scumble

Clearly Waltz No. 7 is the best one... Also what about Strauss' opera Salome? Stravinsky's rite of spring? Berg's lyric suite?

GoldMD, I really think you have to try and move past the idea that you need a relationship to validate you as a person. Possibly you are just taking a while to get past it. I think a lot of our stress comes from trying to conform to the expectations of a generally neurotypical world.

As time passes, I think that Asperger's syndrome is more the tip of the autism iceberg. We are just the most verbal ones, and most able to cope in the neurotypical world. Possibly I am wondering if we should be advocates for the "low functioning" people...

Well here's a thought - this passed through my head a few weeks ago. The "real" world only exists in the head of neurotypicals. Our inability to "connect" is because we don't inhabit the same mental space. I am connected with the actual world of things rather than the world of human relationships. Unfortunately I also feel separation - emotional loneliness, even within my own family. Well, I suppose the trio of impairments is defined by people who aren't autistic, so perhaps we should define it instead. I am only just starting to get the hang of it. Have you read Donna Williams' jumbled jigsaw? She has a rather useful perspective on the whole situation of being autistic.

Well everyone would be honest at least.

Mahler Symphony No. 5

It is similar to remembering what someone was wearing when you last saw them instead of something relevant to them as a person. It is one of the things that makes it difficult to form relationships, it is difficult to engage with someone else's interests, something to do with what they call theory of mind.

I don't know what you think about this Tanya, but I tend to be drawn to women because they seem to be better at managing relationships, or perhaps being emotionally supportive. I don't tend to understand how male friendships work in general, partly because I've rarely had experience of it and also because they way typical men behave doesn't interest me. However I think there is some other dynamic with male/female relationships that I am missing. I suppose it's because my attempts in this regard seem to have been one-directional. I might be able to ask something of a woman I trust, meaning that there might have been two or three that I have met that I would ask for their thoughts on something, but I have never had anything happen in the other direction. It's not that they won't talk to me, but I've not had a woman actually go out of their way to show interest in me in a friendly way. I'm being careful to keep elements of attraction out of it. Given what I've just said, I could say the same about men in my experience, but I have rarely been able to confide in a man, and half the time it has just been because it's their job - line manager etc. This tends to leave me with the impression that I don't have anything to offer others as a person, even if I may have valuable skills from a work perspective.

You should probably give it a bit longer. It took me a long time to figure out that autism actually explains my life, it didn't make much sense at all before. Initially I couldn't see it. Well everything is relative. You appeared to say you had work "friends" and badminton "friends". That's quite a lot more than I could say. I have one friend that I interact with mostly via IM chat. For me I would stretch to friend there because he is the only person I have met who wants to keep in contact just because I'm me. The only other "friend" I had recently only contacted me because he wanted something. I don't have friends at work really. Rarely anyone who would bother to try and catch up with me in a deliberate fashion. This isn't meant to mean I don't think highly of my colleagues, or like some of them quite a lot. I just seem to be on a different frequency. So when you refer to "work friends" is this just a number of people you have got into the habit of going to lunch with, or is there some commonality there. Do you just talk about work? Are you happy with your interactions with people or do you just do it because it appears to be the thing to do? I don't think we lack empathy, I think there is just very little with typical people. If you can't share an experience of life it is very difficult to guess at the feelings of another person. Another thing is possibly that I can't compare emotional states because in detail I don't see the similarity. Also it doesn't help if you don't know what a particular emotion is. I think this is where I often miss the meaning of what people are saying, as I just don't have a reaction to certain things.

I don't know whether the drug use came about because you got involved with the wrong kind of people. That can happen to people on the spectrum. Also being too honest and trusting. I'm 35 and still don't understand it. It's interesting how much you can share with people after a while without overstepping the mark, but it still isn't obvious to me how people cross the line into being friends. I think it is one of those things that I would understand if someone told me but still not be able to implement. What appears sad to me is that I have not experienced a lot of friendship so I don't have a clear idea of what it looks like or how it develops.

It takes me ages to express something that shouldn't take me very long, so I know what you mean about reading things 50 times. I don't have more than a few acquaintances. I have "people I know" but the friendship element is very elusive to me such that I keep revisiting what I think friends actually are. The fact that I don't have an answer shows there is no intuitive grasp of friendship. Clearly you don't have as prominent a social problem as me, but it sounds like you are also struggling with the concept on some level.

Serenity, see if you can get referred for an assessment. It is better than churning over wondering if you are on the spectrum. You have a number of traits that suggest autism. I know very well the feeling of being lost when people converse in groups. It is just the delay in processing information. By the time you have worked out a relevant comment it is too late to throw it into the discourse...

I can understand the situation. I haven't hidden my diagnosis and it has helped justify me working from home a lot more than I was previously. That does imply a certain amount of trust. It is possible people are going to be more understanding than you think. I have gone through many years of being unaware of why I don't seem to be the same as everyone else, so armed with a diagnosis you have an explanation. I think it is better not to hide it if you have genuine problems because of it. If you can explain what your problems are you can educate people on how they can help you. I think I know what it's like when you suddenly realise you like someone a lot. I can be indifferent to most people and then suddenly find I really want to be around someone. Perhaps it is because we don't often feel a connection and when it happens it is a bit of a shock.

When you have really small kids the drain can be quite serious. I find that post-toddler age is much more manageable. I recall being very tired when the boys were small. I *really* don't miss the small baby phase! I think fatigue is more of a problem for those on the spectrum because we have sensory processing demands due to not being able to filter sound or visual stimulus. I don't know if you have noticed how certain environments can tire you out. I have discovered that working in an office eventually results in me being ill, and previously I just didn't realise how much it was taking out of me. Remember though, you clearly have a supportive wife, which was not something I ever had. Something that has helped me a little is picking up on minimalism - I started reading this blog called zen habits many years ago, and the strategy of stripping away things that aren't important makes quite a bit of sense to a person who can't handle too many things at once. I suppose you have to consider if your mental health is more important than the ironing. http://zenhabits.net/ For me it isn't computer games that help so much, it is doing something musical, either picking up the guitar or composing something on the computer. It has been difficult to do this with pressures of work and the children, but I know if I let it slip too much my mental health will suffer. Saying that, I really should pick up the guitar and at at least play a few scales...

I know of people in my support group who have retail jobs or have worked in retail. The reality seems to be that often people with AS really struggle with full time work. Part time might be the best way to start off? Also I think job centres can be fairly unhelpful in trying to find work...

I am not feeling that positive about basic friendship at this point. I am not depressed but sort of blank on what I should do, and it isn't clear to me that I know how to be a friend. It is almost like friendship doesn't exist for me. There are people I trust, but I am having trouble identifying people as friends. I can ask things of people but apparently not give much in return. I have only actually met one person outside my family who is motivated to keep in contact with me. Even then I am not sure why. As I say, I am not actually depressed at the moment. This is more like dispassionate analysis. I am somewhat isolated at the moment. Tanya - I suppose we must have been in similar situations. I am also single with children, getting on ok with family support. The only thing I do really is attend a support group locally, in terms of actually meeting up with people other than myself.

Having to list everything you need to do is supposedly related to executive function, which is just a name for whatever allows you to organise and prioritise tasks in your head. I am not that good with priorities, even when it comes to things that I actually want to do. It can be a difficulty at work and I have to rely on others for figuring out priorities some of the time. The best thing is probably to know where you have limitations and ask for help...

Well I would say it should be considered similar to any other incurable condition that can affect functioning in the normal world. It is probably more useful for children to gain the support they need, and I think you can technically reverse the diagnosis if your daughter is not continuing to have problems.

I don't think Tony Attwood is autistic. Something tells me Beethoven might have been. I'm a bit skeptical about Winston Churchill. I have wondered about Steve jobs having autistic traits too, but It can get a bit too easy to point at people who have a few traits and think of them as autistic...

Hypersensivity to sound, particularly in the 2-5khz range. Spaces full of lots of people can sometimes push me towards a state of panic because I can't filter out the background. This seems to get more difficult as I get older.

That book looks interesting just from the perspective of the claims it makes, but my skepticism has been engaged at the same time. I have read this http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asperger-Syndrome-about-Dating-Relationships/dp/1849052697/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1381694568&sr=1-2&keywords=Asperger+relationships but I felt it was actually talking at a level a little above what I needed some help about. At the moment my personal perspective on it is whether I can actually manage a relationship, even if I have a sort of compulsion to find a companion. Like Tim I feel like I have been chewed up and spat out by a destructive relationship. At one point I thought I was missing the physical element of a relationship, but after wasting quite a bit of money on dating sites I started to think about whether I had any idea of how to be friends with a woman in the first place. To return to my original point, do I have the bandwidth to bring someone else into my life? Should I in fact concentrate on my own mental health rather than thinking a person is going to come along and fill in all the gaps? Having given up too much of myself for more than a decade, should I not figure out who I am first? How can a person get into a relationship if they don't know how to relate as themselves?

I have been diagnosed at roughly the same age (35) but I have been thinking about this since the psychiatrist I was seeing at one point mentioned Asperger Syndrome about a year and a half ago. It is well known that adults can be harder to diagnose so it is a little frustrating that doctors can be relatively ignorant in the area but still carry on as if they know what they are talking about. Possibly it is more likely that women have more trouble as they tend to be better at covering it up. Perhaps that's what you mean when you say you appear reasonably "normal".

Hi Jimmy - a lot of what you've written sounds familiar. I was also somewhat captivated by computers at a young age. The feeling I used to get was that I was exploring a different sort of world that existed inside the case, and you found out about it by typing commands and browsing code. The first machine I extensively played about with was a BBC Micro, although I fiddled with a Vic 20 before that. Although what I found was that I was a tinkerer but nothing much that I did went anywhere. I can get immersed in the detail of something, but have trouble getting the detail to fit into a whole project with a result. In a way the exploration of detail was its own reward, and I didn't care whether I had a "target". I think this makes actual work a bit difficult because the emphasis is on results rather than detail. I can work as a programmer, but I don't seem capable of working without someone keeping an eye on priorities and deadlines. I can remember the "one friend syndrome" - I could never manage to be with more than one friend at a time when at school. I have lost friends because I couldn't deal with the context of more than one at a time. Social situations can be tolerable for me, but only with less than 5 people. Any larger gatherings mess with my ability to track conversations because of background noise that I can't filter out and too much information flying about. More recently I had a near panic attack when I was at this company meeting in a hotel. In a crowded restaurant with at least a hundred people from various meetings I couldn't cope with the environment and had to get out of it and go somewhere quiet. I used to have endless fun with spoonerisms, but I don't tend to do that any more. Well, rather than comment on everything I would say that your experience sounds familiar in many ways, such that I just feel that you must be an Aspie. I'm not an expert but I have been diagnosed and it seems to me that empathy with someone else is a fairly reliable indication. Probably if you get a diagnosis it would be some assistance in explaining your difficulties without feeling bad about being different or "less capable". More recently I have worked at home as much as possible because I believe the office doesn't work for me and just makes me ill periodically. I have got a bit of the confidence to say this to managers etc. because I have some backup. I'm not beating myself up for not being able to handle what neurotypicals can or forcing myself to try and "be normal". Also you need to explain to your partner that you need that relaxation time with the xbox, particularly with trying to cope with two small children, and that work really wears you down. If you don't get that wind-down time you just won't be able to function properly. For me a lack of "special interest time" results in severe depression in the long term. I think everything has to start from you being able to maintain reasonable mental health for your family, and your partner should be able to appreciate that, even if she perhaps feels like she needs more of your time.

What annoys me about my situation is that I know the office environment just doesn't work for me, and luckily I can manage to work at home much of the time, but there are people I like at work and I wish I could cope with being there more often. I know that making myself spend more time in the office isn't going to be good for my overall mental health in the long term. One of the worst things I can do is think that I'm "better" due to the break from the office and try to go in more often. I have that energy drain problem often just trying to cope with my workload at home. It frustrating when I don't want my life to just be about managing to do a normal day's work.

I knew I'd posted something on here. I'm bumping my own thread as I registered here and then forgot about it until now. I did not realise when I initially posted the above at the beginning of 2012 I was also heading for a marriage implosion. What I wasn't able to say was that the "partner" I had found was actually an alcoholic and likely a case of Borderline Personality Disorder. My marriage was actually a case of me being a victim for many years, which is quite clear to me now. I was simply playing along thinking the somewhat twisted relationship I was in was normal. I feel like I've had a decade of my life eaten up. In many ways I wish I hadn't - in 1999 I was working in Germany and probably in the most isolated state I have ever been in. I was given my future wife's email address by a friend of my father's. Over email it seemed like communication was easier and there were some similarities in our background which made it seem like this was what I thought I'd been waiting for. I was unfortunately completely wrong. I think I was out of my depth and lacking a lot of the sense most people have with people. Well, I could write a small essay about all of that. In the end it came down to her simply becoming intolerable and I realised I couldn't live with it any more. I still needed help to make the break. I don't know where I'd be without my family. They basically made me realise I had to end it. I think it was only after ending that phase of my life I could get back to thinking about the AS question. Now I am actually diagnosed with some form of ASC. I'm not sure Asperger's Syndrome is in official use anymore. I don't know which label I prefer. I prefer to avoid "Disorder" now. I attend a local support group run by a local charity, but I haven't gone much beyond that yet. I have quite enough to deal with as I am responsible for my two sons. So I'm on my own again and wondering what to do next...