Trying to figure it out

[MountainTrails]

Hi,

I'm male, 57, living in Colorado, U.S.A. I have been told by professionals I am on the spectrum, but I do not have a diagnosis. I'm married with children and grandchildren. I would appear to be in the categories of high functioning and twice exceptional, which apparently has allowed a lot of masking and compensation to develop.

The idea of me having ASD is something new to me, and not something I understand very well, but I am reading and learning. It is hard to think I have some condition or state of being I cannot detect. I feel normal. Well, except when I remember my life. Then all the memories of being unusual are there to look at me in silent judgment: How could you not have figured this out?

But apparently things, social things, intangible ways of interacting and creating relationships and communicating, pass by me undetected and invisible. This social fabric is more real than I had anticipated? It is, in some real way, more than literary metaphor? It is as though all around me silent conversations are occurring -- some kind of ESP -- and I am deaf to it all. And people feel emotions in their bodies, seriously?

Amidst family I have lived a solitary life; I have 25 years of remote and telecommuting job experience.

Tonight is a meeting for an "autism friendly" book club that is discussing NeuroTribes. I have read the book; I have seen Larry Wall's bright tuxedos and attended his State of the Onion talks. I am thinking about attending the talk, and it would be my first personal interaction with an ASD community -- aside from this post. I am very nervous about it. Will it be yet another place I don't fit in? Perhaps or perhaps not. I think I have to take a deep breath and see.

 

[Astroganga]

Welcome to AC. I would attend the talk it sounds really interesting

 

[Professori]

Hi, and join the club of those who have similar questions. It is not something that one can simply unearth during the normal course of life, precisely because of the problems that you have identified. We are expected to exhibit unusual behaviours in order to fit in and then we think those are normal, even though we realise that we do not actually fit.

However, you should question those who are the 'professionals' that you mention. If they cannot give you a diagnosis then why do they claim that you are on the spectrum, and by using which protocol and criteria to make such a diagnosis?

Anyway, as you read you will find a range of tests online which you can use to further assess yourself. However, they too cannot give you a definitive diagnosis.

I also discovered that I am highly likely to be an Aspie - probably 100% likely, but late in life. So it is good to have more of the older generation join us - the lost generation as far as autism is concerned.

 

[MountainTrails]

Hi.

Astroganga, I did go to the book club meeting. The conversation was interesting and the people seemed very nice. It's a once-monthly thing, and I think I will climb aboard for a while and see what happens.

Professori, I think I wasn't too clear. I have been told I could probably get an ASD diagnosis, but I have not sought one. I'm not sure what the benefit is, except having a nice certificate of accomplishment for my wall and a deduction for its cost against my taxes. (I don't mean to sound flippant or anything, but I'm just not sure what a formal diagnosis would give me. I am sure I will learn as time goes by and I read more posts by people in similar situations.)

FWIW, I backed into this. My wife and I were tangled up bad after 34+ years of marriage, and she had actually moved out. The marriage counselor she found turned out to be an ASD therapist, with the marriage-counseling thing off to the side. I approached the possibility of looking at the marriage problems "through an ASD lens" with considerable skepticism, but the more I read, think, and talk about it, the more I am recognizing things that have just been there all along. I really never thought about this stuff at all. It was just ... life.

(The relationship is somewhat better, she is home, and the ASD details seem to be helping her understand and also helping me try to make adjustments. For example, on my daily appointment calendar is a reminder to think of "Something I appreciate about [wife]" that I can then write down onto a list and/or tell her.)

This "theory of mind" stuff and alexithymia have caught me completely by surprise, but I can't deny it. It is very strange. It's as though I've had a blind spot in my field of vision all my life that I never noticed -- until someone pointed at it and asked a question, which I can't answer because ... what? People do what?

This is all pretty new to me, so I am still learning. I have, out of natural curiosity, taken some of the on-line assessments, and they come back with fairly high probabilities that I am ASD (97% was one I remember). The eye/emotions ones were borderline scary: without the background to provide context/story, they are all blank faces. I found myself running the analyses explicitly: Okay, that face is rotated slightly off to the side: that's not a happy thing, cross off that possibility...

More I could say, but, too long already. Appreciation to anyone who got this far. ;^)

 

[Professori]

Hi.

Astroganga, I did go to the book club meeting. The conversation was interesting and the people seemed very nice. It's a once-monthly thing, and I think I will climb aboard for a while and see what happens.

Professori, I think I wasn't too clear. I have been told I could probably get an ASD diagnosis, but I have not sought one. I'm not sure what the benefit is, except having a nice certificate of accomplishment for my wall and a deduction for its cost against my taxes. (I don't mean to sound flippant or anything, but I'm just not sure what a formal diagnosis would give me. I am sure I will learn as time goes by and I read more posts by people in similar situations.)

FWIW, I backed into this. My wife and I were tangled up bad after 34+ years of marriage, and she had actually moved out. The marriage counselor she found turned out to be an ASD therapist, with the marriage-counseling thing off to the side. I approached the possibility of looking at the marriage problems "through an ASD lens" with considerable skepticism, but the more I read, think, and talk about it, the more I am recognizing things that have just been there all along. I really never thought about this stuff at all. It was just ... life.

(The relationship is somewhat better, she is home, and the ASD details seem to be helping her understand and also helping me try to make adjustments. For example, on my daily appointment calendar is a reminder to think of "Something I appreciate about [wife]" that I can then write down onto a list and/or tell her.)

This "theory of mind" stuff and alexithymia have caught me completely by surprise, but I can't deny it. It is very strange. It's as though I've had a blind spot in my field of vision all my life that I never noticed -- until someone pointed at it and asked a question, which I can't answer because ... what? People do what?

This is all pretty new to me, so I am still learning. I have, out of natural curiosity, taken some of the on-line assessments, and they come back with fairly high probabilities that I am ASD (97% was one I remember). The eye/emotions ones were borderline scary: without the background to provide context/story, they are all blank faces. I found myself running the analyses explicitly: Okay, that face is rotated slightly off to the side: that's not a happy thing, cross off that possibility...

More I could say, but, too long already. Appreciation to anyone who got this far. ;^)

Thanks for clarifying, and I agree with regarding the actual official diagnosis. I think the best way is to really search and find some answers for oneself. There are also some wonderfully knowledgeable and helpful people on this forum.

Have you tried the AQ test, RAADS-R, Aspie Quiz yet? They are also helpful. 'Musings of an Aspie' is a very useful blog when it comes to the analysis of the various tests, interpretations of scores, and usefulness thereof. My scores on all of the tests are very high - it is kind of releasing to discover a 'fit' for oneself, especially in light of what is deemed 'abnormal' behaviour.

All the best with your research .

 

[Elemental]

Hi MountainTrails What you say about your diagnosis & feeling normal is what I struggled with following the same diagnosis as you, when aged 35yrs. It was my lack of understanding about which aspects of myself that ASD specifically related to, which made me bury & deny the fact of it for many years. Reading & learning about the condition & specifically, the experiences of late-diagnosed adults like many of us on here, gave me the first insights into What it all means & in truth, there is nothing that occurs in my conscious life which isn't affected by my ASD because it is the cognitive apparatus through which I view the world & operate in it. Discovering similarly-affected people on this site & reading about their experiences & insights helped a lot with feelings of isolation.