For what the quiz is worth, nice to play along with you peeps.
What I see is that I’m very carefull with answering questions. And no surprise there on the social skills. And believe me, I’ve worked very hard on them. 
Can you imagine…
Thanks for starting this topic, will follow with interest.
Forgot to add this before.
See? Even my scores for the two axes are nearly exactly in the middle!
Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 92 of 200 Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 101 of 200 You seem to have both neurodiverse and neurotypical traits
If you don’t pay out of pocket, then your insurer sees that you’ve had this consultation. How is that not a downside? For someone who has managed to muddle along before, it’s best to muddle along in a more informed fashion without the paper trail.
Americans, I feel sorry for you. This is one of the reasons I don’t live there. It’s so… predatory. The idea that finding help is a bad thing because it identifies you as someone with weaknesses is… well, it doesn’t suggest that public health has a particularly high priority in the country’s considerations.
I figured out as a young adult that I have a tendency to see the world as if I were a man. So when I read that question about walking behind, I really did keep it within the category of need for physical space and visibility rather than personal safety considerations.
If you hadn’t posted about it, I would have totally missed the fact that I did that! It’s like the fact that I’m a woman is segregated from the fact that I have a non-normal brain.
So, yes, absolutely, this is a great example of subtle sexism in the test questions themselves. It’s hard to know how to answer a question if you have to spend time trying to figure out which way it’s meant to be interpreted.
Yeah, the key is whether your experiences are actually a problem for you. Something that always bothers me is that it seems like the goal of psychology and psychiatry is to make sure you can hold a job, have friends, have a romantic relationship. If you can do all that then you’re a success. It makes sense, people who deal with mentally ill people get to deal with the hardest cases, and someone who seems to function just fine isn’t going to be top priority.
Even in “more enlightened” countries it’s pretty hard to get life insurance if your medical history has a bunch of mental health problems in it. Maybe we need to stop letting insurance companies ignore human rights or something. I’m sure in insurance industry would be really, really angry about that.
Well, it asks for sex, age and some other things, so it might actually weight questions using appropriate comparitors (maybe it’s way more “normal” for a woman to answer that she doesn’t like having people walk behind her, for example). Of course I really don’t know whether it does that or not, but it’s a possibility.
I cannot stop considering how I am support to interpret questions. Often I’ll read a question and think, “Well, the honest answer to the question you asked is A, but I know you would want a person who feels the way I feel to answer B.” Like when I took a political compass of some sort and it asked me to rate how important taxation was to me. Taxation is very important to me, but I want taxes to be higher, so I ranked it as not important, because I knew what they meant.
I practice this by engaging in the same kind of analysis and overthinking in every conversation I ever have.
No matter where you live, the act of creating a paper trail about your cognitive difficulties is going to be inherently bad for you. Always.
The only question is how bad (how likely is the information to leak and be misused?), and whether the benefits will outweigh it.
If your issues have not stopped you from living an adult life and getting along to some degree, then the extent of your autistic symptoms is mild, and there will not be much difference from muddling along in a more informed way, and muddling along in a professionally assisted way. Ergo, the benefits won’t outweigh it.
I mean, I know Theresa May won’t try to make money from knowing to what degree I might suffer from Asperger’s Syndrome, but nevertheless I don’t want to give her the opportunity, and there better be a strong benefit from doing it before I step in a consultant’s office.
all these things are me:
sometimes but I understand and use sarcasm/irony, too.
general emotional sensitivity, too.
“tuning out” used to be a big thing with me but I’ve learned not to, usually.
expressed as near catatonic depression, yes. this is life-long.
not sure if more so than general population? I think so.
I have a huge vocabulary that i like to use but I prefer to communicate non-vocally either by writing or with expressions/body language when possible. this is inherited from both parents (even though dad was absentee, i.e. not learned behavior form him but I know annecdotally he was that way.) Also love movie scenes like the photo developing in Blow-Up and making the tools out of tent poles in No Country For Old Men more than dialog parts. Not sure what all this means w/r/t this topic
yes
not sure if I do these but I have a feeling I do.
I don’t inherently get the discomfort but the different groups thing is me. sometimes I make them uncomfortable by bridging clashing personalities and I get uncomfortable for having done so. for instance my Boing-boing friends are not much like my (different groups of) irl friends at all. I come here to be around folks like I went to high school with (see below) but I often skip a lot of threads/bite my tongue.
ya
haven’t read the link yet but strongly this. most strong thing in thread. (aside: I once said in mixed company that I was a “lesbian trapped in a man’s body” which I played off as a joke – @Missy_Pants I learned that phrase from the character in Coupland’s Generation X-- but my lesbian friend who was present knew it was actually true and asserted as much.)
ya. certain things faded, plus I’ve learned to deal and learned to be social and enjoy socialization but I had to work at it. the really non-aspie thing I do is empathize when I’m making someone uncomfortable and learn to not do it because of that empathy. but it’s kind of like being aspie about having good manners or gentlemanly behavior, which seems very similar to what humbabella says [quote=“anon50609448, post:57, topic:81030”]
in a lot of ways I seem to behave very much as a stereotypical aspie except that I’m extremely good at reading other people’s emotions - which seems to be pretty defining, but I’m not sure. To me, the most natural way to engage with other people would be to directly engage with whatever emotion they are experiencing or to have totally unemotional conversations. But it turns out that most social interaction involves obfuscating emotions…
I instead find myself in situations where I know what emotion someone else is feeling and I struggle to figure out how I ought to act to engage with the emotions and ideas they are comfortable presenting instead of cutting through that. The result is similar, though. I do the high-functioning thing of coming up with scripts and modes of behaviour that seem normal to other people. But it’s all extremely intellectualized. I mostly don’t know how I feel about what I am doing (or at all), I just run through the script to make things work on a superficial level. If I genuinely like someone I have a horrible time trying to express that, because my scripts are all about getting along, not about being genuine.
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preeeeeeach. except that I’ve used the scripts as a filter to find people I can genuinely be myself around, and do so once I can. but it gets harder the older I get and and my peer group gets. (I always did skew towards a younger group, come to think of it.)
I do that constantly, too
I’ve started setting up systems in response to my depressive triggers that seem to be helping. pretty much had to cut out my social life–too much stimulation at the bars and clubs and too many interpersonal variables/stresses.
so much this.
was in those, and recall a classroom meltdown I had once (but learned not to do that again) and then on to a whole school-full of us at the academic-magnet high-school.
apart from all that it all seems to come and go (good days and bad days.) sometimes I’m really “on” and feel/outwardly seem “neurotypical,” indeed even charismatic. others I’m not. I don’t always know which is which and it confuses other people and realizing that later in life has made me more withdrawn and paranoid. and then when it totally ebbs i’m completely shut down. my sleeping habits are really tied-in to all this but not sure about the link.
I’ll also throw in that I was accidentally dosed with LSD when I was like two years old. not sure how that factors in, but I would have trouble believing that it plays no role in all of this.
I’m scarred to take even the online quiz because:
(not due to the sexism issue you were posting about, but in general)
but mostly
even if I felt able to seek help, I doubt I could afford it and I’ve had some prior bad experiences, too.
You are not wrong about that…
Just…wow.
The issue I’ve seen far too often is that, as I mentioned before, it’s in vogue right now to diagnose people on the autism spectrum for things that, even ten years ago, were just seen as rather quirky behaviors. And once someone’s told they’re autism-spectrum or Aspergers, I’ve seen them use that as an excuse to be an antisocial asshole. Especially in the gamer community, I’ve seen lots of behavior that’s simply unacceptable – adults throwing things, having full blown tantrums, destruction of property – that they explain by saying “sorry, Aspergers.” Once you’re branded with the A-word, some people embrace all of it, even if their only symptom before was being eccentric.
@jsroberts
re:
just reviewed this. wow. check-mark next to every paragraph. since your autism is professionally diagnosed and yours reflects the typically female autist traits, do your professionals have any explanation? how common is it? or is this symptomatic of the entire field of study being new and the so-called-“male” autist traits being easier to spot?
I agree with you that this can be true wherever you are, but I don’t accept it. This suggests that society is the one with the main pathology (which again, is not completely false).
I haven’t asked for any further support, since my home has an interesting group home feel to it, and there’s a lot of useful information online which is generally more helpful and applicable than advice from professionals. There are ways that I can cope now, given that I work from home, don’t drive and don’t interact with people all the time, but I’ve had other jobs before and been less high functioning. If I had to leave this environment I’d be less high functioning. In fact, statistically high functioning autistic people are not that high functioning at all, and often this is worse when they’re not diagnosed. I wanted a proper diagnosis so that I could draw a line under this and move on. That doesn’t seem to be as stigmatising where I am, although I might think twice in other countries.
I used to stare at the fire for hours at a time, making up dream worlds. Clouds, the ocean, rain… I never realised I did a number of these behaviours as a stim, but looking back people used to comment about it all the time. It’s a bit more subtle now, or mostly happens when I’m alone. Meltdowns and shutdowns too - I thought this was something I hadn’t really done, but it was multiple times every day growing up. It turns out I have a very selective memory and while stims are kind of subconscious, meltdowns and shutdowns often mess with my short term memory and are a lot clearer in everyone else’s memory. 
A few months ago I asked my wife whether I ever did any of these behaviours:
The adult version of a meltdown may include any of the following (just to name a few):
- aggressive behavior in which the individual reacts grossly out of proportion to the circumstance
On the mild end of the continuum, the adult in meltdown may simply say some things that are overly critical and disrespectful, thus ultimately destroying the relationship with the other party (or parties) in many cases. On the more extreme end of the continuum, the adult in meltdown may attack others and their possessions, causing bodily injury and property damage. In both examples, the adult often later feels remorse, regret or embarrassment.
While the most actively aggressive thing I’ve ever done was throwing something light across the room and not at anyone, my wife talked about “walking on eggshells” around me at some times during our relationship, which is really upsetting. It’s kind of like when my parents talked about when I was younger - I have no memory of the moments they’re talking about and I don’t identify with this person or his motivations (although I do have a lot of other memories of when I was younger). I do have some memory of more recent events - feeling hemmed in and incapable of telling someone to leave me alone and stop making demands, feeling like my only choice was to throw a packet of tissues rather than something heavier and to throw it away from people. That’s basically the extent of my thinking process and my memory of that event, but from the outside it looks like I get very quiet and then overreact without warning. My wife, the kids and her mother were in the room, and I hardly noticed. Shutdowns are much more common, and I’m more OK with them - at least I don’t risk harm to myself or others.
So yes, although my family is very happy around me now, it seems to depend a lot on how well I can manage stress levels. It’s not just quirkiness, it’s not an excuse for bad behaviour and it’s not something I’m happy with (even if I’ve never actually harmed anyone). At least now I’m aware of it and I’ve been analysing a lot of issues to try to deal with it. My current medication seems to turn everything inward, which is nicer for people around me at least…
Autistic empaths exist. Empathy is weird, I find it can be like my reaction to other stimuli - very intense and hard to control at times. The whole “mindblindness” thing doesn’t sound right either. With a lot of these issues, I can imagine NTs coming to that conclusion, but it’s not my experience at all (and I’ve heard plenty of other Aspies say the same)… For example, you might have very little reaction to an event like someone’s death when everyone else is losing it, then afterwards it hits you really hard.
I didn’t talk about that aspect much, but it’s pretty common for Aspies not to present as typical for their gender, to have gender dysphoria, to be asexual etc. I don’t have a strong identity either way and don’t see the point of wearing strongly gender marked clothes for either gender. While Aspie women can be quite androgynous (or at least feel that way even if they present as typically female), Aspie men are often that way too rather than acting extremely male. I think it’s partly because Hans Asperger used a fairly low sampling size of mainly boys to talk about his “little professors” with “autistic psychopathy”, who demonstrated “a lack of empathy, little ability to form friendships, one-sided conversation, intense absorption in a special interest, and clumsy movements.” Simon Baron-Cohen considers autism to be the “extreme male brain”, which also plays into this stereotype.
You mentioned that you didn’t have a problem with language growing up - this was one of the defining features of Asperger Syndrome before it was included under the banner of autism; I was using full sentences at 14 months and was considered to have a good verbal ability as a child.
I don’t have an interest in being diagnosed for autism. I don’t feel autism is a disease. When I go back to the kind of doctor who can diagnose autism, I’ve got other things way earlier on the list anyway. 
Understatement of the year. ABA is terrible.
To a point, I am too. I can tell if people are angry or hurt and that sort of thing (mostly) but I think a lot of mine comes down to an emotionally abusive upbringing. Anything on the positive end, I struggle with. Is this person being polite? Have they got me in a trap? Are they humoring me?
I spend most of the time thinking people are angry at me.
I’m … theoretically pro-psychology. Therapy can be amazing when it’s done well. I’m not convinced it’s often done well.
Depending on the medicine, well-informed consent of the person taking it, and other factors, I’m pro-pharmacology. Depression runs in my family, genetically. I can trace it going back four generations (probably goes farther but I don’t know any relatives past four generations counting me).
Therapy can’t cure me of depression. The right therapy, done well, can give me better tools to cope with the depression but my brain chemistry is always going to be messed up.
I wish I didn’t remember my shutdowns ( ._.)
OK, here’s mine:
Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 118 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 85 of 200
You seem to have both neurodiverse and neurotypical traits
It gets a slight push into typical areas because I compensate by being somewhat outgoing.
Not a great quiz, IMO. Quantified between 1-10 would be better. And the questions were, as some noted, leading. And some were just silly. I am still laughing as I try to guess what they meant by asking if I like to peel flakes from people!
Testing for ASDs didn’t really exist when I was a kid. Although I’ve always been a freaky/geeky outcast, my social skills are nowhere near as bad as my dad or my brother, so I didn’t think of myself as particularly impaired when I was growing up.
But after I completed my psychology degree, I began to notice that whenever the conversation touched on Asperger’s, other psychologists would assume that I was talking about myself even when I wasn’t. Added to that were a series of unpleasant events involving interpersonal fuckups, so I started looking into ASD tests.
AFAICT, the rdos test linked in the first post (http://www.rdos.net/eng/Aspie-quiz.php) is the best of the online aspie diagnostics. It’s based on this research: http://sgo.sagepub.com/content/3/3/2158244013497722.abstract
Which gives me these results:
Your Aspie score: 151 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 76 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie
http://aspiecast.libsyn.com is a podcast that very closely mirrors my life experience. It’s what I send people to when they want to know what the Aspie life is like from the inside. I find it extremely upsetting to listen to, though. Triggers all sorts of nasty memories.
Sorry, yes, I remember those a lot better. Meltdowns tend to be a lot shorter and clear away better, I guess.
I still don’t really know how intense they can get, although it’s certainly not at the breaking stuff level. The only times anything similar has happened since the diagnosis has been more at the “irritated/impatient response” level, which you might expect from someone whose kids were aggravating their headache - certainly not completely losing it. At this point it’s hard to know, so I can’t really say how much I could control things if I was aware of what was happening, or how intense they are when it’s not registered as a strong memory and I’ve only got other people’s accounts to go on. On the whole, I’m considered very patient.
The quiz reminds me a lot of the ADD/ADHD inventories I took as a kid.
“is it extremely difficult or impossible for you to learn about things you’re not interested in?”
Hoo boy. 110% there. I’m certain the only reason I can pay even fleeting attention to boring things is thanks to drugs.
Here’s my score:
Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 103 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 114 of 200
You seem to have both neurodiverse and neurotypical traits
I’m professionaly diagnosed ADD of the inattentive and impulsive variety, and have been taking medication for it for the last 15 years. CBT was helpful to an extent, but nothing really tops stimulant drugs if you want to make someone pay attention to every little detail of the boringest stuff ever.
