Are Asperger problems worse in the city or in the country?

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Hmmmm...I don't know. I'm 44 and I tend to agree with her. At the very least, we shouldn't talk her out of her way of looking at life. I have always had her attitude and although I've had extreme highs and lows during those 30 years, I still agree with her outlook.

It's so easy to avoid scary situations. I do it all the time. But I still challenge myself and have overcomed a lot.

Anyway, at the very least, I wouldn't tell a young aspie that she has 30 years of hell to go through before she's doomed to discover life is hard, after all.

People didn't do that to me as a kid - quite the opposite. I was forced into all kinds of "self-improvement" courses and such, for being an insolent, underachieving, behavioral problem. Guess what. The courses worked - at least enough to get me up and functioning!

I don' t know - I am starting to have some questions about this "can't do" aspie attitude. Maybe there should be a "Wrong-ish Planet." Like, degress of wrongness. Some of us appear to be wronger or righter than others.

I'm afraid of bugs, too! And the dark!

It's not surprising; the label is defined by negatives, and is expanding, ( to encompass increasing areas of the "whole person" ), by negatives/difficulties. It apparently now includes, if only "semi-officially ), SPDs, but not "giftedness". Like the label "woman" used to consist of almost exclusively patronising praise for qualities society didn't really value, or negative comparisons with men.

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They both have their weakness. A small town would be more suitable for someone with aspergers because they'd be more isolated like they'd like to be but that also means small towns might not have any resources to help those with aspergers. While bigger cities would be more difficult for people with aspergers to live in, bigger cities like Boston (where I live close to) have many places that help those with aspergers. including psychologists, support groups and programs. You'll most likely be able to get help with aspergers better in bigger cities because they simply have a lot more places available.

Rather than admit that the environments in which most people have to live have become sensory-nightmares, society, ( by way of the DSM/mental-health industry ), is about to declare sensitivity a disorder/dysfunction.
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Last edited by ouinon on 24 Mar 2009, 8:54 am, edited 4 times in total.

I've noticed a trend (both online and in real life) of people who seem to think that improving their life is somehow impossible. However, for every one aspie who can't overcome their problems, or feel like they can't, there are just as many that can.

Some of it has to do with severity level, but a lot of it has to do with attitude as well. I've known a couple of classically autistic people who were more obviously impaired than me who still maintained regular part-time jobs (one while going to high school as well). I've also known AS people who are only marginally more impaired than me who think that collecting welfare and playing video games all day is the way to go.

There are people who have the "life is hard, so I give up" attitude, and there are those that have the "life kicks you in the ass, kick it right back" attitude.

As for sensory issues, I don't know whether or not they should even be brought up in a discussion about the effects of just plain AS. Sure, a few have them. But the majority of people that I've met in real life with AS have not had sensory issues. A couple did, but they just put on some sunglasses and didn't make a big deal out of it.

Anyways, to the question, it's much easier in the city. Much easier to get around, and more job and education opportunities. Small communities can also be too judgemental.

i like the outer suburbs of sydney where we have much bushland. it is unadulterated, i live in a quiet long street that gets progressively less populated as you drive to my house.
i live next to a well maintained but disused oval that has bushland on the other side of it that goes for miles.



out the back of my house is bushland for miles as well.


i need this kind of environment in order not to frazzle.
i do not like rural areas, because they are usually agricultural and they have limited bushland for wild animals to thrive in.
rural areas look natural, but they have only small patches of woodlands that they do not bulldoze. these patches are not sufficient so sustain wildlife like possums.


i am sure i have many services available to me, but i never need to consult them. i am happy with my environment and circumstance.


the oval sometimes gets used by kids on saturday mornings,, but it does not disturb me.
the rest of the time i am in total peace. there is very low population density that walks past my house usually.

i have a car and that is all i need.

it is very quiet here at night. there is no sound but for the rustle of bushes by the wind and the possums. there is also crickets and frogs who make sounds which are pleasant.


i do not associate with anyone in my neighborhood, so what they think is not known by me.
they leave me alone because they do not have any interest in probing me any further. they do their thing and i do mine, and never do we cross paths.


i am not part of an ASD community. i do not know what anyone thinks near where i live.
i do not care what they think, and they do not care to talk to me, and it is a marriage of wits made in my idea of my own heaven.
i am not known as autistic by the people who live up the street. i am thought of as a strange and secretive person, but they really have no worries about me, and i am left to my privacy.

"Obviously more impaired" and yet less "impaired" at the same time, perhaps?


And what determines that? If not genes, metabolism/constitution, and sensitivity levels, ( aswell as social/family circumstances ).


Sunglasses? And ear-muffs, and face-mask, and stimulants/painkillers to numb out with, more like.

Re. SPD/SIDs that is what I said, but if Danielismyname is right then sensitivities are present in so many people with AS that it is now virtually part of the official diagnostic criteria, ( and I read some occupational therapist somewhere saying that 75% or more of AS "suffer" from SPD/SDIs.
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Last edited by ouinon on 24 Mar 2009, 9:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

Seriously, that is the situation, if the DSM does in fact already include SPD/SIDs in the "expanded text" for Autism, ( and is planning to put it in the "expanded text" for AS diagnosis ), and if this text is indeed more important than the "official" list of criteria.

Being "too" sensitive has become an impairment, as it supposedly used to be for women. Because the "real"/public world is too "rough" and "turbulent" and "overwhelming" for us sensitive types we will be confined to the home like women used to be ... hang on, not will be, already are ! ( many of us anyway ) ...
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Last edited by ouinon on 24 Mar 2009, 9:23 am, edited 3 times in total.

Thanks for the clarification - even if I had to use my brain a little harder.

I think I'm starting to figure it out and I am feeling better. I've been feeling like a fraud lately because of the overall tone of WP - towards a glass-half-full person like myself.

My special gift is social savantism.

My true handicap is a slightly lower IQ than my family and network. Of course - IQ is a measurement that needs revisiting - but that aside...

I have noticed I am way down the IQ scale here on WP...yet I'm way ahead on social skills - which have allowed me to assimilate into normal society, make a decent living, and blend in.

I'm coming to terms with all that. It makes me really sad - but it explains a lot. Ignorance really is bliss!

As far as sensory overload - sunglasses! That's me! I often wear them inside. My nickname is Jackie O. I don't mind!

The auditory thing is a different matter - but its so complicated. Ambient noise (like city noise) doesn't bother me. Silence makes my ears rings and my head buzz.

I've lived in both extremes and most everything in between. I don't see any differences that don't come down to differences in individual tastes.

Ain't got no idea what "services" are. I guess I could pay some "mental health professional" to pretend they think I'm interesting while they're looking at their watch, or I could pay a prostitute to do the same thing. Neither idea appeals to me much.

I ain't got no politics because nobody anywhere on the political spectrum cares about what happens to me or my kids. If I wanted to watch actors, I'd hook up my TV.

I find the mountain redneck culture more agreeable than most. Place I live nobody locks their doors because everybody has a gun. I'm on my own no matter what. Just as soon see that up front and assumed.

All them urban sophisticate ideas about "diversity" ain't diverse enough to include me, so I'm not interested.

Me personally, I'm into aesthetics, and there ain't nothing of human manufacture that compares with what the earth and sky produce when they think nobody's looking.

I did that, from about age 11/12, ( though it took me till age 18 to get it together ), to 25 when radical feminist politics/analysis/philosophy hit me like a sledgehammer. I used to study glossy magazines, historical romance and Mills and Boon novels, shop windows, and other girls at my grammar school, with a passion and intensity that left little room for anything else, so that by the time I was 24 you might have thought I was a girly empty-head. I made a lot of mistakes, getting pregnant among them, ( with abortion, "obviously" ), but the biggest one was investing all my mental and emotional energy in excelling at socialising.

When I stumbled across radical feminism, ( in the form of Andrea Dworkin's book "Intercourse", for anyone who is interested ), it was as if scales fell from my eyes, and a vast elaborate construction/performance/collaboration with the social-hegemony crashed to the ground.

And although it took a couple of years for the edifice to disintegrate completely, ( with breakdown, etc ), when I emerged from the wreckage I no longer wanted to play that game, however much it used to win me in money, social status, etc. Whenever I have used those skills since, and I still do find myself doing so, after a drink, with certain people, in certain situations, I actually feel sick, because of the manipulation involved, the acting, the lies, the power dynamics you use to make it work. I feel nauseous about it. Manipulating things, ideas, paint/pencil, astrological symbols, etc is fine, but not people, when to "win"/succeed at it seems to inevitably involve paying lip service to, or ignoring/overlooking, exploitation/abuse and discrimination, lieing about beliefs, etc etc etc. I can't do it anymore. I think I only could if I was still as unconscious politically, and personally, as I used to be, insensitive to others' pain, which recognition of my own, ( as a result of feminist analysis ), has enabled me to see, ( or at least "theorise").

I also rediscovered/retrieved use of my brain. It was as if I found out what my brain was for, what it could do, a tool-kit I had forgotten I had. So your IQ may not be as low/"standard" as you think, especially if your "social savantism" is as successful as that.

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So, I'm living a lie. Hmmmm... My mom is an old school feminist and tries to get me to read Dworkin and her ilk. As annoying as my mom can be, I was fortunate to have her as a mom because I don't have those identity issues. I just am. (At least I have convinced myself of such)

Being socially adept for me, means playing down my femininity. I don't work in a shallow, cut-throat industry - mostly a lot of good-hearted hero types. I enjoy fashion as art and self-expression - but I dress rather androgenously - for practical reasons. No heels, tight clothes or any other form of female fashion bondage.

Success for me is a cozy home, responsible financial security (no debt), seeing my name in print, saving lives (in a supporting role, anyway), and the ability to travel and explore the world. I don't think I want to throw that away just to free myself from "the lie". I mean, what am I supposed to do with my best friend and husband? Can't just toss him away...

No, I just think that "social savantism" may be a bit like having a "special interest" in being an assassin.

I thought that I did that until I cut my hair very short, ( even before I shaved it ), and discovered how I got treated, as if I was suddenly invisible, or offensive/objectionable.

Me too. I think it had more to do with what I was doing with my brain/mental energy. So long as it was directed almost exclusively towards social success I was rewarded.

Why should you?

Just curious, why do you think that you have Aspergers?

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Maybe I'm not. I'm beginning to think not - based on all the labels people put on themselves here. (Tying to avoid mentioning symptoms of other conditions - like ADHD)

Can't understand or follow directions
Numb feelings - inappropriate feelings
Very specific highly-developed (often useless) skills and interests
Extremely observant - almost to the point of ESP
Panicky around small groups of people or intimate human interaction
Hard time understanding spoken words without non-verbal queues - esp. innuendo and jargon
Live my life in my head - see patterns, colors, could sit outside (or anywhere) all day and just look around and "be" (Don't get bored)
Difficulty verbalizing thoughts - esp. feelings - except in rhymes and jokes
Not self-conscious - rarely feel remorse or embarrassed - except for specific things
Low IQ - but have everyone fooled into thinking I'm brilliant with all the facts I know and my ability draw them out into stories and anecdotes and act like I know what I'm talking about.

I dunno - maybe I'm just a freak - I was hoping Aspergers explained all my failures and successes.