Are you able to see yourself as normal.

Post Reply New Topic

When I say normal of course, I'm not suggesting that you have to be like everyone else. What I'm saying is in the context of being an aspie, can you see yourself as just a normal regular person.


It's a weird concept, but it's something that I'm starting to get the hang of.

I've started skyping fellow aspies over the last few weeks, and what I've realized is that so many of the things that I felt were weird or simply going against the grain, are perfectly normal for us.

Objecting to my aunts expectation that I eat whatever she cooks, because it's an insult if I don't, is truly absurd when you consider our perspective.

I'm starting to see the bulk of my interactions with nt's of a similar condescending nature. It's the expectation that for some magical reason were of the same culture, when there really is no reason to make that assumption.


I know it's a famous line, aspies are normal and nt's are the ones that are wierd but it's a concept that I'm really starting to get.

Sure! I see only myself as normal and all the others as weird, and I thought I was perfectly normal until my mother told me about the diagnosis when I was 13. But, I still tend to consider myself as normal and the others as weird.

I don't think it's a weird concept, Stoek - I like it.

I do and I don't.

I do, because I've only ever been this way and I think it's better to be honest, straightforward and not play NT games, myself is normal to me, and I don't like the way a lot of NTs are so I don't want to be that way, it's not normal.

I don't, because the majority are NT and that is what society considers normal, being different has only given me problems socially, health-wise and physiologically and I've always felt different. It's tiring and difficult being different from almost everyone else, so in that sense I don't feel 'normal' by society's standards.

Your spot on with this part because they really do play games.

Shows like survivor do exploit people in the name of drama. From my understanding this was always the case. The reality is, there trying to get a bunch of strangers to act the way people that are close do on a daily basis.

Being different from others....if society at large tolerated different processing styles, would we still have the same issues?

I'm normal on my own terms but don't see any sense in the notions "they" and "us" because that's very much like insisting on fundamental differences between, say, males and females. There are a few, they are biological in nature, but they are not even remotely suitable to distinguish the two groups.

You would have to check a huge variety of criteria and differentiations in order to define groups. For example, not everyone with an ASD is also a loner, thus a NT person can have more similarities with the stereotype of an autistic person without actually being autistic. On the other hand, there are countless socially interested and open minded people with an ASD but they remain on the spectrum despite their social interests. Bottom line, I'm essentially skeptical about such extreme simplifications.

Me is irrelevant, all what matters is what I want and how I see things.

Well for starters I don't believe in the concept of normal.

What I guess I should of said was the norm, typical, everyday, not unusual. A black person in poland shouldn't see the color of his hands as anything but normal to him. Sure it's not the group average ... in poland, but in a different group it totally is.


Normal to me means that over 50 percent of a population can be grouped by a set list of traits. However I think this concept is impossible. What I believe in is the standard or the mid point, of all the data we have on people. Some people can be on the exact average of all our traits. The problem is this is what society is designed for a mid point that may or may not exist.

AS is an orientation, just as we have sexual orientations, it should come to no surprise that we have neurological orientations. This does not mean everyone is facing either north or south, gay or straight, nt or Aspie. However it does me we have to acknowledge that there are separate directions for people to go in.

I'm an individual. I don't like the term "normal" because it's usually based on statistics, where those in the middle of a curve, usually an imaginary group of people, are considered normal and everyone else isn't. I've maintained for a long time that if I ever met the imaginary "normal" people I'd likely be bored to death by them.

We are all individuals, some of us more similar to each other, but still individuals. I'm fine thinking of myself and each other person that way.

Yeah I was trying to avoid making this about trivial statistics.


What I meant is that most aspects of your life are just ordinary. Not making eye contact should never feel like a strange habit. Now some folk may suggest this but far as I'm concerned it's as ordinary as can be.

I've known I was different from others since at least when I was around 9 years old. I've always considered the others to be the strange ones and I the only normal one, no matter how contradictory that is.

I have never known myself to be anything other than what I am... To me, I am perfectly normal. It's the rest of the world that is crazy.

I am not "typical" when compared with NTs, but I wouldn't want to be either. I like who I am, even if who I am comes with a rather interesting set of challenges. But I wouldn't trade those challenges for what the rest of the world considers a normal life. To do so would be to deny who I am.

I can't really see myself as a normal person. I ask questions that stump professors.

Yep I'm normal. I have been normal since I was 15. Everyone is different, everyone has their own way of learning, communicating, have their own problems, have their own quirks, have their own way of having fun and to pass time. Everyone thinks differently. "Normal" is over rated and who gets to decide what is and isn't normal?

I have a brain that processes non-verbal communication differently than 70-97 percent of the rest of the United States. Because of that, I don't have the same range of non-verbal communication that other people I associate with do. I consider that a neurological "difference", not a personal character flaw.

I release tension by tapping keys. NTs release tension by twirling keyes. I don't think it's me making a distinction without a difference on that one.