Having little in common with other Aspies and autistics

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Does anyone else besides me feel that they have little in common with other Aspies and autistics besides the diagnosis itself? Because I feel this way all the time, believe it or not. Am I the only one on the spectrum who feels this way, or are there others like me in the same boat?

I'm a formally diagnosed aspie and definitely hardwired autistic, but far from 'autistic-like'.


I can relate to most autistics on how their body works, how their mind works, how they sense things differently, on how much of a nuisance 'norms' are, how they grow up to be, etc... The 'otherness', being the 'alien', standing out too much, being too unnoticeable, being too ahead, being too left behind...
From executive dysfunctions to sensory disintegration.
Just anything fundamental and everyday dealings, really.



Anything else? Most of the likes, dislikes, etc... Not really.
If the stereotype goes, I'm far from that geeky or nerdy image that aspies have. I'm not the most rational or logical person I know. I'm far from that verbally adept profile that most aspies share.
Anything to do interacting with common clumsiness that autistics have? I don't have that.
Even the female autistic archetype -- masking since youth, the want to socialize and have relationships, etc... I don't do or have them.

Then most of all -- when most aspies suffers from and deals with anxiety, the comorbidities they deal with, and many issues are stemmed from that... I don't.

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I think that most autistics don't have much in common with other autistics.

Most of us have special interests, but they are so narrow and varied that we won't have the same interest as another.

Same with our strengths and weaknesses. A few of us are good at math but a lot aren't, and so on.

We even differ in our abilities to socialize, from a total recluse with no friends to having friends and being in a relationship.

ASD affects each individual differently.

The Autism Spectrum would be better thought of as many small spectrums rather than one big spectrum - there are many different autistic traits, and the degree to which each traits affects each person is different. It's even possible that there might be some autistic traits that a certain individual with ASD doesn't have at all.

Here's a good comic about it:
http://the-art-of-autism.com/understand ... planation/

I would say that I am not as adept with technology as many others with ASDs tend to be. I'm not a technophobe by any means, but I learn technological subjects very slowly. I seem to learn it and then forget it because I don't do it often enough to get real practice.

ASDers very often share my aversion to big, noisy, crowded, follow-my-leader mainstream antics. We tend not to be embarrassed to buck convention. There's also the shared interest in pondering what autism is and how it impacts on us, how to develop coping strategies etc. There's the natural camaraderie that comes from our all having the same label and the common "enemy" of the majority of the population who misjudge us and ignore our struggle.

But our interests are often very narrowly-defined and we may have very little interest in each other's preferred activities. it might take a lot of effort to find a movie that we all want to watch together. And obviously people who are mind-blind and socially clumsy are likely to annoy each other.

The NTs are all tuned in to the same FM radio station. They may not all like the song that's currently playing, but they're all tuned in to the same frequency, in crystal-clear stereo.

Aspies are on the AM band, and we're each on our own separate stations. We're as tuned out from each other as we are from them. But all of our unique stations are equally staticky, disjointed, fading in and out. We're as apart from one another on these separate stations as we are from NTs, but none of us are tuning in to life in crystal-clear FM. I'm not on your frequency, you're not on mine, but we're both on sub-par frequencies; that we have in common. We all know what it's like to be stuck on the AM band. We have no idea what it's like to listen to life in stereo like the majority of people. We all know what we don't know we're missing.

It's my analogy, weak, but it makes sense to me. Can you tune in?

Yeah. But still more in common than with NTs.
When I meet 'aspergirls' as we're patronisingly (if over 17) called, I have more in common than with male aspies. I do think it's a different thing.
And we tend to have the same aversions.
My stepdad is probably aspie but he can't remember that I have light sensitivity and you're meant to not have too much bright light around someone with light sensitivity... Me and my (NT) mum both have light sensitivity cos she gets migraines too.

A lot of autistics have interests in video games and anime, most of which I'm not familiar with. Most of my interests are less specific, so it's hard to talk about them with others.

When I search shbforums here like the television one, it seems that a lot of Aspies talk more about superhero movies or movies like Star Wars, which I have no interest in at all. There's very little discussion about the things I like, which is mostly British comedy stuff.

Joe90,

I'm the same in that I have no interest in the superhero/Star Wars genres and in that I have an interest very few others here share: tennis.

When I first joined here, I expected to find more people with intense special interests, obsessions or whatever the term is.

It depends... I tend to get on well and have understanding with more introverted and sensitive Autistics/Aspies. I find the very loud and extroverted ones who don't always understand boundaries and space very difficult to deal with.