Be Excellent To Each Other

I did this ages ago now. Please take the test and post your results.

http://www.rdos.net/eng/Aspie-quiz.php

Here, unsuprisingly are mine.

Well, my results were pretty much the opposite of yours.

That test, however, is appalling. About 80% of the questions are prejudicial, I very much doubt you'd get any kind of useful result out of it.

I won.

Send prize, please.

Your Aspie score: 61 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 139 of 200
You are very likely neurotypical

Tah-Dah:

Your Aspie score: 115 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 97 of 200
You seem to have both Aspie and neurotypical traits



What does that mean?

Your Aspie score: 21 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 171 of 200
You are very likely neurotypical

It's a very basic test yes. It does give a rough indication however

It's nowhere near as complex as the spectrum analysis I did recently but it does come to roughly the same conclusion

Oops forgot a bit. I don't think the questions are overly prejudicial. Mind you, I wouldn't. I get asked all kinds of pretty shit questions by my psychs who tbh are beginning to annoy me now. They sent me for a ADHD asessment about two months ago and I have been back three times now. Every time they ask me the same questions etc. By the end of the third session he began asking me questions about my bipolar analysis I had in the USA and is now sending me for bipolar analysis

So no doubt after two years of all this horse shit they will end up diagnosing me with being bipolar 2 the same as in the states (this is aside from the autistic tendencies). Difference being? in the states I was diagnosed with bipolar 2 about three weeks after beginning my asessments. Make of that what you will, but I truly feel the health system out there beats seven shades out of ours (even though you have to pay for it and it's very expensive).

It has gotten incredibly annoying though at the psychs when they say, like, "when you begin a project do you have trouble completing it?" and I basically turn around and say "I've told you so many times now that I have terrible obsessive behaviour. Thus, when I start something I cannot stop until I either collapse or it's done". They nod, go "uh huh" and then twenty minutes later ask me the same fucking questions again.

What's fucking me off of course is it seems that the psych I am seeing now almost wants to keep asking me the same questions just so that he can get the answers he wants and then go "aha ! you have adult ADHD"

Idjits. Still, at least now I am going to see a bipolar specialist. Though tbh? I don't know where the fuck all of this is going to end up. Not exactly a curable with a few pills illness.

If anything that sounds like they are just being more thorough.

But also annoying.

Your Aspie score: 51 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 141 of 200
You are very likely neurotypical

I got bored of this 29 Questions in. Which probably says more about me

Also, I looked the guy who made this up and he appears to be a computer programmer for a train company, not a trained medical proffesional.

But then it's a quiz on the internet, so it isn't like it's proper medical advice... but still I can't help myself. I need to sleep.

I did that a few weeks ago and the results made about as much sense as riding a weevil to work at the eiffel tower. They really need to explain what the fuck those diagrams mean.

Yeah I guess. And tbh? they do say that misdiagnosis is the worst problem with mental illness as then you end up on the wrong meds.

Thing is after studying bipolar, ADHD and autism I know for sure it's bipolar and autistic tendencies I suffer from. I mean, I sort of know who I am and when I read through all of the studies on the illness I know I'm definitely not ADHD. They are similar illnesses though, so you could well be right and my psych (the main one whose a wonderful lady ) could just be making sure I don't have any of the others.

Biggest problem of all with bipolar is how amazingly hard it is to treat. When you're up you need downers, and when you're down you need uppers. Problem is they interact with one another and you can die. So so far I have either been given anti depressants and thought suppressants or downers like Risperidone that just put me to sleep.

I'm trying to get back on the Sertraline atm because they helped me I would say 65% as opposed to 0% lol.

Left side = Neurotypical (the clue is in the typical, normal mental behaviour basically) and the right side is Aspergers/Autism.

In all fairness if you answer the questions with honesty (because I could have lied and cheated as I did until I was 25 when I actually fessed to myself that something wasn't right) then it's actually quite accurate.

A good few of my friends who are both Neuro and Aspie have ran the tests and they usually get it about right.

BTW just wanted to add to that... I know lots of perfectly normal people who have taken the test and have some autistic/aspie traits. It's when you hit the extremes like I do. I mean shit, 99% of my answers are considered Aspie and my results are really honest (as I say, could have lied and pretended I liked being in crowds, fitting in, being socially popular and so on) and I wasn't really suprised at the results.

I've been receiving treatment for bi-polar since I was 15. Currently on Seroquel and they're fucking shit. Lithium was a cunt as well, which very well may have damaged my liver.

Woo, serious stuff their mate. Good luck with it all. I'm sure they are taking their time out of a concern for misdiagnosis and a desire to do best for you. Whilst I wouldn't doubt you know yourself, they can't assume what you say is right without determining it themselves. Because the people who can't properly work out their problems will still also think they can, and with the limited time they get with people it must be hard to seperate the two groups. Hence being slow and methodical.

I'm sure they have your best intentions at heart.

My mum is on a lot of drugs at the moment and has a similar thing where she gets frustrated with the slow speed her doctors are working and I said the same thing to her. They aren't being slow, just thorough.

I still don't get what all that "physical" and "hunting" and "talent" business means. And it's not a bar but a circle - you could score highly both left and right. What does that mean?

It means you're a predatory rapist at heart. The Viking gene.

Never been given either bro. I started on Zoloft (US brand for Sertraline) which tbh? fucking awesome. They really change my mood completely. Sadly I still get badly manic and end up singing and laughing to myself etc. In the end I was so fucking worn out (you should see the gray hair I have gotten since 26) I begged them to give me something to calm me down. So they gave me Risperidone which is an anti mania. Which basically within 2 hours puts me to sleep.

Apparently because of my pretty obsessively healthy diet I am extremely sensitive to meds. Even if I cut a Risperi in half I will be passed out asleep within the hour.

As I said before, it's a fiendishly difficult illness to treat because of the swings. If it was one or the other? we'd be pretty sorted tbh. My problem is one month I feel I need the Sertras and the next I am gagging for some Risperis just so I can sleep and have a break from myself. And they won't let me have both so I end up getting either manic as fuck and bouncing around the house clapping and pissing myself laughing, or just sit and cry all day.

Fuckin sucks lol.

I channel everything into my cartoons, stories and writings. That's why it hits me hard when people are cunts.

Seriously, that is way too manu questions. I did almost 100, but didn't care enough to finish. It felt good to finally come clean and admit that I like walking on my toes though.

A massive trait of Bipolar. Me? I channel it all into artwork too but differently.

Up until around May I did the emulated fruit machines. Quickly lol. Some I would use artwork (if it existed) some I would draw from nothing.

And when I'm on? fuck dude, nothing can stop me. Sleep? wassat.

Few weeks ago a couple of chaps from the Alienware forum asked me to do some backdrops as the ones Alienware were giving out were shit. I did two, each to match a lighting scheme (red and purple) and, using a new reflective chrome technique I had learned. A friend of mine has the star wars ed so I did his one aswell.

Took about 45 mins to knock up both and I didn't use any other artwork. Went into photoshop blank canvas and ended up with these in 45 mins (note my keyboard reflecting into the one I did for myself when I had the purple light scheme).





Going back to the fruits. This one I did in 23 hours. Start to finish from nothing to a fully drawn backdrop (the whole lot apart from the Mazooma logo) including lamping (twice, this one has twin coloured lamps) reel images, buttons and all of the coordinates being entered (lamps buttons all the techy shit).

At the end? I just crawled over to bed and collapsed. This is basically why I get annoyed when they keep asking me if I finish projects. Typical trait of ADHD is never finishing anything. Me? I have had to stop doing a lot of things because I get too involved and too obsessed.

Yeah, here ya go.



Stephen Fry is Bipolar.

mm, yes I know. Tbh, I still have problems talking about it stemming from childhood/teenage terrible experiences with psychiatry and psychology. I'm incredibly distrustful of the medical institutions who don't even like to diagnose it until you've been admitted twice to hospital in a manic or hypomanic state. Currently attending a new horizons course to prevent relapse or another critical incident.

Attached something that's helped me in the past. Had to dig it out from the pile.

I just never leave the house lol. That seems to work OK

Seriously, avoiding people helps me so much it's incredible. My family? well they know me as me. If I meet new people? tbh they usually think I'm fucking nutty any way. I can't stop talking which I know is really uber annoying and I must come accross as such a cunt

That's what made me seriously ill in all honesty. Forcing myself into situations and circs I wasn't comfortable with. I did that for 26 years before I finally admitted I had a big problem upstairs. Since then? well I have drastically reduced the stress and pressure. Trying to work, pay bills, be married etc? not for me. I just can't deal with it. Stress also triggers my hyper and OCD something rotten. That's why they thought I was OK as a kid because my dad died, nan died, got ran over, two hernias. Lots of stress so they figured my anger/mood swings/hilarious outbursts were due to that.

Now? well I know that Bipolars a bit of a stigma. But tbh? I truly couldn't give a fuck. I would much rather be who I am than try and be something or someone I am not. I suck at normal life. I can't hold down a job, never have the same sleep pattern and so on. I don't get along with many people so in honesty I don't even bother to fucking try

Basically mush I gave up giving a fuck many years ago. I am, however, uber sensitive to other people's feelings. I also don't like it when people are nasty to each other and so on. That really sets me off and I have lost a couple of jobs sticking up for other people who didn't have the courage to speak out about how they were being treated. I also find it impossible to just 'go with it' and bite my tongue. I always end up opening my mouth and saying exactly what's running through my head.

That's actually bang on. When my ex wife left me and I went over to her father's in tears he basically said -

You care too much.

Right of course. I would have killed, died and crawled to the ends of the earth for that woman.

As I say, I am incredibly sensitive to seeing other humans treated badly. I care too much, obsessively even, and I've always fucking struggled to understand why the fuck that is bad?

I would fucking die to find someone who cared as much for me as I did for my ex wife.

Mm. I'm oversensitive. And oversensitive of being perceived as a fun person. I'd hate to be known as a miserable bastard, so when I'm low I disappear instead of inflicting myself on others.

And you've not noticed me come and go?

Indeed. I fucking hate people seeing me depressed. I hide, lock the doors and listen to music. The only way my family can tell when I am depressed is when I haven't shaved for a couple of days. They can see it, but they don't know how I feel etc.

I wouldn't want to let anyone see me like that, and I sure as eggs would not want to bum someone out. It's hardest of all because I am usually a really motivational person and I love jokes (even though I don't get most of the ones told to me lol).

When I'm up? I can do anything. When down? I can't do anything. Problem is that life pretty much dictates that we can't be down and we must do something. We must get up every single morning and go to work. And that's why my life was impossible. Because I had to force myself to do that when I was down the most which for me was practically impossible. Sometimes I wouldn't sleep for three days and I would just sit at work wanting to burst into tears.

It's bloody hard when you have nowhere to hide tbh.

It's the nature of the beast, unfortunately. You could transplant those words into my mouth too, dude. Trying to explain it to someone else who hasn't had experiences of it is hard, as I find it sounds almost inconsequential when you vocalise the feelings... It's almost like you become adept at wearing another face just to get through the day. When it's at the worst, getting through 30 seconds while lying in bed's hard. Then you pile yourself up with "shoulds" and "shouldn'ts". I shouldn't feel this way. I should be doing this. Come on, for pity's sake, other people have a worse life. etc etc. Cyclic thinking that just drags you further down.

Which is exactly why I need the Risperidone sometimes because I need a break from myself. Everything I do and say I think about long after and batter myself with it all.

Explaining it to someone without it is impossible . Infact, explaining anything to anyone when you have it is impossible. I usually try to explain it properly, thoughtfully and very carefully and then they think I'm telling them too much and think I'm crazy

And that's pretty much why I not only prefer being completely alone but why I like it and, must do it tbh. I just don't make much sense to other people and they don't make hardly any fucking sense to me lmao

My ex wife was an aggravating little cow. She loved to wind me up. I cannot emphasise how much I asked her politely and calmly not to do so in the 9 years we were together but she never fucking listened to me and wondered why I would lose my cool really quickly if she started to pick on me and ask me questions. The cunt actually thought it was funny to make me a nervous fucking wreck.

Trust me, being Bipolar and being married to someone with passive aggressive disorder is a fucking disaster.

I can imagine. One of my early warning signs of either up or down is increased irritability. Luckily both Helen and my Mam act as my intervention for when things get bad or too good and I can rely on them for that. Do you have CPN visiting?

I tried to explain it to people who tend to go "pull yourself together" as imagining that the part of you responsible for 'pulling yourself together' doesn't exist. You have to somehow jury rig something else to go in its place, and you can spend your whole life looking for something that only half fits.

It's a bit like having a broken ankle. You could put a lot of effort into walking on it, but that'd exhaust and injure you even more, and make the recovery even longer. But you have to walk on it eventually, because nobody can see that your ankle's broken, and you need to eat and pay the bills.

I've seen it, and I went through some bad spells of depression in the past. I spent many years pondering it, and came to the conclusion that no amount of insight or experience can 'cure' it, only offer some small consolation that you're at least learning from it, and that understanding it better improves the odds that it'll pass, and not come back, or do so less often and less hard.

It's a problem that's only going to become more widespread. There needs to be more research into it, and more education at every level. The number of people who don't have the faintest idea what even common, relatively simple mental problems mean is staggering. Most still don't know what schizophrenia actually is, nor that it's very distinct from mutiple personality disorder.

One of the guys at my group session relayed the conversation he had with his doctor the first time he sought treatment:

Doctor: "Depression?! That's a woman's illness!"

Nah. TBH I absolutely hate going to the psychs as it is. When I have to go I will not sleep for about three days. Well, I will, but as a fellow Bipolar sufferer you should know what I mean when I say not sleep. What I mean, of course, is I sleep for about four hours but I feel like I haven't slept as my mind goes bezerk whilst I am asleep to the point that when I wake up it feels like I have had fuck all sleep. It's only really mania that keeps me from just collapsing. Kinda like a car running on fumes. I become hazy, sometimes I feel completely spaced out. I have never had the hallucinations etc but sometimes I completely forget where I am.

Last time (last week) by the time I got there I was a complete fucking wreck. I had bitten my fingernails until they bled and ended up with a whitlow in one of my fingers. I chewed my hands, fingertips the lot. My hands were red raw and sore as fuck. I told them then that basically I couldn't go that far any more (over an hour on the train) and that it was simply too traumatic and distressing. I think that was the first time they have actually seen me like, 'down' and tbh? they were scratching their heads. Every time I have been to the psychs (any of the many I have seen) I have been up. Joking, laughing, swearing and generally being pretty manic. I think that might be why they thought I had ADHD because they hadn't seen the depression. This time they got a large serving LOL.

I can't really talk to my family about it. I feel really guilty if I do because I just don't want to bum them out. Life has at times been shitty for every one of us (especially Mum and Brother, I mean shit they've had all the crap I have and then me to top it all off lol) so that's why I have my cat. She listens. She cares. She might not understand but that's fine with me.

I just feel sometimes that I am being poked and prodded and all that. Sometimes I don't give a fuck but at others I'm simply not up for it. My psych (the woman I go and see a lot) though is fucking awesome tbh.

When I got back from the hospital (last Friday arvo) I was in such a euphoric state that it was over and I didn't have to go out again for the foreseeable that I didn't sleep at all for two days

Also. Just been watching TV and pondering what's been said. I think the reason Bipolar people care too much is only partly because they have Bipolar. I think it's just a simple matter of learning from your experience. That's pretty deep tbh so I will do my best to explain it.

As a sufferer one minute you are really, really happy and love life so much that death is the most frightening word. I mean, even taking extasy in the 90s cannot compare to the highs I get as a Bipolar sufferer. Life is so fucking great that you simply never want to die, ever.

And then a week later? crying, misery. Unexplained feelings of doing something terribly wrong. How you're not good enough etc. And, I think when you snap out of that you truly realise what being sad is and plays a large part of the reason why you tend to care so much about others. I always thought that my intense empathy and caring toward others came from what I went through as a kid. Losing my dad when I was 7, losing my nana when I was 8... so many things, I mean, one time we went to my Aunts for christmas and when we came back the tanks in the loft burst and all the upstairs basically collapsed into the downstairs. We really did have a fucking shitty time of it. And I thought that was what made me so sensitive to other people's unhappiness. I suppose in a way it was, but I know that it's mostly down to the illness.

Problem for me is I have been attracted to miserable women my whole life, thinking I can make a difference and make them happy. And I have had to learn from my mistakes by basically being around shitty nasty people and getting badly burned by wearing my heart on my sleeve.

I remember once when I asked my mother why there was war and shit like that (I must have only been about seven) and hadnt slept for days because I had basically just been taught how many people die in a war. She looked at me and said "Son, you're too good for this world".

I have met a couple of Bipolar people in my life. The only time they would ever say that had it was after I said I had it. Funny that, I suppose I'm just not scared of narrow minded stupid people who don't understand what a mental illness is like they were. The funny part is that once you realise you have it you automatically know who else does. Kinda like if you were black and you were standing in a sea of a million white people and there was one other black person there you would instinctively know you were the same kind, the same type.

And Sinister? I know exactly what you mean. People who have never suffered a mental illness have no fucking idea what it entails. It ain't fun. They take for granted their ability to do things that come easy to them and fail to even comprehend that those things could be really hard for someone else. As Dim said ages ago in this thread, if you've never suffered with a mental illness then tbh? you've got fuck all chance of ever understanding one. That level of understanding only comes when you have been there or are there constantly. Kinda makes you appreciate everything that bit more.

The world is an extremely narrow minded fucking place. It really is.

It's only very recently that mental illnesses are being understood properly and people being treated with any kind of dignity and respect.

When my brother found out I was bipolar and had been put on disability (I didnt go after it I was forced into it because of my anger problems and inability to keep my thoughts to myself at work) he said "the cunt's lazy, he's been lazy his whole life".

It was only about six months ago when his wife had a nervous breakdown and bouts of depression (she's got lupus and gets depressed when she's been ill for ages) that he finally sort of came around. I guess with me he could just shut the door and pretend it wasn't happening. Bit different when your wife gets it and you're forced to see it.

For about three years after being diagnosed I told noone. I was terrified of being labelled. Now? I don't care. I am what I am, I have bipolar disorder. If you don't understand it then I don't care tbh. Being autistic aswell doesn't help matters.

Apparently it's heriditory. My dad's mum (the one who died a year before he did) was supposedly terribly depressed all the time. She lived on valium. Funny that, the one person who would really understand me and know how I feel would have been him and he died when I was 7.

As I said in my brief reply it's impossible to make someone understand all of the things they do without thought or pause that they take for granted. People are like that you know? Don't realise how lucky they are just to be normal. I've had to go without a lot due to my illness. For example a mortgage, income, savings, etc. I have no savings, I have fuck all to show for my life. People tend to think I am quite happy to live on disability which is absolutely fuck all. My whole life's ambition is to go to Alienware and spend a few grand on a PC. That's it, not own a big house, not be rich, not to be successful because I have had to come to the realisation that because of the way my brain functions/doesn't function I can never have those things. And that's fucking hard going having to digest that and realise that you cannot be like that, do that or have that.

That's probably why I appreciate what I have a shit load more than many others, because it hasn't come easy for me. If I was able to do what other people do (go to college, hold down a career) then shit, I could have that PC in a matter of weeks. Now? It'll take years. What has irked me the most is how people think I am happy and content in that. Like I really am that easily pleased. I'm not, but there's no other option for me.



That's actually five times harder in the USA. You end up not even being able to go to the doctor's. I was off meds for 7 months. I absolutely fell apart. It was bad and hard enough with the pills but once I couldnt afford the health benefits it was only a matter of time. In the end I crashed the car because I hadn't slept for days. I swear I have stomach ulcers now as I get constant stabbing pains in my abdomen. I would have ended up killing myself had I tried to carry on.



Knowing it's coming helps. As you say, it doesn't make it any easier but at least you know what to expect. At least you can lock yourself away so that you don't upset others. I have to say it has gotten easier for me over the years, especially recently now that I don't have to try and function to stay alive. The mania has gotten worse though but again, it's a lot better than it was when I was trying to pay rent and so on. I ran out of cash before I had even left Ohio to go back to NJ. If it wasn't for a bloke I met who would feed me in a restraunt for free if I went in after midnight? I probably wouldn't have even made it back to the UK.

After my wife fucked off and left me in the shit I ran. 800 miles further away to be precise. I was OK for about a month without my pills and then jesus things went really badly fucking wrong. Again had it not been for a friend back in Jersey I would have been fucked. I didn't even have the money to get home with and I had a smashed car I couldn't sell. I had to spend another 3 months sorting the car out and all that before I could even afford to leave.



More money needs to be spent on it. But again, we face the same problem of not understanding it. If you don't understand it why the fuck would you want to put govt funding into helping it? That's the biggest problem of all tbh. The yanks certainly care a lot more about it than we do. They were the ones who first discovered bipolar.

I thought the accepted phrase for someone with Asperger's Syndrome was 'SPERGE!' shouted in their face really loudly, not Aspie - that sounds like a nickname for Michael Aspell.

After five questions, I made the mistake of scrolling down to see how many questions there were. Once I'd done that, there was no way I was going to fill the rest in.

I thought it was hard to judge what it meant by "a little" or "a lot" on quite a few of those, and tended to err towards "a little". I am not very anything! Hooray!

"test discovers artistic intellectuals on the internet" shock.

Bah. Another test tells me I'm normal. How dull.

Can't be arsed taking the test. What've I got?

You are a 'male' with 'stuff to do'

A job.

a fetish for milk floats?

I'm just normal, I think.

I don;t think any one on this forum can be called 'normal'...

which is a good thing!

I've wasted far too long this morning trying to answer the questions in such a way as to make it draw a penis. Oh well. I think that says more about me than the actual quiz does.

I'm all over the shop

I appear to be a potato. That and both an aspel and a neurotic.