People you know of who you suspect are Aspie Wannabies

Post Reply New Topic

It is the topic of this thread ?

I didn't make the thread. I am just following the logic that if "wannabees" exist, then how would one determine a "wannabee".

It seems impossible, since AS is defined by a single trait as pointed out with the above article, "everyone has Asperger".

I am the OP. Somebody saying "everyone has Aspergers" is not a wannabe. It is a person who lacks broad understanding of the condition. Wanabee is a way of saying "want to be" . But it has to go beyond just wanting be that person. I can give you two examples from my younger days of real Wanabee phenomena. The first time I heard the phrase "Wannabe" was in reference to fans of Madonna in the 1980s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madonna_wannabe There is documented evidence, news stories in the media, with fans that dressed like her and describing her as an inspiration, you would see people dressed like her in clubs. I personally heard women describe her as a inspiration because she was a women who spoke her mind and managed her own career in the misogynistic music. I witnessed a variation on wannabee phenomenon back in the 1970's called the Deadheads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadhead I knew of at least five people that would follow the music group "The Grateful Dead" from city to city including two former bosses of mine. I knew dozens of others that wished they could. Like Aspergers there were Deadheads who were elitist about it.

This is 2014 not 1986 and I do not know what an Aspie wannabee would look like. I started the thread to find this out. But I would think whatever it is people could describe it and know of people who are Aspie wanabees.

Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 21 Jan 2014, 3:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I sometimes fear I'm doing the same thing even though several people I know agree that I probably have it (I'm not diagnosed). A couple people close to me suspected it long before I did. I'm pretty sure I'm not "faking" symptoms I never had before, but I have eased up on suppressing them in order to try and figure myself out. I sometimes feel like I'm faking it by doing this, but is it really faking it when I already had these traits and am just letting them show more?

I know I may be wrong about being on the spectrum, but having so much in common with peopl here and being able to relate when people talk about what goes through their heads, I couldn't help but feel like I'm a part of this community. This has created a bit of an identity crisis because I only recently learned that I may have autism. The 27 years before that, I knew something was off, but had no idea what it might be. After learning about it, I dove in and became obsessed with autism. I see so much of my life in the writings of other people here, and because of that, even though I don't have a diagnosis, I've written autism in as part of my identity.

I think the person saying "everyone is AS" has a good understanding of the condition. He points out that AS is simply defined as having a single trait with varying severity, therefore, potentially everyone has AS.

1. We know Aspies can be exceptionally social - more than NTs (above see nightclub comedians have AS).
2. We know Aspies can have varying traits, and varying severity in those traits. (from "everyone has AS" link)
3. Apaprently, AS can be a single trait. (from "everyone has AS" link)
4. We know psychologists do not generally do brains scans and/or chromosome tests for a diagnosis. (from self-experience)

So, there appears to no way to discern a "wannabee" from a person with AS.

The people I know who have ever even heard of asperger's are few and far between.

The number of folks outside of the local support group, and online, whom Im aquianted with- who actually have aspergers- is very few (no one I currently cross paths with). A guy at my job, who left the company years ago, is the only person whom I know for a fact was officially dx'd with aspergers- whom I was ever personally aquainted with (outside of the aspie support group I sometimes go to).

The number of people I know who (a) know of the term 'aspergers', and (b) do not have it, but (c) Pose as having it, or would like to have it- is exactly zero.

Beware of wannabees!
Look closely at Moby´s answers: No, I just want to be interesting (ironical comment to AS as "trendy") and "Catholic?": "No, I just feel guilty (Ironical comment to religion, especially catholisism).
I actually don´t see many answers, that aren´t joking about things in that interview.

Last edited by Jensen on 21 Jan 2014, 1:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

As you said you have an identity crises, this is not the same as a wanabee. You may want the diagnosis for an explanation, and you have some legitimate reasons to be believe you are on the spectrum.

UndeadToaster gave an example of a person who for a period time was a Aspie wanabee. His motivations and actions dovetail what has been described by psychologists the media and by posters here.

To be honest, I 'got lost' in this discussion...but to answer the question- I don't know any Aspie celebritiy wannabes, but there are many people claiming, essentially every great inventor had ASD which of course is not true... I do know a girl who 'outed' herself as a HFA person after I got diagnosed (at about year later)...which is not true. That was the only friend I ever had in my life- now I wish I didn't have any. Not because she claims to be HFA (not Aspie but 'true' HFA), but because she said it was my fault that her life is miserable and AS people suck because she was very outgoing and a very poppular girl in high-school until she met me in Uny. Apparently I turned her into autistic person, just as I turned her into a gay , atheist and neuroscience freak. And I was an idiot for believing her even though everyone kept saying she was misusing me (not sure if it correct term sry Eng is not my L1)-and I still trusted her. Oh silly me. The truth is - it is a popular diagnosis, you get a 'label' of a social awkward genius who is high functioning and can reach full potential and independency in lifebut still is on the spectrum. And that is just sad. I hope I didn't spam you guys with this post.

Aspies or people on the autism spectrum at large aren´t exactly "just a few".
1 in 80 or more.
Tony Attwood thinks, that there may be as many as 1 in 50.

You seem to have much more supporting it than I did. My mom, a former special ed teacher thought I didn't and a friend said he'd be surprised if I was autistic. I can relate to people here, but what I feel is almost always a less severe version and my traits don't cause big problems in my life. Just inconveniences now and then. Even if you're wrong, you don't seem to me to be a wannabe like ASPartOfMe said.

Yes I think this is a real phenomenon. This is just my opinion, but I think it's more common though to deny ASD when it exists than to see it in yourself or family member when it doesn't.

I don't remember what it's called in statistics, but there's something about having a certain number of false positives in order to avoid having too many false negatives and vice versa.

But are the people who claim to have ASD wannabes, or suffering, truly suffering, from something else? I can't believe someone would claim to have ASD even if some of their reasons are questionable without there truly being a great deal of suffering they are going through. However, I also recognize that naïveté about others' motives is a characteristic of many with ASD. So I suspect we can't really solve this here.

If the phenomenon exists, I think it does a lot of harm to everyone affected. And makes me very sad trying to think about.

There was a guy online I knew and I think he was a wannabe. He got worse after he found out about AS online through me and he started to obsess about it and worried he had it because he didn't want to have it and then he started to use it as an excuse and got worse and it killed our online friendship. I don't doubt he had problems because he obviously did because he always harassed people and got very abusive and other people had issues with him too because he would have a warning next to his screen name.

Why would someone want to have an ASD just to explain their problems they have is beyond me. You don't need to have autism to have problems and impairments. But there is something about that name that makes someone want to have it.

Real or not the idea that it has been overdiagnosed already has caused harm. It is a documented reason for why the DSM got rid of the Diagnosis of Aspergers

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/asp ... free-stuff
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/asp ... rdiagnosed
The professionals who claim Asperger’s is overdiagnosed haven’t shown it to be so Nevertheless eliminating “false positives” was among the stated goals of some of the professionals involved in revising the autism terminology and criteria for DSM-5. The assumption is that these “false positives” are Asperger’s diagnoses in people who are not strictly autistic. "

http://nbcparenthood.tumblr.com/post/73 ... ump-ballut
Roy Q. Sanders, Medical Director
Decatur Family Psychiatry
Marcus Autism Center
Emory University
"it’s because people like Hank were being diagnosed with Asperger’s (a form of Autism Spectrum Disorder) that the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders was changed. Just because someone has difficulty with relationships and people doesn’t mean they have autism. Sometimes being selfish, self-absorbed and immature means that the individual has some growing up to do."

I don't know what aspies you've met, but from my experience being overly friendly to people is not a symptom of AS, quite the opposite in fact. If anybody were going to try to be an aspie wannabe, I would think they'd start by blowing people off and becoming a social recluse.

Being overly friendly can be a sign of a social deficit because people who are overly friendly are being manipulative because they are trying to make you get comfortable with them and gain your trust so they can get something from you. If someone is being overly friendly because of their social deficit, that will creep people out and push them away because they think they are being manipulative even though that isn't their attempt.

Either Mr. Ackroyd remembers his evaluation date wrong, incorrectly remembered the specific name of his diagnosis, or is just lying; he couldn't possibly have gotten a diagnosis of AS in the early 1980's; Dr. Asperger's original transcripts describing the disorder weren't translated to English until 1981, and it wasn't until 1994 that the diagnosis was officially added to the DSM IV-R. It's possible Ackroyd was diagnosed with autism, but not AS, at least not within the time frame he describes.