Is my weirdness due to Asperger traits or INTP personality ?

Dear Aspies,

I’m transforming myself into a hermit. Help!

I have always known that I’m far different from average guy. My INTP personality type (from MBTI model) explains some traits, but not the extremes. I did 4 online tests for Autism/Asperger and in all of them I got normal/neurotypical scores. Yet I had the feeling that they were just screening for functional deficiencies, which I did not particularly have (maybe I had but did overcome them already).

My high IQ (usually at top range of tests I did online) may explain why is it tiring and boring for me to communicate with “regular people” because they do not “follow me”, but also my interests and thinking pattern are way too different. So I’ll like to describe my traits so that you, the Aspie crew, can let me know if you are familiarized. Here they go…

1. I have zero interest in topics/activities that most people are interested (such as watching TV, talking about politics, going to church, etc). Yet I have extreme interest/curiosity about narrowed topics (currently, whatever is useful to understand my disordered wife) or very specific activities (such as development of artificial intelligence, loudspeaker construction, playing chess, etc). When I find a new interest, it grows into an addiction (or maybe obsession). Then I may engage in it endlessly day and night, neglecting my own needs.
   
2. I’m always so immersed in my own internal thinking that I forget what I should be doing in that place/time. It’s like I’m always meditating or solving a problem in my head, hardly interested in what’s going on around me (unless it’s about one of my narrowed interests). This can get worse if I lock myself for extended periods, or get much better if I do the opposite such as going to the beach with family. So my introspection symptoms can be modulated.
   
3. Since I overcame my shyness from early ages, I have been able to socialize very well (when I want to). I have, however, spent most of my life in front of a screen, instead. I usually have no interest in joining a group. I prefer one-on-one conversations and the topic must be something useful or something very intriguing. I dislike when I have to say good morning/evening/night to people just to be polite, because for me this is just a distraction and it is not useful do to that (after all, we aren’t engaging in any conversation).
   
4. Because of my excessively logical and focused pattern of thinking, I dislike when someone shifts to a different subject without concluding the current one, or speaks too disconnected (without allowing me to grasp the exact meaning of each sentence and connection between them). So I make questions to fill in the blanks.
   
5. I can be highly sensible and emphatic to the need of others and understand their point of view, but only if I am paying attention in their emotions or I am emotionally involved somehow. Yet on a daily basis I am usually so focused on logic that I tend to be insensible, ignoring their feelings or even hurting them by mistake.

Regarding regular Arperger symptoms, I do NOT need or like schedules, I have excellent motor skills, and I don't think I have any problems controlling or identifying my emotions. But I take too long to identify faces of people that I do not know so well. And I may avoid eye contact sometimes, but only when I'm uncomfortable/shy.

Struggling with my current partner, my goal here is to understand if my eccentricity has been contributing for this endless cycle of conflicts, or if it is just because of her personality disorder. I lock myself up in a room for most of the day because she argues and screams so much with me. But I’m trying not to blame just on her the fact that I’ve been living like a real hermit and that I’m struggling with anhedonia (lack of pleasure/motivation). Thanks.

this doesn't give me any insight, because i am not sure how your internal process works or if i am the right person to even evaluate it. Although here is an idea, try to recall times when you pay more attention to enviromental stimuli which is not people.

Sometimes light and certain sounds might keep you from concentrating or you might be more interested in another social setting.

Because if it is asperger that is permanent as far as i am concerned.

cookiedo,

Thanks for your input. Not sure if I understood your inquiry, but I'll try to answer.

Although here is an idea, try to recall times when you pay more attention to enviromental stimuli which is not people.

I'm almost always paying more attention to environment than people. When I enter a store I like to look everything by my own and I hate when a salesman approaches me and interrupts me making me a question such as "Can I help you?".

Sometimes light and certain sounds might keep you from concentrating or you might be more interested in another social setting.

I don't recall being disturbed by a light. I can drive well with very little vision and lots of head lamps flashing in my face.

I like loud music and I'm ok with noise that is constant, such as a waterfall, but I hate intermittent noise such as a dog barking. I also hate TV, because of it's advertising interruptions and because it talks so much. I prefer on-demand films services. If someone is watching some movie series were people talk fast all the time, I need to go away, because it makes me nervous.

Also, although my hearing is good, I can't participate in a meeting in a noisy environment, such as a pizza restaurant. It will be too hard for me to understanding everyone says. They seem to communicate well while I little clue of what they are talking about and I can't elaborate my speech very well, because the noise distracts me so much.

Does this look like an Asperger's trait?

PS: I don't think I'd qualify for the disorder, but maybe I could have much more of a neanderthal brain than average human (I read in other post about the the Neanderthal theory).

Acknowledging you have aspergers won't change how your internal process is executed in the long run. Although you might demand special treatment if you have a validation. *mod edit*
Also Aspergers has more communities now than ever.

Hi PsyHealer.

A fellow INTP here and I saw a psychiatrist recently and he recommended an Aspergers assessment. I have many of the traits you describe. So, maybe it could be Aspergers and being an INTP. Maybe INTP is just a classification of a sample of the population who have mild Autistic traits.

PsyHealer wrote:
I'm almost always paying more attention to environment than people. When I enter a store I like to look everything by my own and I hate when a salesman approaches me and interrupts me making me a question such as "Can I help you?".

Yes. I also get very distracted by the external environment.

PsyHealer wrote:Also, although my hearing is good, I can't participate in a meeting in a noisy environment, such as a pizza restaurant. It will be too hard for me to understanding everyone says. They seem to communicate well while I little clue of what they are talking about and I can't elaborate my speech very well, because the noise distracts me so much.

I get exactly the same things. Do you find eye contact difficult? I find that I have to look away from people when they're talking. It helps me to listen to what they're saying, but it can come across as rude or weird, so I have to constantly remind myself to look them in the eyes. I have no idea if this comes across as normal eye contact or not.

For what it's worth, I'm 39 and this has always been the case. I am still wondering what good a formal diagnosis of Aspergers would do, as it can't be treated or eradicated.

Thanks for the replies!

Cookiedo,

cookiedo wrote:Acknowledging you have Aspergers won't change how your internal process is executed in the long run. Although you might demand special treatment if you have a validation.

I'm proud of my thinking process. Don't want to change it. Though demanding my wife to give me special treatment would be wonderful But seriously, if I just could get her to understand/accept why I can't always communicate/interact in the way she expects me to, then that would help us a lot. She always feels disrespected when it is hard for me to follow her long and diverse speech (she thinks I'm uninterested), to focus on her emotions instead of the exact meaning of her words (she thinks I don't care), and when I have a flat facial/neutral expression (which she interprets as negative/bad expressions). Those are all normal misinterpretations from someone with BPD, but are triggering her too frequently.

Also, any kind of validation of my differences would help me to feel more compassion for myself, which is also so important when you have a partner who can get devalue you so much.

But from what I read in DSM criteria and what my online tests say, I don't think a professional would diagnose me positively. So I'm just seeking to identify possible traits.

in Simon Baron-Cohen's 50 item test, I got a score of 21. And this is my rdos.net chart:

You are probably developing a depression because of the abuse.
Even if you were AS, or anything else, you would not get that validation. On the contrary, the abuser would use it against you at every turn.

CloudShark.

I would make almost no eye contact when I was a kid because I was too shy, but this is gone since I grew more self-confident. So currently I don't think I have trouble with eye contact, because I do it when necessary, but your explanation makes a lot of sense.

Is it like the eye contact would bring up emotions which interfere with the thought?

I do also have to constantly remind myself about a set of social interaction rules, which won't come up naturally most of the times. Or I may forget about them and just come across as rude. Sometimes when I'm feeling confident and motivated to be more social, then my social brain "wakes up". Such as when I need to present myself to my new girlfriend's parents and make a good impression.

Though it only really comes natural when I'm within close family members, like kids and wife. In larger social settings, to be more natural I'll need a couple of beers, a good mood, and some "mental preparation" (to remove everything else which is in my mind and focus on the moment). Now sure how should I name this, residual shyness, asocialishness, Neandertalishness?

(PS: sorry I'm going a bit off topic in this post)

OneRinger,

Yes, this relationship is making me very sad, and she can be quite abusive in different degrees depending on her moods, but she is very nice and helpful when in a good mood.

There are two meanings here for the word "validation". Cookiedo was referring to professional assessment. Another meaning is about getting "emotional validation" for something (such as having an disorder), and that's something I don't think she would be capable of providing me (even if i had a diagnostic). When I share with her any shortcoming of mine, she really does "use it against me at every turn", as you say. However, if it was about a real disorder I think she would tend to respect it, and likely avoid using it against me. Because she understands she also has a disorder and that's something we can't change. Plus she is not a sociopath.

Yet, if she did use against me whatever I taught her about my Asperger traits, then that would create in me a persistent feeling of withdraw and of being hurt. So I'd then finally have some concrete reason to feel sorry for myself and defend myself. Not just those feelings that come from the internal ego (which are so more natural and common for everyone), but I mean to feel that for myself from an external depersonalized scope (just defining self compassion here). And in a way that hurt would also be a useful feeling, as it would kill the love I have for her, allowing me to continue detaching.

But currently, for some reason, I never feel hurt enough. Whatever she says to humiliate me, even if she punches me on the face, I just forget, as if I was impermeable/unbreakable, or did not deserve any better. Something I'm trying to change in myself.

^
Ok, yes, I see the topo. It seems you have thought about it.

My concern here is that you may be doing what many people do in these forums, is try to find justifications for a decision that they made or want to make. And I see this whether the person is victim of perpetrator, it happens quite often. I don't think it is the right way to approach a diagnosis, because in the case of a relationship, there is a dynamic, so it is hard to judge what is really happening, since everything becomes relative. If an individual is too emotional, the other will look unemotional in comparison, but it does not mean they are generally speaking. Just an example, I don't know if it applies to you, nor is that the point.

If those things are general problems for you outside of that relationship, then by all means, you might want to consult someone, just in case. I would not do it if it is only a problem with the relationship you have though, although you could still use some help with having proper boundaries and so on. Like retreating as you do, is probably counter-productive, and might cause more problems than it solves, but I don't know. A good professional would know best. It's not healthy, that I can tell. You should feel safe in your own home.