Aspies For Freedom

Do you feel like a different kind of human being?[/size]

To start this off, I feel different than neurotypical human beings.  We know we are.  If it is so hard for us to interact with employers that they hire less qualified NTs instead, if it is so hard for an AS to marry an NT that people write books about it, can there be some truth to the notion that we are a slightly different variety of homo sapiens?  Why do some of us feel like Spock or Data?  Speak Klingon?

Don't get me wrong.  I think now the time for Aspies has come.  Post industrial society means math, science, and computers.  These mean Asperger, at least for the maybe 10% or more of AS who have special gifts.  

<i>As you are so fond of observing, Doctor, I am not human.</i>

They need us and we have no choice but to live amongst them.  But do our differences mean that we have severe difficulty interacting, at work and in love?

And what about us Christians?  There is no Jew or Greek, no man or woman, no free or slave in the kingdom of God.  Is there Asperger or autistic and neurotypical?  If not, does the evidence show that Christians across the divide interact better than non-believers do?  My heart was encouraged in 1993 when I became a Christian and broken between 2002 and 2005 when a manager at a Washington DC Christian singles group cited Asperger as a likely reason for attracting minimal attention.  I felt like the stinking F-117 stealth fighter in there!

That is just what I meant, Beammeup.

We are outnumbered 70 to 1 by people without the autistic spectrum.  I have a gut feeling that tells me people without any neurological differences from the majority, are in the- majority.  But I don't have prevalence statistics for the long laundry list of neurological conditions, and even if I did, they are probably to some extent co-morbid (multiple conditions per person).  

Being outnumbered 70 to 1 means it is their planet, or rather, their society.  Generally, Aspergers are foreigners in every country on Earth.  (My adviser in grad school called me Foreigner, because most of Marshall University's grad students in sociology came from four adjacent WV and one adjacent OH county (on the west side of WV) and I came from between Hagerstown MD and Winchester VA in a county on the east side of WV in the "eastern panhandle".  WV had only two grad schools in 1993.)

Yes, it does pose problems searching for a job.  There is a very strong tendency to want to interact with ones like oneself.  Some can go outside the box but most (in my experience) can't or won't.  Translation: even if you have an education, skill, or ability advantage over an NT candidate (maybe even an experience advantage), the NT still gets hired, because it is easier than trying to interact with us.

But it is my "final frontier" that bothers me a little: hoping that some woman will "go where no one has gone before."

I am increasingly learning that neurology makes a difference in close relationships.  Anecdotally, the three steadies I have had, two were bipolar, kind of cousin to Asperger, at least it is on the neurological laundry list.  All three seem to be only daughters, one raised by a grandparent, another adopted, two on SSI.  

I have been saved for 14 years, but in a Christian singles fellowship, I attracted the attention of perhaps three women out of an eventual total male-female enrollment in the hundreds.  

I became a Christian because the Holy Spirit could make Christians genuinely love me as a person made in the image of God despite six months of pre-Christian religious hostility.  

I wondered where the Holy Spirit was when I needed Him in the singles group.

The manager herself cited Asperger as the problem.  My best friend thinks it is my weight, but not everybody has a problem with figures.  I do not.  I did not date the last time for her size.  I was hoping to discover a wonderful mind, but I did not.

Well, granted, my eternal destiny is more important than whether or not I share a few decades with a woman.

It almost seems as though there is some kind of neurological radar going on between male and female singles.  We are not on the NT radar, it seems.

I think the NTs think (maybe even correctly) that NTs cannot have good loves with AS.  When it does work, it seems to make headlines: Amazon has a book about one such marriage.  

But, in summary.  We are a slightly different kind of Cro Magnon, one with distinct abilities in math, science, engineering, and/or computers.  Maybe even foreign language too, I was, I had six courses in Spanish and Latin in high school and straight As in the Latin.  

Yes, we have deficits in the kind of social situational awareness that neurology seems to play a role in.  If anyone can clarify the neurology of social interaction please tell me.  But in the 21st century, America is a post-industrial society, and that means applied science and an increasing reliance on computers.

Our time has come, and the NTs need to know that they need to hire us.  Even if that means they need to learn to meet us in the middle.

Interesting. From my observations, my preliminary conclusion is that not everybody repeats conversations in the same way, and I think not all for the same reasons.
Some (not all) people repeat literally "she said... and then I said ...". The purpose might be just communicating with eachother, to achieve a feeling of being together.
Some people maybe share the conversations they had to convince themselves they said the right things, to reduce uncertainty. Another reason might be to create or maintain a certain image of themselves, and repeating discussions to others helps them to impress the person they're talking to now. Or perhaps sometimes they do it for fun, to make others laugh.

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses.

If I ever post my picture, that's a weakness.  This morning at the doctor's office, I weighed 290 pounds (132 kg) standing 5'9" (1.75 meters).  Body mass index, almost 43.  Over 30 is danger.  Over 40 is Danger Danger Will Robinson!

Those people, esp. women, who have paid careful attention to diet and exercise.... I'm very envious.  For 30 years I've just paid attention to my brain.

And colleagues with excellent social presentation skills, adds to my envy.

Amazing how some NTs are so skilled, they make themselves look so perfect to other people who haven't a clue.

Another thing.  It takes time to make something wonderful, a brain, a figure, acting career, musical ability, and so on.  

"..... Goliath has been a warrior since he was a young man"  (1 Samuel 17:33)

anecdotal: average length of service of U.S. special forces in Afghanistan, something like 13 years.  That's why they're Special Forces.

I've been in computer programming over eight years now.  My brother, 16 minus six months of unemployment.  (Take good mental care of yourself.  My brother didn't and it crippled him for a while, and he was an EXCELLENT computer programmer, and IS AGAIN).  

The community alienation bothers my brother.  It doesn't bother me much, I try to be part of the apartment six-pack of units (two per floor, three floors, no elevator), occasional charities, church, the gym.  All the cards I have to send every Christmas, makes me happy (Clarence to George Bailey, Xmas movie: "each life touches so many others": gym, church, grocery, bank, video rental, dry cleaners, work...)

Maybe some professors and I have been in school long enough to be special forces (last time I was in University, two faculty said get a Ph.D and teach- I thought, no more damned student loans, higher education is as bad as multi-level marketing, getting rich off the kids dreams, kids are just Social Security Numbers getting student loans whether or not they graduate and pay them back).

Maybe we can't get a Emmy award on the stage of life.  

But choose something and stick with it, and the longer you do it, the better and better you'll get and be proud of, and then that becames a self-fulfilling cycle.    





[quote=GuessWho]
 For 30 years I've just paid attention to my brain.

[quote=Pakrat]

I feel MORE human and humane.  I certainly don't treat people in the same cruel way(s) that NTs can and often do.

Please tell us why.

Yes.  We certainly know compassion.
I think I only teased one guy in ninth grade, and no one for the rest of high school.  I feel sorry now, but I thought I was retaliating then.

Abuse is the best way to learn compassion, you think?

I merely feel accused of being a monster.  Shrek I is a very true to life movie, except if my first gf had been Fiona she'd be back in a tower right now.

I think lonelywolf's comment in the quote is pure crap. I've seen no evidence of this, neither research nor personal experience. I know this isn't my experience. I know there is nothing in the diagnostic criteria that can be used to draw a conclusion like this. I really don't have a clue as to where this kind of thinking comes from.

This is very true. Asperger's and PDD-NOS often see themselves as ugly since they think that people are judging them based on their appearance. I have a friend with PDD-NOS who does this.

You know who you are if you're reading this!

In reality it is the lack of outward expression, lack of eye contact, and {in my case} the inconsistent drive/meter of speech and emotion which may actually be the culprits.

Often times people, are simply just people. They don't notice anything at all. If we display worry, it causes those around us to worry.

Awareness to criticism, and awareness of oneself could be a part of Avoidant Personality as described in DSMIV. The less aware person is simply detached but unlikely to seek assistance because that person is involved in his/ her own interests and doesn't really care about social considerations.

I seldom lose my cool.

I sort of thought, with such a strong trend toward monogamy in the A/C community, why aren't we a separate sub-species?  I might be excessive in my feelings but I feel that we are so very foreign to the respective gender of their species.