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. I'm in a similar situation to you but I'm a decade or so older. I also did the test recently (and many times over the years), and always score 43-44.
If it helps, my 30s was when I found social situations much easier than in my 20s. I seemed to make fewer social faux pas, although I was always conscious of making mistakes and still did on a number of occasions. However in my 30s I got married and became a father, and I found my neuroses came to the fore at home instead. Now I was sharing an environment with others!
I just turned 40 and decided I needed to get to the bottom of this, and am seeking a diagnosis. Do yourself a favour; although you have to be careful of confirmation bias, I would still say that judging by your symptoms you should seek a diagnosis and further help. You don't want to get to my age and then realise you don't want to spend the second half of your life not knowing.