Impostor? Probing for brutally honest thruths about self

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Everyone says they're odd. Or had no friends in high school or had feelings of "being different." I've heard this from a lot of people who were social butterflies and had it all together. The nerve!

What really is the difference between Asperger's and that intermittent feeling of isolation and disconnect common to the human condition? Do people even take the time to know the difference?

Maybe people just like to slap on these very official-sounding labels so they can avoid having to deal with their problems outright. People who say they're "Indigo Children" or have self-diagnosed Asperger's are probably just folks who can't fathom the thought that they may just be ordinary.

Maybe I'm just a really shy (but not misanthropic), obsessive, eccentric virgin who still lives at home and can't drive and needs a magic word to excuse it all away: "Asperger's" HA!

PS I've always admired how Edward Gorey and Dick Proenneke chose to live their lives. If it means an ascetic-bachelor existence, so be it.

Only a lifelong sense of being different, of being considered odd, of never quite fitting in, of chronic failure to come up with the right response at the right time.



Either way, welcome here at WP, Llixgrjb.

Welcome Llixgrjb,

You will fit in around here.

Obsessive? Tell me more!

Welcome to WP, I hope you find the answers you are looking for.

This is hard to explain for me; afraid to get too specific. Not a soul knows - until now. I wish it were as simple as saying I am really into this, that, or the other. I have many obsessions. I feel that they are just spokes in a wheel of meta-obsession. Starting from grade school (2nd grade?) I created a world inside my head populated with a revolving door of of characters. In order to give these characters lives, roles, situations, etc. I had to do a lot of research into actual books, movies, music to get ideas. You know, kind of like what a writer or a method actor has to do to get into the protagonist's head. From the outside I looked like a very intense little bookworm. This lead to very singular obsessions that lasted anywhere from 6 months to several years. I felt I needed these characters in order to understand relationships between people, places and things. I feared that I would one day I would have to stop this daydreaming if i was ever going to be a functioning adult. I still haven't.

Think of it as a kind of Holodeck of the mind. In it, you can put that character through countless simulations in a place where time and space matter only if you want them to. That character itself is subject to a lot of tweaking and sometimes complete overhaul corresponding to any life changes I may encounter. My view of this world is strictly third person; a little voyeuristic. The average age of the characters now are middle-aged. I'm 22. What does that say about me?

How is this usually applied to real life? When I was interested in sexuality and gender I created some queer characters to help me understand better. When I took to music I needed to come up with a imaginary jamband (with each member's life story and resume as well) as inspiration.

I've been reading about dissociative disorders lately. This is the closest thing in psych literature I can find. I don't think I have one because I can easily distinguish where the fantasy ends and where reality begins. Nonetheless, they have a similar way of thinking. People who exhibit these traits create alter egos as a means to cope in the real world. These alter egos act as stand-ins for traumatic experiences or as personifications of hopes and dreams dashed and virtues (and vices) one admires.

Wish I could elaborate more. Very likely to be misconstrued and a bit scary to see in writing. Oh well, there you go.

Welcome Llixgrjb:

I know exactly what you are talking about with your "cast of characters". At least, I think I do. I do something very similar. I am now beginning to believe it is a tic of sorts.

Echopersonae: Being another to be oneself. Antonio Hernandez wrote a book in which he describes this phenomena, where the entire personality of another is taken on in total mimicry. He went through a period of being Peter Falk in Columbo. His Columbo period ruined his posture.
Many doctors also call it "Echopraxia". Tony Attwood believes it is common in Aspergers and refers to it as a "take off", and feels it helps the socially inept learn how to speak and act properly. Hernandez thinks it's a kind of whole body "mimic tic".

Sometimes, when I am faced with a dilemma, or a relationship problem, I imagine it playing out in my mind with someone I respect and admire usually from the film industry ( often Goldy Hahn who is my favorite because of her comedic roles). I imagine how she would "pull it off" and then I do as I imagine she would do. So, you're not the only weirdo out there.

Thanks for all this great input and support guys.

I will certainly be checking out more of Attwood's and Hernandez' work, Cosmic .

Wow.

Nice to meet you, Llixgrjb.

Llixgrjb,
I can totally relate to your holodeck. As a kid (and I mean until about 26!) I spent so much time lying in bed creating my scenarios that people thought I slept fourteen hours a day! But it was a release, a fantasy, and stress release at the same time. When I would get up to join the "real" world, I felt recharged, like I could face other people again.
Regarding scaring other people with your thoughts, I wouldnt' worry too much. I frequently have disturbing thoughts, and wonder if I should worry about them, but I've come to the conclusion that they're my way of working out my multiple neuroses, and that it's a safe outlet for my fears. I think we all have dangerous or deviant thoughts, but it's acting upon, thereby forcing them upon other people's realities, that make them unacceptable.
Anyway, I'm new here too, so welcome, from a fellow newbie.

Jodie

Well, my application is writing books. What else is a bookworm to do?

My latest has 35 characters and covers ten years. It also tells a detailed story about a little known but important period of history.

It was based of forty years of research and took fifteen years to fit the characters to the plot to the known reality. For that I had to write real three year olds, as seen and thought of by a wolf, and lots of others as they grow from under ten to near twenty. Most are girls.

I not only have one to one, times thirty-five, I have sub groups, and whole group dynamics.

It is much like following one group as they go through school.

I have a dozen other stories growing, that deal with a topic. It is also expressed through people, I use the device a lot.

One is not a story, only Aspies can have a whole world in their mind. The story is in their action with others, and all characters must first be defined, for their differances are what brings out the story.

The basic is, whole boring lives are lived until one day the characters meet and then something worth writing about happens. They are paint and canvas, the thing worth writing about is a picture fully done, with a Universal theme.

Harry was an ordinary orphan, working class, and one day a letter came.

No one of them, or all of them, or the action, is the picture. They are each powerful, lead to reader identity, someone's eyes to see through, the how it started, how it progressed, but even the characters are suprised by the results, the final product, or perhaps, totally unaware of the meaning of their acts in producing the total picture.

The writer is also often in the dark about the final meaning. Characters take on a reality, start acting on their own, and suddenly the writer is seeing what they did, why, and writing it in. The characters not only grow, define, age, they come and sit by my keyboard and say, "We have to talk."

They also show up when I edit. You can cut that scene, but the part where I show this character trait, has to be kept and move to another scene, for it explains chapter nine. Considering I am dealing with 700 pages, which all must flow in an orderly manner for thirty-five people, and a wolf pack, each rewrite has to be as one character is introduced, developed, acts, and the place where they are the most important person in the story, for a few pages, but then they do not fade away, the have an ongoing role.

All of their actions must be explained in technological detail. They develop skills as they age. Everyone ages at the same rate, yet are different ages, so chapter to chapter each must be updated, and act in age approprite ways.

So I think that is the kind of brain you are speaking of.

Having built this world now I illustrate it so artists can see it as I do, and add to the visual quality. I am face blind, but not all Aspies are. There is a vast amount of fact checking. I write in things I know, but not in detail, and before publishing, it all needs to be verified.

All writers report the same, when I started, filling a page was a lot. stringing together many related stories, Chapters, arranging them into a book, took years, just to format my brain to be able to see it all at once. Book two is easy.

So it is developing the inner space in a fineness of detail, and being able to write a scene with two men, two women, two children, girl and boy, a dog, and a parakeete, and write the story as each sees it, their view of all the others, then blend that into one Chapter, that fits what went before, what is to come, which has not been written yet.

During all of this, the reader is always front and center, with their divergences of age, sex, and education, natural ability. all good books are written on a dozen levels.

So I think you are self training to be me.

Welcome to WP!

Tim

No one has ever accused me of being normal...

This is interesting. Have a lot of the same things going on, just not to the same degree. I get lost in Sci-Fi book series (mainly sort of 'what would you do if you were in there'...saving the day, doing heroic things, the whole Walter Mitty soundtrack.. In the book trade (or fanfic), this is known as a 'Mary Sue' story, where the author is obviously the hero (or heroine) of the piece. I don't know what the male version is supposed to be, but the female version has been described as 'As wise as Spock, as charming as Kirk, as compassionate as McCoy, and sleeps with all three...'

I didn't even know my condition had a name until about a year ago, when Dan Akroyd revealed he had it, described some of the same things I had. I decided to look up the symptoms online, and found more and more things I had in common, and not many that I don't (had to read several posts to find out what 'stimming' is...I guess I'm stimless, or seedless, or something..

I don't really look at Aspergers as an excuse, but as a definition I can use to improve my interactions with other people. I'll never be 100%, but hopefully I'll cope better

That sounds very strange. Have you come across people like that? That's hard to believe.

Well, I certainly have.

You sound like a very interesting person, Llixgrjb. I don't know if we have a lot in common, but we do seem to share the same (or at least a similar) view on the self-diagnosis of AS and how it's become popular.

Maybe what people are drawn to is an Asperger's cognitive style and not necessarily an Asperger's cognitive disability.

Yeah, pretty much. Most of those who self-diagnose only see the positive things about it, not the negative. There are exceptions, but yeah.