What Made Me Suspect I Have Asperger Syndrome
I read an article in Scientific American on autism, and realized I shared many autistic traits. I immediately self-diagnosed myself with Munchhausen's hypochondria for even thinking I might have autism.
Years later one of my brother called to inform me he had been professionally diagnosed with Asperger's, and that in his opinion, from what he had learned of Asperger's, I probably had it too.
How I Diagnosed Myself
I sought to learn more about Asperger's, and realized that it described my perspective on the world accurately, and explained the behavior of some of my sons, one of whom had had problems in school and psychiatric intervention pre-1994 and DSM-IV.
Eventually I took some of the on-line exams, and I scored so high I was off their chart and beyond the limits of the discussions which accompanied the charts; apparently no one was ever expected to score as high as I did. (and I have it mild compared to one of my sons and one of my undiagnosed and recalcitrant brothers!)
Asperger's was discussed within the family, and other family members concurred in the speculation of which family members likely were endowed with Asperger's.
I actively altered my behavior based on this knowledge, and counseled my sons to alter their behavior to conform better with neurotypicals.
I learned that while people on the autism spectrum spend their life observing neurotypical human behavior and trying to make logical sense of it, and often succeeding to the point where they can successfully integrate with society, neurotypicals are incapable of comprehending the autistic mind, appear to make no effort to make sense of it, and have unreasonable expectations. They extrapolate human emotions and love onto us the same way they anthropomorphise pets.
The biggest light bulb going off for me was finally understanding why my wife did not know how to discipline my sons, and why we had fought over it to the point of nearly divorcing. I had been raised by two Asperger's parents in a household of Asperger's children, and she had been raised by neurotypicals, and she did not have a clue how to raise children who have no intrinsic morals, love, conscience or empathy and do not learn by example. In retrospect, we think my wife's grandfather had Asperger's, and her nephew (a notable physicist) appears to have it, so my children apparently got Asperger's genes from both sides of the family, as did all of my siblings.
I was self-diagnosed for about ten years, but never presumed myself to be guaranteed to have made a correct diagnosis.
I have always had unusual nervous system problems, but they have gotten progressively worse with either age or stress, and they were causing serious injuries. I finally sought professional help, and was professionally diagnosed with Asperger's. (No cure is available for my severe startle reflex problems however.)
Advice
- Never tell co-workers you have Asperger's! No matter how smart, professional and capable you are, they'll immediately start treating you like you are retarded! Even my wife and children started treating me condescendingly, and continue to years later.
- You might be better off self-diagnosed and dealing with your own symptoms logically. All the diagnosis gets you is a pre-existing condition to declare when you get health insurance.
- Automatically assume every engineer you deal with has Asperger's (most probably do); design correspondences to be focused on a single topic, and specifically address what you want done.
