Asperger's or Inattentive ADD?

Hi all. I'm in the fourth month of a new relationship with a guy that identifies as having inattentive ADD, but the more I've taken the time to learn about the condition, the appears to have Asperger's Syndrome. His father is a psychologist and he's been medicated since childhood, I am not sure if he truly is an Aspie, it's possible he is and knows and prefers to say he has ADD, or maybe he honestly doesn't know if he does indeed have it. I know both disorders are in the spectrum of inattention and have some similarities with regards to social and emotional cues being mixed. I'll describe what I notice, if any of you can weigh in on your thoughts as to which condition you think sounds more accurate, please do.

My boyfriend:

Doesn't appear very good at social protocol, i.e. saying thank you when given gifts, asking "How are you?" when he knows I'm sick, etc (For example, if I am sick and call him, he won't ask me about how I'm feeling, instead he'll proceed to describe his brothers activities in the room)

Doesn't seem to notice or react when I am bored, if I am sad, angry, sick, etc, he doesn't seem to know what to do and usually shuts down or tunes out with a distraction like a video game

Isn't very good at communicating himself or expressing himself clearly, also will avoid any sort of confrontation or taking a stand by tuning out or leaving altogether, doesn't resolve a problem promptly

Doesn't take good care of himself, i.e. doesn't sleep enough, eat enough meals a day, clean his place, etc

Doesn't like parties, clubs, social places, has very few friends, doesn't appear to have had a history of long term relationships, needs a lot of personal space

Plays video games and watches television obsessively

Has traces of OCD

Is bad at making plans and relies on me to do most of that work

Procrastinates...

Do any of these things sound familiar? It's the social unawareness that is most difficult for me, he doesn't appear to take people's feelings into consideration and seems to have a hard time empathizing or anticipating the needs of other people. If I try to talk to him about any behavior I consider alienating, he doesn't take responsibility for it and claims because his father is a psychologist, he knows better and so what I'm saying can't possibly be true. He is very intellectual and appears to spend all his time developing that part of his mind and not the social/emotional traits and doesn't seem to share his innermost feelings, emotions, etc at all or give compliments or do things that exemplify a great deal of interest in me, though we continue to date and we continue to spend a lot of time together.

ADD or Asperger's? And should I mention I think he might have Asperger's or should I not? Any tips on how I can connect with him in a stronger way and get him to be a bit more open about communicating with me? If you have a hard time communicating or being social, what do you feel you do to make your partner feel you are interested? I don't see a lot of effort coming through on his side, certainly not in proportion to how much I am putting out there. Your thoughts and opinions are valued, please help me to better understand.

Thank you.

Yeah, I've certainly had all of those frustrations relayed to me so it could indeed be AS, but he'd need a professional diagnosis. It usually takes a specialist in ASDs though, and reading between the lines he'll fall back on that if he had AS he did would know and yadda yadda, when that's simply not the case. No psychologist knows about everything in the same way that your family doctor couldn't do a boob job and your ear, nose and throat doctor wouldn't treat skin conditions.

Ultimately you can't force people to seek help, they have to want to help themselves. What you've posted here is a good, succinct start, so why don't you try explaining that these things upset you and they are not "normal" behaviour.

I really can't understand the way everyone seems nowadays so happy to regard their loved-ones -- and their idiosyncrasies -- in such cold and clinical terms. Why can't people just accept character traits for what they are? Why this faith that the classifications made by the medical profession are usefully discerning or even remotely valid?

Dynamite, you appear to misunderstand my intentions. I'm on this board to ask for help and to better relate to my partner. If I were cold and cynical, I wouldn't be with him. I like him a great deal, I only posted about one aspect of the relationship, there's plenty of others I am happy with and proud of. I care for him, that's why I'm here. The reason I want to know his diagnosis is to better understand what I'm dealing with, not to judge him or give him a hard time. In order to accept someone and their traits, you need to understand them. When you have the condition it's easy to just say, why don't people just let people exist the way they are. On the receiving end, these traits are different than what a non-Aspie deals with and can come across in negative ways at times, and if you understand why a person is the way they are you can put their behavior in a different context and handle it in better ways.

JustiFine wrote:Dynamite, you appear to misunderstand my intentions. I'm on this board to ask for help and to better relate to my partner. If I were cold and cynical, I wouldn't be with him. I like him a great deal, I only posted about one aspect of the relationship, there's plenty of others I am happy with and proud of. I care for him, that's why I'm here. The reason I want to know his diagnosis is to better understand what I'm dealing with, not to judge him or give him a hard time. In order to accept someone and their traits, you need to understand them.

My point was really that there is a tendency to place too much faith in the medical profession as an agent for understanding personality traits. Really, all they do these days (what, with all the research investment by people who want to make profits) is identify a lot of characteristics and see if they amount to something that are... how should one put it.... a lot of characteristics that one could tag one to a large group of individuals. Have you, or has anyone else here, ever seen Aspergers syndrome ever resolved in any terms other than a clumsily compiled heap of characteristics? If not, it is surely the person themselves, I mean the one who allegedly has AS, who is best placed to decide what they, as a person, are all about.

So how come you want to know -- as by medical opinion -- whether or not your boyfriend is, as they put it nowadays, mentally disabled (/ill/afflicted etc.)? How come you think there is some ultimately meaningful answer? More to the point, don't you suspect any of these modern fads?

Absolutely. In fact, I am very skeptical about the psychiatric profession in general and I agree there's a lot of hyped up nonsense and money-making going around. My boyfriend will probably disagree with me since his father is in the field...

I am learning what his traits are by knowing him personally and certainly that's more valuable than anything I read online, however I do know there has been a great deal of research done on these topics and I'd like to read more about it and learn as much as I can from all angles, as a social scientist I love to learn about people and understand differences and I enjoy reading research.

Aspergers or ADD, I feel pretty lucky to have such a neat boyfriend and appreciate learning new things about him everyday. No one is perfect and I sincerely believe everyone has something they have to battle so I'm certainly in no position to judge. I've battled my own disorders.

i'll chip in with a few issues you may or may not wish to consider.

firstly, you might like to think about how many of these traits are more related to the medication than the actual condition. it's a fact that long term exposure to such medication can have a permanent affect on an individual, especially children whose brains are still develping rapidly. this isn't at all difficult. the leaflet that comes with all prescription medication will have a truely comprehensive list of possible side effects, because of liability. just go through them and see which fit.

secondly, it's a well known fact that ADD and ADHD are related to food additives. there have been numerous studies that prove this, including observing behaviour in school children when put on a strick, non-junk food diet. there are also lists of additives explaining the ones that are suspect. sadly, food labelling is so lax that many additives simply aren't mentioned, basically because they want to make their products addictive and don't want to allow the consumer to make an informed choice. you might care to note one of the claims stephen byers made, and subsequently recanted, was that he helped tesco watered down food labelling laws. a claim texco deny. nevertheless, food labelling is very crude.

thirdly, it's a bit accademic whether these traits are related to ADD or asperger's syndrome, unless knowing this gives a more effective way of coping with or moderating them. perhaps the former might be of some help to you from the perspective of understanding but the later you're going to have to get your boyfriend's coperation for, which appears unlikely. as such, i'm a little doubtful whether there's a lot to be gained by this quest for absolute clarity. i'm also of the opinion that if you sought enough professional opinions you'd end up with a pretty wide and disparate set of opinions too. the bottom line is he is what he is, regardless of the label.

oh, and fourthly, i should probably mention that psychologist and psychiatrist have completely different world views. the former deal with environmental factors. the latter deal with biological factors. consequently, they constantly argue as to which holds sway. i'm on the side of nature as opposed to nurture. as such, i don't think i'd be listening too intently to the psychological view point. but that's me.