What does your aspergers look like?

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Last year, I was in this group therapy and we had to draw a metaphor story about some plasticine puppets we had modeled earlier to represent our identity. The puppet was a human figure made out of blue and yellow plasticine bits (in a 50-50% amount). So I drew a story about a boy who was very different from the other people from the day he was born (he was half-blue and half-yellow, while the other people were only yellow), but nobody, not even his own mother, was able to see the difference. They were oblivious to it and, as a result, he couldn't see it either and denied parts of his personality for years and felt like a misfit. Until one day, when he decided to actually open his eyes and acknowledge the two different halves of which his being was made of. I couldn't really relate this to my experience (although I've always felt different, I didn't know what this thing about being half-blue and half-golden meant, what were the two halves I was made of). The therapist didn't make any sense out of it either and changed the topic. I basically left very frustrated and I felt as if even the therapist could not see who I really was...

By that time, I had no idea I was not neurotypical. I knew I had quirks and social difficulties, but I attributed them to all kinds of causes (like social anxiety because of early peer rejection). A few months later, it dawned on me that I actually had ADHD. And the ADHD research aslso led me to become aware of my Aspie traits.

So now I know what the graphic story meant. It was about me, about my non-neurotypical (Aspie & ADHD - the blue half) traits mixed with some NT-like traits too (mostly about theory of mind - the yellow half). So that's how I see my non-neurotypicalness, as a mix of warm and cold colors running all over me and imprinting every limb of my body and every synapse in my brain, infusing my very being with their beauty and their strangeness.

_________________
Probably 75% Aspie, 25% NT... and 100% ADHD

Aspie-quiz results:
Aspie score: 138 of 200 / NT score: 78 of 200 => Very likely an Aspie.

Something like this ...

I don't really have a pix of what it looks like, but I do have an image of my really down times. I picture myself as a chick with a red spot on me. Those who know anything about chickens, know that when other chickens see a blemish or red spot on another chicken, they will start pecking it, and have even been known to peck it to death.

Yes, this is a grim image, but it dates back to my hellish childhood and teen years. I am in my early 50s now, but still do what I can to try to block out the memories. Unfortunately, they still sometimes drop in for an unpleasant, and depressing visit.

As for my Asperger's, on the whole, perhaps it could be best described as being on the outside, looking in.-- I am a clueless stranger in a strange land. The NT world is a book written in a foreign language--and in code to boot! I am only a visitor in the NT world, and not always a welcome one.

Being a hermit has it's good points. I don't often have to face a strange, perplexing, and often unfriendly world.

Sorry this is a downer post, but you did ask for an image of our Asperger's. Mine isn't pleasant. However, I did like the ones described by the other posters. They were very appropriate.

My AS looks like a big river, parts of it are rough and deadly but other parts are peaceful and smooth flowing. Parts of the riverbank has big pretty trees and other parts are littered with ugly dead lightning struck trees.

I should post a picture of myself, because I can't describe my Asperger's at all.

I picture my AS as a child controlling an adult's body. A child who chooses to live life the way she wants to, and is ruled by her own emotions rather than reason or rational thought. Her separate adult body is just a shell for touting her around.

So the manifestation of my AS is basically Sabrina from the first season of Pokemon:

Between kindergarten and grade 8, I would obsessively draw pictures of aliens: thin, big eyed, grey, tall beings.

I wouldn't focus on what was being "taught".

I was in my own world - surprised I never been diagnosed as Aspergers!

However, I would also draw myself being surrounded by these aliens, except I would be human - everyone else were these strange beings. Not me!! !

So, if my differentness were an illustration, it would have to be in the context described above, only now im an adult.

I'm on the "right planet" - NTs are on my planet!! ! Haha

I picture mine as an amorphous peg, odd, misshapen, indefinable, and unable to fit in any hole.
It could be that, or a blender, scrambling my perceptions of the world and the people in it, so it's an ongoing struggle to make sense of the world around me.
It could also be an invisible barrier surrounding me, preventing me from fully engaging and connecting with other people.
It could be a lover I'm in a turbulent relationship with, bringing me to the heights of ecstasy at one moment (ex. when I'm intensely and constructively involved in a special interest) and the depths of despair in another moment.
If I took the time to think long and hard about it, I could probably come up with enough metaphors to fill several pages. I suppose the most apt comparison would be to say it's a shape shifter, taking on various forms at various times.

Mine looks like a SWAT team, ready to take me out if I do something wrong.

[img][800:667]http://www.tuberculosis.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/shutterstock_59784760.jpg[/img]