Hi, I think I'm an aspie

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I always just thought of myself having social anxiety, despite my therapist repeatedly saying I likely have asperger's. I had seen the movies Adam and Mozart & the Whale, so I was under the impression that to be a true aspie you had to be an idiot savant of some sort. (Though, I did find the main characters in those movies immensely relatable.) I looked up information after my therapist suggested it, but I suppose my mind was biased to the thought of asperger's=idiot savant, so I still drew the same conclusion. Recently, I stumbled upon the hope9 panel on youtube with the guy who runs wrongplanet, and it did a 180 of my view on asperger's. I looked up some information again, more closely this time, and I found that I highly identified with many distinct traits of asperger's. I guess it doesn't mean much, but I also took the asperger's quiz on rdos dot net, answered it very conservatively, and got "most likely an aspie".

'Adam and Mozart & the Whale' had me scratching my head. I never heard of that movie.

But anyway, welcome to WP.

If you speak to a lot of folks on WP, you'll see most of us frown on Hollywood's portrayal of Asperger's. To make their films more, how should I say, commercially viable, the aspie is usually super human. Like Rain Man, they can count matches on the floor and count numbers in Vegas. Like Adam, they have gorgeous planetariums in their living room. I even thought Sigourney Weaver's behavior in Snow Cake to be a little extreme. How can a woman so developmentally behind have a boyfriend or have a child. Seems a little over the top, but that's Hollywood.

The problem is, lay people believe this is the face of Asperger's and doubt those who say they're on the spectrum because they don't resemble these film portraits. It's aggravating. Interestingly, the term Asperger's will be erased next year. Let's see how this changes things.

And I just learned how to spell it.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Welcome. Don't trust the movies and these online tests. I'm diagnosed, hold a job (barely), and I go to school full time as a Ph.D. student. I'm told I really am not good at always understanding what people are talking about; I see a lot of meanings all at once and prefer email. If you're not diagnosed, just be you. You really don't need anyone's acceptance except your own, do you?

Welkome to WP

Mick