"If you've met one person with Asperger's..."

Post Reply New Topic

"If you've met one person with Asperger's, you've met them all." I encountered this quote for the first time recently in an article, and was horrified by the many comments agreeing with this. Personally I have never felt like I met the general mold of an aspie. I am adventurous and am an avid solo-traveller. I thrive on change and spontaneity. I am super creative, enjoy socializing (with people much older or younger than me,) I am definitely capable of genuine apologies (depends on the circumstances,) my ability to make eye contact is just fine, I suck so bad at math and science...I could go on and on. I'm just frustrated that apparently it's an accepted idea that people with Asperger's are all alike??? I mean I've met people with Asperger's before who were around my age and thought "wow, I am *nothing* like them!" Do you think it's damaging to lump aspies together? Why does this idea even exist?

It's as damaging as any attempt to use statistics about a category to predict things about a particular person. It stings like any stereotype. However, people like generalizations and heuristics and use them a lot, even neurodiverse people.

I hope you can see it as just another manifestation of a common social problem, and not fall into the mental trap of thinking that the world is out to get us.

BookwormSophie, First of all your avatar is so incredibly cute I can't stop smiling.

Yeah, it is very destructive to try to lump all of anything into one category or stereotype. And as an Aspie, I find it particularly disturbing that anyone would write that statement. But Autism is such a Spectrum disorder that it is impossible for two people to present exactly alike. That just can't happen. And there has even been recent brain imaging that shows that the brains of Autistic males have different parts affecting them than the brains of Autistic females. I was watching a webinar/lecture about that the a couple of months ago. If I can find it again, I will post the link. But yeah, that is an absolutely unfair and false statement and it is cruel and extremely destructive.

So just a question to ponder and possibly gain some insight.

If you drove a Honda Civic are other people's cars not cars if they aren't a Honda Civic? If the answer is no, maybe it should be a starting point as to figuring out what makes a car a car and then applying that concept to autism and figuring out if they have a point.

Just a thought.

Why this idea exists? Well...

Stereotyping or assumptions.
People are just shallow or close minded or far too absorbed with their own perspective.
Or some people are just too lazy (or dumb) but more so like the later, to make these things easier.
Or, perhaps certain people do not accept that there's another reality besides their own or theirs'.


I'm FAR alike from many aspies. Especially and more so at this present.
Not just personality and preference wise (in which everyone IS in any case), I also don't meet most aspie's 'patterns of input and output' (I don't share most aspie's problems and priorities of social/emotional/cultural/psychiatic/physical-health and motor/sensory problems) except the basics of social patterns, cognition and perception profiles.

Gained Number Post Count (1).
Lose Time (n).

Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.

Where is the article? I would like to read it to see how they try to prove it.

The real quote is “When you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism”. Anything else is a lie, a provocation or a missunderstanding.

And as for people agreeing to it - some people will just agree to anything they read, especially if the argumentation sounds valid. Because they don't have any opinion and are too lazy to look for more info themselves therefore just "eat" what they get.

I am not a textbook example of an Aspie at all. I don't have narrow interests, I like being around people, I can express emotions and recognise emotions in others, I am very verbal when distressed or overwhelmed... I could go on forever.

But that still does not mean I don't have ASD. There are certain loud noises that upset me (such as dogs barking loud and screaming/crying toddlers), I get really anxious if I am not out of work on time (because I like to get home and wind down as soon as my contracted shift is supposed to end and not a minute later), I don't have many friends (only a few, most are neurodiverse), I struggle at doing things my peers are doing, due to anxiety (such as driving a car or finding a 'higher up' job than the one I'm in now), I often enjoy watching little kid shows on my laptop whilst eating dinner, I am basically best friends with my old teddy bear.... I could go on forever there too.

That's a very stupid stereotype. If you've met one aspie, you've met one aspie. I like being around people, I'm able to work and I do have an imagination as well. I'm also able to be flexible with my schedule until it's 10 PM on a weeknight and than I must watch Hogan's Heroes on Me TV before bed. I also love babies and children and I think they're cute. However, bright lights and sunlight bothers my eyes. I also use my German helmet that I payed $100 for as a weighted hat as a substitute for a weighted vest that would probably cost $500.

I've never come across that quote in any ASD-related articles I've stumbled upon. I have, however, come across a similar quote that goes as follows: "Once you've met an Aspie, you've only met one Aspie."

I'm not going to write you off in case you actually did see that quote somewhere, but generally, the consensus is that AS manifests in many different ways. Some Aspies have more traits of the condition than other Aspies. Hence the idea that "once you've met an Aspie, you've met an Aspie, not all".

Seems the individual has never come to this site to see the diversity of personalities. Unfortunately like with most ideologies they rarely go to the source but instead use ideological statistics based on the observations of NT doctors/psychologists etc... It is akin to writing a book and the individual making a prognosis on what they read of the cover rather than listening to the words that are written past the cover..
Even here you rarely see or hear specialists trying to get insight. Every now and again one may pop their heads in and start a dialogue. But with millions of so called specialists around the world one would logically think they would often come here or other main sources to seek real understanding rather than some interpretation from an NT that was passed by vote but nooooo....

That saying probably comes from the fact that all aspies look alike.