How do you explain Asperger's in 30 seconds or less?

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I'm in no way offended at anything said here.

I've just had some extremely distressing experiences this year that have convinced me we are going to have to get more public and get noticed and start demanding that our disability be recognized as a legitimate handicap and that our rights not to be bullied and taken advantage of be recognized.

There are boatloads of people out there riding on the "throw money at poor cute little Autistic Children" bandwagon, but there is NOBODY sticking up for Autistic adults who need just as much help defending themselves and getting equal crack at the same opportunities as everybody else. Not all of us are as fortunate as John E. Robinson.

When someone screws over an Autistic adult who is not confrontational enough or quick processing enough socially to do anything about it, nobody even turns to look. If you ask for help, their reaction is "You're a grownup with no VISIBLE handicap, what do you need help for?" I've contacted State representatives and Congressmen for help and never gotten more than a brushoff.

We need someone to advocate for us, but I can't for the life of me find a single person who cares enough to speak up. Hell, I can't find a single person without the disorder, who even understands that there's a problem.

I wish I could just drop it into conversation casually.

I wish I could just say that I perceive the world with physical objects/scenery/animals in the foreground and people in the background.

I now realise that I can never say outright that I have 'social difficulties' because that's a social taboo.
It's almost asking for trouble and for socially stronger people to take advantage of your 'weakness'.

Saying:
'Hi oh and by the way I can't help being rubbish at conventional socialising, I was born that way.'

Would quite rightly be perceived by others as self-centered, downright offensive and rude, even if it wasn't meant to come across that way.


Also saying:
'I get distracted by physical objects, but I still love you and care about you very much to the best of my ability.'

Would also be problematic for some 'normal' person to understand who sees people first and interacts with people first automatically.


For someone who's world revolves around interacting with people constantly, the idea that someone might not be born with that same innate level of ability is horrifying and frightening. They may even react with disbelief because they may not be able empathise with people who's social ability matches their own.

I think that there are 'normal' people who would understand that different people have different world views and abilities to their own.

To be fair, it's very difficult to relate to someone who's had a fundamentally different life experience from your own. That works both ways.


The irony of this folks is, that in order to persuade someone that you have social skills difficulties, you have to have the social skills to be able to tell them that you have difficulties. So once you tell them, you have already in effect invalidated yourself because they can just say:

'So how come you can talk to me then?'

Even when you're struggling with the conversation and they're literally having to help you along with every sentence.

If someone asks I'd say "go wiki it" and leave it there.

Well, if I were running out of time, I'd tell them I'd explain later (if it weren't just someone in a elevator).

"It's Autism"

There, explained it in 2 seconds.

"It means I have a weird brain."

For some reason, people seem to respond to that with less pity than most things, which is great, but sometimes react badly to "weird", thinking I'm being self-deprecating.

It still requires that you occasionally explain the specifics; the one I have to explain most often is face-blindness. People are generally okay with me just saying I'm weird 'cause I've got autism, especially if it is evident to them that I'm fine with it too.

no body got it.

when i said the compressed version of my description of autism would sound like white noise, it inferred that a trillion words in 30 seconds would sound like white noise which sounds like "shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh".

so "shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" is the best description i can think of for autism as it is a trillion words in 30 seconds as well as being a request to be left undistracted.

Tim Page said that Asperger's Syndrome was essentially the "typical absent-minded professor times five."

"So basically, Aspergers is kind o--- OH MY GOD LOOK OVER THERE!"

"Perhaps the simplest way to understand Asperger's Syndrome is to think of it as describing someone who percieves and thinks about the world differently to other people."

Tony Attwood