Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi, I'm Dan.
I'm in my late 30s and have assumed I was somewhere on the spectrum for a long time. I recently had a non-clinical assessment carried out by a suitably qualified professional using the Adult Asperger Assessment tool. The overall result was a score of 14, so a clearly positive assessment. For those familiar with the test my score was broken down as A-4, B-3, C-5, D-2 with AQ and EQ scores of 48 and 1 (yes, one) respectively.
I've joined this site as part of my efforts to try and work out what to do with this information. Not having had a formal clinical diagnosis, I'm currently aiming to deal with any issues I have without clinical support. Unsuprisingly, looking at my assessment results, most of my difficulties in life stem from dealing with other people. That said, I have a successful career in engineering and believe it or not most of my work these days is involved with managing large projects so I am forced to deal with people every day.
The recent assessment has brought my characteristics into sharper focus than ever before. Traits that I've not been aware of are now blindingly obvious to me and those I already knew about seem to be harder to ignore. One of these traits is that I apparently talk about myself far too much, so I'll stop for now. Thanks for reading.
Thanks for the reply. The link made intereseting reading, but I could not relate with the majority of it. Please don't take this a negative comment, I understand that people on the spectrum are so varied that I wouldn't expect to relate to everything.
The author has obviously manage to cultivate and maintain relationships sufficiently to have a child and get married, neither of which I could possibly contemplate - I cannot tolerate other people for long enough (that's assuming they haven't wandered off first). I have the rather annoying contradiction of feeling alone, but not liking to spend extended time with other people. I've read many times that a common misconception is that someone with autism has no or little empathy, but for me this is actually the case - if someone's emotions are borne out of logical reasons then I can at least understand, and perhaps even predict them, but that's my limit.
I am also not at all artistic, when I have learned to play an instument it has been much like a computer would do - I can make sounds, I can read music, I can reproduce something that I have heard, I can recreate someone else's inotonation and phrasing, I cannot create, I cannot add my own "feeling". I do however take pleasure from music, but mostly in an abstract way - lyrics mean nothing to me unless they are funny, it's all about the sound and my interpretation of it.
There I go again.