does aspergers truly exist?

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Or is it just another way for society to classify groups of people who either dont/cant follow social standards. Who think more logically than the average person. and people with "aspergers" have some of the most innovative/genius history over anybody else. But yet its a "disability". I wonder if everyone just wants us to not live up to our full potenial by classifying it as a disability, you'll just make everyone feel dumb. Aren't you people offended at all by the term aspergers? when most of us are totally able to work and function in society socially atleast enough to get by. Sure aspies aren't good with social interaction, but who cares? people suck. Have you seen people and the way they are these days? people are terrible. I'd rather fit in just enough to have a good work environment and as long im getting paid i could care less about what people think of me. everyone else shouldn't either. Sorry i just rant a little bit about it.

Yes! I have it!

That's a good way of looking at it if you're mild but for people who are severe on the spectrum or have severe Asperger's or moderate, society has nothing to do with it because of how much it affects them.

I often think when people look at it this way, we are blaming our problems on society. Anyone out there who claims their autism isn't a disability either has it so mildly where they aren't afflicted by it and they can adapt or they are just in denial of their problems so they blame it on others. That will be like me claiming I don't have a learning disability, I just have a different learning style and if schools will cater to my style, I wouldn't have a learning disability. Or me claiming my anxiety isn't a disability, society just isn't made for my type so they make it an anxiety disorder. Or I didn't have OCD as a kid, my family just didn't want to keep the house clean and pick up after themselves because they were too lazy so they made it be OCD. I think this would be another way of being in denial of your issues. Sometimes it's just easier to blame your problems on others instead of trying to adapt and change or get help.

I think what you are describing stems from human tendency to look at anything "abnormal" as a disease. I mean, I took abnormal psychology in college. What did we talk about? Basically every variety of mental disorder listed in the DSM. In other words, even in the mainstream accepted, peer-reviewed world, different almost always means bad in people's minds. Humans are disease-centric.

My personal hypothesis is that "aspergers" people can play not just an important, but an adaptive role in social groups (i.e. society functions better with us in it). As adaptive as it is for an individual to be highly socially-oriented, and as mal-adaptive as it is to be an individual with less social prowess, it is important on the level of a society to not have everyone drinking the same social and mental punch, so to speak. Without social skeptics, phenomena such as mass hysteria and cults are more likely. I personally don't mind being more socially immune to these things by virtue of not being as social, but I am high-functioning. I am glad to tell NT's tactlessly when I think they are acting like cows walking into a slaughter house.


A valid point.

I used to think that way when i was first diagnosed until i realized im NOT a genius, the best thing i can do is draw sonic, i cant handle tasks given to me, i have panic attacks for the most simple things and my dad now comes over everday to make meals for me because i got to the point when i wasn't eating anymore and started getting sick...

I have to admit im disabled, and life is going to be harder for me now that im an adult...

I wish i was like Temple Grandin... but im not..

i wish i was dead.

Despite the belief by seemingly 90 percent of people and too many Aspies bieng an Aspie does not automatically mean bieng a genius or bieng a superior person. Aspergers is considered a form of "high functioning" autism. High functioning autism refers to average to highly intelligence/ IQ over 70 autistic people. Let me repeat that, people of average intellegence can be Aspies despite what everybody seems to think. "high functioning" autism and aspergers form of it differ only in "clinically significant general delay in language (e.g., single words used by age 2 years, communicative phrases used by age 3 years)"

Many people say mild Autistics are not really Autistic, and this is a problem. Some Autistics compound the problem by ignoring the reality of us Aspies with average intelligence. Yet again we don't exist it seems.

As far as history I think Aspies played a role. But nobody can say definitively because one can only guess that a certain historical figure was an Aspie. We can not generally tell if a person in the 1800's had sensory sensitivities or executive functioning difficulties and certainly can not tell if a person from way back when had most of the Aspergers criteria in early childhood. Aspergers has many common traits with other conditions making it difficult to diagnose with all the information at hand. So making a blanket statement that somebody like Einstien was an Aspie is just sloppy thinking designed to make one feel good about oneself. Feeling good about oneself is good, but since most of us are not Einstein or Gates using them to feel good can have the opposite effect. It is fun to speculate if historical figures were Aspies but it should just that not delusions.

The OP is correct in that a lot our problems are the result of non acceptence. This is not some nefarious conspiracy to keep us down. When you are 98 percent of the population you can afford to be ignorant of and ignore the other 2 percent. We like black and white thinking but the idea that everything would be great if just the NT's let us be is just as wrong as the idea that Aspergers is only a disability. As with all humans we are a mix of strengths and impairments, the difference bieng our differences and impairments are not typical.

Yes, it exists. Whether or not it becomes a disability depends on the person. I have a high IQ but have had difficulty functioning in day to day life for nearly as long as I can remember.

Sensory issues, anxiety, difficulty socializing, problems with executive functioning, obsessions, and insomnia really make functioning difficult. Having superior intelligence or being talented doesn't just cancel those things out.

I'm going to speculate based on your age you were diagnosed ie labeled Aspergers as a kid and resent the label being forced on you so to speak. I'm sure it's difficult for you having a non debilitating form of something usually viewed as severely debilitating (which it is in my case). I imagine for you it carries a lot of unnecessary stigma.

As a side note having been in schools for ASD kids my whole life, not all that many aspies are geniuses.

Society is nothing to me. People all around lie to much. Working world should be able to get a chance to look at how much we have on this planet.

Autism is a true condition. Asperger's is a type of autism, usually with mild symptoms.

Does any "thing" exist? It's all labels for things that take a certain form that we can recognize in comparison to something else. Yet no two "things" are identical if you look at them closely enough. From the perspective of early 21st century society I definitely have Aspergers/HFA but I lived through my 20th century years undiagnosed, I was labelled with something else.

Words are pretty useless but it's the way we communicate right now so "Aspergers/HFA" will have to do. I'm happy to go along with it as things stand but, for a crazy example, if thousands of HFA's suddenly organised themselves into a terrorist organisation that committed terrible atrocities, I would very much want to distance myself from it, I would then claim to have been misdiagnosed because of an unfortunate set of circumstances and events that resulted in me not being able to trust people, not being fun to be around and becoming a loner, but I'm not one of 'them'.

So basically yes, I say that it does exist because I can use it to broadly explain who I am and what my problems are in one sentence rather than having to try an explain my whole life story. I wouldn't want to have to explain what 'tired' or 'sleep' means every time I needed to rest.