AS Helping in Sticky Situations?

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Has anyone had a life threatening experience and having AS helped you survive that experience?

Having Aspergers can actually help in a bad situation. In 2001, I had lived by myself in an apartment for about 3 months. One night, when I came home from being out with a friend, I went into the flat by myself and shortly thereafter, there was a knock on my door. I answered it thinking it was my friend who'd just dropped me off. It wasn't. It was two guys I didn't know and suddenly they were in my apartment with me! They had guns. At this point, most NTs while listening to me tell this story say very excitedly "Weren't you scared?" The thing is, I wasn't. Logically, I realized that this was a not good situation and I had to figure out a way out of it. At that point, the emotional part of my brain seemed to have shut down. I began to logically sequence ways to get out of the situation, but I did not see any. Anyhow, the two guys backed me up into my little bedroom in my tiny apartment and began to ask if I had money. I had a baggie full of change and said calmly, "this is all I have. How much money could I have? I have a black and white TV and camp chairs in my living room!" I think they must have been frustrated with this as they pushed my down on my bed. I actually started talking with the guy that held me down while the other started looking through my dresser drawers. Then the guy holding me down and I started to struggle and his buddy who was next to him shot me in my leg...close range too, about 6 inches. I was calm the entire time. They left, I called the police and EMS, and after a week in the hospital around Christmas, here I am today, 4 years later.

All the NTs I've ever told reacted like they would have panicked. I didn't. But I think it was my AS that kept me from being emotionally terrified. I remained logical and in my right mind and I feel as though I handled the situation as best as I could. I didn't get raped, no one stole my camp chairs or my black and white TV, and I'm alive and doing okay. No nightmares, no PTSD, nothing, just me living my life. And I still have a 38 cal. bullet lodged in my pelvis.

So if anyone else has had anything like this, let me know.

By the way, I really am in good shape now.

This isnt really alot like your story but at every school I went to (and even sometimes when my homelife was bad though in a different way) I always made some kind of escape plan, some way that if I was at point A I could get to point B without having to fight the hopeless fight.

That's very interesting. I have to say. I know if it were me, I might actually do the same. Like, I have fantasized about being in such situations and what I might do. I sort of am the type of person that tends to crave stimulation at times, and I like to be in situations that are more or less hair-rising. I tend to say that I'm not a thrillseeker, but sometimes I wonder. I've never intentionally put myself in danger, however.

Like, I watch this show Alias. I can imagine being her, imagining how I could be quite good at something like that. I have no idea how I would fare in such a world, but I sometimes stim off the idea of placing myself in her shoes. If I were offered a training course for something like that, I'm not even sure I'd turn it down. But, I despise most military activity, so I wouldn't work for the CIA.

When there are close people around, then it's a different story. I am more afraid of what's gonna happen to them than I am to myself, and I begin to almost immediately panic and usually end up going through a meltdown. If I am in control of the situation, with me only, then I tend to be more rational.

- Ray M -

eh, my AS wouldn't have let me open the door in the first place.

Thank goodness you are OK and didn't anything worse happened to you.

Well I'm not NT and I would have been scared. I had a gun pulled on me once when I was at a gas station and I almost wet my pants.

Your reaction doesn't really surprise me, and I can see how it would be beneficial as would-be robbers tend to become killers when tensions rise. Your emotionless response and compliance would have stopped the situation from escalating.
I shut down in painful or distressing situations. Childbirth, for example, wasn't the big deal I've heard it described as. I don't remember much of it even though it was virtually drug-free, and everyone was surprised at how quiet I was. Screaming wasn't something I wanted to do; it didn't seem productive. If anything, I remember wanting to hide and have privacy, like a cat. But rather than get caught up in it, I retreated to that calm, dissasociated place within me that's been there since I was a child. I don't know if I created that space in response to bullying, or if it's always been there as part of AS.
Interesting idea.

I've been in a situation sort of similar to the OP. It was in elementary school (6th grade to be exact). This was the year that the school implemented an official strategy which we were to adhere to if an alien entered the school. We were to "hide" in the classroom and turn off the lights, etc. This was the 2001/2002 school year, so everyone was still in a state of paranoia over 9/11 (except for me, I was paranoid with other matters(add to this our ages too)). And the implementation was presumably in response to 9/11. They were to announce to the school a key phrase at any time of the day. After this we were to "hide." But we knew when it was to occur (this because the administration typically informed the teachers about things like this, including fire drills, etc). So about four months later they uttered the key phrase randomly, this time without telling any teacher it was to happen. When it was said, a student asked the teacher if if this was planned. The teacher responded, "I don't know, they didn't tell us about anything like this." So, the class proceeded to basically freak out. At least half the class was crying or on the verge of it. Everyone else was sort of whispering nervously about it (which i do assume they were serious about). Suffice it to say I probably appeared completely unmoved. I just sat there and though to myself a logical plan by which to escape the situation if this turned out to be real. We were on the second story of the building, so perhaps the lack of a direct escape route (window) freaked some out. I just thought differently.

I could see myself reacting similarly if a serious situation were to ever come to me in life.

That is due to one thing -- heightened intelligence.

Ya'll are cool.

Hey, sarawhathi,
I had the same experience with childbirth! I am 5'3", 115 lbs, and delivered a 10 lb baby boy with no pain medication. I was also induced, which made the contractions even stronger.

The doctor was very smug when I said I didn't want any meds, and then when I made it through he was shocked.

I had similar birth experiences. I'm 5'5" and delivered 5 babies with no meds (largest was 9lb.3oz.). One time the doc remarked to my husband that he was amazed I was so calm and quiet because the contractions were spiking off the monitor strip.

I admit, I had nitrous oxide some of the time. I gave it away by the end of the labour with my daughter because I realised I didn't actually need it, I was just enjoying the buzzy feeling I got from it. It was like being drunk and stubbing your toe, you say "Ow <insert expletive> that hurts!" then laugh about it. Were I to do it again (not that that's happening) it would be an unmedicated homebirth.
The pain of childbirth wasn't a problem for me, but people interrupting my state of mind would have been. Luckily they knew me well enough not to go there, I probably would have bitten them. Pain in my head, on the other hand, is a totally different ball game. I don't feel like I can control it or escape it, and it might mean that something's wrong with me, whereas I can rationalise labour pain as normal and nothing to worry about.

Yes! That is so true!
My 5 childbirths didn't bother me, but when I broke 3 fingers and had to have the tiny screws removed a month later (in-office procedure) I just about freaked. This was something UNnatural. The pain was absolutely the worse I have ever experienced. The doc was incredulous, because as an ortho, he does this kind of "simple procedure" on patients "all the time" and usually without anesthesia. 8O I was near delirious, and that was with an oral tranquilizer AND local anesthetic.

Last summer, I was having dinner at T.G.I. Friday's with a few young adults with Asperger's syndrome I had just met. In the course of the meal, one of the two women present put her steak knife up to my right shoulder. I only noticed after turning my head, wondering what the din of laughter was about. I realized then and there how easily someone could slash me without me knowing ahead of time to defend myself. In this particular case, the young lady had Asperger's syndrome and engaged in frequent online role-playing, so I do not think she realized her action was definitely inappropriate.

When I was brushing my teeth, I accidentally jabbed my eye, and the acidic (or maybe it's basic, I don't remember my chemistry well enough) properties of the toothpaste burned my eye. I calmly went to my dorm room to remove my contact lens and went back to the bathroom to rinse the toothpaste out of my eye. Then I put eye drops in. All I said was ow.

I am not naturally inclined to such a lack of response, but I developed it as a response to certain conditions. My dad signed me up to play baseball when I was a kid, and some of my teammates would sometimes pretend to throw baseballs at me because they thought it was funny to watch me "flinch." I still tend to have a very high startle reflex, but it's not as outwardly visible anymore. In the above two situations, though, there was next to no startle or fear response at all.

I can relate to that. I used to have an unrealistic fear of needles, that wasn't proportional to the amount of pain. My stomach would squirm, I'd feel dizzy and have to sit down, it was completely illogical.
When I was 11, I had my finger slammed in a desk and it damaged the nail and took the top part off, only a few mm of skin. I had to have it dressed with a tubular bandage, which they twist at the top, and I cried in pain. My mother is a former RN and says she's seen tough grown men faint with finger injuries as they tend to be more painful. A few years later I came off my bike, broke several teeth, was covered in bruises and needed four stitches to my chin, and I don't remember crying at all.
My AS brother, on the other hand, takes it to extremes. As a teenager he complained of a slight stomach ache - highly unusual for him to complain of anything - and Mum took him to the after hours doctor who sent him home dx a tummy bug. Fortunately she sought a second opinion with the family GP, who knowing about his AS took it seriously and sent him to hospital. Apparently he'd had appendicitis for days, and it was ready to rupture resulting in peritonitis and possibly death. It's something doctors should take more seriously with someone on the autistic spectrum.



Yes! I hate ball sports! My instinct has always been to duck rather than try to catch it, which didn't make me very popular in a very sports fixated country. It doesn't help that I've been hit in the side of the face a few times while wearing glasses, which is painful and bewildering. In a flight or fight situation, I've always tended towards the run and hide approach. It wasn't in me to stand and watch objects being thrown at me without making some attempt to get out the way.

P.S. Sorry for hijacking the thread