Aspies For Freedom

Over the past several months, I discovered Asperger's syndrome, read everything I possibly could about it, thought it seemed exactly like me and explained my past, present and helped me know what to expect from the future. I even asked my doctor for a referral to a psychologist who deals with the Autistic Spectrum. I've watched several documentaries.

Then last night, here in Canada, CBC Newsnet(TV Station) played a documentary about a boy who has Asperger's. Now, this kid was realllllly, whiney, cried a lot, complained constantly, wished everyone liked and accepted him and wished he didn't have Asperger's syndrome.

As soon as I saw this, I got confused. Most of what I've read points toward Aspies actually preferring isolation, not crying very much, less than normal eye contact, not whining or complaining much. From what I've read from people on the internet who have been diagnosed, they actually don't complain about it and wish they weren't an Aspie, most of them seem to have self respect and accept themselves for who they are. Even more so than NTs.

In this documentary, the boy and his mother went to a convention in Chicago for kids and their parents dealing with Aspergers. Every single one of the children there had speech impediments and very small vocabularies. They all lisped and sounded as if they had cotton in their mouths. They all seemed far to aware and understanding of emotions, their own and those of the people around them. It didn't match up with what I'd been reading and hearing and seeing over the last several months.

Basically, I don't have a speech impediment at all. I never have. I have always had a rather large and formal vocabulary, especially in person, and from a very young age. I never have been one for crying, whining, complaining, or wishing for acceptance.

I am, however, terrible at social interaction. I have extremely repetitive behavior. I have very narrow interests, and I can tell you all about a few things that you don't give a crap about. I can tell you when, how and at what time the Chernobyl disaster occurred and not know when you're bored and don't care. And if you were to tell me you didn't care I don't understand how you could not. Same goes for fatalities in autoracing. I can tell you who died, where they died, what year it was and what they were driving.

I cannot complete many simple and fundamental tasks. I just learned a few weeks ago how to tie my shoes. It takes me twenty minutes to brush my teeth, 45 minutes to shave my face, an hour in the shower. Other things like this.

I flap my hands and bang my head. Take things apart and re-assemble them for no reason. Stack and collect things. I used to stack things behind doors.

Lots of things, but I don't match up to any other PDD, and I don't have Schizophrenia. I don't show ADD, OCD, depression, etc. But I am not and have never been like any of the children on the documentary I saw.

I dunno... What are your thoughts?

Welcome to AFF.  It's natural to be confused the first several months after a self-dx.  I was confused too.  I think what's happening is that you read about AS as a very broad spectrum disorder with everyone given equal inclusion, but those who get covered by the media seem to be extremely aspie, perhaps bordering on LFA.  It is easy for the TV audience to see that an extreme aspie has problems.  Also, the media may feel safer for their credibility covering the undoubtedly officially dx-ed.  Many of us who have grown up attempting normality with slightly more grace have evaded any psychiatric labels, thus media coverage as well.

Thank you.

Well, if that's the case, wouldn't someone who was... extremely aspie be less outwardly emotional and more quiet and misunderstood? Or is that not how it works.

These kids seemed to have no problem making eye contact and expressing their emotions verbally.

Even though we may have common underlying traits, our autism can definitely present in very different ways because even though we all share a label, we're all still very different people.

Also, try not to judge the entire autism community by that portion of the ASC community which you may come across online because I'm sure it's a bit of a biased sample. Here, many of us had no ASC diagnosis as children; instead many of us "discovered" autism later on and then self-dxed. That is different than having a label handed to you, and especially growing up with such a label. Instead of being a breath of fresh air, explaining WHY we have been the way we are all our lives, where we literally CHOOSE to realize we are autistic... for someone who is handed the label in childhood, grows up with it, maybe has parents who subsequently begin treating them as stereotypically disabled, it can be a whole different viewpoint.

For me personally, I have noticed a greater acceptance and pride for those auties who actively found out they are autistic and chose the label. Those who were handed the label earlier on seem to more often either feel neutral or even negative about it. (This is just a generalization, but I have noticed this more of these two groups.)

i was dx when i was in my early teens.i went into one of my fits of fixation and found the labal if me so i kept it.

No one person with AS is the same. An assessment and diagnosis for AS should help you understand as an individual why you are different to NT's.

I understand that nobody is the same, not even NTs...


It was just really confusing to watch an hour long documentary about kids who were confirmed, official, bona fide Aspies, and didn't seem like anything I'd read before.

And I in no way intend to offend anyone, parents of aspies or aspies, when I emphasize the fact that these kids were whiney and cried a lot, complained, etc. Perhaps this is actually normal, and relatively undocumented? Just seems odd that an entire room full of 'em were like this. If this is the case, perhaps I haven't found my answer yet.

I think that the media often likes to use autistic images that portray the condition as a "tragedy" - It doesn't sound like the group shown in the documentary was very representative.

To put it another way, some Aspies are complainers, the same way that some NT's are complainers. If you put a camera crew in a room with two aspies, one of whom is complaining about their life, and the other of whom is happily minding their own business, the camera is going to be recording the first one. Same goes for speech difficulties - anything that looks obviously "different" will go on film, giving the whole process a bit more of a "freakshow" feel...

Also, autistic people definitely have a great deal of variance in emotional expressiveness, and that can change over time.  And some learn to mimic standard emotional expressiveness even if they don't feel it.  Many times they are heavily trained in doing so, as well.  But some auties are just naturally very emotional.

I bet many of those kids were trained in eye contact, too.  The eye contact training I got as a teen involved being hit and verbally taunted by a shrink until I looked him in the eye.  That sort of thing can be effective and is more common than a lot of people think.

A shrink hit you & taunted you???? was this person a trained psychiatrist?

It may be effective, but I believe that 'brainwashing' is also effective..

Abuse pure & simple.

Think again, all of that fits me perfectly.  It seems like you can place a lot of Aspies into a "hypersensitive" (myself) and "hyposensitive" category.  There are also some who have traits of both.

Autism can be many things, and their direct opposite.  I know it's confusing.

Although yes, I did grow up attempting normality with (generally) a lot of grace, despite my sensitivities.  And I was seen as mostly normal, so I probably don't have AS "as much" as others do.

Wow, he would be great at the Rotenberg Center!

He should have had his licence yanked!

Indeed!

There are many, many different ways that autistics act and who they are. A very select few of these ways are the more common stereotypes, such as the LFA stereotypes, and the socially-awkward genius stereotype, etc.

There are a number of autistics who are very overt in emotional expression, and, especially with kids, this may include much whining and the like (when I was six, I spent at LEAST 10 hours a week crying).

As for the wishing to be different, not wanting to be autistic thing, most of the kids in the documentary were probably trained from when young that they were diseased, that they needed fixing, that they were inferior to their normal peers.

Most self-diagnosed and late-diagnosed people don't get so much of that, although for many there was still the significant pressure to conform, there wasn't a label for parents/professionals to "attack" so to write.

Even though I was diagnosed at age 10 through the school and was lucky enough that my dad explained it to me as "a different wiring of the brain", and I had always taken a degree of pride in liking who I am no matter how unpopular, I went into an enormous depression (a few, acutally), which led to me being in denial of my AS diagnosis and in being suicidal.

i couldn't bring myself to directly admit that I wanted to be more "normal" which I would have spat at the idea, so I phrased my upset with being with the whole of me. It really was the same, but it made me feel less compromising of my principles.

So, yes, there are many ways to be AS, whether quiet or loud or a little of both, and whatever other mixture of traits you can think of, there's an autie out there who'll fit it in someway. Much like Baron-Cohen's Extreme Male Brain theory doesn't apply to everyone, no grouping of stereotypes or trends is going to apply to everyone.