indiscreet

From experience I would say one can - and it gets better with practice. However, it doesn't stop me being anxious beforehand and I prefer not have to stay in that social situation for too long.

Wow! That's fantastic. Almost exactly a year earlier I was told by my GP that my local Health Authority was not undertaking adult diagnosis of ASD because of the cost, so what you were told appears to be quite a U-turn. Well, as my GP said at the time if it's true that one in a hundred people are on the spectrum it seems logical that there are a large number out there born too late for childhood diagnosis who would get a positive adult one.

I assume from what you say that you didn't seek medical advice i.e. attempt to get a diagnosis. I did, because I thought it might be helpful to have this entered on my medical notes if I ever needed long-term treatment in a hospital. Apart from that I don't advertise the fact that I'm on the spectrum to people I know but, as you say, it's good to have somewhere like this to come and discuss things.

Matzoball, why do you want to go and live in East Berlin? What's the attraction?

It's been my experience that with a 'hidden' disability it's a help and a comfort to discuss it with someone else who suffers from it. To anyone listening it might very much sound like a negative take on the subject - a kind of lengthy moan of the 'ain't it awful' variety - but afterwards I always feel much more positive. I get the same effect when interacting on this board because it's a relief to find one is not alone out there and interesting to discover how others deal with similar issues - so I sign off feeling positive rather than negative. What doesn't help is to read posts alleging that many adults being diagnosed are not truly on the spectrum; they have been placed in that category due to (according to the poster) the wrongful widening of the parameters relating to autism and/or faulty or careless diagnosis. Also, suggestions that if they are asked by their employers whether there is anything the employer can be put in place to make certain aspects of the job less stressful they should refuse since (a) they've managed to cope to date and ( it may make it harder for young people somewhere on the spectrum to get work. However carefully posts like this are written the effect, to me, is like a slap in the face to the poster being addressed. I can see that on a board relating to all aspects of Aspergers and ASD people will have different issues. There will be parents with severely autistic children and others with those diagnosed as HFA/Aspergers and parents themselves may or may not be on the spectrum. There will also be people like me who were diagnosed as adults and naturally our concerns will be different but there are surely sufficient categories and threads for us all to post freely without treading on each others toes.

Surely the reason why posters on this board who have been diagnosed with HFA or Asperger's Syndrome as adults are more inclined to dwell on the negative aspects is because they have had many years of coping with a disability without any professional help or much understanding from close friends or relatives. I would imagine that Baddad's son would be more likely to view his disability positively because he was diagnosed in childhood - with the resultant professional input - and a caring parent who gave him help and support.

Hi Jessicanne - good to meet you.

Are you faced at present with changes you're unhappy about - either at work or in your personal life? If so, that could be the cause of your present anxiety.

From experience I would say that it's best to start with your GP and to explain as clearly as possible why you think you are on the spectrum. The National Autistic Society included information on how to approach a GP in an information pack and I found that extremely useful. It took my GP a lot of time and effort to find a Consultant Psychiatrist in the NHS area who would carry out the diagnostic work and I'm sure not every GP would have made the time so I was probably lucky.

Same here! So true! It's a relief to find that I'm not the only one who does this. However, since I managed to get a diagnosis last year I feel much more relaxed about things generally - just as though a heavy burden has been lifted off my back.

My list of problems is far to long to list here, but i do want to ask if anyone else has trouble with faces, because I have read that this could be an aspergers trait. _________________________________________ I have that problem as well. I have to know someone really well before I'll recognize them in the street, or in a group, and it's so embarassing to (apparently) snub people.

The OP didn't ask whether people would care about having their child taught by an Aspergic teacher but (a) "whether it would benefit your child to be taught by an Aspergic teacher" and ( "Has anyone noticed that a teacher at their local school is Aspergic." Those seem to me to be fair questions. If, as I've heard it suggested many times, boys would benefit from having male teachers then it could be that aspergic teachers would have a better understanding of the problems of aspergic children.

I can usually cope with one-to-one conversations with strangers by getting them to talk about themselves and then all I need to do is smile and nod and occasionally put in a comment. I hate, though, to be in a group - especially a group sitting around in a kind of circle (or round a table) where if you speak all eyes turn on you. I either say the wrong thing, or talk too much or go back to a topic which the rest have abandoned. I feel that I'm somehow out of sync but I don't know how or why.

I have a very strong sense of smell and bright lights (including the sun) bother me. I have no problem with music but high-pitched sounds like drills, car/house alarms and children shrieking/squealing I find unbearable. I have no problems with touching materials but I'm very sensitive to being touched because I'll feel it for quite a time afterwards.

Thinking abot it, I know I'm more comfortable making my decisions on a rational basis. If I have to attempt to predict my feelings and emotions at the outcome I get into a terrible state and my brain seems to seize up. I think I'd have the same problem as your son in talking about what makes me happy and I would imagine most people do whether or not they are on the spectrum. Also I'm not sure that laughing at something on TV necessarily makes you feel good. It's possible to feel extremely unhappy but still laugh at the sight of someone else slipping on a banana skin.

I can feel emotions when I read or watch a movie but I find it difficult in real life situations. Maybe this is because with a story or a movie I'm outside the situation and there's nothing I can do about it, while in real-life I don't know what's going to happen next and I'm in there and I just freeze up. Does that make sense? I don't know, it's just so difficult to put it into words. With a work of fiction I can 'feel' the emotions of the characters but I'm outside the action. When I'm involved in the action it's as though I'm watching everything through a sheet of sheer glass - me on one side and them on the other.

That's well put, Matzoball, and as an 'aspie' I, too, found the post from A and A "quite ruddy offensive."

It's quite usual for the parameters of a newly recognized illness (mental or physical) to be widened as as a result of further research. At the present time it seems that it's the parents of children with AS rather than autism who are finding it difficult to get the required help - hence the projected dropping of the AS category in favour of 'autism' to cover everyone. It's impossible to know where a particular poster is coming from if they don't share any information about themselves. Obviously individual views on certain topics will be coloured by their own situation/experience and while some contributors to these page make it quite what their main concerns are others don't and this can make some of the things they say both unhelpful and unkind. Obviously the concerns of parents will be different from those who have received a diagnosis as an adult, and also those who are waiting for a diagnosis - or maybe uncertain as to whether they should but it would be helpful if anyone with experience in the field either as a psychiatrist, nurse, care-worker, special-needs teacher would make this clear at the outset.

But few people not on the spectrum have any knowledge of spectrums and they'll hear the word 'autism' and not the words 'high functioning'. Or if they do they may assume that a high functioning autistic still may not function as highly as a neurotypical.

It is indeed. Thank you for posting it Sesley.

But it's not just a question of getting appropriate help - it's also about how people on the spectrum are perceived by others

Maybe it's because you have to struggle to get into host mode. You make a great effort - and it works - and that leaves you 'up' because you've been successful. Then, when it's over you experience a 'down' equal to the original 'up'. Does that make sense? When I have to go to a social event which I really don't want to attend I'm anxious and edgy beforehand out of all proportion to what is actually involved. Then, when it's over I experience a corresponding feeling of euphoria. It seems logical that mood swings are associated with AS because those on the spectrum are stressed by so much in everyday living that those not on the spectrum take in their stride.

Thank you, Philipo, that's interesting. I knew that flourescent lighting caused problems for many people but not why. My partner is a professional photographer so I've learned a great deal about cameras from him but I didn't know that two-two-thirds of the film or digital sensor is devoted to processing the green end of the spectrum.

I find it depressing if a light is too dim and I'm uncomfortable, for some reason, with spotlights or lamps in a room rather than a central light. Lighting in supermarkets or large offices where it's very difficult to avoid seeing a light make me feel dizzy and sick and can cause me to have the visual disturbances of migraine, but without the headache. Fluorescent lighting is a particular problem. Bright colours cheer me up but I think this is true for most people.

I'm a layperson as far as medical matters are concerned but from both obvservation and experience it seems to me that there are (very broadly) two types of depression. One is caused by bad things happening in a person's life (loss/illness/lack of work/wrong kind of work/difficulty with relationship, etc). This depression may be so severe that it needs medication and/or councelling to help but if/when the cause is removed the depression will go. For those struggling with the day-to-day problems of living with AS it wouldn't be surprising if depression resulted - would it? The second type of depression is where it hits in for no particular reason. Suddenly everything seems gray and it's an effort to go on with life. On the (thankfully) few occasions this has happened to me I have been able to go on but in a zombie-like way and then, suddenly, weeks later it lifts, colour comes back into the world and things are fine again. It's possible, surely, that the changes in the brain of those with autism/AS may predispose them towards having this kind of depression - isn't it?