Anyone have Asperger's very very mildly?

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I would say that my symptoms manifest themselves mainly in "faux pas" and dumb moments. Otherwise, I function well. I like computers, but am not an expert. I am notoriously bad at troubleshooting technical glitches.

I do have special interests, and they could probably even be called "obsessions." I am not as extreme as some people I've read about with AS.

I don't mind change if somebody offers a better alternative to my usual routine. However, I am quite content with my routine. I don't like a change in plans brought about by a failure to plan ahead of time, however.

Again, aside from driving a car, I function well in daily life, and I definitely plan to take up driving again.

My observation among live Aspies is those that say they have it the mildest or don't have it are the ones who often have it the worst. There is something to be said for most Aspies being self-unaware of how they really behave and look to the outside world.

I believe I have it mildy...at least compared to a few here I interract with. I mean, I hate eye contact, I am clumsy, I need my music to get by, I have almost no empathy at all for people close to me and cannot see from another's point of view without great effort. I stim quite a lot, have fairly bad sensory issues, major meltdowns and trouble in day to day things like bills and doctor etc, BUT... I am not desperately bad at reading faces in that I can see expressions... I note some aspies literally just see eyes and features and no expression at all... and I don't spew out facts.

I have great, deep interests and a thirst to know everything, but I lack the motivation and when I think and analyse I internalise it all...others here seem to just talk in sentences of facts at times...some anyway, so from the pure fact that I am not sitting here always reading new things, I must assume I am pretty mild. Plus the fact I can sort of engage in conversation that isn't about whatever I am obsessed with for short periods.

Do you just try to be narrow-minded on purpose or do you unconsciously have the ability to tick people off by having one-sided arguments on a one dimensional reality?

I don't see how what she has said is narrow minded or annoying. She is simply stating her own experiences on the matter. The fact you are seeing something in what she says would suggest you are on the defensive to begin with.

I don't see how what she has said is narrow minded or annoying. She is simply stating her own experiences on the matter. The fact you are seeing something in what she says would suggest you are on the defensive to begin with.

I give the impression of being mild most of the time but it's probably due to
the fact I've already put my worst faux pas behind me and learned lessons
the hard way.I can get by in social situations but still lack the impetus.

I agree with Ticker actually that some people who consistently class
themselves as 'mild' have in fact appeared to me to exhibit as much Aspie-like
traits as anyone else on WP ! We probably all go from one extreme to another
at times without realising it.

The idea did occur to me that maybe I could be in denial about how bad my AS really is. There are a lot of things I can do, but there are some things that seem ridiculously easy by NT standards that I can't do.

So I have the worst case of AS because I don't think I have it? I also think mine is very mild? Do I sound that bad to anyone on here?

Possibly not. Er, I'm not being very clear again. I can say with confidence that I don't have an especially flat affect or intonation, have mild eye-contact difficulties (once a person passes into my comfort zone, I can do eye contact fairly comfortably -- probably still at a deficit compared to a NT woman), and my stims are little, fidgety actions like foot bouncing, hand wringing and tooth grinding. I tend to get jokes. Poor posture and standoffishness aside, probably when held up against a Jerry Espenson, I would not appear outwardly to be AS; my behaviors are not overtly stereotyped. I *do,* on the other hand, have ...

MEH -- I AM WATCHING BOSTON LEGAL AT THE MOMENT, and the camera work is MADDENING! Cut out the little zooms, you artsy poseurs! (ok, mini-distraction and mini-meltdown over....)

ahem, I do have the crippling social deficits, one-track intense interests, difficulties with interruptions, loser-ish inability to effectively cope with the basic adult tasks and routines of living independently, life-long experience of disconnect and self-centeredness. I have all the internalized symptoms in spades.

Does this make me mild AS? PDD-NOS? likedcalico, what specifically causes you to disqualify AS for yourself? Do you lack the stereotypical AS outward demeanour?

I know what you mean, and actually thought about that this morning.

I think my mother has finally accepted I have AS, but earlier she tried to discount it. My step mother didn't seem to DOUBT it, but maybe questioned it.

I went to a normal school, and started out doing real well. Towards the end, I mostly seemed normal, but excelled where I liked the subject. I took the ASVAB(Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, kind of the SAT or IQ test for the military) and tested as average in most cases against my "peer group", and EXCELLED in Physics and Electronics. BTW They made a mistake! I was a sophmore in highschool, but they thought I was a junior in COLLEGE!! !!

I do real well at work, and almost always end up with LOTS of praise.

If not for the fact that I have things like meltdowns, hyper/hypo sensitivity, have the tangetial speech, have social problems, understand you guys, etc... I might even doubt it.

You should see me at work. Even joking around, I think I seem normal. I have my own kind of personality. SOMETIMES I even get invited to events, which I almost ALWAYS decline. People, that know me, don't even offer anymore.

So I think I am rather mild.

This describes me very well. In fact, when I was diagnosed as a child, she described me as being "very mild".

I had friends my age when growing up till age 10. We play together and there be no troubles at all unless they decided they didn't want to play my way and they wanted their own way this time. But I did have troubles at their house because I couldn't relate to them because they be doing what I didn't want to do so it be hard being with them so I just sit by myself and I have been banned from their homes because I wouldn't follow the rules. But if they were at my house playing, then I be fine. I was a normal child except I was very bossy because everything had to be my way. Reason why I started to have failure in friendships at a age level and have troubles relating to my peers starting at age ten is becase their interests started to change, they didn't want to play with toys anymore. They stopped playing with dolls and the other stuff so they quit playing with me. At school, they wanted to hang out and do chit chat and I found it boring. I wanted to play on the playground equipment, they didn't and they said they were too old for games like jump rope. They started to do sports instead and I didn't like it. Rarely did they play games I liked such as dodge ball because all you do is run away from the ball but I hated wall ball they would play so I be left alone and they started to tell me to go away because they didn't want me around. Is that AS there?
I liked surprises. I liked going on field trips, events going on in my school like we do the culture fair every year and it never caused me stress or panic. I never got anxiety in my childhood over changes in schedules.

I did soccer and softball when I was growing up. I did soccer for three years and then softball till I was 16. I first played when I was 11 but didn;t play in 6th grade but played for the next four years and then I did track when I was 17 and 18. I did track in 4th grade after school though but it was only running. My parents made me sign up for it and I remember how mch I hated it because it interfeared with my routine. Instead of going home it be staying at school and I have less time at home before bedtime but I never was stressed about it or upset.

I am now flexible. I can change my routines, I don't have everything in stone. I quit doing that when I was about 19 or 20. I don't get so anxious anymore when I don't know what to expect and when things are unpredictable. I don't get mad at work anymore when I have to do soemthing that isn't my job and I don't get anxiety over new things I wasn't expecting. I learned to turn off my negative feelings.

I do eye contact when I feel comfortable. I can talk to people when I feel like it and if they are talking about anything interesting.

My sensory issues aren't that bad because they are minor. I don't have poor balance anymore. My mother said I outgrew dyspraxia and I am not very clumsy like I used to be. I am still sometimes like at work because I sometimes bump into people, break glasses when putting them in their racks, dropping stuff.


I don't have any stereotypical interests of an aspie. I am not into electronics or parts. I am not a geek. I can't do middle school math and beyond. I am not into art. I do not know how to fix stuff. I don't take things apart. I did when I was a baby according to my mother but I don't do that anymore. I am certinally not into sci fi even though I was obsessed with Jurassic Park for three years and the dinosaurs that were in the movie.

Yes I like computers and yes I like some art stuff like doing pottery but I am not into it the way a stereotypical aspie is like knowing how to fix them, build them, and every information about them.

I didn't have to have the same foods everyday when I was a kid. My mom packed me different foods everyday for lunch at school when I was 6 and 7 and when I was 10 and 11 and 12. But I always had the same foods when we ate out. I ordered the same foods, ate the same foods at buffets, ordered the same dessert at Dairy Queen but in my teens it all changed because I decided to try different foods because I was curious what they tasted like and it's boring to have the same ones over and over because you miss out on the other variety.

If I wasn't so shy, I be talking to people and meeting new people without having to use the internet. Maybe I be able to express myself better too if I wasn't so shy.

If I am not so into my own world and if I look at people, maybe I notice body language and non verbal cues and maybe I would pick up on it.

I prefer to be alone and I have no desire for friends but that is because I learned to play by myself and keep myself entertained because when I was 12, my parents took me out of school for a while because I was falling apart. I was lonely because there was no one to play with. They were all in school while I was at home bored so I watch TV every morning and then watch 101 Dalmatians in the afternoon and play and then my brothers come home from school. So I had to learn how to play by myself and have fun. Now I don't get upset and wish I had someone with me. Friends are not important to me but they were when I was little but not anymore. All I need is a partner and I be happy. All I need is my husband and family, no friends.


That's why I feel I don't have AS. I used to tell my shrink all the time when I was 17 why I can't be AS but he always had his reasons why I am. I had troubles with my friends at their house, I was banned from them, I was inflexible in playing with them because I wanted everything my way and them play by my rules, the way I played with my toys was part of it, my taboo interests, my inaproppoiate social skills, the reason why other kids not wanting me to talk to them is because I don't pick up on their cues. I even told him I would have social skills if other kids let me but they tell me to go away and be quiet and he told me I was butting in on their conversations, I told them too much information, I wasn't picking up on their cues, etc.

This could all be cleared up if someone perfectly normal would come forwards . Or perhaps if it was still polite to tell people when they were weird?

More seriously, I've often wondered what others think of me - do I come across as slightly odd, eccentric, etc. Or am I perfectly normal? Maybe I seem really strange and bizarre? Thankfully, no matter how I come across, nobody seems to dislike me.

I can't say whether it's true, as I know being severely autistic must be very difficult. But I do know that for me, the worst part is that I know I have it, and I know I act inappropriately at times, so I stress out about why I can't act normal or have a bunch of friends. I wish I could be unaware in many ways. I feel like I spend so much time being angry at myself for things that are hard for me because i recognize my faults.

What about being culturally aspie? My little brother has a strong diagnosed, and Dad is undiagnosed only because we haven't bothered; but are the rest of us NT with aspie symptoms because that's what we learned to do/ignore/see, or are more of us aspies than that?

I know at least one person in my immediate family that does pretty much every symptom I've seen mentioned of Asperger's, even if you discount the officially diagnosed one. Does that just mean we're all adjusted to not notice cues we didn't get growing up, or that we all have it?

Not so much expecting an answer for stuff that people don't have data for, more trying to say that it's possible that some subgroups of people have a different norm that could make NTs appear to be aspies, just like mild undiagnosed aspies can and will learn to fake NTness.