Aspergers - Adult Diagnosis

[Mountain Goat]

Uhmmm.  Thinking... Do medical staff know to look for these?

[MrWolf]

Yes, you would be surprised how many people carry such things in case of emergency, such as diabetics, epileptics etc.

[Mountain Goat]

I was thinking about how to describe autism best to those who are not on the spectrum, so they can understand. It is difficult as the condition effects people in so many different ways, and many of them are not seen. An example is a stress build up throughout the day can accumilate into a complete meltdown in the evening and only close family would have known about it. Many traits are hidden to those who may not even realize the autistic person is struggling.

 

One issue I have been having over the last fifteen or more years onwards is that because I am percieved as being different somehow, it is assumed I am a thief when I go into larger shops and I have been treated very badly by some shop security guards, even though not once have I taken anything. Staff from Britains largest chain store in the Llanelli area treated me so badly that I can no longer go in. One was on another ones back to look over the toilet cubical watching me on the toilet to make sure I was not doing anything I shouldn't. For 20 years I was followed by many staff. As I have nurvous issues so I can only shop in areas where I can find a toilet... Well. It does not help to see security guards faces peering under the toilet cubicle door or over the top, and when I used the urinals they were watching over my sholders. 

It became so bad that once eight staff members followed me in the store. I stopped and one had been following me so close behind as a joke, that he had to throw himself on the floor to avoid knocking me over.

That day I put the goods back on the shelf and walked out and straight away the police were called. 

I then found myself banned from other stores as the store staff shared my details. 

I find I am so stressed trying to shop at larger stores that I am highly likely to end up in a shutdown, so I just can't do it anymore. Some stores I have issues with anyway as stores with long tall isles are too claustrophobic, and since this lockdown I have not been able to queue as I find it too claustrophobic. I tried once outside a small shop and I was on the floor with a deeper end of a partial shutdown and others had to pass me as there was no way I could queue, so the worst thing for me would be if there was a queue at a checkout inbetween isles.

I get sensory triggers where certain smells cause me to shut down. Soap smells or the dyes in new clothes etc are a trigger, so carpet shops and clothes shops I can't stay in for long. I can go in, start to partly shut down and then I must get out.

One medium sized chain store has a whole long isle of soaps and shampoos which one HAS to walk through to get to the rest of the store, so I am in a partial shutdown before I start if I go in there!

This lockdown has made things many times worse as shops put one way systems in place, so if I started to shut down there is no way I can get out of the store quick enough to avoid a full shutdown, so I can't go in even if I wanted to. Only the small corner shops I can really manage at the moment, and only if they don't have a queue... So my local shop I have to keep going back to again and again to see if I can go in when it is quiet, and this may involve a lot of driving around as this shop is a couple of miles away. It is having people queue behind me is where I get most of the issues, so if I do queue, I keep moving myself to the back of the queue to avoid having any issues.

 

But even before the lockdown, one of the reasons I can end up being followed around is that I need to nip in the loo before I shop, and I was chosig to shop at certain stores because they had a toilet. (I find I can't go into the local towns after 5pm as they shut the public toilets and only keep the disabled ones open, so when I get issues, built up areas are out of bounds. Rural areas are fine as I nip behind a hedge on a footpath or something. I know nearly every place I can go between here in the south of Wales and half way up Wales and even beyond! 

But going back to store issues... I also can have great difficulty making decisions so I will pick up a product to go to pay for it, then take it back... And pick it up again...and take it back... Trying to make a decision... Then finally I will end up buying it anyway as security staff hone in on me! I find it hard to make decisions when I am nurvous, or in a partial shutdown (Where I am trying to estimate if I can take the product to the till and pay for it without a full shutdown or should I put it down and walk out to avoid shutting down. It is trying to estimate by looking if there are other people at the till so I don't have to wait... As I don't want to have a shutdown while in the store.

Edited June 16, 2020 by Mountain Goat

[Mountain Goat]

Mindblank.

 

You may have noticed that I naturally keep going off on tangents. Well this is because when I talk, I have to do that to avoid clamming up with mindblank, and I get mindblank when I try to talk about a subject head on. I need to talk around the subject to reach the conclusion that I wanted to say from another angle.

The problem is I get so used to naturally doing this, that I think like this and it also comes out in my writing.

I just thought I would mention it.

[MrWolf]

I think a lot of us do that and not just people on the scale. I find it hard not to go off on a tangent as though I was sat by a roadside tea stall with my mates. I have often had to re-rail a topic on here that I have derailed. It's okay at home. The lockdown has made both of us somewhat nocturnal, we're still up for no good reason, but we only sleep four or five hours usually. Tonight's conversation at home has gone from Victorian architecture, through zombie movies to music. It is often said that there are only six degrees of separation and of course some of us are wired up a little differently and make different connections, so the conversation could go anywhere. My trouble is that I think of things faster than I am able to get them down on paper, so I tend to lose my thread at times.

With that, I'm hitting the hay, it doesn't do to fall asleep on the sofa, we both tend to be useless the next morning.

[TheQ]

7 hours ago, Mountain Goat said:

Uhmmm.  Thinking... Do medical staff know to look for these?

The Talisman is NOT the official medical tag, but is often carried by those who don't quite rate the proper Tag, which I have hanging round my Neck .

The proper one is called Medic Alert, you only get it on a doctors recommendation, it has engraved on the back, a Brief explanation of your Condition, your registered number which is GB and a 6 digit number. Then across the top is a free phone Number, where they have full details of your condition and any emergency treatment to be carried out. They also have details of your specialist treatment centre, which in my case is Leeds St James Hospital, Malignant Hyperpyrexia Unit.. ( I also carry a folded A4 sheet of paper in my wallet giving the full list of drugs NOT to be used on me and the main Drug to reduce reactions..)

 

 In the military I had to carry six credit card sized metal tags round my neck with the full explanation hammered into them...(till they kicked me out medically down graded)

 

Edited June 16, 2020 by TheQ

[Mountain Goat]

9 hours ago, MrWolf said:

I think a lot of us do that and not just people on the scale. I find it hard not to go off on a tangent as though I was sat by a roadside tea stall with my mates. I have often had to re-rail a topic on here that I have derailed. It's okay at home. The lockdown has made both of us somewhat nocturnal, we're still up for no good reason, but we only sleep four or five hours usually. Tonight's conversation at home has gone from Victorian architecture, through zombie movies to music. It is often said that there are only six degrees of separation and of course some of us are wired up a little differently and make different connections, so the conversation could go anywhere. My trouble is that I think of things faster than I am able to get them down on paper, so I tend to lose my thread at times.

With that, I'm hitting the hay, it doesn't do to fall asleep on the sofa, we both tend to be useless the next morning.

 

One thing I have found is that the autism spectrum is full of contrasts. One person can seem to be only able to give one word answers. The next could be like me who gives a whole  chapter in reply and still never reaches the point. 

To me mind blank does not just happen when speaking. It also happens when I want to fetch something and the worst case scinario for me (Which people keep doing to me and they look at me daft when I ask them to write it down) is when I am going to get something, and someone else says "While you are there..." 

[MrWolf]

I wouldn't worry too much about the "while you are there" requests. All people screw that one up with great regularity.

[Kickstart]

2 hours ago, Mountain Goat said:

 

One thing I have found is that the autism spectrum is full of contrasts. One person can seem to be only able to give one word answers. The next could be like me who gives a whole  chapter in reply and still never reaches the point. 

To me mind blank does not just happen when speaking. It also happens when I want to fetch something and the worst case scinario for me (Which people keep doing to me and they look at me daft when I ask them to write it down) is when I am going to get something, and someone else says "While you are there..." 

 

it is a spectrum, and further different people have developed different coping mechanisms. Also, ADHD is a different condition that can be fairly close in effects, and can overlap 

 

All the best

 

Katy

[Mountain Goat]

7 hours ago, Kickstart said:

 

it is a spectrum, and further different people have developed different coping mechanisms. Also, ADHD is a different condition that can be fairly close in effects, and can overlap 

 

All the best

 

Katy

 

A few conditions can be similar. Many people with autism have been missdiagnosed with bipolar dissorder by psyciatrists who are not trained to identify autism. (A few are but most are not depending on which country one lives in etc. It is usually a psycologist who is trained to identify autism.). One of the key differences between thw two is that with bipolar, the highs and lows are reached in a more gradual way and a high to a low typically takes around four days. Those who get highs and lows on the autism spectrum can go from a high to a low several times a day and someties within an hour! 

While both conditions can seem similar (And not everyone on the autism spectrum gets highs and lows to the extreme like this), and so one can assume "Well... Does it make a difference if an autistic person is missdiagnosed with bipolar dissorder?" Unfortunately it can make a huge difference, as bipolar suffers really need their medication to alter their brain chemistry to prevent rhem from reaching the extremes as for those with bipolar, their brain chemistry has gone off kilter. However, with those who are on tje autism spectrum it happens due to an entirely different reason so to alter their brain chemistry through medication won't just NOT solve the problem, but it will make things much worse! So it is important to get the diagnosis right in the first place as it can avoid years of medicated drama!

 

I have been looking at the motorcycle. I seem to remember the were 400cc. Were they made by Honda? 

Edited June 16, 2020 by Mountain Goat

[Kickstart]

11 hours ago, Mountain Goat said:

 

 

 

I have been looking at the motorcycle. I seem to remember the were 400cc. Were they made by Honda? 

Lots of makers made 400cc bikes, as it was a cut off point for the Japanese licensing system. Honda made the vfr400 and cbr400, amount other 400s, which were common as grey imports

 

All the best

 

Katy

[TheQ]

The last time I was supposed  to say a few words at an AGM (I was chairman), about 3 got out.. I had to be rescued by a committee member..

who is.....

 

A county psychologist

 

Having been conned into first joining the commitee and then being the chairman, I've vowed never to go on a committee again.. My idea of hell..

[Mountain Goat]

8 hours ago, Kickstart said:

Lots of makers made 400cc bikes, as it was a cut off point for the Japanese licensing system. Honda made the vfr400 and cbr400, amount other 400s, which were common as grey imports

 

All the best

 

Katy

 

So the one in the photo is not a grey import as it is red. 

[Mountain Goat]

8 hours ago, TheQ said:

The last time I was supposed  to say a few words at an AGM (I was chairman), about 3 got out.. I had to be rescued by a committee member..

who is.....

 

A county psychologist

 

Having been conned into first joining the commitee and then being the chairman, I've vowed never to go on a committee again.. My idea of hell..

 

I tried a comitee position before. I just left as the chairman (We were told that it was "His" club) kept over riding the commitee decisions. I not only walked out of the commitee but left the cycling club and have never returned.

Edited June 17, 2020 by Mountain Goat

[Kickstart]

38 minutes ago, Mountain Goat said:

 

So the one in the photo is not a grey import as it is red. 

The one in my picture is a Bimora Dieci. Italian built, using a Yamaha fzr1000 engine.

 

Grey imports refer to imports of bikes that were not officially imported. Parallel imports are bikes imported by someone other than the official imported, but when that model was officially imported.

 

All the best

 

Katy

[Mountain Goat]

This is an import. And it is kind of grey. Not sure what to do with it. Is actually rare as it is a manual 4WD diesel version. Nearly all imports were automatics. It has factory fitted radar, electric curtains etc. 

[Mountain Goat]

How does one know if one is likely to be on the spectrum or not?

 

Quite a difficult question to answer but the first possible indication is where one may feel like one does not really "Fit in" or understand how to fit in to a social setting, or one may only be abld to do it through masking, and be exhausted and stressed and very much need to unwind when one gets home after having such a day. Masking feels like you have an inner real you but your outer you has to adapt and keep ahead in its adapting... And always assessing what one says and what one does, and the situation one really fears is for the mask to be exposed.  Consider an actor. One first has the real person who has a real life beyond acting. The real person. 

Then one has the actor acting the part in his or her job. One puts on the character one needs to play. Now masking is very much like this, but it is done all the time, where one often thinks to oneself "If only they know the real "Me"", as one always wan't to de-mask but one can't. Also, when one has been masking as long as I have, it is a bit like a lady who has spent a lifetime of dying her hair and can hardly remember what her natural hair colour actually is!

The other thing about masking is that though on the one hand an autistic person who masks, who would normally under the old system be catagorized as having aspergers syndrome, (Some autistic people don't mask and they would more likely be classed as autistic, now known as "Classic autism")... where the autistic person longs for routine and order to make more sense of life... due to masking and the fear of being discovered (Which has disasterous results believe me!), one has to keep changing jobs and sometimes even changing friends when the masking starts to break down. (I don't mean one does not value friends as one loves friends as to an autistic person who by nature may struggle to make friends in the first place due to the inability to "Connect", one also finds that friendship may need a lot of masking ability, and the fear that the friend would be dreadfully upset if (Or rather when) they discover one has been masking to make the friendship work (As without masking one can't connect with the friend), and so one finds that after a certain period of time one distances onesself from ones friend (s) to protect both oneself and ones friend from hurt. That way one does not lose a friend and one does not get hurt. (I am exposing myself as I write this as I hope that any friends I may have will not be reading this! If you are one of those few friends, I love you and want to remain good friends even though it seems like I may have become a bit distant. It could also have nothing to do with masking and that I just need a bit of time to do other things, or some de-stress time)).

I don't have that many friends of my own. Not close ones of my age I can just call in with. But so far there is only one person of my own gender who I have unmasked while in his presence and he does jot mind, and I believe he may be autistic and not know it. Somehow I find it slightly easier to talk to those of the opposite sex, but more difficult to become close friends for long. 

Anyway. I hope I have made some sense and I apologize for turning to explain masking rather then the origional heading so I will go back to the "How does one know if one has autism" subject.

 

Those on the spectrum notice that they are different. Today the meaning of the term "Individual" tends to have altered over time to mean "A single person out of a group", where a few decades ago it had a slant towards "Different" as the meaning to it. (It is understandable as in the 1970's with the old CSE and O level education systems, individualism and individuality was celebrated, but these days individualism tends to be a curse to the communistic style GCSE's where real individuality tends to stand out like some sort of alien being, so these days someone who is on the autism spectrum will very much stand out.

There are many other traits associated with autism, and no two people share the same trait, but to me the feeling of not fitting in (And this can be with both introverts and extroverts as there are both types on the spectrum) and somehow making a lot of effort to connect with people tends to be a common feature.

[Stuart Birks]

A score of 36 would indicate a case of Aspergers but I do not have Aspergers or Autisim. What I do have is "Social Anxiety Disorder". It is easy to confuse the two as some of the symptoms are the same but there are some significant differences.

I avoid social meetings as much as possible and have no friends that I meet socially. That is a deliberate decision on my part and I am happy with it.

As mentioned previously you need to be very careful with any assesment as it is very easy to come to the wrong conclustion.

Stu

[Mountain Goat]

It is not an easy thing to give an answer to. One can only give guides. But without guides, one may not even have realized what the issue is throughout ones life and without some sort of basic simple test, one may jot know if it is a good plan to be assessed.

I do not know if I am on the spectrum or not. I have had a few people who are sure that I am, and yesterday one said she was so sure that if it was a case that I did not have it, she would be surprized. (I think she said she was so sure that if I did not have it she would put her fingers or toes i to a fire or something like that? I hope she doesn't if I am not on the spectrum!) 

Another has worked with a great many autistic people and she gave a list of 32 traits she noticed I had, and only two of these traits I am not 100% sure if she is right or not.

 

But anyway. What does one look for as a guide? As many people are puzzling if they are on the spectrum or not. A difficult one to answer as autism can effect a person in so many different ways!

[Mountain Goat]

I feel in trying to explain, I go off on so many tangents that I mess it up. Maybe a decent youtube film would best explain the traits.

[30801]

21 hours ago, Mountain Goat said:

I feel in trying to explain, I go off on so many tangents that I mess it up. Maybe a decent youtube film would best explain the traits.

 

Amythest Schaber has some good ones.

https://www.youtube.com/user/neurowonderful

[Mountain Goat]

33 minutes ago, 30801 said:

 

Amythest Schaber has some good ones.

https://www.youtube.com/user/neurowonderful

 

Watching her video made me determined to see my doctor to ask to be assessed. 

[Mountain Goat]

Eye Contact And How One Thinks...

 

When I am relaxed and comfortable I can make eye contact, but normally I can't make eye contact and keep up a conversation. Often throughout my life, especially when in school or college, I would be told off for not looking at the teachers as they taught. I never knew why but I found it easier to concentrate when things became deep to zone out my eyesight in a blank stare at a plain object like a wall, so I could really get to grips with taking in the information being taught. 

But I learned that teachers would assume that I was not listening and that I was daydreaming. Now sometimes they were right! As I tend to need to turn what has been taught into a picturelike thought so I can have a better understanding of it in my mind, and I have learned that I can go very deep in this when I do so... So I will be dwelling on this picture thought for a while before I would tune back into what was being taught.  (When learning to read I often tried to stop the teacher turning the page as I needed to gaze at the pictures). Looking at pictures rather then words is assumed to be a childlike quality but what if ones deep thinking inner mind works in picturelike form?

A conversation came up between my Mother and I while we were playing a board game where we needed to do some simple mental mathematics in our heads to work out the score. Now I was tired. I had also had a burmout a couple of months earlier which takes a long time to recover from, so I am not in my sharpest form. It was taking me a little longer then my Mum to do the adding and subtracting of the scores. My Mum was asking me why. I made a comment saying something like "I was adding up the dots". She seemed puzzled which made me puzzle as well... But as we went deeper into the conversation I told her how I add up dots in my mind to do sums as I can picture them in visual thought patterns, rather like one sees on dominos or a dice, but my adaption of doing this. In essence I can be working in different bases and need to convert them into base 10 if multiplying or dividing, but when adding or subtracting I still use the same patterns of dots which form visual distinguishing shapes in my mind, but there is less need to think of converting the answer into base 10.

Now throughout my schooling years I have always tended to confuse my matjs teachers as it is only recently that it vame to me that I do this, as in the past when a maths teacher asked me how I came up with my answer I just wasn't able to tell them! It now explains to me why in maths exams I was never able to show the workings out (If I could, and draw them in picture dots I may have lost some teachers ability to comprehend my thought processes!) I often would write down the answer, and then do the workings out backwards from my answer. 

Another thing in which I puzzled one maths teacher and it was what I call "Two take" learning. If I was anxious, nurvous or stressed etc, which I was in school, I would need to learn maths using the two take method... Let me explain what a certain secondary school maths teacher said when he saw my parents on a parents evening one year. He said "I don't understand it. I can teach him about a certain maths subject and he will totally get it. He will answer the sums on the board correctly. He will have totally understood the subject. 

But the next time I see him in the next lesson, it is as if he had never been there. I would have to start the whole subject all over again!" Thus, I would often have to learn things two or three times to be able to get it to stick in my mind.

(Ooh. I'm getting day jar vous at the moment. And before you say it, I saw you trying to correct me in my spelling in the day jar vous! Haha!)

But something interesting that I did not know was different, and I honestly thought the gentleman who was testing me in this was not really that serious in what he said and it is only now looking back that I realize he was serious... When I was going for the job of working on the railway as a conductor (We were actually more like passenger guards as we were working engine and coaches so we would couple and uncoupke and work groundframes, and propelling movements etc), I remember being tested for colour blindness. The gentleman brought out a book. It was full of pages of those coloured dots. Now I had to try to see the letters or numbers in the patterns of dots.

He started with the first page and went from there. At about half way in he was about to stop me but I already answered the next page, and he hesitated but decided to carry on. I then proceeded until he reached the end of the book. I remember having to take my eyes out of focus to see many of the letters or numbers, so by the time I had finished, my eyes sure had had some excercize!

Then the guy said "I don't know what to tell you. You've answered the lot correctly!" 

Puzzled, I asked "Wasn't I meant to?" He said "No!"

He then went on to explain that the first half of the book was designed to pick out if you were colour blind and what colours you were colour blind in. He said he thought I had totally filed in all colours, so he was about to stop the test but I answered ths next page... which was designed so that only those who were not colourblind could see, and the whole second half of the book was designed the same way... "And you answered the lot!" 

He said "I have done this job for (I think he said 47 years? He was close to retirement) and I have never had anyone do what you have just done! How did you do it?" I said I didn't know, because I didn't. 

He honestly did not know if he should pass or fail me... But he then reasoned that if I was colourblind, no way would I have been able to answer the second half of the book, so he said "It has to be a pass". 

 

So I know my mind works well visually and I can see patterns where some other people can't. Wierd isn't it!

 

And just a brief sideline into sound. Up until recently when the noise of wifi etc has deadened these abilities, I used to be able to hear bats. I could not work out why other people could not hear them!

But also, I remember walking past this man who stood right by me and blew his high pitched dog whistle right by my ear really loud. I automatically put my hands over my ears as I hurried past, and the man had a right go at me. I said it was very loud and it was right next to my ear. He said that only dogs can hear it and humans can't. How did he know this? I could hear it! Why did he have a go at me? I was doing nothing wrong. It was him who decided to blow his dog whistle as I passed! 

Anyway. I thought I would mention it.

 

 

[MrWolf]

I had a similar problem with maths. I could perform complex equations all day long, but the following day I would have forgotten how to do it. For a time we still did long division as calculators were not permitted. That I found really easy. We were also taught to count etc in bases, although I could never see you the point, as well as conversion from decimal to fractions. I was initially in the top set for maths but soon got busted down to the middle set because apparently I was lazy. Far from it. This maths problem meant that I struggled with the sciences, not that I couldn't grasp any of the concepts, it just took forever to show my working out on paper.

My other half has the same problem yet came out of a biology degree with a first.

[Ian J.]

I have never been able to get my head round long division, it's one of those things that has always just been too difficult for me to absorb.