Aspies For Freedom

Maybe, I don't know. Autism is a spectrum of traits, some you may fit, some your wont. Maybe aspergers isn't quite right, maybe traits of autism may be be more on mark. It's a bit of an art, more than a science.

I love your writing, you're brilliant. Your writing is very relaxed, informal and off the cuff.

You definitely don't get any points for humility.

I think it is non-Aspie.  Personally, if you pull me away from my hyperfocused state, it is very hard for me to get back into it.

I think you may be "gifted ADHD" instead, and the Asperger could be wrong.

It seems that either your ADHD messes up the online test results or you've been the 'victim' of a sort of 'fashion' among professionals to dx Asperger's if they don't know what to write down.

Even if - you're still welcome to write here.

I don't know why people seem to keep insisting on this, but really I do not see why being exceptionally smart would allow you to mimic social behavior any better than an Aspie of average intelligence.

There are bright NTs who don't do too well socially.

I think your theory is incorrect.  Again, for the masses, if you happen to be very smart with Asperger's... the giftedness wouldn't necessarily compensate for social problems.  Trust me.

I have an incredibly bad sense of direction.  I am 26 and have lived in the same neighborhood my whole life, and I still cannot give anyone directions to anyone beyond a simple "go past this one light, take a left, keep going for a while" etc.  I still get lost in my own neighborhood.

I think a bad sense of direction is typical for Aspies.

I agree. There have been a number of autistic people considered to be quite intelligent who couldn't socialize for beans (possibly why we get the 'eccentric professor' stereotype). Academic skills won't do much for socialization, unless you happen to find yourself in a lot of academic clubs, where people are similarly nerdy, and because of mutual knowledge, the difference in social skills may not be so pronounced. But that's when talking about special interests, and even then you can go off on tangents and stand out from the rest.

If you hadn't known, many people with ADHD have some traits and personality characteristics that overlap with Asperger's, in the first place.  Some researchers believe ADHD may be on the autistic spectrum.

I think this is true for those who have been misdiagnosed with ADHD, while for people who the diagnosis fits probably wouldn't make any difference. Especially the school system, expects kids to have to sit still for way too long at a time.

I definitely agree with this.

On a related note, I think of myself as more of an AS/ADHD hybrid, although my ADHD is predominantly inattentive.

Oddly enough, classic ADHD meds like amphetamines overwhelm my senses, make me paranoid, euphoric, and hyper at low doses.  The effect I got from Ritalin was an absolute nightmare--the paranoia was extreme and would last for up to 5 hours.

I'm an AS/ADHD hybrid, too. My med experience was very different, though. I take Adderal 30mg 4x/d, and I get the classical ADHD paraxoxical effect with it - it calms me down. I was never physically hyperactive, though, just hyperactive in thought. The meds do not address the inattention, however - still as distractible as ever, just at a little slower pace.

This is another thing I wouldn't want to be "cured" of. If the "cure" is a sentence to be forever bored and to find most things uninteresting, why would I want that?

I don't quite understand you guys... I find a lot of things boring.  However I can entertain myself in my own head a lot, so I can see where you get the "ADHD kids entertain themselves better than NTs" etc... but some things are so boring and uninteresting to me, I cannot retain basic information about such topics.  Hence, the extreme difficulty I had in school... if I felt a topic was boring, I wouldn't learn anything.

Perhaps it is that the things which interest me, interest me MUCH more than the average person.  But the effect must be similar for things that bore me.  I do notice that I am drawn to examine as much visual stimuli in the environment as I can, I am always turning my head everywhere I go and "notice" more.

Question for outsidelookingin: why do you suppose that some people with inattentive ADHD (like me) don't get the paradoxical calming effect?  Could it perhaps be related to some physiological reason; perhaps an inherited sensitivity to the stimulant class of drugs, something like that?

Because my sensitivity to stimulants is unusual:  I get euphoric from average doses of caffeine.  Even just 10mg of Ritalin/Dexedrine is overpowering and not very calming at all, in fact it became dangerous for my health eventually.  But that's another story.