What am I?

NAS20054 said:

It is one of the things I struggle with in communication is that I always seem to come across as arguing fighting creating conflict disagreeing, being rude, being politically incorrect, being offensive, being sarcastic etc etc. When I think all I am doing is having an indepth analytical conversation.

That makes two of us! I ended up getting a diagnosis because of all of those issues. I am glad Aspergerix has agreed that we weren't fighting - I had no intent to start a fight but I know I come across as undiplomatic (to say the least) at times. To me, these issues, related to lack of social abilities, are the real central issue arising from autism. The other stuff about repetitive interests or obsessions etc are just by-products of having a somewhat limited social life. Just my 2p though.

Autism is one aspect of who we are. I also count

- Honesty

- Persistence

- Logic

- Social mindedness

- Sympathy

amongst my strengths with

- Inability to run

- Dislike of swimming and anything too watery or cold

- being moderately unfit

- etc

as weaknesses along with all of the autism elated issues

Everyone is a unique permutation of all of these different attributes which have to be considered when deciding on how to think of onesself.

Thanks everyone for your replies - it makes interesting reading.

I think I'm confused because I have a strongly analytical mind and so have been trying to work out where I fit in.

I like many non AS people; I share some interests with them and a few - who appear to have some Aspie traits - even share some of my insecurities, such as needing things done a certain way or not particularly enjoying parties or going out drinking. They seem to like me too, but can appear a bit baffled by some of my behaviour and interests. There's not the same feeling of being on the same wavelength as I get when I communicate with my partner or best friend (AQ scores 36 and 29 respectively). 

TV programmes about Autistic people mostly feature those with more severe difficulties - non verbal children with challenging behaviour,  savants, adults who cannot cope with life outside an institution. I've only seen a small segment of a BBC documentary which featured someone who appeared more like me - she was also filmed at home with her partner and it was explained that they both have Aspergers. When asked about why they got together, he said quite candidly that for him it was initially because he wanted to have sex. Their relationship seemed to me to be portrayed as unemotional and purely practical in nature. However I'm quite emotional and easily hurt

I think I should just see myself as an individual who just happens to have green eyes, a short body and an Aspie brain. After all, I have a colleague who is severely colour blind, but I wouldn't refer to him as "the colour blind guy", any more than I would expect anyone to refer to me as "the Aspie woman" 

It's helpful to have people to discuss it with who understand though. 

I have to agree with everything you say, Aspergerix.  Life would be so much simpler if people could simply say what they mean instead of having to allude to it: communication seems to have become weirdly inverted where we don't say what we mean to say but instead allude to it, because allusion is more obvious and acceptable whereas straightforward speaking is more likely to be misinterpreted and construed as unacceptable.  What a strange world we live in, though it's always been like that, I guess: etiquette is the eternal gude to navigating the minefield of indirect communication or lack thereof.

For the record, I don't think I've misinterpreted what you have to say and it's nicely to the point.  There are matters where I may feel inclined to interject when it comes to the subjective interpretation of a particular word, disorder being a good one as I tend to see it as more of a disorder of society than the individual (and even then I wonder if I'm possibly being slightly disingenuous) but it's always nice to see somebody saying what they mean instead of trying to guess what they might be getting at.  Because I'm not very good at guessing games.

I did't think you were arguing at all!  And if I suggested that in any way, it's because I was being facetious, which often gets me into trouble.

I think your example of the point being increasingly refined is a good one, and that autism is at about the level of "I have a car".  I was about to say that maybe in contrast to "I have a bike", but perhaps my clumsy attempt to extend your analogy goes a bit wrong because ASD and NT people share many traits but Ford don't make bikes.

Argh.  I was going to add more but all I'm adding more of is obfuscation.  Maybe I should stop. D:

NAS22687 said:

It allows me to be myself.

And that is the benefit of the diagnosis for me.

NAS18906 said:

Labels and categorisation are one of the cornerstones of language and our mechanisms for understanding things, like ourselves, in a scientific and systematic way. We use categories all of the time to separate cats from dogs, introverts from extroverts, people with autism from people who are not autistic. Autism is just one part of ourselves and it is only useful to apply the label if it helps us to think about that part of ourselves in a useful or helpful way. Personally I find it useful to be able to read books about that particular aspect of myself. It has helped me to make sense of my problems with dealing with the world. I find this label immensely useful and helpful. It is only part of me and does not define "me" to the point where someone else can understand who I am from that label alone.

I have mixed feelings about the subject and I agree with you both.  Which is terribly uncharacteristic of me, so I'll disagree with you both and get into a fight!  Yay! :D

ahem.  Er anyway, yes, likewise, having an ASD diagnosis has been an enormous help to me making sense of why I'm the way I am, but also who am am too.  Obviously not just the diagnosis, I mean that just put a punctuation mark on it, but the knowledge that ASD was a feature was extremely helpful and in particular it gave me a counter-argument to people who said I'm not the way I "should" be.  It allows me to be myself.

But the label thing can be a mixed blessing, and is one reason I'd rejected the idea it might be a thing: I had totally the wrong idea about autism and thought it was a rigid, fixed thing that if I admitted it would also come to define my personality, which I didn't want because I'm me, not a tick-in-a-box.  It was only when an online acquaintaince (incidentally, who directed me here: hi, if you're reading!) described her brother's autism in the context of him being another video game fan that the penny dropped and even something as trivial as that meant a person could coexist outside of the narrow confines I'd previously assumed.  So now I get it, but previously the label was attached to a very small box that didn't give a lot of scope for individuality.  Were there any doubt she also pointed out that we're very, very different people.

NAS20054 said:

Every psychiatric intervention should be bespoke and in fact there should be no labels at all.

Labels and categorisation are one of the cornerstones of language and our mechanisms for understanding things, like ourselves, in a scientific and systematic way. We use categories all of the time to separate cats from dogs, introverts from extroverts, people with autism from people who are not autistic. Autism is just one part of ourselves and it is only useful to apply the label if it helps us to think about that part of ourselves in a useful or helpful way. Personally I find it useful to be able to read books about that particular aspect of myself. It has helped me to make sense of my problems with dealing with the world. I find this label immensely useful and helpful. It is only part of me and does not define "me" to the point where someone else can understand who I am from that label alone.

Hi Pixiefox,

Yes you are autistic. The people in the home have autism but they also probably have low IQ and other issues that mean that they can't manage in the community. Their autism and IQ problems may be so profound that they cannot even learn basic social etiquette. If you 'just' have autism then you may well appear to be 'normal' and it can be very confusing - as you are finding.

Hi Pixiefot

You are a person.  Life seems to be about labelling things for simplicity of others. 

You have scored 40 and this is a good indicator. How do other people perceive you - as a 'normal' person or a bit 'strange' or 'random'? 

Autism covers a large range of 'symptoms' and personalities and range of abilities.   Doctors can have ASD and I'm sure they learn how to respect boundaries. Some on the other end of the scale may not.   Learning difficulties co-exist with those on the lower end of the autistic spectrum and I also wonder if its that these learning difficulties are the reason for the fascination with bosoms that occur in the care home rather than simply they are 'Autistic'.

The only way you can be sure of whether you have ASD is to have a proper diagnosis. And this is not easy to get as an adult in my experience - I am waiting a private diagnosis myself as my local NHS does not seem interested in diagnosing adults.

It is not odd to me that you enjoy Dr Who.  Who sets these 'normalities' anyway!    I also enjoy Dr Who. And Blue Peter for that matter.   And I am 61. 

I think you probably have learned to "fit in" with typical social situations as many of us do; occasionally I even enjoy them, although they're hard work and really rather tiring.  Which I think leads on to your other point where those ASD-type traits start to come out when you're not really able to be on top form: nobody is when they're being subjected to any sort of stress, bullying or whatever.  So it all sounds really pretty normal to me.  I mean normal for ASD.  Speaking as a total non-expert whose only knowledge is talking to a few other ASD-type people!

It is a scale, though, or perhaps more correctly a graph with several axes (no, I'm not going to try to imagine a multi-dimensional graph because I'll end up with a headache).  Some people will find it much harder to adapt or cope with everyday life and the people you'll find in a care home will likely be the ones who struggle most with thats sort of thing.  As to some of the observed habits, I'm not sure if autism would lead to that degree of disinhibition and/or poor judgement or if that's just an unrelated personality trait.

Where other conditions are concerned, I think it's common to have stuff like ADD and dyspraxia as well as various other things like depression and anxiety, but at least some of these could be picked up over the course of one's life if it isn't exactly ideal, and my own recent diagnosis made those exact points, though whether that's all or some of them, I'm not certain.  And I guess we're all different anyway: I wouldn't get too hung up on what someone else's ASD looks like, just whether you feel you fit that pattern and if a diagnosis would help you.  I think in my case it has helped me better understand myself and gives me some validation, and on the way there I did start to realise that people with ASD are as varied and different as those without.  In fact my failure to understand that is probably one of the major reasons I put off getting a diagnosis for so long.