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What am i ?

NAS79808

I am a 55 year old married man and have been seeing a therapist for anxiety for about 6 months. After about 10 hours of CBT was suggested that I may have ADHD. So after lots of form filling i went off for "the test" with my sister so they could establish any developmental link. After an hour the doctor informally diagnosed me with ASD Level 1 or Aspergers. Im fine with that, but i feel it doesnt completely fit.

I have a few friends with Aspergers. None of them understand my nuanced jokes. My sarcasm (default mode for me) never gets picked up either by them. Unfortunately im usually the one explaining/ruining the nuanced/sarcastic joke to my ASD friends. I dont typically miss subtle social cues either and can read facial expressions at a glimpse. Idioms like through the baby out with the bathwater never annoy or confuse me either. I did the online Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) test and got 17. However I have always had a stutter and get overwhelmed very easily.

Masking as a life long stutterer is second nature to me. I have stims and usually hide them. I have spent my whole life trying to appear fluent, but feel that im always put in the 'weird' category.

Does the stutter tick the communication box of a ASD diagnosis. Can someone mask so much that they can teach themselves nuance and facial expressions OR

Is it possible for someone to have ASD, but not display any of these subtle comprehension problems ?

Please dont hold back. I dont offend easily. The earliest appointment with my therapist is 4 weeks away and i dont know who else to ask.

Parents

  • No single autistic individual has all the traits that have been ascribed to autism. Every autistic is a patchwork of traits, difficulties and abilities. I get sarcasm and irony, I'm also very good at faces and expressions. I'm poor at body language, however. Even social difficulties can be overcome with intellect, which is where autistics differ from neurotypicals, who do these things subconsciously. For example, I make good eye contact with people, but I do it consciously, I time duration and when it is appropriate to make or break it. I have learnt what people find comfortable. For about 99% of the time, when I'm in public, I pass as neurotypical, but it comes at a price, exhaustion. Doing apparently neurotypical stuff using the intellect is just tiring. When I was working, my family suffered, as I needed a lot of time when at home just being alone, in order to recover from all the effort of socialising at work.

  • in reply to Martin

    It’s like your telling my story. I can do everything, but it just makes me tired. That’s so reassuring. 
    Thank you.

  • in reply to NAS79808

    Happy to be useful. I'm diagnosed as autistic, but there are times that I doubt that I am, I think that imposter syndrome is quite common in autistic people who manage to function reasonably well in society. It often surfaces when having an interaction with someone who is more obviously debilitated by their autism. I have a useful way of combatting these feelings, as I have a very specific sensory problem with touching nylon fabric. It revolts me at a visceral level, I feel like curling up and dying, I just think about that and realise that I am definitely not neurotypical.

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  • in reply to NAS79808

    Happy to be useful. I'm diagnosed as autistic, but there are times that I doubt that I am, I think that imposter syndrome is quite common in autistic people who manage to function reasonably well in society. It often surfaces when having an interaction with someone who is more obviously debilitated by their autism. I have a useful way of combatting these feelings, as I have a very specific sensory problem with touching nylon fabric. It revolts me at a visceral level, I feel like curling up and dying, I just think about that and realise that I am definitely not neurotypical.

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