Aspergers and the genius/nerd stereotype

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Me too- while I do have some of the traits that he shows on the show, I am honestly nothing like that . How was your day today, kraftie? (genuine question, not small talk lol)

I happen to think that when somebody asks me "how was you day?," it is almost always at least somewhat genuine.

I have grown to believe that not all "small talk" is bad.

I also believe we had to develop "social conventions" during a time when we were always at war. The creation of "social conventions," to me, prevented our extinction.

Still....they sometimes irritate me LOL

LOL...to answer your question, my day's been okay. Not too bad. Everything has gone smoothly so far.

How has your day been?

Lol I agree that not all "small talk" is bad. But I wish people would give genuine answers more often.

My day has been alright as well. I'm going on vacation in a couple days, so that's nice .

Sounds lovely. Where are you going? Will you have to practice your violin while you're on vacation?

I don't have this problem but many aspies do: questioning directions we are given. I wonder what the reasoning behind this behavior is.

I'm going to the beach . Thankfully, I won't have to practice during vacation. I should find out my teachers soon (probably when I'm on vacation) as well.

Doctors, teachers, therapists, psychiatrists, peers, and parents always tell me I am smart. I have severe depression and low self esteem so I have a hard time believing it though. My last therapist, whom I saw for a decade estimated in the 120 range. My psychiatrist at the first hospital I was at said I was intelligent.

Last edited by BettaPonic on 08 Aug 2017, 8:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I understand what you mean, that's what I've seen. I was professionally diagnosed with aspergers at age 5. I just struggled a lot at school as I wasn't interested in what I learning or understood what the teachers were saying as I process very slowly, so I got bored and would misbehave. But outside of school and at home I was very shy, quite, never had much to say and struggled socially. My father was the same as me, he was diagnosed as autistic and misbehaved in school, he was a very violent horrible man

There are posts in this thread that mention low'ish and high'ish IQ's. Those with very low, by nature, probably wouldn't be on this forum. Mine is, supposedly, on the high side, at 160. I'm sure there are others with higher. If the people replying to this topic can be considered a representative sample of the community of people with Asperger's, it looks much like the NT population - varied. So much for the stereotype ... QED

I’m like you, but older, and, therefore, much wiser, due to seeing our world from a higher plane than you can see it from. I, also, am UK based, but born in 1945, not 1996.

Perhaps you don’t know this, but 1996 was a watershed year for auties and aspies in Wales, which is part of the UK where I was born.

We had a County Surveyors Society for Wales and the Marchers up until 31st March 1996. It was founded by William the Conqueror on Christmas Day, 1086, at the outset of his campaign to conquer and colonise Wales, after conquering and colonising England in 1066.

We weren’t called auties and aspies back then. Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome are 20th century labels. What we have was called ‘savant de guerrier souverain’ in Old French back then, as William was Old French.

It means ‘ruler warrior savant’ in English, and, depending on if you died of suicide or reckless self endangerment, or of natural causes, you would be remembered as an ‘idiot savant de guerrier souverain’ or a ‘parfait savant de guerrier souverain’.

How do I know this? It is because I was born into the County Surveyors Society for Wales and the Marchers and was Chief Instructor of the County Surveyors Society’s ancient and justified savantism and pedagogy of suicide avoidance and prevention by what might now might be called sustainable entrepreneurialism, but was known, by us, back then, as county surveying.
I recall reading, when I studied the Industrial Revolution before you were born, that a generation gap opened during that period which resulted in the elderly of that era having more in common with their Romano British counterparts than their own grandchildren.

The same is true of the generation gap that has opened between my and your generation from the Information and Communication Revolution that has occurred since the year you were born.

We didn’t have a world-wide internet in 1996: it was under development in 1996, that is true, but it wasn’t until 1997 that it became a reality.

That was a watershed year for all auties and aspies throughout the United Kingdom and its Commonwealth of Nations, because, the County Surveyors Society, which was the haven for all of them, was wound up on 31st March 1997, and its government functions were subsumed by Directors who were not County Surveyors and therefore not auties and aspies.
It didn’t stop us being geniuses and nerds, but it shut down the traditional structural framework of our specialist education, training and qualifying in survival by sustainability entrepreneurship, that had proven itself to be so efficient, effective and economic in England for the previous 931 years and ended up governing the largest recorded empire of the planet containing a quarter of the land surface and the human population of the Earth by the early 20th century.
And, we are all like you: we just don’t appear to be, because we are like snowflakes – we look the same from a distance – but we look different if viewed up close.
I ‘feel’ that I’m terrible with maths, science and computers – but I qualified as an Accountant, Architect, Town Planner, and Civil, Municipal, Structural, Agricultural, Mining, Quarrying, Hydraulics, Highways, Transportation and Environmental Engineer, to become a County Surveyor.
And I had meltdowns into death comas, and was locked in a storeroom day in, day out, every day, at Nursery and Infants Schools, except the first day. In Junior School, the Head Master called me Witchcraft, and reminded the rest of the school that the Bible says, Thou Shalt Not Suffer A Witch To Live, so they all tried to kill me, four times a day, every day, for the first week of term, so I ran away from home, after school, on the fifth day, and tried to kill myself, four times, and ended up in a 48 hour death coma, locked in an industrial cold store, at 30 degrees below zero, and was certified dead on being found, as rigor had set in and all my nails had shrivelled up and fallen off, and was being stripped and washed down for autopsy, when I came to.
I stuffed my two university courses, by failing my Masters in English, French and US Constitutional Law and Literature and Bachelors in Architecture and Design With Town and Country Planning, deliberately because I took the George Bernard Shaw view that those who can do, and those who cannot teach, by dissertating official secrets, but became an Esquire of the Royal Division of the Crown of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth, which was the highest attainable professional qualification available to me.
I’m pedantic about my spelling, and don’t come across as intelligent or a nerd, but idiotic, due to my severe learning, relating and communicating difficulties; and, yes, drugged up, as I’m on a constant high, except when suicidal.
I don’t consider myself a genius – but a savant – because all my knowledge is learned knowledge. I appear to be able to pluck knowledge out of the sky because I am in constant instantaneous accessibility and connectivity with the akasha, which my mother’s maternal grandfather taught me to me do, and the akasha contains memory of every thought, word and deed of every sentient entity that has existed from the dawn of time.
He was deaf, dumb, autistic, feral and shamanic and communicated with me by telepathy and telekinesis, so I can communicate by telepathy and telekinesis too. It was part of the County Surveyors Society’s training for auties and aspies, and you were denied it by being born too late. It’s sad.

I more meant lower side. I know my personal experience is limited though.

I had that same experience. I can't explain why or how, but it seems I was born with the ability to spell every single word correctly every single time, even from my first year of school at age 5. I regret that my parents never entered me in one of those prestigious spelling bees when I was young, because if they had, I might have won them some money

Bang average here.

Maths does confuse me a lot, I get mixed up on numbers and it drives my wife mad

Yes, you're like me, I used to struggle with handwriting but ever since I started school my spelling was always best in the class, I could spell most things. Friends and family always come to me if they can't spell a word and I always think to myself, how the hell can you not spell such a simple word, it gets annoying sometimes when people ask me all the time how do you spell this and that. A spelling bee would have been a great idea. I don't think they do that here in the UK but I know what It is.

Autism means genius, like autism means being a Wolfman.

I was never diagnosed with ADHD, only aspergers but I am sure that I did have that also, both my biological parents were autistic, they met at a special needs school. And my family has a history of mental conditions from Autism, ADHD and schizophrenia. I hear that a lot of autistic kids are good at school and misbehave at home due to the stress and anxiety of being at school, for me, I think I acted up badly at school because I was not allowed to be myself at home, I was bought up in a posh stuck up family where I had to be perfect. My adoptive mother and father couldn't accept that out of his 3 kids, I was the odd one out, he didn't like the fact he had an autistic son so I had to act normal at home, I was under a lot of pressure to do so because if I acted myself, differently, I'd be severely and violently punished and beaten. They abused me for being autistic and I was terrified of my adoptive parents and I suffer from PTSD now in my adult life. I never felt safe. As well as being physically abused, I was left out, made to stay at home while my parents took my NT brother and sister out for the day, swimming and to the adventure park in case I had a meltdown and acted weird in public. At school I think I could no longer carry on acting normal so without my parents around, I let it all out, I acted myself, pretty Much a total nut case with a few screws loose as they say as it took no energy to simply be me and it was a break until I had to go home at the end of the school day. I would speak my mind say the most offensive things without realizing I was upsetting people and not understanding why they were upset by what I said. A funny time I had was when I got told of for apparent sexual harassment to a male teacher, I said to him, "I'll slap your ass and ride the ripples" and apparently it was sexual harassment. I would do anything other students told me to do without realizing they were joking or trying to get me in trouble like the time a few guys jokingly told me to grab this girls boobs and I did it and got excluded. Another reason I caused trouble is because me and a friend would break into the upstairs of the school when it was all locked up during lunch and hide from the teachers in a empty classroom because it was empty, I felt safe there as I didn't fit in on the playground, it was the only safe place because I was severely bullied on the field, playground and cafeteria until I was allowed to go home for lunch and then was given my own empty room to sit in with my friends to escape the bullying. I dreaded going home at the end of the day, the place where I was never allowed to be a kid. I think I had too much on my mind to concentrate. It was a huge weight off me when I finally moved out of my parents house. I do have most of the aspie traits, overwhelmed by crowds, don't do eye contact, stimming and the list goes on. It was a huge weight off me when I finally moved out of my parents house and Into a flat with my friends. An end to over a 10 years of pretending to be something I'm not, pretending to be normal. My flatmates accept me for who I am. Also I think much of my anger and the way I sometimes came across as violent and aggressive is because I was physically beaten up and abused as a toddler by my birth dad who broke my nose for crying, and then put into adoption because of this, only to be physically abused and mocked by my adoptive parents so violence was all I knew.