[NF] NFs with Asperger's = What?

[BAJ]

I thought NFs were all COMPLETELY unaware of their environments, especially INFPs.

Yes, but I started reading about feng shui. Then I started noticing that there were actually chairs and things to move around OUTSIDE the book. It was amazing!

 

[timheermann92]

I happen to be an ENFP with Aspergers, and it does present similar questions. From my experience, I gained a tremendous cognitive ability for logic and precision which can balance my feeling tendancy, however much of said details and information, I know intuitively, and find difficulty in explaining a bit of the deeper concepts due to aspergers. Socially, I'm very warm, outgoing, caring, and understanding of others. All the same, I have extreme difficultu reading social ques and body language. Being an Aspie and an ENFP has supercharged my abilitu to make connections, even to the point of reading the patterns in others, and predicting their problems, and reations to said problems before they even arise.

 

[mrconfusion87]

I, an INFPer, kinda suspect I'm borderline aspie! I struggle to read nonverbal cues in social interactions and it's caused me issues in the past.

Even the tests I took online kinda confirm that.

 

[sculpting]

hmm, an ENTP women once told me she thought I had Aspergers. It was very odd as we were on a business trip together and she noticed I just dont see subtle social things that to her were obvious. The funny thing is that I am very quick to see subtle variation in facial cues that indicate some sort of change-eyes are very obvious to me, almost electric, but I can miss much unspoken conversation and many subtle unspoken hints. My thought is that this is an Fe-blindness of sorts as I dont miss nonverbal cues with FPs, typically. Some other enfps had said this same thing, but tohers say they have no problem, so I dunno.

 

[Ribonuke]

Present and accounted for. B<

In all seriousness, though, I actually feel like my diagnosis with Aspergers may have caused me to stunt my potential in my developing years; I was diagnosed at the age of 9, because I was having trouble taking tests in school, would frequently run afoul of the rules without knowing what I did wrong, and had some sensory issues.

While it did help me survive through my school years, my self esteem had been beaten within an inch of its life. I had ZERO confidence in my ability to handle abstract thought and considering other people's emotions, because these are two traits that I believed were key in the Aspergers diagnosis.

After entering college and being able to shake off the fetters of my diagnosis, however, helped me to rebuild my esteem. About six months ago I learned about the MBTI, and found out I was an INFJ. I feel like all of the sudden the doors opened to me, and I can help to better understand how I appear to other individuals.

Now, all inspirational blather aside, let me tell you a few of the issues I've encountered:
- I'm VERY sensitive to the emotional tension of people in a room. Being in the same room with someone who is bitter, tired or upset has an extremely toxic effect on me. Most times I can handle it, but when that time of the month comes around...it's like my body can no longer filter that toxic emotional tone out, and I end up getting depressed and almost physically ill.
- I'm also not too keen on trying new things when I haven't had time to plan for them; sure, I might like to go swimming in a lake, but ask me to do it right now? HELL no! Give me at least a few hours' notice? At LEAST? =<
- Noisy. Environments. Wear. Me. Out. I was at a large convention in Boston last April, and after about half an hour I was completely exhausted.

Well...that's all the insight I can offer at the moment. In short, I believe that Aspergers deals more with the labelling of external behaviors than it does with actual cognitive functioning, so I think individuals of ANY type could potentially be diagnosed.

 

[Werewolfen]

I took the 50 question Aspergers test yesterday. The results were "27" for me.

"22 – 31 Indicates that one has slightly higher than average autistic traits."

Never have taken the test. Read a few pages about it before. I remember reading that most people with it have poor physical coordination.When I was a kid in elementary school I could do a back flip on the forward swing of the school playground swing set and have always had excellent hand-eye coordination and balance.

Super noisy environments can tax me if it's an all-day event. As for concerts, I can get into the same groove and enjoy them just like anyone else. I prefer living in a quiet rural environment over living in the city. I can talk to anyone one-on-one with no issues whatsoever, and even when small groups are present if the subject is something I'm interested in.

Emotions are easy for me to pick up , especially being in the same room with a person. When I think about the concerts I've been to, most people are there in anticipation to be entertained and the excitement and mood levels are high and good, so naturally I'll soak that up like a sponge and feel good too. Night clubs have a different vibe and I've never liked being in them.

http://www.aspergerstestsite.com/75/autism-spectrum-quotient-aq-test/#.T-kcR1KQOxI

 

[unityemissions]

I know what is meant from this, I think the stereotypical Asperger's type would be INTJ, the one I know is, I feel I can empathise due to having 3 of the 4 letters.

Actually, the stereotypical aspie is an ISTP. They have very strong extraverted sensing. It means you won't find them showing up as NF, or something is amiss.

 

[prplchknz]

my esfp friend was diagonosed with autism recently he's a sweet kid, but he's frustrating because he does not pick up on social queues and gets stuck on a subject and no matter what you do he doesn't get it.

 

[Eugene Watson VIII]

a lot of people on wrongplanet believe aspies are NTs, which seems true but is not. I'm an INFP and have some aspie traits and i believe life is harder as an NF with it. The NFs are the most personable types and to have something like autism makes it seem like a cruel joke...but eh.

 

[Werewolfen]

Seeing that abbreviation "NT" when I recently started reading a lot at the WrongPlanet web site thought , " are they meaning "iNtuitive Thinker?" , but after looking it up, it means something completely different having nothing to do with the MBTI abbreviation "NT". I don't take everything that Wiki states as being correct but this is their definition of what "NT" means>

NeuroTypical - (or NT) is a term that was coined in the autistic community as a label for people who are not on the autism spectrum: specifically, neurotypical people have neurological development and states that are consistent with what most people would perceive as normal, particularly with respect to their ability to process linguistic information and social cues. The concept was later adopted by both the neurodiversity movement and the scientific community.

In the United Kingdom, the National Autistic Society recommends the use of the term in its advice to journalists.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurotypical

 

[Eugene Watson VIII]

Yes NT means Neurotypical (not aspie, or with any neuro difficulties). My bad.

 

[Cellmold]

Actually I have some information ive only just discovered. I was talking with my mum recently about my job walkout and she mentioned that as a child I was tested numerous times for signs of aspergers.

In fact the conclusion was that I am, but really low on the spectrum. This would explain my difficulty as a child with social relationships and why I always go on about how I had to force myself to develop better social skills because as a child looking back; I was very socially inept and rude. But I never knew it until I was older and people started spelling it out to me.

From wiki, (yes wiki deal with it):

People with AS may not be as withdrawn around others as those with other, more debilitating, forms of autism; they approach others, even if awkwardly. For example, a person with AS may engage in a one-sided, long-winded speech about a favorite topic, while misunderstanding or not recognizing the listener's feelings or reactions, such as a need for privacy or haste to leave. This social awkwardness has been called "active but odd". This failure to react appropriately to social interaction may appear as disregard for other people's feelings, and may come across as insensitive. However, not all individuals with AS will approach others. Some of them may even display selective mutism, speaking not at all to most people and excessively to specific people. Some may choose to talk only to people they like.

I can relate to that immensely....how did I not know of this? Oh well at least I found out tonight. But for me it is very mild so I dont think most people would notice.

 

[Thalassa]

I read this article about how people with Asperger's syndrome or the autism spectrum are often related in families to people on the bipolar spectrum. There are actually some similarities between the two.

Anyway, I tend to think of ISTJs when I think of aspies, I don't know why everyone thinks of NTs only, though I could surely see INTx in particular manifesting some of the behaviors, at least on the surface, of being socially oblivious.

I know a guy who is an OBVIOUS Fe dom ExFJ aspie, and he is officially diagnosed, and is basically awkward more than anything. He has these Fe traits of wanting to help people and be friendly and "do good" in the world, but somehow he just misses that it's probably a little weird for him to sit down in a coffee shop with a girl he's never met and start telling her massive details from his life, and just talking talking talking...yeah, anyway, Aspergers isn't exclusive to T types.

 

[Werewolfen]

I found an article that mentions INFJ and Aspergers.

____________________________________________________

High-functioning autism (HFA) is the condition of individuals who display some symptoms of autism but who are able to function close to or above a normal level in society. HFA is sometimes also known as Asperger syndrome. In everyday terms, those who are affected by it may be understood as being "eccentrics", "nerds", "geeks", or termed a "little professor" or boffin.

The term Asperger syndrome is sometimes used in the same sense as HFA, but the exact difference between autism, Asperger syndrome, and HFA varies. There are a range of deficiencies and talents in HFA, the precise configuration of which can vary widely from individual to individual, ranged along a continuum.

There is a high correlation between HFA characteristics and those described in the Myers-Briggs INTP profile [1] description. Another theory states that Asperger's correlates to the INTJ personality type, whereas HFA correlates to the INFJ personality type.

There is some evidence that the label has wrongly become a catch-all diagnosis for badly-behaved children. In 2000 in the UK, the lead clinician and autism specialist at Northgate and Prudhoe NHS Trust in Morpeth, Dr Tom Berney, published a paper commenting on this. He wrote in the prestigious British Journal of Psychiatry:- "There is a risk of the diagnosis of autism being extended to include anyone whose odd and troublesome personality does not readily fit some other category. Such over-inclusion is likely to devalue the diagnosis to a meaningless label."

There may also be overlap with the label of "intellectually gifted". There is some evidence, largely anecdotal, of instances where children who would previously have been labelled "intellectually gifted" are denied entry to an advanced for-the-gifted educational program - because their case notes give them the broader "autism" label.

Social aspects

In general, people with HFA tend to make fairly frequent social faux pas involving an inability to accurately predict someone else's thoughts, feelings or reactions to something possibly said. They may also forget to display basic social pleasantries (e.g. forgetting to knock before entering a room; or when greeted with "how are you?" they may not reciprocate by following on to ask how the other person is).

Their naive understanding of social interaction may lead them to be overly trusting and thus open to manipulation by others. They may thus be seen as lacking "common sense". For this reason it can be a disaster if youth services departments create large "treatment" groups that place vulnerable young HFA people alongside amoral manipulative youths with psychopathic disorders.

They may appear somewhat removed or disconnected or "dreamy" at times, especially in situations of sensory overload, or perceive extreme social pressure such as during a party or in a crowded bar. They may have only limited levels of eye contact during one-to-one encounters, and this can lead to them being labelled as being "shy".

Unlike autism, there is no general learning disability. The research community recognises that HFA does not happen in people with an IQ of less than about 75 (i.e.: able to complete elementary school and live independently in modern society). People with HFA are articulate - the DSM IV says that spoken language development must be normal for a diagnosis to be made.

People with HFA generally like routine and order, and this may manifest early as childhood traits (e.g.: as a child, writing out a A-Z library card-index catalog for their comic book collection). They may restrict their daily choice of clothes to only a limited range.

When interested in a task or subject area they will work intently on it. If uninterested they may ignore the task, try to alter it so it reflects one of their personal interests, or only do the "bare minimum" required to complete the task. Their preferred method of working may be to produce a complete rough structure or draft first, and then focus intently on taking it through many incremental revisions until it is complete.

http://www.disability-resource.com/Autism/high-functioning-autism.html
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Some of these apply to me but not all of it. I've always had good manners when it comes to knocking on doors when visiting someone's house and I've always responded back when someone says "how are you ? " , even if I only said "Fine" in return. I believe in social manners and speak when spoken too. If I'm going into a door at a business and someone is right behind me or about to come out of the store, I'll hold the door open for them and let them go first. I think in someways my social manners are actually a little better than most. In other ways though, if I feel I want to express something it might be sometimes taken by others as too forward and intense. Making eye contact is no problem for me either, I'm very visual and tend to notice more than others.

I have no issues in picking up social cues such as voice tones, facial expressions, body language, and just a certain vibe that people give off that I can tell what kind of mood they're in. From what I've read about Aspergers , many of them can't do this but I can. I do share quite a few of the same traits with Aspergers. Not severe, but just enough to know I have a mild form of it.

I keep my bedroom windows covered over with black plastic, I don't like bright light. I like to hear a fan run or something similar like an air freshener. I must have this sound to be able to sleep. I can't sleep in a totally quiet room, my hearing is sensitive and I need something to drown out background noise. I've slept with some type of fan or air freshener in the room with me since I was around 8 years old and will probably do so until I die.



I do prefer wearing solid color clothes. I love my khaki cargo pocket pants and solid color shirts. I like certain types of food. I especially like vegetable ground beef soup and cook it every week in my crockpot.I rarely get tired of it.

It's said that aspies like order and routine, that fits me well as I do too. Some songs I like I may listen to 10 times until I listen to another song, but I've known many others who've done the same. Some articles I like I might read many times over.I can get into a list writing routine on occasion but I'm not fanatical about it.

Am I a genius ? I don't think so, but I know I have above average intelligence and can grasp complex concepts and systems.I see patterns and connections. My granny always liked me helping her with 10,000 piece picture-puzzles, I helped her piece together many of them as a kid. I am no mathematician, math is my Achilles heel. I have an exceptional memory and I've always had that since childhood and others that I've known IRL have always told me I have an excellent memory.

 

[Ribonuke]

I should probably mention that it's possible my Aspergers makes me more prone into falling into a Ni-Ti loop (as evidenced by my adolescent years. ._. GOD those were horrible...)

 

[very_odd_guy]

During my very deep emotional crisis I was actually tested.
The report mentioned that I could be a candidate because it claimed that I noticed details and couldn't see the whole picture. It was the worst insult I have ever had. Large part of my identity was based on connecting stuff together (and I wasn't bad at it at all). I was probably in terrible shadow mode or too perfectionistic because small details made to under perform in school tests so I was just extra careful (and I have learnt to filter my craziest answers to give normal ones which were maybe too plain)... . It even claimed that I had super good long term memory (details) which seems totally odd based on my experiences (IRL I'm just crappy at that kind of stuff). Actually real aspies probably remember the words they had to memorize years later but I can only recall test concepts.

To sum it up: Certain states of mind might emulate AS disorders. It is pervasive developmental disorder not acquired one.

 

[WALMART]

My brother has Asperger's, and is certainly an ENFP.

 

[Firebird 8118]

Actually I have some information ive only just discovered. I was talking with my mum recently about my job walkout and she mentioned that as a child I was tested numerous times for signs of aspergers.

In fact the conclusion was that I am, but really low on the spectrum. This would explain my difficulty as a child with social relationships and why I always go on about how I had to force myself to develop better social skills because as a child looking back; I was very socially inept and rude. But I never knew it until I was older and people started spelling it out to me.

From wiki, (yes wiki deal with it):

I can relate to that immensely....how did I not know of this? Oh well at least I found out tonight. But for me it is very mild so I dont think most people would notice.

Completely applies to me as well - I'm an NF with a mild form of Asperger's. Thanks for the reference, it helped me view my own situation a little more clearly.

 

[_eric_]

I was diagnosed with Asperger's disorder a few years ago after going through an all day neuro-psychological evaluation with various tests and interviews, one of which included my mom, as adult diagnosis is helped a lot by having accounts of early childhood. I would say I have it pretty strongly--and on every online test I score positively for around 70% of all the traits questioned--though I have learned to deal with it much better than before, from having read up on it a lot.

I ripped this post of mine from a different forum, quoting a person's list and adding my own thoughts to it in bolded text:

Originally Posted by notaboson

There are major functional differences in the brain between a "neurotypical" and an autistic person. For example, I was diagnosed not just through a psychiatric evaluation, but also according to MRI.
I believe that INTJ's might have more autistic traits than other neurotypicals. However, there are certain major behavioral and perceptional differences:

Thoughts become completely obsessive, your inner world is very dense and you can spend multiple hours in your "world" without sensing the time has passed
I do this a lot but I also always wear a watch and look at it pretty often so it doesn't get in the way of what I need to do.

You are extremely sensitive to sensory stimuli and experience a "meltdown" when you can't take it anymore. This meltdown is uncontrollable. For example, I behave like a seemingly normal (just a little odd) person in the public if I am in a really small town or village. If I go to London, then the noise and the crowds make me literally crazy because of all the stimuli I have to cope with, and I start walking in circles, I can not produce any words out of my mouth, I get extremely frustrated and can start screaming. If I am in a metro, I will rock back-and-forth, because it automatically helps me to cope (soothes the nervous system). And then, trust me, others perceive it very badly.
I'm very sensitive in the same way as well, but I don't have meltdowns. It's extremely draining though and feels as if I am surrounded by a swarm of bees, or like having something invisible pressing in on all sides. It also makes me rather irritated and much more difficult to find the words to say if I'm in a small group of people and we are all talking, because of feeling so overwhelmed. My brain automatically tries to focus in on every single conversation going on around me at the same time, so it kinda just goes blank like it's in shutdown mode or something because of that.

Your voice is completely monotonous and you have a hard time to make it more "emotional". I have learned that neurotypicals use their voice to describe emotion. It is completely alien to me. So in order to look "normal", I have to mimic other people's tone of voice, but I have no idea what I am doing exactly.
I used to have this problem a lot throughout most of my life, and I still do to an extent but I've gotten much better just by studying how to do inflection and all that. Being in drama club in high school and doing several plays also helped a lot. In one, A Midsummer Night's Dream, I even watched one of the movies of it since our script very closely follows the lines in the movie, and I devised a note taking system (on my own) to write down how exactly they say the words including variances in speed, inflection, and pauses, and then figured out the patterns to it all so that I can apply it to talking in general while adding in observations of how people around me speak to further refine it. My part was Oberon, so I was in every act except for one and had a ton of lines, most of which were pretty long. Everyone thought I did an excellent job and they said I was one of the best actors in the play. I think acting is excellent therapy for anyone with asperger's or other ASD's.

Becoming an intelligent adult, you have to start analyzing everything around you and asking a lot of neurotypicals and psychiatrists about the logic of behavior of others. It is a very difficult process. All of the social behavior is learned. Nothing is natural.
I've never really asked anyone about all that, I just worked on figuring it out on my own through observation and reading. Since I was only diagnosed a few years ago, this has all been very recent.

There is a major disfunction of oxytocin production in autistics, which may be greatly responsible for the lack of empathy. And it is not just a neurotypical "I don't care". It is when you absolutely can not understand or feel why others are sad, why a certain situation saddens them, you can not relate at all, and thus everything around you seems very weird and you just don't understand the mechanics of the situation. This also causes problems in relationships.
This has happened to me a lot, but as I mentioned in the last one, I've gotten much better by thinking about it myself and figuring out the logical steps or branching pathways of how one emotion leads into another and what causes and effects are linked to them. I think I've become pretty accurate at that, and people who I've been involved with where I helped them with their emotional problems have said I'm very good and were quite appreciative of my help as a lot of it is stuff they have a hard time seeing themselves, but can more fully realize it when I basically walk them through the process beginning to end, so they can see why things went the way they did and what went wrong and how to be better able to see those things while they are in the middle of it all in the future so that the outcome will be better.

Extreme sensitivity to touch and light. Some pain can be extremely enjoyable, some autistics hurt themselves during a meltdown because it soothes them - it looks horrible for others, but trust me, there's nothing one can do. It is great and enjoyable. Sometimes it is a horrible feeling when others hug you, as if there are a million knives stabbed in to you and you are dissolving into the small space between yourself and another person.
I am very sensitive with both touch and light but not to a really extreme extent. With light, it is not so much the intensity, or color/warmth (wave frequency and hertz), but rather things like signs that have a high contrast of colors, such as black and orange, with highly defined areas and no color gradient. It makes me feel irritated in a very odd way. For touch, I am very sensitive to pain and cannot stand it so I avoid it whenever possible, though if I can't do anything about it I push through it, like when I was in Air Force basic training. When it comes to contact with other people, it is very odd because when someone else initiates it, especially unexpectedly, it gives me a pretty bad feeling (even a hug) that makes me want to get away, but when I initiate it, it feels somewhat better. It feels better both ways when there is an emotional connection; the stronger the connection, the better it feels.

An obsessive interest means that you can spend days, sometimes multiple days, without a break and be fully functional at dealing with your obsessive interest. For example, mine is Physics, so it means that I can work on several problems for 8+ hours straight with really short breaks, not taking my mind off it, and not finishing until I reach my goal.
I have done this as well, a lot in the past with playing video games for a ridiculous amount of time, but these days I have responsibilities that require more variety in what I do, so that doesn't happen as often. I limit myself to no more than about 3 hours in a day, usually about 2. I used to do the same thing with researching various topics that interest me, spending all day and sometimes multiple days on end focusing on just one.


I think a lot of it just comes down to learning coping mechanisms/thought processes through personal learning and/or therapy that will allow you to logically work through things that are naturally intuitive to most people, as well as getting into habits to counteract the habits you naturally have so you can be more socially functional, not just with relationships but also simply being able to take care of yourself and be independent; being able to do all the basic every-day tasks.

 

[_eric_]

Completely applies to me as well - I'm an NF with a mild form of Asperger's. Thanks for the reference, it helped me view my own situation a little more clearly.

Same here, I'm like all of that as well, though these days I pay more attention to the other person so as to avoid one-sided conversations. I used to be REALLY bad with that haha. I try more to involve them in what I'm talking about, like by pausing more to give them a chance to interject their thoughts, and by asking questions and directly asking for their input. I tend to be more selective about who I talk to though, rather than just going up to random people. It takes a while because I observe a lot first to get an idea of what sort of people they are. I also need to be able to be around the person on a regular basis in order to feel even remotely comfortable with talking all that much. If that can't happen, I generally can only say maybe a short sentence or two at a time to anyone. And as it says, I do kind of have selective mutism, but it's not all intentional. Most of the time I just have no idea what to say to someone, and I'm incredibly awkward, nervous, and bad at initiating conversation; I am much better at having a more responsive role in conversation. There are very rare occasions though where I'll come across a certain person and there is a strangely strong connection and sense of near immediate familiarity (the whole knowing each other since you were kids thing, which, with those people, I was told was mutual), and in cases like that I can talk pretty much endlessly with them about anything. Thinking back on that, I believe nearly all of them were INFPs and ENFPs, mostly INFPs I think.