Autism Spectrum vs me

I surely do relate to some of the key items of the low-end of the autism spectrum especially when I look back into my past.

I am told that I didn't start speaking till I was four. I do not make eye contact. There are stories that I did not look up at the teacher till second grade. Supposedly, it was such a big moment the first time that I did. The teacher personally stopped by our home to report the "happy" news. I was always very quiet till 15-16.

I probably don't have it, but reading some of the articles help me understand myself in a way where others fail to satisfy my questions. I believe I do a very good job of masking normal behavior.

I believe the biggest factor to my drive to understand to be normal is my insatiable need to understand the world. I ask a lot of questions to that point where people would put their hands up and walk away. Even if I agree with their point of view, I will play devil's advocate to better understand. So this is my drive to go against some of my natural tendencies.

I still struggle with some things like eye contact. When I really get into a conversation, I stop looking... at anything. I couldn't tell the person's facial expression, other conversations, time, place, etc. I get so hyper-focused that I do not sense anything else. Nowadays, I have to conscientiously remember to look at the face. I will naturally look at the mouth at best, but usually will just stare into space. I am really not sure where I am looking at once I am engrossed in a conversation.

The more background noise, the less I am able to understand people. I am terrible when there is noise. Not that it bothers me, but I cannot "hear" what people are saying. Sometimes I wonder if I am deaf but I hear sounds. And I can hear very minute sounds that others cannot hear. But when there any sort of sound, my ability to hear what people are saying drops exponentially while others can hear perfectly fine. I have had little to explain this phenomenon, but the article by Burgess has the best example thus far. On her "spectrum", there is a category for sensory filter. I believe this is where I am rather weak on.

I also struggle with expressing what I feel. I think the problem for me is that I really do not feel anything, especially things to an extreme. I do not really hate, nor do I really love. Things just is. People's fascination with art and music is lost on me. I still go to museums, and I just fail to see what other's see. There is no particular music that I love, none that I hate. I am unable to really mean it when I say that I totally love this song, music, artist, etc. I like the beat, the rhythm, the lyrics, but I approach it more analytically. For me, it is amazing how well they can maintain a beat, how they can change the beat but keep the sound coherent or lyrics that uses limited words that rhyme yet still send a message. Although I do not have extremes, I do have preferences but the reasons seem to still be consistent. If the lyrics is repeated too often (bores me) or distracts me from whatever I am focusing on, then I do dislike the song. But I have not heard anything where I would want to ever consider ripping my ears off. I don't even plug my ears or even change the radio station.

To me bad music is like food that has a bad after-taste. There are food that tastes good and there is food that does not taste good. And that pretty much is the summary of my taste palate. There is very few foods that I dislike. Even fewer where I refuse to eat. But there is nothing I wouldn't try for free, and I would hate to waste money by paying an exorbitant amount of money for something that tastes good. Yes, it tastes better but is it worth paying 2x to 5x the food and labor? I am perfectly fine with eating unsalted boiled chicken. It does not taste great, but not worth $10 for an alternative.

I still consider myself a loner. Ironically, I was told that I was like a social butterfly at the office. This is due to the fact that I go around and talk to people (about work or their social problems). But for me, this activity is extremely exhausting. But I "force" myself because I want to understand. And I learned that people do not share as much information when I do not share some information.

I do get frustrated. This is usually when I am unable to understand more about the situation. But I think the blame really goes to people who do not make very coherent logical steps. Uusually there is still some reason they do things that are more self-centered, for their big ego, etc. I just do not understand why they think that way. I get most frustrated with people who have no interest in self-improvement except to manipulate others for their own life improvements.

From what I have analyzed about people, I find that I have a very different approach to the world. And my biggest worry about this thought is that everyone seem to feel that they are different (like how everyone thinks they are right or good). So how do I actually gauge how different I am?

http://themighty.com/2016/05/rebecca-burgess-comic-redesigns-the-autism-spectrum/

Life: Narcissistic Personality Test

I found the title amusing and clicked into the article (link below). Some of the questions are somewhat obvious to which way it leans towards so I wonder if it is possible for a narcissist to actually answer some of them honestly. Could I be one too? Perhaps, I truly believe that I am humble but not in practice?

For example, I ask a lot of questions when I see a problem. These questions may or may not be related to the direct problem. I ask questions like where did it come from, should this be handled by me, should this even be handled by the person presenting the problem, what should be the proper protocol, etc. Then one of my coworkers who seem to have a problem with that started to do the same thing to me except that his questions do not even pertain to the problem and feeds it into his paranoia that the world is against him. He would ask, why are you asking, why are they asking, why are you doing that, why should you be doing that, etc. Although the questions are similar, his intentions are not the same as mine and does not help our group, in my opinion.

But what if I am really blind to see that I am actually like that? I can clearly say that I eventually use my information to provide better solutions either to preventing the problem or channeling the problem to the proper resources.

Or is my coworker the one that blindly sees that he is copying what I am doing? I have discussed that he is just wasting my time with a lot of the requests or questions that I have posed to him. He said that I do the same thing. After some thought, I can see how he thinks it seems that way. But, I the key factor (the intention of the question) is that it is not. I was unable to convince him of this.

Lastly, could we both be blind to what we do? I imagine it to be something like an addiction. I know that I am not supposed to do something, but I will still do it and may even deny acknowledging that I did it to ease my mind. For example, procrastinating but saying that I am just really busy.

Reference
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-03-16-pinsky-quiz_N.htm
http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/2014/02/student-narcissists-prefer-twitter-more.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+BpsResearchDigest+%28BPS+Research+Digest%29

Review: Dr. Phil's Test (but not Dr. Phil)

1. When do you feel your best? A: Late at night, although early morning has become more common recently. [c] [a]
2. You usually walk... A: less fast, head down. [d]
3. When talking to people, you... A: stand with your arms folded, maybe have one or both your hands on your hips or in pockets. [a] [c]
4. When relaxing, you sit with... A: your legs stretched out or straight, but I think I switch between all of them. [a]
5. When something really amuses you, you react with... A: a sheepish smile [d]
6. When you go to a party or social gathering, you... A: make a quiet entrance, looking around for someone you know [b] [c]
7. When you're working or concetrating very hard, and you're interrupted, you... A: feel extremely irritated, although I wouldn't say extremely. I feel more indifferent but definitely not a welcome break. [a]
8. Which of the following colors do you like most? A: light blue, black, gray, white, dark blue, green, orange, brown, purple... although couldn't there be a large influence from just school colors(?) [c] [b] [g] [f] [e] [d] [a] [g] [e]
9. When you are in bed at night, in those last few moments before going to sleep, you lie.. A: stretched out on your back... I can sleep in any position [a]
10. You often dream that you are... your dreams are always pleasant [f]

1. 2 or 6 points
2. 2
3. 4 or 5
4. 4
5. 5
6. 4
7. 6
8. 5, 7, 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 1, 3
9. 7
10. 1

31-40 Points: Others see you as sensible, cautious, careful and practical. They see you as clever, gifted, or talented, but modest. Not a person who makes friends too quickly or easily, but someone who's extremely loyal to friends you do make and who expect the same loyalty in return. Those who really get to know you realize it takes a lot to shake your trust in your friends, but equally that it takes you a long time to get over it if that trust is ever broken.

41-50 Points: Others see you as fresh, lively, charming, amusing, practical and always interesting; someone who's constantly in the center of attention, but sufficiently well-balanced not to let it go to their head. They also see you as kind, considerate, and understanding; someone who'll always cheer them up and help them up.

Analysis

Range

The lowest you can score is 15 (5 questions have 1, 5 questions have 2). The most points you can score is 64 (4 questions with 7, and 6 questions with 6).

Average

1. 4
2. 5
3. 4.8
4. 4.25
5. 4
6. 4
7. 4
8. 4
9. 4
10. 3.5
Total Average: 4.155 (average of averages); 4.232 (average of responses)

Conclusion

If we assume that none of the answers have no relationship to the questions, answers are all guesses. Assuming that we guess on a normal distribution (we do not have bias to certain letters or numbers), the averages above can be used. Thus we should be scoring around 41-42. Very unlikely someone will be 60+ because you can only score a max of 64; same as 21 points with minimum of 15 points. 30-40 and 50-60 should have a lower distribution than 30-50.

Looking at the different descriptions, most people will fit 30-50 score. My scores are not sufficient to prove or disprove this test (see snopes). A strong indication will be to see if the outliers fit the description provided.

I think there may be small correlation between personality and the answers, but the scores can be manipulated to fit the main bell curve making it more popular and believable. Also, there is an error with question 5. It has 5 possible answers in the point list but the question only had 4 options.

My interest in this was primarily to see why so many people find these kind of things interesting and believable, and to see if someone could scientifically use that information to misinform the public. For most of these tests, they seem to be thrown together and see which ones survive the email chains. When there is sufficient chain mails, a hypothesis could be drawn to purposely create tests that are believable and popular but have absolutely no correlation between responses and the results.

Reference

http://www.slideshare.net/javachai/dr-phil-test-1
http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/trivia/philtest.asp