Beginning to suspect i have Aspergers

OK Ocean, now all you need to do is weigh up 'reasons for' alongside 'reasons against'.

Jon:

I would want a diagnosis so that i don't feel like a fraud.  So that i can access help if i need it.  It may help my son.

I wouldn't want a diagnosis because i hate doctors and everything associated with them.  I think the process of getting a diagnosis would be horribly stressful.
 

Ha!

Autismtwo:  Answers to yr questions:

1)  I hate getting my hair cut.  Hairdressers are one of the lower pits of hell (but not quite as bad as dentists).  Bright lights.  Having to sit in front of yourself reflected in a big mirror.  Some woman wearing too much makeup poking about at your head.  Small talk.  Hair going down the back of your neck.  Your hair being different at the end of it all..... and they want you to pay them for this?!!

I stopped going years ago.  I have a friend who cuts my hair now.  I know her and trust her.  She comes to my house.  I still don't like it and i've not had a hair cut for over a year.

2) Tricky one.  I do love my parents but i find them really hard work.  I get on with my Mum now by going into a kind of vacant space and avoiding talking about anything real.  We didn't get on at all for ages.  We have some common ground since i've had a baby but i feel like a different species mostly.  If i'm really honest, i think she's a bit stupid/simple.  I call/visit them more out of a sense of duty than anything else.

3) Difficult to answer this one.  To general.   
Sometimes.  Depends on where and who.
This one is really complex.
The best answer is probably.... not really.
I can do it but it eats a lot of energy.  
Small groups of people i don't know are probably the worst.  It's more difficult to hide in a small group.  

4)  Also difficult to answer. 
Eye contact with my partner is fine. (Although sometimes he can haved changed his appearance - like trimming his beard - and i don't notice for ages because i haven't really been looking at him!)
Sometimes it's ok and sometimes it's really uncomfortable.

I guess there are a couple of things that really confuse the issue.

I have trained myself very dilligently for a long time.
Most of the people i know are hippies of one sort or another.
The hippy world has a much broader deffinition of reality than main stream society.  A wider spectrum of behaviour is accepted.

I wrote this in a facebook conversation earlier today:
(Ember is my partner, Eli is my son)

The last couple of weeks have seen the culmination of a thought process that has been gestating for a very long time. 
Being with Ember has helped me relax into myself. Drop some of the survival mechanisms, pretences etc. We 'get' each other.
Then Eli came along and the survival mechanisms have been thrown into total disarray. I struggle to cope quite a bit and really don't know how i would manage if i wasn't lucky enough to have Ember home with me.
I'm tired a lot. The frustrations and anxieties are more difficult to keep on top of. 
Finding a place to live has always been a huge problem. I can't do town….street lights, noise i can't control, people, busyness, so many things to read everywhere, conversations i can't help listening to….it's overwhelming. So i like it out in the countryside where it's quiet and i can choose to see people or not…. But out here with a baby is really hard. Trying to go to mother and baby groups…. basically being forced to go somewhere strange, meet new people and do 'polite small talk'…. i feel like an alien.

I could go on! Long and the short of it is that having a baby has forced me to address this head on.

It's been a little scary and overwhelming but……

Mostly it's hugely liberating. It makes sense of soooo many things. There is grief for all the struggle and trying hard and just sheer effort it has taken to try fit in n be 'normal', accepted etc….. The weight of low level, background anxiety that has to be adapted to…

Finally, i can put all of that down and just be me. I don't have to play a role anymore. I don't have to try to fool myself anymore. I don't have to feel guilty for being me. I no longer have to stage the production 'Ocean the stage play' and keep people at a distance so they don't see the stuff behind the scenes.

Phew! What a relief!

a good place top start:

why would you want a diagnosis?

why would you not want a diagnosis?

flip a coin, heads get a diagnosis, tails get a diagnosis,, reason..,  because the stats have shown that this condition of autism goes under the radar and thus the more people come forward the better it is for all. Basically you are hidding your conditional problems by cognitive thinking and long-term that is not good for you. If you are coping day to day without any social interpersonal or coping issues  in the background, you do not have aspergers.

I have a few key questions for you, if you wish to answer..

1.) do like getting haircuts

2.) do you have an high attachment to your parents, especially mother

3.) do you like meeting new people or going new places

4.) how is your eye contact

Lets call this the back alley assessment, that does right does it lol see what I mean ASSBERGERS !