We are *NOT* autistic

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My first language is monologue! My second language is two-way conversation, and I haven't learnt it very well! LOL!! !! !! Oh, oh, oh, see, when I get behind a podium and talk into a mic, people say I sound brilliant, like my IQ says I should sound, right? In two-way conversation (my attempts at it, anyway), I have the personality of something between a two year old and a golden retreiver! Everyone tells me this, too. It's amazing, but...it's like I don't have a serious bone in my entire body when I'm interacting with others on an informal basis, but I treat any subject that I have to think on at length with more gravity than most people know how to muster. It's like I have trouble kickstarting my thought processes, but I have unlimited stamina once I've gotten rolling. The only place I feel like a normal person is on forums like this one. It's like some hybrid between informal dialogue and essay-/speech-writing/ad-libbing.

( I might even add that it's a bit like snail-mailing, e-mailing, and chatting online.)

right on. thanks for your insight.

And not everyone here is aspie,re read the the homepage of WP for who WP is designed for.

Sometimes it feels like there is disablism on here against any autist who isn't aspie,there's heavy ignorance of lower functioning Autism and some say they even hate or dont want to associate with lfaers like have a disease.
Am along with various other WPers are LFA or MFA, and WP is really the only major board that is vocal enough for Autism,and not just Aspergers.
Wanting to shun Autism just because it's more obvious than AS goes against what the Autistic community have been fighting for-better awareness,acceptance,and support-how can expect ASD ignorant non Autistics or proffessionals to accept ASD,when people on the spectrum cannot offer the same treatment to their fellow ASDer?

And my particular label is autism, so where does this person get off saying 'we' anyway?

As far as AS, it's just autism without certain specific speech-related features early in life. Some of Kanner's original patients would be diagnosed with Asperger's today undoubtedly. And there are people with AS diagnoses who wander around in circles repeating lines from movies and not appearing to pay attention to other people, actually.

It is wrong, though, for someone else in this thread to assume they know whether someone is aware of other people. Many autistic people can appear unaware simply by failing to send out certain social cues that indicate awareness -- either because they can't or because they don't know to do so. And to claim they are "unaware" or in "la la land" can be really inaccurate. "Unaware of surroundings" is even stranger, because most autistic people do interact a good deal with their surroundings, just not the same parts of their surroundings that everyone else seems to.

But-but-but-but...but it's fun! Yes, I've done that and worse! I'm actually so eccentric even as an adult that I'm still trying to find a psychiatrist who knows what he's doing so that I can finally make this impulsivity a bit more managable. I keep messing up my favorite professor's lectures with these oddball, out-of-left-field questions and comments. When I say I act like a cross between a golden retreiver and a two year old, believe me, I'm not making it up. If I have something purposeful to focus on, though, like a pet subject for example, I come off sounding like I've got three doctorates under my belt. It's only in my adult life that I've learned to handle casual conversation without going off into hour-long lectures on...the effects of hops, per example.

Anyway, at least for me, doing things like wandering in circles while repeating lines from movies is actually more of a self-soothe for being in an either agitated, excited, or very thoughtful state of mind. I don't know why I do the wandering in circles thing, but I think that it's similar to the pacing that shows up in some neurotypicals. Same reasons: boredom, agitation, or thoughtfulness, or sometimes excitement. My grandmother used to shout at me over it, even though she was the only person who was ever at all understanding with my meltdowns, because it made her nervous.

My main thing, however, is walking backwards all over campus, even skipping sometimes. Have I mentioned that I'm a weirdo? Yes, I have, thank you. This is actually one of the reasons that I've taken to riding a bicycle around instead, just to have a chance of passing as normal. Besides, I've also been riding the ten-mile route to the college, and the exercise has been very beneficial to me. The thing is, I'm still coming off looking strange because I actually wear a helmet while I ride, unlike most around here, and I rarely bother to take it off until I've sat down in either lab or the lecture hall. Furthermore, I have a terrible habit of just swinging my arms at my side as I'm pedaling as if I'm walking normally, which tends to earn me a lot of stares in itself. The funny thing, though, is that my navigation riding hands-free is just as good as other people's navigation riding normally, unless I'm in a tight spot or on bumpy ground. Still, people stare at me, and, for some reason, I don't have the ability to care. It's like the whole concept of me having a social image simply doesn't exist. I have a keen sense of honor and feel horrible if I realize I've offended somebody, but, if someone stares at me like I'm half-tarded, it doesn't affect me. Hell, I wouldn't mind if they came up to me and patted me on the head like a dog. I wouldn't realize I was supposed to be offended until someone pointed out that it was meant to be offensive. Oh, but there's where I outright fly off the handle, ladies and gents. When I feel I've been attacked somehow, my fuse has been lit, and I'm ready to go Halo 3 on them. You don't want to declare war on an autie who cycles a total of twenty-five miles per day, particularly if he stands six-foot-two. I may not have the same social hang-ups as most people, but I know how to react when someone declares war. Bet your ass.

It is! I honestly think it's conceivable that they're aware of other people, but it simply doesn't occur to them to care. If they're anything like I was, anyway, it is just the proclivity of their nature to remain wrapped up in their own pursuits. It just excites them more, whereas normal interaction evokes either aversive stimulation or no stimulation whatsoever. They just find it offensive. They may even find it offensive to hear they're supposed to. There's simply no reward impulse for normal social interaction, so they don't do it.

Yup! The mix-up isn't with the taking in part. The mix-up is with forming the proper reaction, generally speaking. And keeping themselves from being side-tracked with internal tangents.

why must we pigeon-hole things either way, anyway?

It's not just whether people care or not, or like it or not. It's about whether they're even able to send the right signals to show they care or like it. A lot of people assume that it's about a lack of motivation, when it can be about a lack of ability to look a certain way. A person can be very involved with and caring about other people, and quite motivated, and not look the way most people would expect such a person to look, and that is actually quite common.

I've noticed a tendency, in general, for people who have the ability to do something like that, to assume that if anyone doesn't do something, it's because they don't want to, or don't care or don't notice or find it unpleasant or something. That's usually not a good assumption. Sometimes it might be true but often it's really not. The underlying assumption is that if a person (a) tries and/or (b) knows how, they'll do something, and that's not always the case, especially in autistic people.

I don't think that I was particularly clear, anbuend. I did not suggest that LFAs are behaving as they do purposely or willfully. I meant to suggest no such thing. I was actually speaking in the context of understanding compulsive disorders, panic disorders, and other such behaviors. The gist of it in this particular case is that they lack an important sub-system that is responsible for giving the correct responses to social interaction. Do not perceive me as the type of person who would approach an autie, going, "just try. Just try." It doesn't work that way. I didn't intend to suggest that it works that way.

I actually am high functioning autistic. This is slightly different from Asperger Disorder, as far as I understand, and has slightly different diagnostic criteria. I was actually pretty messed-up, and the only thing that kept me out of helmet-land was that my parents became convinced early on that my behaviors were intentionally affected for the sake of getting attention. Instead of being treated like I had the mentality of a toddler, I was treated as a sociopath. I was put into the classes that were set aside specifically for students whose sociopathic behavior had gotten them expelled from the regular curriculum. My parents still persist in their belief that I am prone to making up or exaggerating problems to either get under their skin or to get their attention; for example, during my last visit with them, I was having a life-threatening allergic reaction to a medication that had been given to me by my former psychiatrist. Instead of receiving medical attention, I was left to lie helpless on the couch, in pain, and barely able to breath. I was told, of my tongue being protruded from my mouth due to the reaction, "Will, stop it. You look like a damned fool." Sounds horrible, right? Well, if they hadn't thought that of me, I would have been one of those children who roam around wearing helmets and ride on "the short bus." I was high functioning, but only barely so. It's unbelievable how much I have to thank the kindness and patience of other people for...and realizing that, I think, has made me an overall better person. I haven't always been completely aware of my surroundings, really. No...it's not that. I just haven't always spent much time thinking about them. I realize, as an adult, that perhaps I should have. I just didn't understand why it was important at the time.

What really saved me, though, was another irony. My parents threw me out of the house twice, once in my old town and once the very next year where we had moved. Both houses had unheated shacks in the vicinity of the house that had electricity to run my computer, which I had assembled from the discarded parts of the machines that were given to my siblings as presents. I took to isolating myself from the light on both occassions, turning my monitor down to the point that I could barely see what was on the screen. It affected me like a neuroleptic. Sound strange? Yeah, I did look pretty strange walking around my school with my eyes barely open. However, I think that it affected me in much the same way that anti-psychotics affect schizophrenics.

Most people thought I was either a genius or a ret*d. Maybe it's possible to be a little bit of both.

Last edited by Griff on 26 Feb 2008, 2:48 pm, edited 3 times in total.

That's exactly how I grew up...

Oh, and, just to underline it: yes, the severity of the reaction WAS life-threatening. I didn't know at the time that it was due to the med the doc had given me. My mother thought I'd been having a reaction to a new mouthwash, and I just went along with it because I'd taken the med for a few days without having adverse affects. I continued taking the med the next day, and I was being told that evening, by a paramedic, "it must be your lucky day, bud," as he stuck an IV into my writhing, moaning form.

Just in case anyone wants to suggest I WAS exaggerating. I can be dramatic and flamboyant in my speech, but I don't outright make things up. If I mistakenly do, I will go back and correct myself, mumbling my apologies.

Last edited by Griff on 26 Feb 2008, 2:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Perhaps the biggest argument for the connection between Asperger's and autism is genetic. It's not uncommon for both to appear in the same family, and genetic studies have demonstrated this. It's also clear that many of those labeled "Asperger's" could easily be labeled "classic autism" as well, either as a child or adult. Nicky Gottleib in the documentary "Today's Man" is an example of this. The negative attitudes many here have about "people with serious mental problems" is disconcerting. I suggest reading the blog Ballastexistenz to gain a different perspective on a more "low-functioning" part of the autistic spectrum.

I admit that I recoiled a bit when my parents told me Asperger's was a form of autism, since my association with autism was a boy I knew who seemed "ret*d" and "extremely bizarre" to me. I've since come to realize that that was prejudice talking. I don't mind being put into that category if it helps people understand me.

It's all relative. In that regard, what would HFAs be? They have more in common with aspies, but have the diagnosis of Autistic Disorder (i.e., autism).

You can't think black and white with these related conditions. Our differences and similarities fall in a gradation scale.

we r unique nonetheless but what brought this up neway

I had severe Autism (I didn't speak at all for the longest time) when I was younger, and I understand what you mean. Even though I'm now very high functioning, I can't say that I have Aspergers, as I was severely Autistic when I was little, and that doesn't go away from your memory. I understand what you mean, however this website is also for any people with Autism who can type, not just for Aspies.

Ebec11 makes a sound point. In fact, I'm curious as to whether there are any non-verbals among us.