Who are you? (Adult Aspie identities)

It occurred to me when reading a post recently that adult Aspies sometimes seem to have spent so many years masking, mimicking & changing their behaviour to fit in that their "real" self has become subsumed by a "fake" self, or they feel they no longer actually have a real identity. I think that by reading accounts of the traits of other Aspies we can identify with some of them, and this can help to rebuild a sense of self. So I'm going to start with a list of Aspie traits that are "me" and I hope others will join in.

I have a an good long term memory, good eye for detail and pattern recognition. I have an interest in language and could read and spell well from an early age.I've always been clumsy with poor coordination and struggled to write neatly at school, and I still hate writing now but I like typing.

I have a history of struggling in work situations and moving on to another job when I can no longer cope. I have had times when I missed work a lot due to stress. I have never enjoyed meetings and work social events. I get frustrated if I get too many things to do at once. I don't like talking on phones. I don't like being observed, photographed or filmed.

I have never had a lot of friends and used to be a people  pleaser, while resenting the fact that other people took advantage of me. I am good in one to one situations but have difficulty in group situations and  find  it uncomfortable when there are several different conversations going on. I am often bored in social situations but can talk endlessly about a topic of my own interest. I have often "burned bridges" with family and friend relationships because I just don't see that I have anything in common with them and trying to continue just seems a bit of a strain on both sides. 

I am very sensitive to strong emotions in others and can be influenced by them. I have a high sensitivity to touch and cut the tags out of clothes. Certain smells really affect me. I hate people standing or sitting too close.

I hate the word "disorder" in  the term ASD and refuse to be classified as "disabled". My perception of autism is that it is a label which refers mainly to the difficulties created  for Aspies by social constructs, both  physical - busy roads, supermarkets, offices, public transport, etc - and relational - being expected to want to join in with small talk, group activities, etc. We do have different patterns of thinking, but everyone is different. When we're alone we're not autistic. We are unique individuals who add to the total of human experiences. I like Temple Grandin's observation - if it weren't for the creativity and innovation of autistic people, the human race would still be standing around in caves making small talk.

Parents
  • Good post Pixiefox!

    I definitely relate to having spent decades modelling others as best I could, which has provided success for me at work. Also the paradox of being a people pleaser & "thoroughly nice chap" but having no friends.

    I have a metaphor in my mind for how these personalities grew on the bare structure of "me"; imagine an evergreen tree growing year after year and gathering more and more foliage, perhaps with leaves and blossom and paper bags blown on the wind sticking to the tree over the years. That was me until the weight of all of the leaves became too much, and a nuclear bomb happened to go off nearby and blow *all* of the foliage away, leaving just the trunk and branches; the real me again. There were no mirrors nearby though, so I couldn't see myself. But I did catch glimpses of myself in various shiny things that came by in the form of ideas generated by people on forums like this.

    I'm beginning to see my real self. Some of it isn't pretty. I'm also re-growing my foliage, but carefully choosing the buds that take only a little energy to grow but have the most benefit.

    Who am I *really* underneath? I'm a person fascinated by learning, who loves to invent and test theories, loves analogies and "schemas", has little interest in social traditions & relationships, reacts to people according to what they do and say to me rather than what someone else says about them or what their "position" is, will share almost anything about myself with almost anyone, rejects the traditional macho masculine stereotype, has struggled with depression and anxiety for 20 years or more, and believes that ASD explains my life better than anything else that I've heard of. I too see patterns and connections, and I have an inherent sense of logic, but my knowledge is very specific to certain things so I'm not a polymath. I'm middle-aged but parts of me are still 18. I'm slightly demand-avoidant, especially where traditions are concerned. I struggle with alexithymia, and yet can sob in reaction to films like Titanic and A Star is Born & even Disney animations. I have a good long term memory for things that interest me ("The state of maximum multiplicity lies lowest" - remembered from Chemistry A-level!) but can forget who's related to who in my own family. I have poor working memory, I think. I might also have aphantasia.

    I'm fascinated by grammar (that's not to say that I don't make mistakes!) and etymology, but have little interest in literature. Seeing "Your, you're, their, there, they're" misused almost hurts!

    I could go on - and that's another trait!

    I had a similar idea to yours by the way in that all of the effort that's been put into studying the impacts of autism (at least the stuff that I'm aware of i.e. commonly available and discussed on the web) has been around diagnostic criteria. But I don't know of much around the *impacts* and how these might relate to common profiles. So for example, is social communication difficulty a primary cause or is it a result of sensory and cognitive differences? How might such things be grouped into "primary causes" and "secondary effects"? How might profiles look if we all took a survey and rated the huge range of sensory, cognitive, social impacts for e.g.? The closest I've seen to this is the Aspie Quiz at rdos.net - but that doesn't really give an understandable and relatable profile. I guess what I'm thinking of is something like Myers Briggs but for ASD traits & with a bit more finesse than 16 character types.

Reply
  • Good post Pixiefox!

    I definitely relate to having spent decades modelling others as best I could, which has provided success for me at work. Also the paradox of being a people pleaser & "thoroughly nice chap" but having no friends.

    I have a metaphor in my mind for how these personalities grew on the bare structure of "me"; imagine an evergreen tree growing year after year and gathering more and more foliage, perhaps with leaves and blossom and paper bags blown on the wind sticking to the tree over the years. That was me until the weight of all of the leaves became too much, and a nuclear bomb happened to go off nearby and blow *all* of the foliage away, leaving just the trunk and branches; the real me again. There were no mirrors nearby though, so I couldn't see myself. But I did catch glimpses of myself in various shiny things that came by in the form of ideas generated by people on forums like this.

    I'm beginning to see my real self. Some of it isn't pretty. I'm also re-growing my foliage, but carefully choosing the buds that take only a little energy to grow but have the most benefit.

    Who am I *really* underneath? I'm a person fascinated by learning, who loves to invent and test theories, loves analogies and "schemas", has little interest in social traditions & relationships, reacts to people according to what they do and say to me rather than what someone else says about them or what their "position" is, will share almost anything about myself with almost anyone, rejects the traditional macho masculine stereotype, has struggled with depression and anxiety for 20 years or more, and believes that ASD explains my life better than anything else that I've heard of. I too see patterns and connections, and I have an inherent sense of logic, but my knowledge is very specific to certain things so I'm not a polymath. I'm middle-aged but parts of me are still 18. I'm slightly demand-avoidant, especially where traditions are concerned. I struggle with alexithymia, and yet can sob in reaction to films like Titanic and A Star is Born & even Disney animations. I have a good long term memory for things that interest me ("The state of maximum multiplicity lies lowest" - remembered from Chemistry A-level!) but can forget who's related to who in my own family. I have poor working memory, I think. I might also have aphantasia.

    I'm fascinated by grammar (that's not to say that I don't make mistakes!) and etymology, but have little interest in literature. Seeing "Your, you're, their, there, they're" misused almost hurts!

    I could go on - and that's another trait!

    I had a similar idea to yours by the way in that all of the effort that's been put into studying the impacts of autism (at least the stuff that I'm aware of i.e. commonly available and discussed on the web) has been around diagnostic criteria. But I don't know of much around the *impacts* and how these might relate to common profiles. So for example, is social communication difficulty a primary cause or is it a result of sensory and cognitive differences? How might such things be grouped into "primary causes" and "secondary effects"? How might profiles look if we all took a survey and rated the huge range of sensory, cognitive, social impacts for e.g.? The closest I've seen to this is the Aspie Quiz at rdos.net - but that doesn't really give an understandable and relatable profile. I guess what I'm thinking of is something like Myers Briggs but for ASD traits & with a bit more finesse than 16 character types.

Children
  • @i'm done with Christmascards This resonates with me, I think my traits are pretty similar. But I kind of think that masking is part of me now, not just an add-on - I'm totally different on my own, calm and creative - but talking to NTs needs a lot of masking and I like to feel part of the world. It's hard for me to make friends and I can't imagine really spending *all* my life in a closed room even if I could afford to. I work partly because it's preferable to benefits hell but it's also the only company I have most weeks. And the way I structure my life. I hate it, it makes me ill, but even if I didn't have to work I'd still do something to feel connected. It's a revelation being around other AS people and talk about it openly for the first time, it's the first time I've had the space even to think about who I really am or would like to be. Mostly I'm just desperate for empty space and rest. I want balance, I want to be connected to the world but not in the grinding, stressful, miserable way of struggling to mask till I'm half dead from fatigue - but still feeling weird and excluded. Talking with other AS people is the first time I've ever felt like a social equal.