the part I don't get

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Hi all,

I was wondering whether you could help me to understand something.

Sometimes I get this idea that Asperger Women have a really great advantage over both NT women and Asperger men. Sure there are problems and obstacles, but everyone - even NTs - have those. For this it is great that we have this community here.

However, generally I think Asperger women got the best of all possible deals. They are imaginative (so they can see the world they want to create for themselves before it actually exists), analytical (so even in the heat of an argument they can keep a distant and focus on what they want), and they are observant of small things.

There are some obstacles, such as finding the confidence to create your own life by your own standards, anxieties, and often limited bodily awareness. However, given the above mentioned endowment, it seems to me that dealing with anxieties much as communicating and reading social cues can be learned with time and practice. Just to be clear, by that I do not mean "learning to be an NT" but more like "learning how to help the environment to allow you to be yourself".

So, from this perspective, I would expect most of the discussions to be on this learning, resources, what others have learned, how long it takes to tackle it, etc. But it seems to me that many posts are less confident, more negative, or less hopeful than this. This I am trying to understand better so that I can be more helpful in these other posts.

What I would like to know: Does what I said above ring true with you? Or is my imagination more limited than I thought in how different the challenges of other Asperger women can be.

Thank you in advance!

Hi there, welcome to WP!

Most of the time, I do feel like this--on good days. Sometimes I still just feel like a total weirdo. However that, at least for me, has very little to do with my gender. Most of my life, I felt pretty "androgynous" mentally and emotionally, which I do consider to be a "strength." This is probably because I was raised without the social pressures that usually go along with being female--I did not have a boyfriend until a few years ago, well into adulthood when I finally felt "ready", and stayed out of all of the high school "drama" of trying to assert one's femininity. My mom just wanted me to be as happy and well-adjusted as possible, so she did not "push" me to participate in so-called "normal" activities that I wanted nothing to do with--she just let me be myself, while still learning how to "adapt"--as you put it, "learning how to help the environment to allow you to be yourself." That mattered a LOT.

I consider myself to be very lucky in that respect. Most of the people here, male and female, were not that fortunate--hence, the "negativity" in some of the postings.

Again, welcome aboard, glad you're here.

Well, whether I am really Aspie or not, I don't know, but I definitely identify with everything you said. My main struggle is finding a balance with the outside world and my own world. I'd love to stay inside of myself forvever and just watch things, obviously I can't do this because I'll never accomplish anything and my friends(what friends i have left) will lose inerst in me for understandable reasons.

I want to have people around me, I really do like people and I pay a lot of attention to them, I just like to do it from a distance. I feel like observing them while staying inside of m own little world is enough but I don't think people get this, I don't seem present to them. I just seem removed and uninterested.

I've had a pretty decent balance in the past, I felt like I was involved very much with outside world and still being true to myself, I'm just working on getting back there. I think everything will be amazing once that happens. I just need to be able to let a few people in, as long as they understand that I'm not 100% normal and that I might not always be able to give them everything they need but care for them deeply. I would really like to have that again.

Thank you for your kind words. It is nice to find like-thinking humans.

Given this context and your responses, do you think a "how" thread could be useful, i.e., one that does focuses on practical implementation rather than companionship? The goal would be to break up things we do well in a meaningful way to explain to others. For example, "How can I stay calm when XYZ happens?", "How can I organize my child's birthday party without loosing myself?", "How can I explain to my husband that I really need me-time?", "How I can I recognize when something is not meant literally?", etc. Answers would then be very specific, along the lines of "This is what I said", "This is what I did", "This is how I practiced this", "This is how I think about this", "This is what has helped me."

What do you think?

Thanks!

This is exactly how I feel. I had a boss who said to me once, it's like you are part of the team, but you're not part of the team. You work to all the goals and objectives of the team, but you're somehow you're not part of the team.

I often feel that I have strengths that regular women don't have. I have more interests and objectivity etc, but somehow I don't fit in and that swings things into the negative.

abq254 why not start up some threads using those as titles and see what responses you get. That's really the only way to work out if those are subjects of interest to people.