpretation of subtle audio visual cues is an artificially acquired skill that improves with age & practice. At least this is the conclusion that I came to regarding myself after I was diagnosed two years ago at age 55. It hadn't really struck me until then that I was using pattern matching algorithms in my head rather than somehow just 'knowing by instinct'. As with all acquired skills though such as 'Driving a Car' or 'Riding a Bike', it's awkward at first but once mastered it becomes second nature & you take it for granted.

There isn't a 'One Size Fits All' algorithm either, people have specific very personal 'Tells' (just like those in playing Poker) which give away changes in emotional state & once you learn to recognise them, it usually provides a good early warning of potential trouble.

I can't remember exactly how or when I acquired the skill, but I assume it was probably at Secondary School during the many years I was horrifically bullied, since I have always been far better at identifying negative signals than positive ones. I still have problems with positive signals though & tend to think more in terms of "Well If they don't actively dislike me, then they must like me to some degree". Potentially I just need more data to refine the algorithm, but I haven't had that many positive relationships in my life so it's difficult to be sure.

Someone performing professional assessments should be aware of this, as was the person who diagnosed me. I can remember discussing with her that I had previously thought I couldn't be on the spectrum precisely because I could read body language, but had become increasingly aware that what I was doing was quite different to other people, i.e. I was using pattern matching rather than intuition. Since being diagnosed though, I stopped believing cliches beginning "All Autistic people are ....".

I have spent most of my life working in computing though, so I see everything as 'Data' .

I notice volcanic people sometimes because I know the feeling very well myself! I also grew up with a volcanic range (my family). However, I seem to miss when many other people get annoyed. I notice the non verbal better than facial expressions, tone of voice, sarcasm etc. However, everyone is different, even with ASD. I do find people have stereotypes in mind when autism is mentioned. Not helpful. For myself, i needed to know why I had/have specific difficulties functioning in this world. Now I know why, i can address what I can adapt and accept what I can’t. Being diagnosed was more about specialists etc being able to accept me than about me actually wanting yet another label. To access any level of support at all I had to be categorised. Until then I was either mentally ill or a pain in the caboose!! (In their minds). In my mind, I was just a total waste of space. Now I can move on. I hope you get to feel similar. One other thing has struck me .... some of us read atmospheres when we enter a room or meet people. Again it’s the non verbal stuff. So don’t worry too much. Maybe your assessor was someone who doesn’t do that, so maybe she was surprised. Who knows? One thing I cannot do is telepathy!!!