Handy-capable

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A thought that I had while working on exersises.
Someone once said, "you're not handicapped, you're handy capable."
I take that to mean that if you overcome your issues, you have the potential to be better in an area than most people.
Would that be a possibility with Aspergers/Autism - You may be able to see things better than most because you have to work at it more.
I guess it also goes to the "Talented failure, hard-working success" motif.

With autism you sometimes do have the potential to be better in some areas compared to most people - because you are better at handling details than most people.

But because you think in details (instead of wholes/the big picture as most people do), you have to find a strategie how to think in wholes despite naturally thinking in details (that's basically what you refer to as "overcome your issues").

The world requires heavily more thinking in wholes than in details - that's why asperger syndrome is considered a handicap.

So, in some specific areas (art, longterm memory, mathematics, music, programming etc.) thinking in details is a clear advantage. But in everyday life thinking in wholes is an advantage.

Having autism one should learn to master both thinking styles. Detail-thinking is easy, because it is natural - thinking in wholes requires that you turn the details into a whole. You have to "invent" a personal technique for doing that.

Well, I am pretty good with my mobile phone.

(We call them Handys in Germany)

I think what you said is probably what they mean by handy capable but it an be insulting to people who can't overcome their disability.

I personally hate the terms handicapped and handi-capable and I'm not exactly sure why

I use a wheelchair and just refer to myself as "having a disability". For some reason every time I hear someone referred to as "handi-capable" I just wanna smack myself in the head!

Sorry, it was just a term I heard. I brought it up as a thing to work towards/have hope in - life may be difficult, but if you can master the difficulty, you'll be better than others who did not have a difficulty.

But people tend to assume having a disability is way worse than it is, and congratulate disabled people for tiny accomplishments ('oh, wow! you opened your own beer!').

No need to be sorry. I was just stating my opinion on that phrase.



Exactly! The big one that drives me nuts is doors! People seem to think that opening and going through doors is a huge challenge for me. They rush in front of me to open the door for the poor dude in a wheelchair. It drives me insane! It's no harder for me to open the door and go through than it is for them. And it's worse when they ask if I need help and I say no and they apparently go temporarily deaf and "help" anyway. more often than not, they just get in the way!

Sorry for the rant.