Ha! good question...here are three I can think of right off.
I might give you a non-standard response to a question or statement--overly direct or blunt or missing the point. If this bothers you, tell me why. I'm not trying to hurt you on purpose.
Forgive me if I don't recognize you even if I know who you are--I'm bad at faces and a lot of people look alike to me. If you change your hair or beard or something, I might not know who you are. (Not true for all aspies...but this one gets me in trouble).
It's okay to try and cajole me into stepping outside my comfort zone--sometimes. But please stop if I ask you to stop. Some things I just really don't want to try or do.
Here are some that I wish you could know about Aspies.
If we don't smile at you, it doesn't mean we don't like you or are angry or unhappy. Maybe we just don't feel up to smiling at that moment.
We can have quite a weird sense of humour. Maybe it's no coincidence that Weird Al Yankovic is one of my favourite musicians.
We don't understand unwritten rules. If you want us to follow these, you need to write them down and explain why following them is so important.
We can have isolated areas of very high or low functioning. So if you see a person who seems very high functioning, they might still need assistance in some areas of life such as personal care.
We aren't lazy. We might seem that way because we tire easily and because we don't see the point of putting out effort unless there is a fairly immediate and tangible result.
We don't understand unwritten rules. If you want us to follow these, you need to write them down and explain why following them is so important.
This one has tripped me up several times also.
And yes, many of us are clumsy. We walk funny. We are humiliated in our gym classes because we are usually the last people who are picked when the gym teacher tells his favorite "jocks" to choose up sides. We can't understand why the gym teacher thinks that everybody has to be an athlete, and gives us low grades because he thinks we are shirking.
We are subject to food allergies like you wouldn't believe. We have bizarre medication reactions which baffle doctors and pharmacists.
Our likes and dislikes are very different from yours. We could care less who wins the Superbowl or Wimbledon or the Stanley Cup. We like old coins and freight trains, and can drive you out of your mind by reciting an encyclopedic knowlege of the development of diesel locomotives.
ranger, i agree on the contents of your post, expect for this part. i happen to care who wins the super bowl and the stanley cup, becuase i'm really into sports. in the circles i'm in, i'm like the sports knowlege head. but i also take intrest in science (bs in biology) and other things. i think the statement was a bit unfair and could result in sterotyping.
also, i have no known food allergies, but i think autistics in general are more prone to allergic reations than the general population, so a slight rewording for that. also in the jocks part, i would say i'm corrdinated, but when i was younger, i was a bit behind in movement. i think the problem is mostly that autistics seem to develop motor skills at a later age than most. couldn't tie shoes for a while and took a bit to write legibilly.
just clearing a couple of things up.
Thanks for asking! My biggie would be: We're different from NTs. Don't try to make us into indistinguishable clones of NTs with some sort of "treatment". Just extend to us the same sort of polite respect you'd give to anybody else, and enjoy the benefits of a multiple world view.
Alison
One really important thing I think is to accept that we need time to assimilate changes, especially those that are unpleasant to us; for instance, losing a person we are very close to or a routine that we really liked.
I really hate it when they tell me to move on before I'm ready because I will move on but in my own time. The more they say move on the more I can't because I need some closure.
Other aspies I know have similar ideas about change. They can adapt, but it takes longer than the usual person.
When were you told? How were you told? How did you accept yourself "as is" and begin loving yourself for being who you are and what you have to offer this world.
Doctors, don't get me started on doctors! I only found out I was Aspie after my comorbid was diagnosed - apparently it's more common in Aspies than in the rest of the population and the specialist was intrigued enough to give me the Kanner test. For the first forty three years of my life I just thought I was shy and a bit crazy. Now I know it's a perfectly valid way of being human. So finally I had two diagnoses for the price of one, and am a little bitter about all the years doctors were treating my comorbid's symptoms separately, and often in ways that made the problem worse (high blood pressure? Treat it with beta blocker drugs, thereby exacerbating an already dangerously low pulse rate to the point where I was lucky not to pass out while driving my daughter to school.)
As to socks, I solved that problem years ago and stopped wearing them! Also, clothes tags get cut out as soon as I buy anything - how do people stand those scratchy things all day long? And I change my shoes halfway through the day, otherwise I get very sore toes, no matter what I'm wearing, even open-toed sandals. The shoes fit, it's just my comorbid that makes my joints loose and sore, particularly the toes, so I solve the problem by changing shoes at lunchtime (or more often) and at home I go barefoot a lot.
I think my point is that we all find an equilibrium eventually and cope. But the problem is that we are trying to "fit in" to a culture geared for NTs, not us. As Gareth I think said, a cat is not just some sort of deformed dog, but an equally valid animal.
Alison
Hee! Maybe a dislike of clothes tags and sock seams should be used as a criteria for Aspieness! We all seem to be sensitive to them.
Alison
Two rules for my NT friends.
1.) I don't care what you think re: my professionalism.
2.) I can tell if you're being fake.
Way too many personal questions for me i'm afraid.
Yes, sorry Batman. It seems I was misled by WIRED magazine that Asperger is correlated with those "math and science genes" (you know, algebra), or to put in a Marsh way, chemistry uncle and math teacher uncle.
You surely were; things are getting bad when even we believe the same old stereotypes about Asperger's.
Of course. Let every man speak for themselves. Let those with higher intelligence feel free to express their individual thoughts freely - without fear of being told their ideas are crap.
But some thoughts need challenging if they are silly. It's not especially realistic to assume that anybody can say absolutely anything and not have some of it questioned. We are never going to have complete agreement on everything.
Batman, your profile says you are self diagnosed. Perhaps you are incorrect and you are not Aspie?
If we are going to criticize the statements made by WIRED magazine, we have to start with the facts, and make sure the facts are solid.
Then we need to see if WIRED maybe would be correct in saying instead: "well...... nine Aspies in ten are computer programming material."
I don't see how any of this really follows. Also, how big was the sample WIRED spoke of? I would suspect it was quite a small sample and therefore, not necessarily representative of aspies as a whole. I'd be very surprised if many women were included in the sample.
I'll take it a step further - I suggest that 10% of mathematically brilliant Aspies are also the most likely to get diagnosed, because they fit the stereotype. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.
If you go by the actual DSM, I've got Aspergers in spades. But if you go by stereotype - male, maths whizz, computer geek, into Thomas the Tank Engine as a kid and online gaming as an adult - I don't fit at all. I reckon that's why I managed to wander around the mental health system for a decade before finally getting DXed... by an Aspie psychologist who agrees the maths whizz stereotype is bunk.
[quoteI guess psychiatrists are human beings and they find what they are looking for[/quote]
So, now having told Batman his self-diagnosis is incorrect, you are now questioning my offical diagnosis.
GuessWho, you are not just a bigot, you are a troll. You're obviously either getting off on stirring us all up, or genuinely incapable of understanding what we're saying. Bugger off and stop it.
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