The NT's Guide to Asperger's

Post Reply New Topic

I can suggest a few to add

An honest approach which on the one hand people find refreshing but on the
other hand may be unintentionally blunt and seen as tactless.Too honest for our
own good !
At work,we are often more conscientious than we need to be and may feel personally
responsible when things go wrong,even if it's not necessarily our fault.
Good at paying attention to detail but,if under stress,it can be at the expense
of seeing the 'big picture' to the same degree
Sometimes there is an underlying,irrational sense of anxiety.It can feel as if it's there
just waiting for a cause to come along and be attached to it.This can be helped by
things like positive thinking,breathing exercises etc

Prof_Pretorious suggested Columbo as a possible Aspie. I must admit although
Columbo is a hero of mine I never actually thought of him that way before.Now that
you mention it I can see a lot of the traits !

Well, in that case, could it be that I'm the equivilant of a neurotypical white person? Other black people have always accused me of trying to be "white", anyway.

I should not really generalise races under same boat. Here in Blity Africans are a little bit more aspie then whites, you will seldom see a drunken African girl waddling down the high street and they go to university more then working class whites.

Back to the question. Because aspies don’t really follow cultural behaviour like NTs do, black and white aspies are more or less the same regardless of race.

I'll just add a personal list:


*hyperlexia: for me it works like this: I am very fluent with spelling and certain aspects of grammar, but I'm unable to get the point across without 30-40 minutes of speech, in writing I can round it down over time and get what I'm trying to say much clearer. I find I'm only able to speak fluently and clearly about certain topics.

*social skills deficits: I always thought everybody was lieing to me, and that everybody was in the same boat, forcing themselves to create an image that everybody can see, worrying always that everyone will see the weird creature underneath. After almost every social gathering (except with family and those who work on music with me) I feel totally drained and very angry, because its so hard for me to simply, speak to people without overdoing or underdoing it. I have very bad eye contact but if I am interested in someone (generally because they're interested in what I'm most passionate about) I can't take my eyes off them, AT ALL, and either scare them, or they believe I'm totally in love with them.

Obsessions: What I obsess with becomes more important than my own well being or anything else, for around 6-8 months it was music and I finished many projects I've dreamed of for a while, the problem I find is when I share it, I share it as if its my entire soul. If its not received, either positively or negatively, I tend to freak out that they're scared of me, and what I have to bring. It took me a long time to be able to simply trust myself and do what I do....

Focus: This comes from my obsessions, I can ONLY focus on ONE THING at a time, if I have a girlfriend, she is everything, my entire world, and a simple fight will be enough stress for me to meltdown. I found my only escape in taking this one focus and throwing it into music and science, learning physics was a wonderful way to spread my focus, and still obsess over something that comes from my love for sound. Still though when I'm in this state which can last months or longer, I can't speak to almost anyone in person very well, and the only way I can get out of it is to focus on another person or goal. I haven't yet found a middle ground, because it seems I can't live without a key focus, but I'm currently trying to enjoy a partner whom I see only once a week, I believe this might be the way to love, and yet be alone and do what I must do.

Lack of foresight: I find myself planning every day, and if I'm going to see someone I will mentally prepare myself for days in advance, but under stress I've been known to make irrational and illogical decisions, because when I overload, it feels like logic itself breaks down, my thoughts can't peace 1 and 1 together and the only choices I make in that place are to make my brain work again.... in a manner of speaking... So in this state I can lose total control, it used to be very aggressive but nowdays I simply get away and meltdown by myself.

Taking to myself: I don't know if everyone does this, but my thoughts are a constant conversation with myself in my head, sometimes it feels like I'm talking to myself, while creating a groove, while reading something else, and this separation can cause quite a few weird states. A few times in my life I've had an overload as a direct result of this, it wasn't like the stress induced one, in this state I fell to the floor, and it felt like my thoughts themselves were on overdrive, with me being unable to stop them or direct them as usual. So this lead me to discover there is more than one kind of breakdown, there is one in which logic breaks down, and one in which logic seems to progress to the point of manic energy..

Senses: Not sure if this is one for every human, but no matter how much sleep, the morning (until mid-late afternoon) sun feels so so painful, I can't hardly move, I definately can't speak, and it takes me til the afternoon to really get myself going.

I find a meditative place in the bath, purely because the sound of the running water seems to soothe my entire being. I've always been very sensitive in terms of tickles, temperature, taste, and hearing. Not too many sounds overwhelm or scare me, but sometimes I NEED silence and if I hear anything in that place it can jar me and physically cause me some of the worst head aches.

Hmmn there is more but thats it for now.

Edited the List again. Seems to be coming along quite well. Keep the suggestions coming!

If I'm alone, I'll often talk to myself out loud, but whether I am or not, my brain feels like it's constantly buzzing with an internal dialogue, intruded on randomly every so often with music, or a remembered paragraph from a book, or half a scene from a TV show or a movie. I'm aware that I can be sitting quietly on my own and there are all kinds of random expressions flitting over my face as I'm responding internally to my thoughts. Sometimes I think that that's why my concentration and short-term memory tend to be poor, because it's as if it's quite difficult to 'hear' other things going on around me over the internal 'noise'.

Exactly! Some of us might have pets and be animal lovers.

If you haven't yet, I'd mention something about how everyone's different. Might sound obvious, but I think it's good to put in to remind us NT's that just because someone's an aspie doesn't mean we can know everything about them from reading a guide like this!

Oh right, good idea! I'll put that in. Remember, this is under construction, and some bits I actually left out on purpose so others could put them in!

I used to feel a great need for routine and would get very distressed if that routine was disturbed or destroyed. I have found a way round this that works for me quite nicely. I have banned myself from falling into a strutured daily routine. If it's not there in the first place then I can't get upset about it. Now I no longer feel the need for it. It was kinda hard at first but now I'm used to having no routine to the point where I would probably get bored of a routine. Plus routine would feel alien to me now, spontaneity all the way thank you!! !!

Another update, this time on the History, a re-organisation of it (traits now comes before the overview), added an intro to the overveiw, and added some more Aspies from a short list on Wikipedia.

NTs will usually not care to much. They have to be shown people that are more NT then they are to realy understand.

Yeah well, I'm sure a few of my schoolmates would be interested. Besides, you can't blame someone for trying, right?

And I see that the History section has NOT been updated. Now I have to do it again. *sigh* Oh well, I re-formatted it again.

I don't understand why its important to have an "NT's Guide to Asperger's" on a forum for Aspie's. When I went to the largest bookstore in my city, the one that fills an entire city block and three floors, each with vaulted ceilings, there was a book shelf from floor to ceiling full of books for NT parents to understand their child with AS. I found exactly ONE book for adults with AS in a section for "phsychology/general dissorders" right next to, "personality dissorders". I find it rather offensive actually; both the book and the lack of information for Aspies. If I were diagnosed with AS, I would dread handing my wife this information and saying, "look, this is me". It's not me. If all these issues were "fixed", I would still be me. This list of challenges in coping with an NT world is hardly me and would be largly irrelevant in an AS world.

Consider that in this forum at least, you are not the 1 in 1,000 unusual individual with the problem in how to cope. You are the norm. NT's are the exception. They have a problem in coping with your normal world. It seems to me an Aspie is not "mind blind" to another Aspie. NTs might just as well be considered "reallity blind" from an AS perspective. How do you want to define yourself? With a laundry list of problems? Certainly as an Aspie you find problems fascinating and they are important to you. Indeed these impact your life in an NT world and are good material for discussion. But do these problems define your identity? If so, could you work on improving those skills and changing and still be an Aspie? I'm challenging people here to rethink this. What makes you special in positive terms? What are the characteristics that make you different from NT's that you would never want to let go of? If they were indeed to change, you might not really be you anymore.

BTW, wouldn't it be more usefull for an AS forum to have an "Aspie guide to neurotypical?" stated not in an NT perspective, but from an objective AS perspective with examples? I'm certain there are Aspei's here who have had considerable experience and time to think about NT's and how they think. It might be interesting to write that down to help other Aspie's who haven't figured them out sufficiently yet. This could help them to get an understanding of how differently NT's think. I certainly haven't found any books on the subject. If you have, please let me know.

Those are all excellent statements, Nomic. I agree with you, if you just stereotype things everything becomes repeditive and less interesting, and everyone is different in their own unique way. I'm different from One-Winged-Angel because I have an obsession with drawing whereas he has an obsession with Sephiroth. I am also most likey taller than him (I've been known for my tallness), and I have grey-blue eyes and have dark brown hair and light skin and am of Dutch decent and live in New Zealand and all these other things that seperate him from me from you from Cockney Rebel from alex from Starbuline from Aspie_Chav from me from everybody else in the world.

We are all different, and I like that we are that way, it's just that we all share these certain traits and characteristics (although most often not every one of them and certainly not at the same intensity for all of us). I felt it would help for some aimless reason. The only real reason was probably for new users or people to get an actual acurrate list of our traits, so that they could use it to test themselves or other with an informal diagnosis. I know from experience that having a reason as to why you are the way you are helps releive some mental pressure.

Anyway, the idea of The Aspie's Guide to NT's has lingered in the back of my mind for a while during the past week. I reckon it's a good idea, and it'd be so large it'd probably need it's own forum!