what does being a aspie

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i have a book called aspergers... what does it mean to me bycathrine faherty
so what does aspergers/autisum mean to you
to me it means its hard to make frinds

You know what....I don't know. I think it is asperger's, but it could be HFA. The only reason I wonder is because I just learned I was delayed in speech as a child. Didn't talk until I was 3. That made me think it was Autism instead of AS. So at this point, it is really unknown to me.

It means it's hard to make friends,
but, on the other hand, I love my own company
and the things I like to do are solitary activities anyway.
It means that, at the age of 10
I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
I haven't changed my mind.
It means that I can see just how ridiculous most of our social conventions are.
It means that most people puzzle and fascinate me.
It gives me my love of music.
It gives me empathy for the bullied, the ostracised, the different, the misunderstood:
I know just what they are going through.
It reminds me
that I should never assume that I know what a person is thinking
or why they act how they act
because it hurts when people do that to me.
It allows me to be fascinated with
and laugh in delight at things that other people
wouldn't even notice.
The pattern in the cracks of the sidewalk
The beauty of a sharp, straight edge
The angle in the digit "7"
Two buses, whose numbers can be divided by many of the same numbers
That car numberplate, the numbers are a prime number
All this is beautiful.
To most people, it is just stuff around them. Nothing.
Not to me.
I feel lucky for this.
It allows me to spend hours alone,
building universes inside my head.
Sometimes, though, it gets lonely.
At my graduation, all the noise and happiness was going on
Over me, around me
Without me.
I had one awkward, over-formal, very stilted conversation.
That kind of hurt.
At university, people would make plans for the weekend, parties, going out to bars
and I'd wonder,
"What am I doing wrong? How do I get invited, how do I be one of the people that other people think of automatically when they want friends to go somewhere? How do I get past this damn awkward, polite, conversation, this casual-acquaintance stuff, this damn INVISIBILITY?!"
It bothered me.
Still, it was better than school. I wasn't bullied. Most of the people I spoke to seemed to like me, too.
To be fair, university was by far the best experience of my life. All that time, with nothing that I had to do that wasn't related to my primary interest. A building full of people who also had music as their primary interest. Free concerts. An hour a week spent talking about composition to an established composer. Free access to experts on music.
I'll always be grateful to my lecturers for this: whenever I approached them to engage them in conversation (normally about music, sometimes about other things that their lecture had made me think of), they'd be friendly and genuinely interested, even though I was just a young undergraduate. This did two things: it gave me stimulating conversation about something that I loved, and they alleviated some of the biting loneliness that I felt at times. (I wonder if they ever suspected that sometimes, apart from my family, they were the only people who I'd spoken to, or who'd thought to speak to me, all week?)

Being an Aspie means loneliness, but less than you'd expect.

It means that I'll never be a champion athlete. (No, not even if Hell DOES freeze over. ) I hope, however, to one day be able to consistently button my shirt on the FIRST attempt. I don't hope that I'll stop walking into walls, though, some things are futile.

It means that I'd seen, and noticed, more of the nasty, xenophobic side of people by age 8, than most people have by age 30.

It means being overwhelmed in crowds.

It means loving books, and being able to spend hours reading.
It meant reading well before the age of 3.
Books gave me a whole other world and reassured me that the greyness of the people around me, the dull despair of the world, the bullying and small-mindedness: they did not have to be the only possible world.
Music does that, too, it lets me know that there was someone, somewhere, once, who felt things as deeply as I do, someone who still appreciated and sought beauty.

It means that I still have the same sense of wonder that I did when I was 4 years old.

All things considered, it's not too bad.

Autism to KOR,means-
*A lot of challenges-whether it's inside or outside.
*Another reason for dealing with more prejudice,ignorance and abuse
*Extremely strong connection to animals/non humans

as...for me et means i take everythink (almost) literally..which often leads to cracking my teeth for nothing coz of misunderststanding:P

In a world of sines, I'm a cosine.

sad

Aspergers, to me, means that there are alot of barriers that I don't want, but I know there are some barriers I can overcome. Like stimming...I pace alot (and my mother's boyfriend hates it!>.<) Especially with music. Its very hard to not do, especially when I'm bored!I'm sure I'll find a way over it. And the fact that I can't help but sit in this certain seat on my bus to school. It feels wierd without sitting there, but I'm trying to deal without sitting there. I know I'm different...and thats what aspergers means to me, I'm different.

I have AS. For me that means I am human person. I just happen to be a human person who has AS. In my personhood, I possess a hyperindividualistic brain that doesn't relate the social side of my human nature very well. My brain will ask a question like "Why am I lonely when I don't enjoy being around most people anyways? Shouldn't I be content to be alone?" So I examine that. I evaluate why I feel loneliness and why I don't enjoy the company of others. I look for ways to resolve this paradox, look for the deeper truth hidden under the surface of that conflict. I look at the world and realize that all of humanity struggles with the conflict between the indivudal and the social, so I must ask "What makes my situation different?" I realize I'm not really different for the rest of humanity in the larger context of history and time, even though on any given day, I am very unique from the many individual human persons I may momentarily encounter.

So I understand that my struggle unites me unquestionably with the whole of humanity that has shared my struggle in one expression or another. Yet today, in my individual context, I am a person among other persons who I know mostly do not see how much I am just like them because my expression of my indiviudal-to-social struggle in the form of AS is not the same as their own expression of that very same struggle. I realize this is why I feel lonely and why I am not comforted by the company of most people. I, like any other human person, simply want to be recognized and accepted as just that: a human person. Yet today, my life will be clouded by people who are immersed in their own individual-to-social struggles in various ways, so most of them cannot offer me the kind of recognition and acceptence I wish from them. Likewise they cannot recieve the kind of recognition and acceptence I wish to give them in return.

So I comfort myself with this understanding, even though I know there's no easy resolution. I know at this point in my understanding that I do have a choice, either to face this truth with courage and the hope that my own understanding can be a light to others and that I may find a few others with this understanding too who can be a light for me, or simply succumb to despair and bitterness. If anything, at least I can be proud of this much: I'm too much of a stubborn, willful Aspie to accept the latter.

I have Asperger's, diagnosed at 16, 19 now.

Analyzing Topic!

To me, Asperger's means

Individuality (I am true to myelf)
Noncomformity (Being different from others)
Stimming (You know what that is)
Talking before I could walk (I am unco-ordinated)
Social Awkwardness (even if I am 53 years old)
Best effort in all I do
Creative
Bibliophile (lover of books)
Unable to read facial expressions (except emoticons )
Communication via print (easier to understand and be understood)
Being a good tutor
A N A L Y Z I N G ! ! !
Remembering what it was like to be 8 years old! I hope you will have better memories than I did

Nice forum, eddiedog8!

its like having horns and a tail
people prod you and laugh
and no one takes you seriously

It's like being a mouse and being chased by a toad.

toads eat mice

It's like . . . Pretend your dreams were reality and your waking life was made of dreams.

I could write a long, detailed list, but I don't feel like doing so right now.