Functionality in ASD1

[Rasputin]

Sounds like you have issues with communication at times, and in unstructured interactions, but plenty of upsides too. Would you say you are a thinker and practical? You said you can apply ideas?

This is a limitation area for me, not sure if partly through lack of useful education, and also some dyspraxia, but probably the inability to multi task, and left brain right brain disconnect, are most relevant. How are you in those areas?

I am definitely a thinker and practical, and agree with you on difficulties in unstructured interactions. I am horrible at multitasking, and get confused if I am asked to do a list of things at one time. My wife has learned to give me "to do" lists, otherwise nothing much gets done. I am more left brain than right, but I question "why" things are done a certain way.

For example, as Treasurer for my church I changed the accounting methods for compensation because they were not transparent and required periodic adjustments. Even though my method arrived at the same result, was easy to follow, and eliminated the need for adjustments, a huge conflict ensued over my changing the way things had always been done. I became so anxious after being verbally attacked during a board meeting, that I refused reappointment as Treasurer. I could not handle the anxiety. On another occasion where there was extreme centention and conflict I experienced a sudden outbreak of scalp psoriasis and had to excuse myself In the middle of a meeting. It then took 9 months for the psoriasis to go away. My psoriasis tends to be neurologically triggered by anxiety.

 

[Dadamen]

Limited range of interests (for example music)

Music is my weak spot too.

lack of some social skills or lack of interest participating socially (e.g. games), difficulty experiencing or lack of awareness of some emotions myself or in others (e.g. sadness), poor awareness of social cues, literal verbal interpretations which lead to misunderstanding, low level of empathy or understanding of feelings due to high orientation towards logic, difficulty making emotional connections with others, unable to multitask effectively, black and white thinking, poor motor skills (e.g. in typing), and sensory input issues with light and sound. Difficulty managing anxiety during conflicts, maintaining eye contact, smiling for photos, etc. Overly serious in pursuing special interests. I am just off enough that I frustrate the hell out of neurotypicals who can not tolerate individual differences.

you just describe me. Only my sensory issues mostly disappeared and I learned not to take some things litterarly.

 

[wonderingmom]

I’m arriving a little late here... just wanted to say that I found this thread interesting. I’ve come to this forum in info-gathering mode as I decide whether to look into an ASD dx for my son, but although I’m not on the spectrum myself (or at least I’ve never considered that I could be), I actually relate both to the sort of speech/physical action divide described by Thinx and the trouble with conversation in group situations - if it’s a casual conversation with people I don’t know well, I always feel that people jump from subject to subject much too quickly.

What I’m also noticing is that people here on the forum spend a lot of time contemplating the workings of their own brains, which I do constantly myself. I have an ADHD diagnosis, and I’ve always known that my brain works differently than most people’s; but I’d consider myself a “highly sensitive person” - I tune in to other people’s emotional states to an almost debilitating extent if I’m not careful, and I get worn out because I’m constantly tuning in to the unspoken - the stuff that I’m sure a person is thinking even when they’re saying something different - and theorizing about their intentions in saying what they do. As a child, I was constantly asking my mom (who tended to keep her emotions tightly stuffed away), “Mom, are you mad?” This would seem to be the opposite of what autistic people tend to struggle with...but I wonder if the same circuitry that’s turned down in autistic brains is turned up in my brain.

 

[Thinx]

I’m arriving a little late here... just wanted to say that I found this thread interesting. I’ve come to this forum in info-gathering mode as I decide whether to look into an ASD dx for my son, but although I’m not on the spectrum myself (or at least I’ve never considered that I could be), I actually relate both to the sort of speech/physical action divide described by Thinx and the trouble with conversation in group situations - if it’s a casual conversation with people I don’t know well, I always feel that people jump from subject to subject much too quickly.

What I’m also noticing is that people here on the forum spend a lot of time contemplating the workings of their own brains, which I do constantly myself. I have an ADHD diagnosis, and I’ve always known that my brain works differently than most people’s; but I’d consider myself a “highly sensitive person” - I tune in to other people’s emotional states to an almost debilitating extent if I’m not careful, and I get worn out because I’m constantly tuning in to the unspoken - the stuff that I’m sure a person is thinking even when they’re saying something different - and theorizing about their intentions in saying what they do.

As a child, I was constantly asking my mom (who tended to keep her emotions tightly stuffed away), “Mom, are you mad?” This would seem to be the opposite of what autistic people tend to struggle with...but I wonder if the same circuitry that’s turned down in autistic brains is turned up in my brain.

Well I definitely do some of what you are describing, and from other threads here I would say it seems common for some people with autism to have a type of empathy where we seem to get a full on download of the other persons emotional state. It's a different kind of empathy, I guess.

There's also quite a lot of discussion now about how women may experience effects of autism differently due to both socialisation as female, and possibly other genetic differences. Socialisation of women tends to put emphasis on developing skills to empathise and facilitate others, which may help us practice these skills, and/or get better at masking what we don't understand.

Hence we have gone under the radar and additionally, the autism diagnostic criteria have skewed towards recognising males, making women less likely to seem to fit the criteria.

Autism does appear to be highly hereditable, so it's quite common for a parent to realise they have high autistic traits or ASD1/Aspergers when their child is diagnosed or seems to have autism.

I think it's the internal experience you allude to that may be the key here, that internal confusion that doesn't get empathised with, but remains a perplexity that we just find various ways around, but is puzzling and makes us feel different, plus may make the feel of our relationship to others somewhat different in ways that are hard to define, but which autism effects explain, as this is the experience of having the different brain with its differently functioning connectivity.

You can find books about the different experience of women with Autism on the Jessica Kingsley publishers catalogue, by women with Autism and clinicians.

 

[Dadamen]

Autism does appear to be highly hereditable, so it's quite common for a parent to realise they have high autistic traits or ASD1/Aspergers when their child is diagnosed or seems to have autism.

My father is very similar to me, but for the difference to me, he had good friends in childhood and youth and has wide interests and is better at face memory/reading emotions. But i suspect that my father's father (grandfather) had Aserger's, but he was born in 1930 when id didn't exist because he didn't have any friends and had a lack of empathy.

 

[wonderingmom]

Well I definitely do some of what you are describing, and from other threads here I would say it seems common for some people with autism to have a type of empathy where we seem to get a full on download of the other persons emotional state.

“A full download” - yes!

I think it's the internal experience you allude to that may be the key here, that internal confusion that doesn't get empathised with, but remains a perplexity that we just find various ways around, but is puzzling and makes us feel different, plus may make the feel of our relationship to others somewhat different in ways that are hard to define, but which autism effects explain, as this is the experience of having the different brain with its differently functioning connectivity.

That is exactly, precisely it! Wow.

You can find books about the different experience of women with Autism on the Jessica Kingsley publishers catalogue, by women with Autism and clinicians.

I’m definitely going to do some reading! Thank you!!

 

[wonderingmom]

I also meant to say that getting a “full download” of people’s emotions is a really great way of expressing what happens to me; and that your whole paragraph about the internal confusion and perplexity really resonates so strongly. Wow - thank you.