[Kamachi]

Hi, i'm Kamachi, 16, male, from Brazil, and I'm not feeling very confident about my life and my past.

It has been only a few days until I came across in-depth about Asperger's Syndrome, due to my mother's pyschology classes, so she asked me to help her. What I didn't knew was that I would absorb so much of the whole autism concept into my mind.

Ever since as a child I always had a problem with socializing and relationships, but everyone just thought about that as a personality trait. As such it seemed fine myself always being shy and quiet, so aspies' tendency to avoid and hate people interation wasn't enough to convince me as being "one of them".

Since I really like chatting and making new friends, it seemed paradoxal for me to have autism, as my lack of social skills was due to disuse and past problems such as bullying and so, not a cognitive problem at all. I also have fully capability of speech and understanding sarcasm, something aspies are said to not being able to.

What I didn't expect, however, is how autism can manifest itself on different people, after learning about other aspies' lives. This opened my mind, to an extent.

Perhaps the most influential traits of autism are the "insistence on sameness" and repetition things. Again, this fact alone wouldn't scare me, but the next would: the dificult (or fear) on abandoning old preferences. Okay, I consider myself as an open minded person, so if someone show up with an idea or advice I will listen it. Alone, however, I won't make it. So I noticed this tendency on myself, as I kept listening to the same musics, playing the same videogames, watching TV on the same channels, and so on. I was really shocked in the moment I realized in my whole life I've suffered from this. Often, I feel as if I am less experienced and thus less capable than other teenagers. This also messes with my social abilities since my repertoire of subjects in a conversation is limited. When asked about i.e a movie everyone but me watched, I'm forced to pretend I watched it too so I don't feel stupid around people.

So this means I'm sticking forever on the same things if I don't get any recommendations? I'm afraid the answer is yes, so this will mean I may have autism, right? Or, peharps, I'm just too lazy for searching for things myself and instead waiting for people to say what to do. Phew, that's better... Sounds more relieving. (I also think that this is caused by my ADHD, so that I just forget to check new stuff and just stick with already have because its easier, so I'm serious about being lazy. Such laziness however won't stop me from obssessions I already have. If I want to play a new video game, then I'm probably going to play a game from a franchise I already like, instead of giving a chance to a completely new game.)

This all being said, I'm going to see a psychologist in a few weeks. So I'm too scared with the idea of being diagnosticated with Asperger. This idea is already evolving into some kind of psychosis, as people around me insist that I'm not even close of having neither autism or any other mental illness, though I can't believe it.
For anyone reading this until this point, thanks a lot already. \o/

[Skeezyks]

Hello Kamachi: Well... as the Skeezyks often writes, here on PC, mental health diagnosis is for professionals. So I think it's great you'll be seeing a psychologist. My personal opinion is that we can sometimes do ourselves more harm than good by trying to diagnose ourselves or solicit diagnoses from other non-professionals. Of course, mental health professionals don't always agree either. So one also can't necessarily take what a professional says as being the last word. But at least it's a good place to start. Good luck with your appointment!

[Travelinglady]

By all means, wait until you get evaluated before diagnosing yourself. Psych students tend to think they or their relatives have all sorts of mental ailments.

Keep us informed and welcome!

[Kamachi]

Thank you for replying.

Well, being a online community, I didn't meant to be diagnosed here. But, since this forum section in particular is inahbited by Asperger's , I did expect to get some attencion from people who suffer from these, as a way to compare certain aspects. I think if you have a certain illness, you can tell when you see someone else has too.

In any case, I would appreciate to chat (either via PM or here, it doesn't matter) with an aspie, so if someone's interested tell me.

Thanks!

[Talthybius]

I might have Aspergers/high functioning autism, but I have some doubts. Better worded: I may end up getting diagnoses if I went through with a diagnosis, based on the comments of my psychologist.

I read your post but I don't really know what kind of feedback you want. We cannot judge you.

Also, it is not called a mental illness for a reason, as people are not ill, but different. Especially so with Asperger's vs pure autism.

Furthermore, it is just a label. I am not sure it means much. People are people, they are all different, and no one can be sure what kind of processes are going on, and going wrong, in your brain. Different people with different, and similar, quirks or traits, will get lumped under a label. They are still the same person.
Labels are based on symptoms. Causes are completely unknown and therefore unknown. One person with the label may have it because of genetics. Another one because of experiences. One may grow out of it. Another may not.

I also disagree that when you have the label, you can see if others have it or not. If you are truly autistic, you may not even notice you are different, as having insights into emotions and feelings from someone's else's perspective is exactly what people with autism are supposed to be bad at.

And even for 'normal people', I am not sure if they can do it.

Like I hinted at earlier, only psychiatrists make diagnosis. And what quality and value they have seems not completely, but quite, arbitrary to me.

[Kamachi]

Well, to begin with, I don't really think I can get diagnosis of it here. Where I live, I find very difficult to set a visit to a medic, whatever it is.
After the Internet it became very easier for people to find out diseaces they might have but never had the proper care or knowledge at all. By finding autism I found some symptons, which I've already described. Even so, that's not enough to qualify someone as having autism.

As far I know - and I really don't know too much of it - since the causes are unknown, it can be anything, there's not a single factor that changes it all. So autism is based on comparison around different people, as some will have a certain symptom, some will have another.

That being said, most people with autism tend to have common or similar symptons. So that's why I expect people to know when they see. Everyone might have a different trait or behavior, but when they have several traits around a same range, that's probably pointing to something else that might not be "just" a trait or a quirk. It might have a particular reason beyond this.

Thanks..