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.
That's okay, perhaps there will be other articles that you could relate to. I understand what your explaining my partner also says similar things. One thing I always ask him when he says he can not do/feel something is, do you want to? Do you want to feel empathy to the extent to others do? Do you want a relationship? Do you want to add you feelings to things in a artistic way?
I think from the point of view from someone with out AS to understand that you want to do something or feel something is enough, I know finding a way to express the fact you want to unless your comfortable with saying out aloud might prove difficult, my partner uses text. And even if I don't feel he loves me or cares about my problems knowing he wants to comforts me.
This might not be enough for everyone though. Regarding you pushing people away my partner does the same every month I call it his aspergers period, so every week or two I spend a few days with my family to give him time and space to himself and he also goes out while im there to, as do I.
You not having relationships with people may not all be down to just you, other people need to know what you want exactly to understand how to maintain a relationship perhaps if they have not known about your AS or not understood it that may have been the problem in the past.
Communication is key, even if you have to write them a letter, end them a email or text helping them helps you.
This is only if you want relationships with other of course.
Also just to let you know if there is anything that I say, that doesn't make sense or spelling is incorrect I have dyslexia.