I just took the wired test, and scored a 31. I’m not sure what to make of this. For years now I’ve wondered whether I have asperger’s symptoms, and gone back and forth on it, but never been able to make up my mind—seeking a formal diagnosis seems like waste of time, since there isn’t any real treatment. But I AM curious about it.
My opinion seems to go back and forth depending on whose description of the symptoms I’m reading—sometimes I’ll read something on asperger’s and think “Yes, that’s totally me”, and other times I’ll read something and say “no, not me at all”. It really seems to depend on how the author phrases the symptoms.
The big thing to me seems to be the “inability to read social cues/read between the lines/read facial expressions”.… That doesn’t sound like me—I definitely feel I am able to pick up and read these kinds of cues—better than most people in fact.… I just have a very hard time responding in kind. As to understanding politeness/social appropriateness, it’s not so much that I don’t UNDERSTAND these things, as that I find them silly, and can’t force myself to play along with things that I see as stupid status games masquerading as meaningful social interaction.
I see two possible explanations for this discrepancy:
Asperger’s symptoms are consistently misunderstood by the researchers who study them—they observe people failing to appropriately RESPOND to social cues, etc, and incorrectly assume they’re failing to UNDERSTAND those cues.
I don’t have asperger’s.
I’m not sure how to evaluate the relative likelihood of these two possibilities. Does anyone else here with aspeger’s or other autism spectrum disorders have similar experiences?
I also am socially competent when I choose to be and feel neurotypical, but scored a 30 the first time, 27 when I took it the next day (the first time was the day after I had last socialized, the second was the second day after I had last socialized).
I scored really high, and I imagine that this is because I am highly focused and dedicated to my subject area, like studying more than (most) people, and hate having my routine disrupted. But if you put me in a party, I’ll hold my own. I’ll either find the other person at the party who will take the bait and talk Bayesian, or I’ll find some cognition altering substance to make it the time feel worthwhile.
We do strangely agree about the understanding of social cues, but not so much the producing of the appropriate cues. Maybe that’s just coincidental though.
I’ll either find the other person at the party who will take the bait and talk Bayesian, or I’ll find some cognition altering substance to make it the time feel worthwhile.
I have to admit, as wary as I am of self-diagnosing (and annoyed as I am with people telling me I must have Asperger’s), schizoid disorder sounds more like me too.
I wonder why self-diagnosed Asperger’s has been A Thing for years, and yet nobody seems to ever talk about SPD. Is there an actual smaller fraction of people who read the symptoms going “me too”, or is it just because Asperger’s has gone into popular culture and become a much more available hypothesis than miscellaneous stuff you can find by DSM-IV-diving?
This probably isn’t the most charitable explanation, but it might well be that folks are less prone to self-diagnose SPD simply because it’s a scarier-sounding disorder. Asperger’s scans to me as connotationally neutral aside from those connotations it’s picked up from popular culture; SPD definitely doesn’t.
Obscurity may also have something to do with it, but if I’m remembering right Asperger’s was comparably obscure until at least the late Nineties.
Obscurity may also have something to do with it, but if I’m remembering right Asperger’s was comparably obscure until at least the late Nineties.
Actually, what’s now called Asperger’s was initially part of what Kanner called autistic psychopathy. However, some people with severe problems and/or mental retardation also had the same symptoms, so the diagnosis was expanded to cover them. Then it narrowed to include entirely those with very severe disabilities, such that autistics/Aspies with the ability to “pass” (act normal or act like something other than disabled) to any degree were overlooked despite needing recognition, information and assistance. So a researcher decided to introduce a new diagnosis, Asperger’s Syndrome, to cover spiffy-shiny-cool autistics, as opposed to need-lots-of-help autistics, because the spiffy-shiny-cool kind still needed assistance and often had serious problems as a result of the mismatch between their abilities and other people’s expectations. Asperger’s entered the DSM-IV in the early/mid nineties.
So the timing coincided with the explosion of Silicon Valley; combine with their genuine presence there to some degree, and hey presto...
I’d also suggest that Asperger’s is inherently flattering to some degree: it inherently implies you’re smart, and capable in some field. (‘Yes, I can’t understand people but that’s not my fault, I have Asperger’s, which also means I’m smarter than you.’)
Schizoid on the other hand, besides sounding like ‘schizophrenia’ (zero positive connotations), looks bad even when you read the entire Wikipedia entry: almost like a synonym for sociopath/psychopath. (Funny thing, BBC’s new Sherlock series has Sherlock as a diagnosed sociopath, so even that diagnosis may yet be redeemed.) It’s not clear why anyone would want to claim a self-diagnosis of that, since little about it is ‘egosyntonic’, as the psychiatrists say.
I’d also suggest that Asperger’s is inherently flattering to some degree: it inherently implies you’re smart, and capable in some field. (‘Yes, I can’t understand people but that’s not my fault, I have Asperger’s, which also means I’m smarter than you.’)
I’ve had more than a few people with Asperger’s tell me that it’s correlated with higher intelligence in a manner implying that it’s something for them personally to be proud of, and I’ve always found it extremely frustrating.
If in order to convince people you’re smart you find yourself needing to tell people “I’m in X demographic associated with smartness,” you’re not that smart.
Schizoid is nothing like a synonym for psychopath/sociopath. Being asocial is not the same as being antisocial, indifference is not malevelonce. Coldness just pattern matches to malevolence (and in some very poorly calibrated people so does indifference) and the pattern breaks down with schizoids in the first case and is non existant anyway in the second. I just spent 5 minutes on the first google hit for schizoid forum and found this quote: “Emotions and expressing them, as well as manipulating and even intimidating other people seem to be awfully important to the majority of people. In my opinion most of them are a little savage” -under ice. That’s exactly how I used to see things. The difference now is a lot closer to giving in than growing up. At best it’s a compromise.
Behind, or at least related to your comparison to psycopathy and sociopathy might be the feeling people often have that wierdness is hostility, lack of friendliness is hostility etc which is practically an unspoken meme.
If anything the wikipedia page puts Schizoids at risk of coming accross as pathetic rather than dangerous but there’s got to be a massive selection effect for pathological schizoids among those who see a psychiatrist. If you go on the schizoid forums you’ll find plenty of self diagnosed schizoids who are indifferent or happy with their alleged disorder. And the specific type of pathetic that comes accross in the wikipedia article seems to be a product of integrity. Maybe it’s a little sad that someone aloof and cold under the surface wants to be loved (and with the amount this meme is bombarded at people I pretty much interpret this as schizoid people being infected by memes definetely not optimised for them. Maybe the ones going to psychologists are just the ones who internalised the meme? Anyway, at least they’re not editing themselves. Failure before self modifying in a way judged to be bad.
Schizoidism seems so clearly superior to normality to me.
anyway, to sum all this up “egosyntonic” is a relative term.
Also, Sherlock a sociopath? Really? He’s indifferent at worst. Certainly not hostile to the average person most of the time. “Failure to conform to social norms” is one of the criteria for diagnosis as having antisocial personality disorder. At the least there’s a lot of imposition of social norms mixed into the diagnostic criteria for all those “disorders”
Doesn’t sociopathy merely imply a lack of caring, not an active malevolence? Because Sherlock does repeatedly demonstrate an extreme lack of caring- the accused murderer at the start of ‘The Great Game’ who he refused to help while mocking his poor grammar; his (inaccurate) revelation that Molly’s ‘boyfriend’ ‘Jim’ was gay; his entire relationship with Molly; the way he left Adler at the end of ‘A Scandal in Belgravia’; his poisoning and terrifying Watson in ‘The Hounds of Baskerville’; the way he keeps disrupting Watson’s attempts to live his life; etc.
Also, Sherlock a sociopath? Really? He’s indifferent at worst. Certainly not hostile to the average person most of the time. “Failure to conform to social norms” is one of the criteria for diagnosis as having antisocial personality disorder. At the least there’s a lot of imposition of social norms mixed into the diagnostic criteria for all those “disorders”
Well, that’s what the series said in the first episode, and maybe the second too. I think he does come off as a little sociopathic, minus all the malevolent parts—schizoid doesn’t seem to imply the manipulation or game-playing which all good Sherlocks engage in (whether they’re named ‘Sherlock’ or ‘House’).
The lady from the study on schizophrenia I participated in said I could probably get an Asperger’s diagnosis. This even though I scored perfect or near-perfect on a facial expression recognition quiz. I’ve also read that schizotypal children often get diagnosed with Asperger’s.
I have three close relatives with a diagnosis—one has classic autism, one has Asperger’s and one has schizophrenia. I can never decide how to classify my own shadow traits.
I’m also like this, somewhat. I only scored a 13, but I am in no way neuro typical. Although someone who worked closely with Asperger’s people said I had some of the properties of Asberger’s.
I do more closely relate to the schizoid personality disorder that Risto posted. Although that linked it to autistic thinking as well.
I suspect that it is a mix of the two options, some people/society in general are lumping every introverted neuro untypical into asperger’s/autism however there are two groups in that larger group.
some people/society in general are lumping every introverted neuro untypical into asperger’s/autism however there are two groups in that larger group
Yeah… I read Risto’s link (I think I’d read it before), and I do see some similarities there, but neither lines up with me 100%… the more I read about these things, the more it seems to me like the whole idea of classifying psychiatric ‘disorders’ is just bunk—a widely diverse range of personality characteristics are just being artificially crammed onto a one dimensional scale, and then clusters are labeled as ‘disorders’ despite not really having a common cause.
I’d agree. I suspect that there might be some real clusters with common causes, but then there are probably lots of other people that appear in or near that cluster that don’t have that cause.
Here is an interesting experiment that critiques the psychiatric profession I came across while trying to find about the scientific basis of the DSM classifications (little).
As to understanding politeness/social appropriateness, it’s not so much that I don’t UNDERSTAND these things, as that I find them silly, and can’t force myself to play along with things that I see as stupid status games masquerading as meaningful social interaction.
No offence meant, but that sounds like sour grapes to me. (Surely e.g. having irregular verbs might be seen as silly, too, but you still say “took” rather than “taked” etc., because those are norms of the medium of communication. Politeness and social appropriateness are norms of media of communication all the same.)
I just took the wired test, and scored a 31. I’m not sure what to make of this. For years now I’ve wondered whether I have asperger’s symptoms, and gone back and forth on it, but never been able to make up my mind—seeking a formal diagnosis seems like waste of time, since there isn’t any real treatment. But I AM curious about it.
My opinion seems to go back and forth depending on whose description of the symptoms I’m reading—sometimes I’ll read something on asperger’s and think “Yes, that’s totally me”, and other times I’ll read something and say “no, not me at all”. It really seems to depend on how the author phrases the symptoms.
The big thing to me seems to be the “inability to read social cues/read between the lines/read facial expressions”.… That doesn’t sound like me—I definitely feel I am able to pick up and read these kinds of cues—better than most people in fact.… I just have a very hard time responding in kind. As to understanding politeness/social appropriateness, it’s not so much that I don’t UNDERSTAND these things, as that I find them silly, and can’t force myself to play along with things that I see as stupid status games masquerading as meaningful social interaction.
I see two possible explanations for this discrepancy:
Asperger’s symptoms are consistently misunderstood by the researchers who study them—they observe people failing to appropriately RESPOND to social cues, etc, and incorrectly assume they’re failing to UNDERSTAND those cues.
I don’t have asperger’s.
I’m not sure how to evaluate the relative likelihood of these two possibilities. Does anyone else here with aspeger’s or other autism spectrum disorders have similar experiences?
I also am socially competent when I choose to be and feel neurotypical, but scored a 30 the first time, 27 when I took it the next day (the first time was the day after I had last socialized, the second was the second day after I had last socialized).
I scored really high, and I imagine that this is because I am highly focused and dedicated to my subject area, like studying more than (most) people, and hate having my routine disrupted. But if you put me in a party, I’ll hold my own. I’ll either find the other person at the party who will take the bait and talk Bayesian, or I’ll find some cognition altering substance to make it the time feel worthwhile.
We do strangely agree about the understanding of social cues, but not so much the producing of the appropriate cues. Maybe that’s just coincidental though.
Or both. That’s when things get most awesome!
This sounds like schizoid personality disorder.
I have to admit, as wary as I am of self-diagnosing (and annoyed as I am with people telling me I must have Asperger’s), schizoid disorder sounds more like me too.
I wonder why self-diagnosed Asperger’s has been A Thing for years, and yet nobody seems to ever talk about SPD. Is there an actual smaller fraction of people who read the symptoms going “me too”, or is it just because Asperger’s has gone into popular culture and become a much more available hypothesis than miscellaneous stuff you can find by DSM-IV-diving?
This probably isn’t the most charitable explanation, but it might well be that folks are less prone to self-diagnose SPD simply because it’s a scarier-sounding disorder. Asperger’s scans to me as connotationally neutral aside from those connotations it’s picked up from popular culture; SPD definitely doesn’t.
Obscurity may also have something to do with it, but if I’m remembering right Asperger’s was comparably obscure until at least the late Nineties.
Actually, what’s now called Asperger’s was initially part of what Kanner called autistic psychopathy. However, some people with severe problems and/or mental retardation also had the same symptoms, so the diagnosis was expanded to cover them. Then it narrowed to include entirely those with very severe disabilities, such that autistics/Aspies with the ability to “pass” (act normal or act like something other than disabled) to any degree were overlooked despite needing recognition, information and assistance. So a researcher decided to introduce a new diagnosis, Asperger’s Syndrome, to cover spiffy-shiny-cool autistics, as opposed to need-lots-of-help autistics, because the spiffy-shiny-cool kind still needed assistance and often had serious problems as a result of the mismatch between their abilities and other people’s expectations. Asperger’s entered the DSM-IV in the early/mid nineties.
So the timing coincided with the explosion of Silicon Valley; combine with their genuine presence there to some degree, and hey presto...
I’d also suggest that Asperger’s is inherently flattering to some degree: it inherently implies you’re smart, and capable in some field. (‘Yes, I can’t understand people but that’s not my fault, I have Asperger’s, which also means I’m smarter than you.’)
Schizoid on the other hand, besides sounding like ‘schizophrenia’ (zero positive connotations), looks bad even when you read the entire Wikipedia entry: almost like a synonym for sociopath/psychopath. (Funny thing, BBC’s new Sherlock series has Sherlock as a diagnosed sociopath, so even that diagnosis may yet be redeemed.) It’s not clear why anyone would want to claim a self-diagnosis of that, since little about it is ‘egosyntonic’, as the psychiatrists say.
I’ve had more than a few people with Asperger’s tell me that it’s correlated with higher intelligence in a manner implying that it’s something for them personally to be proud of, and I’ve always found it extremely frustrating.
If in order to convince people you’re smart you find yourself needing to tell people “I’m in X demographic associated with smartness,” you’re not that smart.
Basically, I think schizoidism is pretty cool.
Schizoid is nothing like a synonym for psychopath/sociopath. Being asocial is not the same as being antisocial, indifference is not malevelonce. Coldness just pattern matches to malevolence (and in some very poorly calibrated people so does indifference) and the pattern breaks down with schizoids in the first case and is non existant anyway in the second. I just spent 5 minutes on the first google hit for schizoid forum and found this quote: “Emotions and expressing them, as well as manipulating and even intimidating other people seem to be awfully important to the majority of people. In my opinion most of them are a little savage” -under ice. That’s exactly how I used to see things. The difference now is a lot closer to giving in than growing up. At best it’s a compromise.
Behind, or at least related to your comparison to psycopathy and sociopathy might be the feeling people often have that wierdness is hostility, lack of friendliness is hostility etc which is practically an unspoken meme.
If anything the wikipedia page puts Schizoids at risk of coming accross as pathetic rather than dangerous but there’s got to be a massive selection effect for pathological schizoids among those who see a psychiatrist. If you go on the schizoid forums you’ll find plenty of self diagnosed schizoids who are indifferent or happy with their alleged disorder. And the specific type of pathetic that comes accross in the wikipedia article seems to be a product of integrity. Maybe it’s a little sad that someone aloof and cold under the surface wants to be loved (and with the amount this meme is bombarded at people I pretty much interpret this as schizoid people being infected by memes definetely not optimised for them. Maybe the ones going to psychologists are just the ones who internalised the meme? Anyway, at least they’re not editing themselves. Failure before self modifying in a way judged to be bad.
Schizoidism seems so clearly superior to normality to me.
anyway, to sum all this up “egosyntonic” is a relative term.
Also, Sherlock a sociopath? Really? He’s indifferent at worst. Certainly not hostile to the average person most of the time. “Failure to conform to social norms” is one of the criteria for diagnosis as having antisocial personality disorder. At the least there’s a lot of imposition of social norms mixed into the diagnostic criteria for all those “disorders”
Doesn’t sociopathy merely imply a lack of caring, not an active malevolence? Because Sherlock does repeatedly demonstrate an extreme lack of caring- the accused murderer at the start of ‘The Great Game’ who he refused to help while mocking his poor grammar; his (inaccurate) revelation that Molly’s ‘boyfriend’ ‘Jim’ was gay; his entire relationship with Molly; the way he left Adler at the end of ‘A Scandal in Belgravia’; his poisoning and terrifying Watson in ‘The Hounds of Baskerville’; the way he keeps disrupting Watson’s attempts to live his life; etc.
Yes, and it is specific to emotional feelings, not what all things considered you end up deciding to do.
Well, that’s what the series said in the first episode, and maybe the second too. I think he does come off as a little sociopathic, minus all the malevolent parts—schizoid doesn’t seem to imply the manipulation or game-playing which all good Sherlocks engage in (whether they’re named ‘Sherlock’ or ‘House’).
The Mentalist is unofficially diagnosed as a sociopath as well.
And it probably won’t be in the next DSM.
The lady from the study on schizophrenia I participated in said I could probably get an Asperger’s diagnosis. This even though I scored perfect or near-perfect on a facial expression recognition quiz. I’ve also read that schizotypal children often get diagnosed with Asperger’s.
I have three close relatives with a diagnosis—one has classic autism, one has Asperger’s and one has schizophrenia. I can never decide how to classify my own shadow traits.
I’m also like this, somewhat. I only scored a 13, but I am in no way neuro typical. Although someone who worked closely with Asperger’s people said I had some of the properties of Asberger’s.
I do more closely relate to the schizoid personality disorder that Risto posted. Although that linked it to autistic thinking as well.
I suspect that it is a mix of the two options, some people/society in general are lumping every introverted neuro untypical into asperger’s/autism however there are two groups in that larger group.
Yeah… I read Risto’s link (I think I’d read it before), and I do see some similarities there, but neither lines up with me 100%… the more I read about these things, the more it seems to me like the whole idea of classifying psychiatric ‘disorders’ is just bunk—a widely diverse range of personality characteristics are just being artificially crammed onto a one dimensional scale, and then clusters are labeled as ‘disorders’ despite not really having a common cause.
I’d agree. I suspect that there might be some real clusters with common causes, but then there are probably lots of other people that appear in or near that cluster that don’t have that cause.
Here is an interesting experiment that critiques the psychiatric profession I came across while trying to find about the scientific basis of the DSM classifications (little).
Hello me.
No offence meant, but that sounds like sour grapes to me. (Surely e.g. having irregular verbs might be seen as silly, too, but you still say “took” rather than “taked” etc., because those are norms of the medium of communication. Politeness and social appropriateness are norms of media of communication all the same.)