i dont mind having asperger syndrome

Post Reply New Topic

It bothered me for the first several years after being diagnosed. Now it doesn't anymore knowing everyone has problems and seem to show traits of it also.

I have met so many, so many, many people who are clearly not autistic or otherwise neurologically atypical, yet do not suffer from the problems you list here. If anything, the traits you describe seem to correspond more to what I would call a 'jerk' than anything else. I've encountered so many outgoing, socially adept people who are open-minded, honest, NON-conformist, helpful, PLUS intelligent, mature, and capable of logical thinking.

I have no idea where this whole "the world is divided in autistic and "neurotypical" people, and all non-autistics (what about Tourette's? Down's? Bipolar? ADD?) are unintelligent conformists, while only autistics can be original thinkers" comes from, but it doesn't hold true for the area where I live.

Every once in a while I have days where I get frustrated and discouraged and wish I wasn't an aspie, but for the most part I'm proud of the individuality it gives me and my ability to do things intellectually that normal people can't do, particularly my excellent memory and love of memorizing facts about anything and everything. At the end of the day, I wouldn't trade it (except possibly for a million dollars...)

I don't see any particular problem really why aspies should be bothered so much with it.
There shouldn't be any problem with it.

Reality is just so different. You'll just end up having a lot of trouble
because of the ignorance of others.
They are really trying to kill you, just because you are strange...

That is the only reason why I voted for "it bothers me a lot"

Otherwise I don't want to be anybody else.
Just some more understanding an acceptance of my character would be actually great.

I couldn't have put it better myself!

Ditto!

As an NT I don't agree with these generalizations at all. I think for some people, some of these might be true. But for others, not so much.

As for "inability to say what they actually mean"...I think that is completely off. I think NT's have this ability, they just choose not to exercise it on some occasions because they think about the way things will be perceived. I might tell a white lie about how I think someone's hair cut looks because it will make them feel bad if I tell them that it looks horrible. Its not that I don't have the ability to tell someone their haircut is bad, I just choose not to because I take into account how it would make the other person feel.

I have accepted my self.

As a really wise internet quote once told me: "I dont't suffer from autism; I suffer from the way you treat me."

Then again, I cannot entirely blame such people for acting they that they do. Some humans are simply wired to fear what is different; I believe this to be an evolutionary trait of survival--distinquishing between one's own tribe and the "enemy" tribe once meant life or death. The problem arises when society has trouble distinquishing who is the "enemy". I wonder if they realize that their lives are no longer in danger...

I've gone 60 years without knowing, but I always felt 99.5% of the world was bonkers. After finding out, I know 99.5% ARE bonkers.

Obviously it would be incorrect to assert that only autistics can be original thinkers and neurotypicals are unintelligent conformists (my parents are an example, as they are neurotypical and they too often question authority), but could there still be some truth to that? Granted there are plenty of neurotypicals that are non-conformists, and even there are some autistics that become diligent conformists themselves, but if a person were diagnosed with autism, wouldn't they still have an increased likelihood of being open-minded and resilient to cultural influences? I suppose we wouldn't actually know until it's empirically tested somehow.

It bothers me a lot, yes. I feel like I am ''the only one'' with it. I feel like I'm victimized. I find myself looking at NTs and I think, ''wow, they just know what to do each time.'' And yet they take it for granted so much that they probably don't even know they're born (I'm talking about the extroverted ones who have high self-esteem and know how confident and popular and attractive they are).

It really does eat at me inside. It makes me get bitter sometimes. It's probably because I went to mainstream school and was always the only Aspie at my school (when I got to High School there was one other Aspie but he was older than me). Also I've always been the only Aspie in my family, well, the only one with a cognitive condition really, nobody else has anything wrong, not even Epilepsy or Dyslexia or any physical health conditions either, they are all average people with average social skills. And I just think, ''and here I am, lumbered with this disability.''

And I know deep down that my mum and dad didn't want me to be an Aspie. They just wanted me to be a normal, happy child, with a normal social life through school and having no disability getting in my way.

Same with me as well.

I would be all for such a test, and would be genuinely curious as to the results. I would even like to participate. I have participated in a visual/sensory test that compared the responses of autistics to those of non-autistics. Unfortunately, I have lost the weblink to the results.

The reason I have a problem with attaching any characteristics to neurotypicals as a group, is that the very term neurotypical as coined by the autistic community, was created to denote an individual who either lacks autism or has no psychological disorder (i.e. a 'normal' brain). It originated as a term for a group that was characterised by a lack of something. It was only later that specific characteristics were listed that were the opposite of the traits that people on the autistic spectrum share in general.

I was only introduced to the term neurotypical when I first joined Wrong Planet. I didn't think much of it, because I had peace with the word 'normal' for someone who has no neurological disorder, and non-autistic if I needed to distinguish between autism on one hand, and other known disorders on the other. I remain unconvinced that the word 'neurotypical' refers to a type of people that can be characterised at all, unlike people on the autistic spectrum, who all share an ASD (but are otherwise diverse). In that respect, I approach the term with much skepticism.

Didn't somebody at one point mention that the 'Neurotypical spectrum' is an illusion?

As far as I can tell, the 'Neurotypical' seems to only be a mental concept, much in the same way that society is. Therefore, both would be considered illusions because all spectrums of mindsets and societies are made up of independent-minded individuals.

However that still doesn't explain why many of these very same independent-minded people tend to follow cultural majorities.

I have ASD-related problems sometimes, but being autistic just by itself doesn't bother me. Hating autism because some parts of it are annoying is like hating being a minority race because of the racists, or hating being American because of [corrupt American politician] [doing something unsavory]. I'd rather say I hate having meltdowns, or hate it when people patronize me, because that's what I actually hate. I don't hate being instinctively attracted to patterns, flicking my fingers in front of my face when I'm trying to listen to someone, being an introvert content with socializing once a week, or getting addicted to my latest obsession. All of those are neutral or positive.

I just see autism as a different kind of life. Good parts, bad parts. That's true of life in general.