I'm definitely not neurotypical, but I've no idea if I qualify for aspergers or something else or if I'm in some liminal area.
Considering new diagnoses are invented all the time, and neurology is hugely idiosyncratic, I wouldn't be surprised if there is no diagnosis available.
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I have highly abnormal empathy, but it's not specifically autistic AFAICT. Pulls in a lot of disparate directions.
I'd actually love to know if there's a diagnosis that fits, as I have a very confused profile of extreme hyper/hypofunctionality relative to most people.
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Do you have a thread of characteristics you experience? I'm also curious about what you're describing.
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No, but I'd be very happy to write out a few here.
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As you prefer - I'm not qualified to comment, but have an interest in personality disorders and the "high empathy" point you mention happens to be resonant for me personally.
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Let's start with social stuff.
I'm fairly socially inhibited. Have a lot of anxiety traits. Hyperreliant on verbal ability.
Cause of anxiety: I have trouble with social fluency. I understand social rules implicitly, but get overwhelmed by density of info/second guess a lot.
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This may be partly due to upbringing, as I've been making major improvements in these areas over the last years and don't seem to have base-level issues with functioning.
Apart from the lack of socio-emotional latent inhibition. I have to look away from faces when talking, e.g.
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When I'm not anxious, I tend to be hyperextroverted to the point of being a nuisance to people who can't deal with high energy.
I'm talkative, intense, very larger than life, sort of effortlessly/unintentionally taking up space.
I can turn this off, but it *wants* to be on.
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That's mostly it for explicitly social stuff.
With empathy, I am ridiculously sensitive to sensory inputs and information about people in my environment, and constantly modelling people intuitively. I wasn't even aware of this until earlier in my 20s, but I have always done it.
E.g. I've had multiple experiences of telling people stuff "they've heard from their therapist"/that they don't believe at the time and later go "holy shit, dude, how?"
This is not something I can switch off. It's compulsive.
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I am so socially hypersensitive that I have a lot of experiences that seem/are pre-cognitive wrt. others.
I pick up changes in people and notice problems weeks in advance of attendant behaviors. Sometimes these come in dreams.
It's incredibly hard to lie to me, if I know you.
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Autistic people experience hyperempathy, which is often intense and narrow. The whole modeling people and having trouble navigating social interaction due to density might be adaptations and overstimulation, respectively. And becoming super extroverted -- masking?
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Not quite. I'm extroverted just to the point that I either have to be the center of attention or I risk sucking the air out of the room.
I can energize people if they *want* to give me attention, and enervate them if they don't. It's very hard to not take up space for me.
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