PLease delete this as requested

please...

PLease delete as requested

By "personal" I meant that there would be some emotional understanding between the teacher and pupil. i.e. that the teacher had an inkling into how the pupil felt about how the learning process was going. This is where the non-verbal signals, expression, posture, attentiveness etc, would come in for an NT person. You have implied that you managed the whole thing verbally without using this social communication channel. Have I misunderstood?

Blimey, when I was at school I always felt the teacher was addressing me personally. i didn't realise it could have been so automatic and rehearsed. Your method boils down to an intensely, and exclusively, verbal interaction so you could ignore the non-verbal stuff that we really struggle with.

Did you not have challenging students who tried to engage you in off-script conversation? What subject did you teach?

Did you find it easy when you were regurgitating the script for a play? I have always struggled to learn any lines and always have to think everything out from first principles so interviews are often a nightmare. Do you think you have very special skills in memorising scripts?

your approach seems like such enormous effort. Keeping up the masquerade must have been exhausting.

You need to be able to present all of this detail and context when you get to diagnosis.

I'm struggling with thinking about your teaching career. Did this not need you to observe and react to pupils' non verbal communications? Did you teach in a school where the standards of discipline and behaviour were exceptionally high?

You also, perhaps, had an expressive face for your acting? Neither teaching nor acting sound like suitable careers for someone with difficulty in social communication and social imagination.

Hi recomb,

I am teacher -  an 'outstanding' one by all accounts.  High performing form the very beginning  - i just 'get it'.  The duality of performing, whilst running a secondary dialogue - i.e assessing what is going on/making decsions based on the room,/imdividuals responses whilst 'performing' - i.e teaching/delivering information to hold attention and impart a key message is just second nature. 

Shocks or traumas - Fell out of a tree and landed on my head when I was about 10 ish.  Was kept in over night because the doctors were concerned that whilst stitching my noggin back up under a local, I just stared at them and didn't flinch. They told Mum they were keeping me in becasue they were worried about brain damage - but releases me the next day.

Dad left when I was 14 - we had a bad relationship.  

Tony Atwood talks  about 'imitation' and how aspies imitate from very early on and are often so accomplished they become actors.  Guess what I was for 15 years before a teacher :)

There are numerous pointers in the literature about appearing to have friends, or appearing popular. And your mother might be trying to see things that way to reassure you.

Quite often, when observed, the child on the spectrum was less befriended than that he/she had a nice house to go round to, interesting toys, a better television, more videos etc. The "friends" took advantage rather than shared involvement.

You can be popular but for the wrong reasons - because you are entertaining to hang about with to see if you'll do something daft.

But some biographies of young people on the spectrum they have been personable, genuinely popular, and perhaps lucky with supportive friends.

I don't see that being able to impersonate people precludes autism. Indeed being good at acting out roles might be a way of compensating for poor interactive social skills.

Your mother's evidence perhaps contradicts the ASD theory. My earlier agreement with this suspicion looks less sound now. I'm not a psych and you can't come to a proper diagnosis in a conversation like this.

What do you do at work?

Have you suffered any shocks or traumas?

There is Social Anxiety Disorder but I'm not sure that fits your story.

I could do with all your opinions please - just been talking to my mother.... about my childhood ( I have been pumping her for info without telling her why).

She could remember the stim I have awlays done - rubbing material between my fingers. Apparantly I have done this since being very little - and I still do it.  The things she talked about that relate to possible ASD are:

• I liked things 'just so'  'right' and would get very upset when things went 'wrong'.'Change really threw you'. I was pedantic.
• I didn't like the feel of sand.
• I would go 'on and on' if I had something in my head.
• I was 'intellegent' and 'hard work' always on the go phsyically and mentally
• She really rmemebers I could not play on my own - I needed her to play.
• I was a very early talker
• Teachers said I 'had a block with maths'- from Reception. all through schooling
• No fear would just jump off things - always climbing /jumping/running
• I didn't like sport
• Left a playgroup at 2 1/2  - just cried in corner.  mum stopped me going and took me back at 3 - i was ok then

These are the bits that don't seem to fit though - 

• I was very popular. Everyone liked me.
• Assertive and would talk to people. 'Cocky'
• Performed in school assemblies from very early on - impersonating people off the TV (dionne Warwick, Kenny Evertt, Bobby Ball ) I was happy to perform

A bit thrown by the second bit.  Was feeling pretty convicned I was heading to an ASD diagnosis. I still feel like I have always been performing - not being me.  

Do you think the second info precludes me from a diagnosis?  

Thanks so much.

stim? Not heard of that term yet!

I'm only at the stage of having an appointment to see the "gatekeeper" to the serious autism specialist. The process here seems to be to get a quick check and if they think you may have autism pg some form you get referred on to the head honcho, who understandably has a massive waiting list.

Hi Chuck, I feel a diagnosis would be very beneficial to me. The need to know/understand is very important to me.  To be honest, I feel like a non-diagnosis will devastate me. Everything seems like it is starting to make sense - not any easier or anything, just that it makes sense. If this isn't it - wtf?!

I find I am becoming very aware of my stims now and catch myself at them all the time - which is weird because I then immediately stop them. This morning on my walk to work I allowed myself to 'feel' them and they are quite comforting! I say 'feel' them becasue I was not aware of them before a couple of days ago - even though when I learned the term - I could immediately list them. Bizarre huh?!

I am very aware of noise and light at the moment - sitting in a crowded place the sounds of talking etc are quite all encompassing aren't they?  I can see why I stim. This is the part I worry about really - am I noticing sounds now becuase I know that is a part of it and I want to be diagnosed, or, because now I understand more, I can realise that sounds overwhelm me becasue they do, it's just I have just never realised what was wrong?  Chicken and egg!

Onward and upward.  What stage of the diagnosis are you at?

S'good to talk innit.

I'll add to this as well. I am just in the process of getting diagnosis started, although I am fairly sure I am aspergic. 

Your post sounds similar to mine, although you have a few more extreme points there (not meant offensively). 

I completely understand when you say the more you look into it, the more you feel you might be making things up. The more I have read the more I think "my god that sounds just like me" or "aha! that would explain why X keeps happening". But then the rational side of me thinks "you're just being stupid, or lazy. Everyone feels like that and they just don't talk about it". 

Although I agree a diagnosis would be great because it would stop those negative thoughts and would allow me and maybe yourself to accept who you are and why, but there is always the risk I suppose, that if you get told there's nothing wrong with you, that it might be hard to accept. I know it would be for me. But after what feels like years and years of anguish, it is worth the risk.

Good luck

The more I think about it, the more I realise that more incidents in my upbringing and work life are related to the condition. I keep thinking "Oh, so that's why X happened". I find this OK and it's like having the solution to a puzzle that I didn't realise that I was living through. With the insight that a diagnosis can bring, you can learn to avoid some (not all!) of the snafus that tripped you up in the past.

A number of people here complain that the charade of pretending to be normal is exhausting and stressful. If you get a diagnosis then you can perhaps try a little less hard to keep up appearances.

Welcome home!

You have described a very classic presentation of autisism/Aspergers. It can be useful to have a printed list of issues when you go to see the doctor. Your post, above, will serve admirably for this purpose.

I would recommend a book "Living Well on the Spectrum" by Valerie Gaus for an excellent way of understanding your differences and then working out how to make the most of yourself with your condition.

The diagnosis can be a revelation - it was for me - and can be used to explain but how things can go wrong.

:-)