If you know ur regarded 2b"weird", why dont change

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My answer to your question is I did try to act "normally". As a teenager I wanted absolutely nothing more than to belong; instead I felt like the exact opposite - that I didn't belong anywhere. I was depressed and lonely, starved of most of the usual human contact. I couldn't fake being sociable and talkative in company; the banter, the laughs that they shared, etc. I was always on the outskirts and painfully aware of it, but also unable to join in. My mind would go blank and I could never think of what to say. If I did somehow manage to think of something, then I would botch the telling of it; stumble over my words, forget the punchline, or whatever.

People to whom socialising comes naturally don't seem to recognise what a torture it can be to those who aren't fluent at it.

I was first diagnosed decades ago, and mainstreamed. It was brought to my attention at a young age that others (especially adults) found my behavior strange. I was told if I learned some social skills I did not have that this *would* change. (Ha!) At the time they did not realize much about autism which is now known. I gave "blending in" my very best shot. I did bravely tackle a lot of activities and over time I saw a pattern emerge from my efforts. I can wear make-up, jewelry, and dress properly. Unlike some I can blend in visually. I learned how to pass conversationally in some ways, but some aspects of real-time communication skills will always be beyond my abilities, no matter how hard I try or what skills I learn.

I compare verbal communication to juggling. Meaning, structure, tenses, tone, pacing, volume, attitude, facial language, eye contact, body language must all be juggled at once to pull off "normal" in a conversation. It comes naturally to NT's, but not to us. Then there are agendas: lying, guilt trips, and arguing require additional skills. I did actually have a therapist friend teach me skills used in lying (for escaping abuse) only to find I can't ever coordinate them!

To top things off, nobody ever told me trying to pass for normal by overcompensating might cause me health problems in the long run, like severe migraines, or stress ailments. My neurology is not designed to cope with current society.
That said, many people find my different perspective and different skills valuable.

I was diagnosed with Asperger's when I was 16 this summer, but my mum pointed out my traits when I was about 15. I hadn't even realised that some of my behaviours were considered to be "weird" or "eccentric" until then. I still don't know which of my behaviours are "weird" or "eccentric" because I don't have enough self-awareness.

Trying to act like someone that doesn't have a neurological condition is like asking someone with normal neurology to act like someone with autism. Truth be told, I don't even know how to act "normal".

Yes. It's neurological. Kind of like how epilepsy is out of one's control. You don't wake up one day and decide to be autistic.




Comfort zone? Seriously? Lots of us are in pain from sensory issues just from leaving the house, so just STFU about comfort zones. Really. I would love to be IN my comfort zone occasionally.
And many of us do try to fit in; did you not read the posts explaining that?



Simple. Introverts need less socialisation, autistics are bad at socialising.

Before i learned I was autistic, which didn't happen until my late 20s/early 30s, i knew full well that 'something' was wrong with me. Nobody knew what it was. All I knew is that i was "weird", but this made no sense to me. I was "weird" for liking certain TV shows (mainly cartoons) past age 13, especially cartoons whose audience was intended to be the opposite gender.

A lot of confusion resulted from my sporadic inability to distinguish the ambiguous case when people were talking to me. They'd tell me something, but I'd interpret it entirely different for some reason and I had no idea how or why that would happen. There was nothing i could do other than research the ambiguous case and then make sure whether a sentence said to me could mean more than one thing.

Well, we are autistic and we miss some stuff here and there. The main reason autistic people don't pretend to normal is it is difficult to impossible to really pull off and a monumental achievement when it is actually done even mostly passable. And then after all this effort, (Don't rock! You're doing it again! Stop. Did anyone see that? Watch the models, practice walking my friend said. Looking in a mirror checking to see if my outside matched my inside. Reading fashion mags to learn what not to wear. And it goes on and on. And yes people do notice that you always ask what is wrong when NOTHING IS WRONG WITH THEM!) Anyway, after you've got them all fooled into thinking you like what they like and shown them you do what they do (even though you really don't like it at all), well then you understand they don't like you, they don't even know YOU! Why are people so insecure they need to surround themselves with people that walk like them, talk them, and say they too love xyz? Is it so horrible to want to meet people who are secure enough in themselves and their beliefs they are not threatened by different kinds of people but feel diversity enriches their lives? I mean, why are there a hundred different churches here so people never have to be in one where everyone doesn't totally agree with each other on every single point? And why are my questions silly? And why should I care about people who would rather I mirror them than look like me? I kinda have this idea of what makes a real friend and pretending to be someone else will make it awful hard for the people I want to find me to even see me.

Weirdness is culturally defined, it's a social construct, not derived specifically from what we do or don't do; for us, it's a stigmatising put down label applied to what we fundamentally are: people with atypical neurology.

Would you consider it appropriate to ask: "why don't you all have brain transplants then"? That's the same sort of question: why don't you all just change yourselves until you fit normal?

What is normal is also subject to culturally determined constructs. Consider for example that introversion is generally stigmatised in the West, extroversion is generally stigmatised in the East. If you were to travel widely between east and west would you just change your personality from one to the other depending on where in the world you were, in order to seem normal?

I love your post!
Is it like this: shortsighted people who can get better sight by squinting would rather see the unclear world.

I understand that it is easier to say but hard to do. What about treatment? You are willing to relearn these skills with professional help, right?

Shortsighted people can get better sight by squinting?

Even if it does make much difference, you'd get sore muscles around your eyes from doing it all day, and it would just make things worse in the long run.

It's like that with autism, but much worse.

I don't think you're even listening to anything that you don't want to hear. You've been told that what you're saying is like "But why don't people in wheelchairs just get up and walk? Why don't people with the flu just not be sick? Why don't epileptics just stop having seizures?", but you keep on with the "Maybe u guyz could just try a bit harder and learn new skills lol?"

OP, I am curious about where you are coming from. Is your interest in this personal or is there some other reason you want to study autism?

Meantime, let me try another analogy, hopefully to illustrate to you more simply as to why your original question is uninformed.

In years gone by, many gay men who sought advice from "normals" - professionals, pastors et al - were told that the problem would go away if they just acted like they were straight - date girls, get married, have a family, be a Dad in a nuclear family and hey presto! Gayness fixed!! !

This fatuous advice - which caused enormous misery - was mired in normocentric ignorance and arrogance, however well meaning it may have been at the time.

At the end of your studies, if you do study autism, how do you conceive of performing that role? As fixing ASD people or what?

I wrote this earlier today. Its not all about explaining body movements or sensory issues or the fact I don't think I'll ever be able to work many algebra problems. Its just something about how I feel about what is most wrong with me and my family members and how I can spot that they have issues. I did not mention the frustration people feel when they can't make someone see a valid point or an essential component that should be included in the reasoning of another and then not being able to get that person to see and acknowledge the flaw in their reasoning and reassess things with the missing variable included. I just pointed out one fun example of how a person can forget to include a fact no one else can miss and forget to factor in but themselves.

I learn a lot down here. Nobody thinks what I know is worth a thing. It won't make you any richer. It probably wouldn't even get published. I was asked the other day by my boss how my mind actually worked. I was ashamed to admit what is broken in my mind. I told him I had problem with steps and need to learn an order of doing things and do things in order. I didn't explain Autism is where the brain grows so fast it breaks the connections that allow the parts of the brain to communicate with other parts of the brain. Many things we do require different parts of the brain to be able to work together. The autistic mind is like a super computer with faulty wiring. Autistic people have a wide range of differences and ability levels and areas depending on which wires got rat chewed and how bad.

For me the best description I ever gave was, "There are holes in my mind." Its like having blind spots where you just don't see anything there and yet all normal people would be able to see objects there. Its a function my mind can't perform and a normal brain can. There are places where my connections are good and places where they are bad. I am exceptional in some ways and ret*d in others. I know this but I can't tell you how it is actually different because I can't remember ever having a normal brain. Its like asking a blind person how red is different from blue. They can't see either. On the other hand, normal people often must try to find ways to explain to us blind people what red looks like or what blue looks like when they run into one of our blind spots. We won't learn to visualize red or blue accurately most likely but we try to get an idea of what is wanted or expected and figure out how give them what they need from us with the bits that do work for us. There isn't always a work around.

Take my ex for instance. My cousin works for him running credit in a rent to own store. One day Craig went with him to collect payments from late customers who had not come in to pay on my cousin's route. Craig is 6'8 almost 300 pounds with a big brow ridge and everything. My cousin went home and told his sister. "You should have seen those customers when they saw him at their door! Everybody gave him money!" I laughed and told her when they see Craig at the door they don't know if they have made a deal with the Mofia and they've sent out the leg breaker. Craig, oblivious to the impact his appearance has on people, came home feeling entirely different. He said, "Everybody had money and paid me. Are these guys even calling them and knocking on doors and talking to them and actually running these routes?" Me, "There is a big difference when a 6'8, 300 pound man tells them they need to pay and when the other guys try it!" Blind spots. We all have them. And yes they are usually that funny to regular people. We even find each other funny a lot because we rarely have the same blind spots so sometimes in being with each other we see what our blind spots must look like to normal people and we have the same fun conversations about it as we would with a normal friend. Once a blind spot is pointed out, we know it is there, but put us in the same situation next month and someone might have to explain everything all over again. Craig will remember my little cousin being very afraid of him as a child and he knew it was his size, but he will think customers pay him because he is very good at his job over and over again. He knows people pay him. He doesn't see why people pay him. This is very common. We see the results, we made someone cry. We are not sure how what we said or did that resulted in the crying. When it comes to our apology we stink more because people are cruel and they ask us what we are sorry for and we usually won't have the right answer or we wouldn't be in trouble in the first place. We didn't mean to offend, upset or hurt you. We had no clue it would cause that or we wouldn't have said, done it. And no it probably would not help to put ourselves in your position because we probably wouldn't be hurt or offended if you did, said that to us. Blind spots is good word for it. There is an object there and whatever object is there is always where we can NEVER see it even if we are looking right at it. You must tell us it is there, describe it to us, we can now imagine it. And the next time there is something in that spot, you can do it all over again.

OP, I don't think you realize that we CANNOT change that we have Asperger's / Autism / etc.

It's like the things we post aren't even being read. Is this a troll thread in disguise or just someone who does not listen to people well?

It does seem OP's only concern is to belittle whole autistic community. Thread closed.