Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi,
I am a 29 year old man and I always thought I was different. I struggle to socialise, have intense specific interests that change frequently, I love numbers and facts, I dont like change, I am often described as overly logical and emotionless, I like to tap rythmically and rub my teeth with my hands alot even in public, I hate phone calls and emails and just avoid them, I eat the same foods daily, I hate crowds and loud noises, I am all or nothing kind of guy, I struggle to tell if people are serious or joking etc. I have several times been asked by stangers if I am autistic. My partner and friend have for years told me they thought I was autistic, I brushed it off thinking I was just a strange guy.
Alot of these traits help me preform in my work but as I have become older they have affected my personal life more and more. I have very little friends and have no idea how to maintain or make new ones, my relationships have become strained because of this. Despite being better educated, more academic and better perfromers at my work place my lack of social skills has lead me to fall behind in work. I have felt more aniexty towards these things and daily life, particularly social interaction. I find myself increasingly exhausted with the complex rules of normal life and only really feeling myself reading my books or examining my collections in my room alone.
I do not have very good emotional intelligence, I am rarely self aware of my own feelings and why they are there. Often I will not feel emotions when other people would or much delayed after an incident. As things were getting worse I mustered my courage and I spoke with my partner about this. She and my friend asked me to take something called a AQ(Autism spectrum quotient), ASSQ (Autism spectrum screenign questionaire) and EQ (Empathy Quoteint) test for autsim off the website https://psychology-tools.com/ which i basically got top marks indicating autism on all of them. I am not sure how accurate these are so I asked them to take it too. They scored the opposite of me, so I asked them to help me with the test incase I had answer wrong and again I got top marks. This led me to watch some videos on youtube by Aspergers from the inside about autistic peoples experiences and how to tell if you have it. I found it resonated with me alot.
I would love to find out if I have autism for sure and speak to a doctor, but I have doubts. I live a fairly normal life and work as a police officer. I cant possibly do these things and have autism surely? I am just so unsure if I am just blowing this out of portion and trying to find a label for my strangness or potentially other disorders. I dont want to waste a doctors time or have them not believe me and i certianly dont want to pursue a diagonsis for no reason as it would surely effect my job.
Does anyone know how accurate these test are? and if there is a way to tell if i am just blowing this all out of portion?
Thanks guys.
Hi there, I am in a similar position, in a professional job too, if you do have highly functioning autism 'Aspergers' you will be able to hold down a professional job, but there will be leakage, which you are probably able to mask well, hence the 'highly functioning' bit. I would suggest navigating around this website for the information that you need to see your GP, there's even an explanation letter that I used for my GP; as there are many GPs who are not that knowledgeable about the condition. You have to dig about a bit on the site to find certain info, but it is excellent and the best place for accuracy. Once my GP referred me to the mental health service and then to the specialist ASD service, I had all the said questionnaires along the way. They are evidence based and quite reliable. These services are very expensive, so you won't progress down this route without good reason. I don't know how it will affect your job or whether this needs to. Best wishes