Does anyone find making friends or short chatting difficult? I suspect myself is suffering from some aspect in the Autistic Spectrum Disorder. I'm now seeking medical advice. I just like to talk to myself (and read aloud when I'm reading literature), and consider social activities as a "training" or "experiment".

I'm still a bit reluctant to get formal diagnosis.....I'm afraid that I may be labeled as "disabled" and got kick out from my MPhil/PhD programme. I decide not to tell my supervisor or labmates until I get more information about my condition.

I think I shouldn't stay in academic if I'm some sort Autistic because I just don't know how to collaborate, or to speak for myself.

Does anyone face similar problems?

Hi

Yick please do not run into conclusions to quickly. There are a lot of people with a lot of personalities. Meyers and Briggs have made a scale looking at traits of personality. For example they differentiate between introverted and extroverted, thinking versus feeling and a few more. The issue is that these traits are not good or bad but indicate your preferences. Now a lot of good researchers wil be introverted people and may find it difficult to open up a conversation. Vice versa extroverted people are often very good in small talk yet may find it difficult to concentrate on data, reading etc.
Even stronger it would not surprise if a lot of the PhD students are actually quite introverted.

Being austistic would be really at the extreme end of the scale, although also here there is a wide variety. If your are really uncertain or feel very strongly regarding this I agree that it would be good to speak to your GP who could then help you regarding a psychological assessment

If you would be autistic you would not be aware that communication creates any problems for you. So probably you are not autistic:)

Hey Yick, dont worry about being kicked out of academia. I suspect a lot of academics have similar problems to you, in fact I remember reading somewhere that an unusually high percentage of Oxbridge students have some form of Autism.

We all have our problems. Although I am an outgoing and usually very cheerful person, I suffer from an anxiety disorder which means I sometimes cant work although i'm starting to learn how to deal with it.

Hi yick,

I have some experience with these areas myself, although I'm not autistic per se. However, contrary to what you may think, I would expect that there is an above average percentage of academics who have some kinds of ASD. However, the problem with self-diagnosis, as with for a myriad psychological/mental disorders, is that the diagnositic criteria are so broad that many many false positive diagnoses are possible.

As for sharing this information - I guess it depends on how well you know and get on with you supervisor and peers, and how much trust you have in them. Once it's said, you can't ever retract it, and maybe it would be better to seek help or advice form a professional first.

I fact, despite being an outgoing, sociable and comunicable person, in any academic setting I get some symptoms of autism....So, probably environemnet in Academia makes many of us little bit ackward.

I reckon my PhD certainly contributed to my anxiety problem ( I know we're actually talking about Autism here), although I'm sure the illegal drugs didnt help either

Thanks for all your replies. I've wasted so much time on thinking why I'm so different from others in terms of social life and hobbies.

I'm sick of myself being self-isolated all the time (although I do enjoy the freedom and quietness). People in my lab seem very comfortable to collaborate and talk, while I'm working pretty much on my own at an unaccetably slow pace. I even turn down a potential collaborator because I don't want to use extra effort to deal with another person.

I think people like myself will not survive in the academia, where collaboration is highly encouraged. Perhaps I just deem to fail? This could explain why my supervisor doesn't like me at all.

Hi Yick

do you think you might suffer from a depression?

Well, I don't seem like having the obvious symptoms for depression. In fact, people with Asperger's syndrome (one member of the autistic spectrum disorder) is more prone to depression....

Remember though that depression can both be a disorder in itself, and a symptom of another disorder such as ASDs etc.

There seems to an awful lot of self-diagnoses going on on this board lately. Okay, as Phd students we're meant to do alot of reading, but some people seem to have got into the self-diagnoses of medical conditions by reading a list of symptoms and convincing themselves that they suffer from most of them. Only trained professionals can make these judgements so leave well alone.

Yick, if it makes you feel better, I'm the shy type that tends to be in the quiet corner in parties and only occasionally adds something to a group discussion. However, I noticed a marked change in myself since I arrived and this uni and became a "yes" man. I've started to come out of my shell alot more. I still talk to myself though!

To yick,

No one is ever going to kick you out of a PhD for having a minor personality disorder. They will only kick you out if you blow it in your PhD work.

Thanks a lot for the support! I remember my GP has asked me whether I'm shy or not. In fact, I couldn't really differentiate between shy and slightly autistic. I know I like to collect stuff....no matter how trivial they are. This is somewhat good in doing research because one main part in research is to collect data! (but I hate doing analysis...)

PhD = permanent head damage. I think this's somewhat correct.

and there was me thinking PhD stood for "pretty hot dates", hence the name findaphd.com

Now I am deluded.