Published on 12, July, 2020
So I was Diagnosed with HF ASD Sub-type in 2015 (16yo at the time, 18yo).
I am being reassessed again hopefully before september as I am going to universiy, to study psychology, coincidentally.
So I was given the AQ and EQ tests, a well being test an what appears to be an ADHD screening test.
I have already done the AQ and EQ, SQ and Reading The Mind in The Eyes
AQ: 34/50
EQ: 76/80
SQ: 123/150
RTMiTE: 35/36
So clearly my autism is a strange presentation, I look online and there is nothing, just lack of empathy, lack of TOM, and I have all these, no I have these and they work better than most NTs!
Well my friend, my only friend that is. Countless times accuses me of being psychic, and I mean no I am certainly not, I am just a little unnerving sometimes, especially when it is over the phone or messages, and I know and "hit the nail right on the head". I get told I do that a lot. When I was in secondary school I was always withdrawn and shy, and awkward. All my teachers picked up on my Empathy, it's depth, how I could assume anyone's perspective. One of my Teacher was also head of the Schools Gifted/Talented Programme, they picked up on the empathy, It is almost as if I am gifted in Empathy, and I mean I am mediocre at Maths, at written language, I'm not exactly spatially aware. However, everything has been pooled in abstract/conceptual reasoning and Theory of Mind. I think very laterally, not because I choose to, but because I can't think any other way, I approach engineering problems by thinking about how different engineers think how to do it. For example, or what is the nature of our ability to reason these problems and why has this created a bridge in this shape, irrelevant of the physical constraints?
I mean I do have ASD associated symptoms, I have trouble reciprocating social behaviour, not because I don't understand social interaction but because I am so overwhelmed by it. I was never an innocent child, not one point in my childhood was I not painfully aware of the nature of the people around me, people's eyes are terrifying pits where if I gaze to long than I lose myself for a couple of days, they can also be the most beautiful thing in the world, genuine. I catch myself thinking and acting like people who are not me, and I have to fight back to myself. So eye-contact and socially engaged behaviour is best avoided, I mean of course I function socially, but I can't or won't put myself any further. I also miss a few social cues, because usually I am not facing the person, but is this anymore than the average person?
I am also very hypersensitive, to light, to sound and to olfactory stimuli. I should also note my interests are fairly narrow, being psychology, forensic psychology... so not too narrow, more like very broad. I suppose Neuroscience and Medical stuff are also areas of interest, originally I wanted to be a doctor but my mental health slashed my A-levels down to 3Bs so I am studying psychology instead, get qualified in the relevant area, maybe teach when I most definitely will burn out.
My mannerism are awkward, I am aloof and I am blunt, because I would rather be seperate from people, unless I care about them, and then I might become too attached, I end up blurring with them.
Coincedentally, my humour is dry as a bone, and too sarcastic that even I lose track of the sarcasm occasionally! and I love animals, most of the day is spent talking to my pets right now.
My friend and I were watching Hannibal (TV show) and Will Graham, she accused me of being on a TV show, becoming an actor, I am on the other side of the uncanny valley for this character, haha my dog decided this was the opportune time to jump in between us... So now I was amazed myself because finally a human being who's mind was directly identifiable as like-me. No Empathy needed, I didn't have to leave my mind to understand the characters. Now I have to watch the show routinely otherwise I convince myself I am all sorts of things I am not.
But of Course they are a fictional character, and long nights of searching the internet, research and blogs and books I have found no one quite like me and like the character Will Graham, I wish I could be like most people with aspergers sometimes. I don't want to change who I am, I just want people to say I am autistic for sure, or no I am not. If I can get over the hurdle of accepting how I think, who I am, then I can make myself feel better.
the bits they'd see in you that fit 'autistic' are: long nights searching the internet, few close friends, abnormal social interaction, relates intensely to tv characters, 'special interests' at obsessive level (maybe idk). 'Autistic' as a medical definition means 'comes across as weird in social situations'. There's also a current theory definition - 'no ToM' - and rival ones if you dig - that it's a mental illness, that it derives from having no memory of time, that it's the result of overwhelming sensory input. As you've studied psychology you'll understand what i'm about to say. Autism had a stable definition etc, but then in the 90s that Jessica Kingsley (?name- the publishers is hers) in the UK did a huge survey and found it was a whole spectrum of behaviours and people and that in fact females had it as often as males. So, a big, ecologically valid survey of a representative population etc. This threw the doors wide open. They're still trying to come up with a theoretical response: or rather, because it's open field but there's lots of information and it looks close to being solved, it's attracted lots of ambitious researchers and dons looking to become 'The One Who Solved Autism' (defined what it is). Simon Baron-Cohen is leader of the pack, like Daniel Dennett in philosophy (he and Paul Ekman are a huge part of why it's defined in the way it is, and you have to read up on them to fully understand this: Ekman is rather easier to read!), not because he's solved it but because his argument is a thousand times better exampled and logical than the nearest contender.
You have to pick if you accept the diagnosis or not. Personally, while i accept mine totally, i find it helps me nothing: there's no 'solution', no treatment or therapy, and it actually prevents me getting any help at all for my mental health problems (there's no specialist help in my two thirds of Wales and the Marches and you're not allowed to access non-specialist help, so you could be suicidal and tough, no help (i like whinging)). It's just a name. Any adult knows what's wrong with them, and they don't actually tell you how you come across as weird - if someone's going to bother to diagnose you as weirdly behaved, it would be nice if they told you what it was that stuck out!
In terms of autism, there are a couple of theoreticians who've written books which address it from your experience of the condition. One was a man with an autistic son who theorises it's about being sensorily over-stimulated, his research was just a blog five years ago when i found it but i'm sure it's progressed since then, and the other is Olga somebody who's written three books on amazon about autism as a triad of impairments, of which the one on sensory impairments is the one you want, that's the one people praise and has that theory in it. I've not read it as i'm sick of sensory stuff as i have none, and it's not on torrents.
In personal terms, you should research being an Empath. It's a big thing on the internet, like ASMR (and chemtrails being by aliens, i see the flaw in this argument) but it's not a thing at all in psychiatry, so your doctor can't diagnose you with it. Which is good, things should be well proven before they get in the DSM. But means you'll have to find your help and self-definition and stuff yourself. There seems to be a lot of it about though, so you should be able to find ok stuff. Like autism, the biggest problem is how most of it is in America: i do find it makes more sense to stick to British for some things (book reviews, social stuff that relates to real life).
I think you have to accept a diagnosis as being a specialist's best efforts going on the information presented. (I told the during the interview that discussing mental illness was absolutely humiliating for me and that's why i couldn't look at them, nevertheless they told me at the follow-up that i was 'remarkably cured' because i could now look at them: i find it humiliating how they don't believe half the things you say, yet fully believe the other half). You described yourself the behaviours that would fit the definition, clearly you scored enough points; in removing personal bias from psychiatry ('typical hysterical older woman') they've also removed all individual judgement (outlawed both) which can be tiresome if you feel actually the professional isn't an abuser but very intelligent and helpful and you're an adult not fragile porcelaine and you'd really like their personal opinion: getting that even from the lowest rank of nhs worker is like drawing teeth.
Humour and sarcasm: ignore any of that, there's no longer any accepted definition of autistic humour, that dates from before the reassessment of the definition of autism, when it meant boys who only understood language literally and so didn't get jokes or understand metaphors. Doesn't count as proof you aren't i mean.