How did you react to social challenges?

Post Reply New Topic

Tony Attwood a leading spokesperson for Aspergers posted a recorded interview of him explaining Aspergers on his website, which I believe was very well-said.

Here is the link to his website

In this he identifies 4 reactions to when an aspie realizes he/she is different. Depression, escaping to imaginary worlds, arrogance, and imatation of others.

Do any of these stand out to you? At what age did you start having these reactions?

-Ozzy

A and C. I might have been better off I had gone for D.

All four, though now I tend to stick to imitation.

I do all four myself (or at least I have at times in my life).

Fascinating interview as well

Imagination and Depression...

He even mentions Star Wars

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp739280. ... ht=#739280 for references

As for depression (anxiety), i was diagnosed depression and social anxiety before I found out about autism.

All four to some degree...wow! crazy!....

A & B [Depression & escaping to imaginary worlds]

I started "B" first probably when I was around the age of 11-12. which is when I started to notice that I "Wasn't like the other kids at school" [my thought at the time, which was true anyway]. I used to sit and day dream about my interests [which at the time were cats and vampires]. I did this to go into my "happy place"...where I was at peace.

After I realised that I was different and started to Identify the exact things I had trouble with [I was age 13-14 and at the time I noticed that I couldn't make friends and that no body wanted to talk to me in school]..."A" [depression] started a few months after my 13th birthday.

I did try "D"...[imitating others], but I gave up as it was too hard and not worth the effort. After all, even imitating others did not help me make friends...infact, people started to call me a "try hard"...[someone who tries TOO hard to fit in and there fore looks even more of an outcast].

I can't say that I have been "C"...[arrogant]...unless I have but just don't know it, which I think is unlikely.

All four at some point. Escaping, Depression, Imitation, and Arrogance. That's the order I'd put it in, from most to least used.

Depression initially wasn't from realizing I was different, it was from being constantly and systematically treated in ways that would depress anyone.

When I realized that I was different enough that there was no possible way I could see myself as an adult at all (and the only ways I could see myself then were really depressing), I became suicidally depressed instead of just depressed. I also began escaping to imaginary worlds more and more at that point in time, hoping at times that if I just did this enough I'd either forget the real world or manage to live in the imaginary one somehow (never happened but I tried really hard). But again it wasn't difference itself that made me do all this, it was realizing that I was not a sort of person that I could see having any pleasant future at all.

Great interview - save that I kept cringing on her pronunciation ("ashperjers") and her "mmm"s, which I imagine I would hear as patronizing if someone did that to me in conversation.

I think I had all four.

My arrogant phase came earliest, especially when my fifth grade teacher decided to push me in with my classmates as far as curriculum. (Previously, my teachers had challenged me and encouraged me to do extra work.) I reacted terribly, and tried to reassert my "giftedness" ("superiority", I guess) verbally. They were not amused, and I subsequently became despised by my peers. (It didn't help that I was small for my age.) The one thing about arrogance - I'm wondering if Attwood means that it's intentional. In high school, a classmate berated me for thinking I was "better than everyone else", despite the fact that I truly didn't believe that I was. (He was a regular with the popular kids, so I think I just tried to stay out of his way - might have been read as arrogance.)

Imaginary worlds next - in middle school, I remember often imagining myself as a mutant (hoping that my power would emerge when I turned thirteen), hoping that someone would come "rescue" me and take me somewhere where people were like me.

Depression, definitely once I was of the age that people started dating. I felt pretty hopeless since I couldn't figure out how to make it happen. I reacted badly to being made fun of, too, and wondered why everybody wanted to be mean. Depression is probably the one of the four that's the most persistent.

Imitating others - freshman year, I started imitating my brother, who was seen as one of the "cool" kids in my school. I don't think I was aware I was doing it - but I remember a few classmates telling me that I'd "gotten cool" later that year. (I couldn't figure out why, as I didn't think I'd changed at all.) A couple of years after my brother graduated, I had a lengthy discussion with one of his ex-girlfriends, who noted that I kept reminding her of him - which baffled me. My brother and I look and act nothing alike (you wouldn't know we were related if we were together). But she noted that I used a lot of his speech patterns and mannerisms. To some degree, I think I still do.

A, B, and D. A, B, and C now that I have learned WHY I am different.

Mostly A and B

To brightlined, I actually myself pronounce it ass-purge-ez rather than ass-per-gez.

He explains it well.

I never realized I was different, nor do I feel different now; it's everyone else who is different.

I let people interact with me, far easier that way.

(I don't really like the snubbing of mental illness later on. Insane is a "difference" after all, just the same as Asperger's.)