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Let me remind you that Asperger's syndrome isn't an illness, not mental illness. It's a developmental disorder.
Justine mentions and breaks down the 4 areas of life in which aspie's may be impacted - in various degrees, individual to each person.
The four areas are social interaction, communication skills, Physically, Repetitive or restrictive patterns.
I screen-shot and display a quick reference JPG at the top of each of the following sections.
I : Social interaction
The first mental illness I had launched this blog for is social phobia, for which I received an official diagnosis in 2015 and about which I posted, thus far, a total of 62 entries - about a quarter of my overall blog. This includes all the post about my phobia as well as my CBT and exposures.
But, a person can suffer from social phobia and not also have Asperger's, right ? We shall see all this together.
From Justine's segment on social interaction, the only things that I don't have difficulty with are concepts of fiction and metaphors, as well as getting close to others - provided I get passed all the other difficulties of interaction with others and making friends. I'm still learning social skills and etiquette. I also had difficulties looking people in the eye, though it has become slightly easier with long-term friends, it's never easy in other situations, especially with figures of authority.
I tend to have troubles understanding some jokes, or accepting that certain things can amuse people that I find offensive. I don't read facial expressions or body language easily - and often am unaware that my own body language gives away my own mental or emotional status to others who can read me well.
I do tend to get bored in many social situations.
At school, I was doodling away over 2 thirds of the time, either because I had already finished the assignments (especially in math) or disinterested in most other topics that felt like chores.
As an adult, the best social situations have been around like-minded persons, whereas around most people, I tend to remain silent and distant because I had small talk. I much prefer deep conversations.
Lastly, most lists say that aspie's don't tend to have empathy, the reality is quite different, as discussed a bit in the first part of this blog series and on Dr Kenneth Roberson's article.
II - Communication skills
I always thought that my lack of experiences in social situations had slowed down learning communication skills, and hadn't even supposed these could be also related to a disorder.
My communication with others is quite impaired. I always struggle knowing what and when to debate specific topics with new or older friends; I easily clam-up and shut-down when I don't manage to participate in discussions and I tend to dismissively cut all ties if I feel offended, hurt or perceived criticism.
Just like the list supposes, I may run off on tangents, as I follow inspirations or think of anecdotes/ metaphors during a conversation, and I often diverge far off-topic. My attention to the relativity of topics seems ok at first, but I was told more than once that the actual relation was quite far away and that I was incoherent. Depending on the subject, this may be ok, or may have been a waste of everyone's time.
On the other side of this coin, I get totally lost when conversation topics are changed in a group, especially if I had to leave the group or was concentrating on one person's dialogue.
On speaking about one topic : I think that my cyclothymia and natural curiosity helped limit this scope. However, I do tend to get obsessed with each of the topics that interest me and can discuss them at great lengths, for hours and hours. I can similarly listen to the same band or album for weeks at a time... I'll discuss these obsessive behaviors more fully in another post.
Though I may not really come to a conclusion in any conversation, it's not automatic. I think it just depends on what level of passion / interest I have for the subject, and my knowledge of it. I do find ending conversations, emails and blog posts to be quite challenging.
As far as speaking in monotone inflection or fixed pitch : I have both only moderately. The differences are mostly when I talk with women VS men or authority figures ; or when I talk with people I become accustomed and familiar with, I apparently tend to be less flourished than with new people (for some odd reason that eludes me right now).
What doesn't correspond to me from this list :
I may be one of the rare aspie's to actually use slang, though it can be a result of speaking 3 languages and growing up with multi-cultural references and lots of TV/ movies.
In conversations, I let others talk. Be it because of respect to others or that I learned active listening in dialogues, I don't know. The result is the same.
III Physically
I don't think I'm clumsier than other people, am I ? But, I'm not the most coordinated person, either.
I am not good at hiding my feelings with my face ; so, my expressions may not be unusual, I'm an open book.
I've been told that my postures do tend to be unusual. Both in daily life and when I am asked to pose for photos - I become very awkward, even in trying silly poses.
I plan to discuss my oversensitiveness to stimuli and experiences in detail in a future post.
I've been told that my gait is quite different, that I walk more like a woman, and I'm quite fine with that. I thought it was just how I learned to walk, probably mimicking all the women I knew as a child. As an adult, I thought it was just part of my gender fluid identity.
IV Repetitive or restrictive patterns
I used to rely on fixed routines and any change to my daily program disrupted me greatly. I'm doing a bit better about it now, but it's still very hard to handle changes of any kind - even improvements in layout. As far as meeting friends, this is easier now, but it took me 2 decades to get to a more manageable level of stress that I'm willing to go through in order to maintain the rare friendships I've made, and find the efforts worthwhile for.
I probably am too attached to certain objects, and more so to some people, because it's so hard to make and maintain some of my friendships that the fear of losing them (see : ptsd of abandonnement and upcoming posts on separation anxiety) are so big that I tend to cling - even in toxic situations (which will be yet another post).
As I said in the communications segment above, my curiosity helped un-limit my scopes of interests, though they may not be as varies as they could have been without Asperger's.
I do tend to become obsessive over details or preoccupied with a certain activity. Again, this will be discussed more in-depth in an entry about my obsessive patterns, which will also come to the temper issues that stem from my excessive response to stimuli.
As somebody who has been diagnosed with Aspergers, I hope you get the diagnosis you deserve!
ReplyDeleteLydia, Mademoisellewomen.wordpress.com.
Thank you ! I suspect that I'll have confirmation of this self-diagnosis, because I'm basically convinced that I do have it, after all the reading research that I did and all that my wife told me about it as well.
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