Aspies For Freedom

Hey, AB.

I just joined this site today. . . finding my way around rather awkwardly, as usual.

Almost everything you wrote is also true of me -- except for attending university and staying with parents.  I live alone an a farm, call myself a hermit -- blah blah blah.   Making my life meaningful and happy is a full-time job.

Anyway, last week I made a composition that attempts to depict what you wrote about:

http://happyhermit.us/tk_Poser/PoserTwo/MenMeeting.jpg

"Can you find ME in this picture?"  Ha ha.  Not too difficult.  My men's group met this Tuesday, but I chose not to attend.  Still working out my 'issues' with the scene I tried to depict in the composition.

Anyway (again),  THANK YOU for sharing these things.  It helps me sometimes if the focus is neither on me nor on the NT - but rather on something ELSE we can mutually focus on. . . but all the while I'm checking myself for obsessional stuff -- like talking too much about it.

Hmmm.  I've written more than I intended.  Thanks, AB.

---  Tom

I completely understand what you're describing. I recently went to two meetings of AS social groups in London. You might think AS and social does not go together well, but the people at both events seemed to be having a really good time. At the first meeting, there were two people I got along with quite well, and we had an interesting discussion about topics such as computing, physics, the future of mankind, the nature of the universe and the like. It was the kind of discussion I rarely had with NTs before, and something I was hoping to find there. However, at the second meeting, I didn't feel like there was anyone interesting to talk to, or at least the few people who tried to start a conversation with me seemed to go on about things I really wasn't interested in. I spent most of the time sitting quietly, occasionally getting annoyed by some of the other people, and generally wondering if I really belonged there. In the end, I had an interesting discussion about group theory with someone who turned out to be an NT who was just accompanying his aspie wife to the meeting. Still, I probably would have never spoken to him, or had that kind of discussion, had it not been in this context, where I assumed it would be acceptable to have this kind of conversation.

I think you cannot expect every aspie to be like you, in fact, probably very few are, and there may be lots of NTs you have more in common with. On the other hand, I think it's worth trying to find the ones that are in fact like you - at least that's my strategy for the foresseeable future, and I am sure they must be out there somewhere...

I can totally relate to what you're saying. I'm also borderline. I'm higher functioning than any other autistic person I know, yet autistic enough to have my life constantly tripped up by it. Which basically gave me TWO groups of people I couldn't relate to.

Of course, part of the reason why I couldn't relate to other autistic people was me. (I don't define myself as an Aspie because I really don't fit the criteria. I do fit the criteria for hyperlexia, and unlike you, I DO have the sensory issues, touch, sound, sight, you name it, except I have the social skills to know not to go ape about it.) I judged myself by how well I fit into NT society because that's what I aspired to, even though I resented all the hoops I had to jump through to prove how "normal" I was. When I got around Aspies, I would find myself thinking, "I managed to grok a clue. Why can't they?" Which is totally and absolutely unfair. I realized that my feelings were projections of the self-hate I felt about autism and decided to remove myself from their company until I was able to play nice.

Anyway, I recently decided to get over myself. I'm autistic and can't change that. A lot of people hate me, and I can't change that either. Big damn deal. So I've been trying to get in touch with my autistic "roots" as it were, and in a spirit of love.

Besides, how does having superior social skills have anything to do with the worth of a person? I know a lot of terrible, mean people with great social skills. Sociopaths frequently have impeccable social skills. I think today, NTs value social skills above all else, irregardless of character. I realized that Aspies who are happy with themselves and being Aspie are more successful than me, whether or not they hold down a job.

Thank God, more people like me!  I am also in my own little no-man's-land, having a mix of odd traits; I have almost no sensory issues other than INDIFFERENCE to touch, and I function very wittily & well in the social situations I DO get into---which is basically work, visiting a few friends, and going to maybe one or two party-type things per year.  BUT...I do NOT consider myself entirely NT!  I'm too absorbed in my inner world to fully commit to a challenging career or, yikes, an intimate relationship, and as attached as I am to the people I'm fond of, I also don't miss them the way I think I "should," and I have very little capacity for grieving, for feeling others' pain & experiencing it with them as a good friend is "supposed" to do (which is really a blessing, but it makes me look selfish!), and as stated I have no use for physical touch and if I went my whole life never being touched by another person I would be just as happy as I am now.  Which is really hard to explain to a traditional therapist.  They seem to believe that there is one standard of complete mental health, that everyone is born with the exact same needs & potential for intimacy, and that a client who says, "Well, yes, I loved my parents when I was a child but I sort of outgrew that by adulthood and their deaths are not going to make a difference in my life," or "No, I wasn't abused or traumatized in any way, I just am totally unmoved by touch, it doesn't do anything for me, and I would just as soon communicate through conversation alone," has got to be "shut down," or "in denial."  Or cold-blooded to the point of being a sociopath!  Esp. as far as the lack of empathy & grief capacity is concerned.  Yet I DO have a conscience, I CAN be moved & feel sad & somewhat relate to people's troubles...just nowhere near as intensely as seems to be the norm for my more conventional friends & relatives.  I can't imagine, for instance, reacting to bad news, even a family death, by bursting into tears.  At most I would be teary at the hospital, wake, etc., in reaction to other people's grief.  I mean, I can be & often am moved by things.  The thing is, I think I love the IDEA of a person or pet, the mental picture stored in my head, more than the physical reality.  One of my favorite animals (a friend's pet, not mine) recently died and I barely shed a tear, not because I didn't love him but because the reality of him is in my head and his physical departure doesn't make much of a difference.  I seem to STORE people, and I say that I love them and I do, in my way...but my love sometimes seems to be an intellectual & verbal construct rather than the kind of direct connection it is for other people.  Now when MY pet died, I must say I did burst into tears right there in the vet's office, and home WAS sad for awhile after, and I was 32 at the time, but since these were my pets, there was more of a connection & also guilt for not having spent more time with them...cause here comes another guilty secret, another effect of my detachment: When I got the pets (they were guinea pigs) , I was attentive & affectionate to them for the first week and then I kind of lost interest in them.   I mean, I took care of them, I did love them in my way, but I didn't NEED or miss the physical contact with them enough to stay interested in picking them up.  I always talked to them, I'm excellent at talking sweet nothings to animals, but again, that's the intellectual connection, which is really IT for me, whether it's a connection with a person or with an animal.  I collect anecdotes & observations about them, I can talk affectionately & at length about their endearing qualities, but really it's almost as if I have relationships with holograms of them, not with the whole flesh-and-blood person.  In recent years (I'm now 40), I've gotten more thoughtful, and Strattera, which I started taking 2 years ago for my spacey ADD traits, has definitely helped my to stay more "on the ball," quicker to respond in conversation...but I must admit that I tend to put people on a mental shelf when I'm not with them, as if all they need from me are my good thoughts; when my sister was getting married, it never occurred to me to offer to help in any way!   Really!  I mean, I don't drive, so she would have had to come get me, but still---if I'd put my mind to it I could have thought of many ways to be helpful.  But since my memory store of a person is what's real to me about them, it doesn't occur to me that perhaps I'm being thoughtless or neglectful in the relationship.  If they're not in the room, their physical existence practically ceases.  I mean, that's a slight exaggeration, but it's my way of trying to explain (to myself as well as to others!) the cluelessness I still display, even though I am socially very adept in the sense of reading faces and body language, interpreting tones of voice, and analyzing everyone's actions, motives, personality traits...that last is probably the source of a lot of the social success that I do have.  I analyze people all the time!  Have for years.  I have inherited my (very likely aspie) father's ruminative type of mind, so that I am always mulling things over in my mind & actually I am considered insightful by friends.  My brother and a mutual friend of ours, a professional counselor no less, were discussing my understanding of human psychology and my brother said he thought I was "brilliant," and our friend agreed.  Not bragging here, just making the point that one can be fortunate enought to understand people intellectually, to be able to read them, and yet feel somehow lacking in humanity because certain seemingly basic human nuts & bolts are missing.  So here I find myself in such an in-between place, too social and sensorily-integrated to fit the Asperger's profile, yet too solitary, detached, and lacking in "feeling" to be "normal."  Thanks in large part to sites like this one, I have finally accepted that whatever label may or may not fit me, I am an odd mix of NT and AS traits, and I should take that into consideration before judging my life too harshly.  By the standards of the "normal" world---standards I have identified with all my life, because who wants to feel like a loser---I AM in fact a pitiful loser, an underacheiving celibate dork.  The good news is, I finally accept the loose ends, the possibly-aspie traits, as part of my total picture, and having done so, I can set a new standard of success for myself.  One big success: Finally getting close to what is probably the REAL cause of my strangeness, my failure to turn out the way I thought I was supposed to.  Sorry to run on & on like that...Hope you are still reading this topic, or that SOMEBODY is!  Comments welcome...

Could it be summed up by saying that you have aspie traits?

Another one in no man's land here. I don't think i have sensory issues, in fact things like clothes tags, i can't even feel them, when other people around me are complaining and getting them cut off-- so if anything im very sensory tolerant.

i used to feel very uncomfortable in underwear that wasn't extremely lloose when i was a kid, couldnt tolerate clothes or blankets that went past the knee but again, i was out of that by the time i was abt 9. i am very tolerant to things that make me feel uncomfortable now, in fact theres almost a sense of comfort form the uncomfortablenessm if thatas a word... the only thing is my haircut. if its cut such that i feel its different ( the texture etc), it really makes me shut down.
i actually got along well with nts most of my life to the extent that i will say i may well be nt.. if we click.. we get along really well... its just when we dont that i seem too be unable to mask it like others do and still carry on good small talk. I am social, it just depends on with who and what context. its only now as I am growing older that i have found it increasingly difficult to talk to people  as more 'skills'' are demanded of me. I dont know anyone in my university. right now i have a very small circle of friends and people have started making comments about me being too clingy to my closest friend, although from our conversations i always know where we stand on this. i know in some ways this is true but this is the one relationship i have where i have a true connection with a person and right now im feeling very judged for it.
mostly my aspie-ish problems i fear are not significant enough, so pple will say 1)its normal, get over yourself! etc
I think i crave friendships a lot more than the average aspie, like being around people a lot more than the average aspie. and yet im probably  alot lonelier than the average nt.

well AS is also known as the little professor syndorme so itr wouldnt suprise me if they do "go on and on:

Wow.  More "almost aspies"...or "almost NTs"...or...  :?:
I often finding myself questioning my aspieness when I read about other aspies' sensory issues and communication difficulties.  While I sit here at the computer rocking back and forth in my desk chair and avoiding the nightly social gathering of neighbors out on the front sidewalk.  :lol:

Oops..... <post deleted>  Sorry, it posted twice.  :oops:

What are they doing?  Absolutely useless and hideously boring stuff!  Like jabbering on endlessly about sports teams, or their favorite TV shows, or the latest gossip about some other neighbor.....

Why does no one ever want to talk about history, or literature, or quantum physics and a multiple dimensional universe.....???   :?

Eh, they're all a bunch of easily-entertained, feeble-brained bores.....  :roll:

I haven't been very active on this board lately, but I happened to be looking around again today and saw this interesting thread. I see a lot of stories here I can relate to here. I have said previously that I wasn't sure if I have AS or if I am just a typical INTP. I normally type as an INTP for reference, but sometimes I wonder if I am a little INFPish too.  *shrug*

You know I was thinking about AS the other day again, because I remembered this thing that happened to me in college. I was running the lighting for the "Girl's State" ( sort of a politics summer camp thing)  in the summer. They were talking on the stage and all of a sudden a guy comes along and steals this girls purse and she screams etc. I suddenly start chasing after him and he even gets on a bike outside the theater and I still keep after him. Ha Ha.. Then I see the county judge drive up in a van and pick him up and I sort of realized that this might have just been a staged thing at that point, but I still was a little suspicious of what was going on. If I didn't happen to know he was a judge I would have probably thought the whole thing was real still. Anyway, they later apologized to me that they forgot to tell me that they were going to do this, but laughed and said it would help the girls think that it was for real. Ha Ha.. I don't know if that was a sort of AS thing to do, but remembering that made me wonder again..

I don't think I have met any AS people in person (or at least have knowledge of the fact) so I don't know if I would relate to them or maybe even find out that am very much like them. I should look up and see if there is a group around Denver maybe that would be good for me to find out. I sometimes get pretty lonely inside and feel as thought nobody really understands me or accepts me for who I really am. It gets pretty depressing and hopeless at times. *sigh*

I confess that I am saying this as an NT - a few Aspie traits, but not enough to "be" an Aspie - and as someone who has been around the block a few times (ie the age thing, lol!):

I don't think that the goal socially is really about finding people who are the same as you, or even that you can relate to.  You want to find people you enjoy the company of, and that enjoy being around you as well.  Sometimes a best friend is your total opposite.  Get the communication thing down (oh well I know that is easier said than done!) and the rest doesn't matter.  You'll never know who you match with communication wise until you try.  And that person may be so very different from you ... and that is totally OK, as long as you are willing to adjust, adapt, and accept the other.

Once you get past the hurdle of needing to relate, making friends is easy.  Or, at least, it has been for me.  Once I stopped trying to fit in, an amazing thing happened - I had fun and acquired a social life.

Yes you make some good points there DW. Actually one of the best online freinds I have right now is an xNFJ. Some of my other best freinds were either ISTPs or ESTPs. I just wish I could find a new real life freind these days. I was just starting to become good freinds with this EXTP? guy from work and he decided to take a job in California so now he is gone. The rest of my freinds are married now so doing things with them is harder now days.

Actually, I think sometimes wonder if I try too hard to be different than everyone else at times, but I beleive I am just being myself in most cases.  I always thought of my uniquness as a source of my self esteem and worth. Maybe it just seems that way to me and I am really trying to fit in too much.. *shrug*

Can anybody tell me how that's done?  I managed it with Vernu, but the rest of the time face-to-face communication is excruciatingly difficult. I mean, half the time I don't know who I'm talking to!  The other day I went into a new chemist to get some antibiotics for the bug I've got and didn't realise until the woman behind the counter serving asked me if I was okay, why didn't I want to say hello to her?  It turns out she's the mother of one of my preschool kids.  I made some excuse about being a bit "spaced out" because of the bronchitis I contracted, but the truth is I never recognised her; and I've seen her pick up Monique hundreds of times from preschool, and spoken to her as well.  How embarrassing!
Alison

I have so been there, done that!  I think most people get preoccupied, and also have difficulty connecting faces when they see them in unexpected places.  I get embarrased, too, but what do you do?

None of it is a reason to give up, though.  Anyone who judges someone else harshly over spacey behaviour isn't someone you need as a friend.