"What is it like to have Aspergers?"

Post Reply New Topic

Anyone else ever been asked this too?

I have been asked this a lot in my late teens and I always found it difficult to answer because I didn't know how to describe what it's like having it because I'm me. It'll be like me asking you "What is it like to be you?" So I always answered "I don't know."
Then I started to ask them back "What is it like not having it?" and they would find it difficult to answer it and they would see my point in why it's hard for me to answer.


Has that question always been difficult for you to answer too?


I had to think of how to answer it so I started telling them you get bullied and picked on by other kids, you get treated differently by your school and I tell them how I was treated differently and kids don't want you around, your friends won't let you in their house, they never want to play with you and only time they do is when they come to your house to play. People get mad for no reason, people don't make any sense, you can't tell when someone is being sarcastic, when someone is teasing, joking, kidding. You don't like changes or surprises, you have obsessions, you can absorb facts easily and remember people's birthdays. I tell them about my perspective in the world assuming that's what's it like to have AS.

I have never been asked this question. I'm not even sure how I would even answer it.

Right, a bit difficult to describe...like being asked, "What's it like being colorblind?"

What first comes to mind... I'd say it's rather like what Tom Hanks character goes through in the movie Cast Away. To be stuck on a deserted island for years & years only to suddenly be thrust back into society. You remember enough of what it's like to survive, but you don't quite fit.

I have been asked this a few times, and just say it means I have problems socially.
Someone at work did a course on Autism, they put a blindfold on her and earmuffs on her, and told her that is what it feels like to have Autism.
I would have said that is what it feels like to be blind and have partial hearing, not having Autism.

It's like being a bird. Different but no better or worse.

That is such a stupid question those people who ask you must be really thick people like that really do annoy me the truth is you don't feel a thing I would say I'm just like any other human being.

OK - here is a (true) story about how it feels for me (although I am not officially diagnosed I am pretty sure I have AS!):

"I am at a meeting of my professional association. I know a few people but not very well. I arrived just as the meeting proper was starting in order to avoid the half-an-hour's "Coffee" beforehand, i.e. standing around and chatting.

It is now lunchtime and I have stood in the queue & got my food. I have it piled on my plate & a glass of orange juice in my hand & feel really clumsy & awkward. I want to put the glass down but there isn't anywhere. I look around and it seems like every single person but me is talking to someone, usually in groups of about 3 or 4.

I just want to go somewhere private to sit down & eat, but that would look odd. So I desperately look for someone I know. I see two of them talking together so I go over, but they either don't see me or ignore me, so I just stand there looking over their shoulders. Eventually one of them moves off so I start talking to the other person. They talk to me at first but all the while their eyes are scanning the room.

Then a more important senior person comes over and the person I am talking to says "excuse me" in the middle of the conversation and turns away to talk to them, excluding me & leaving me just standing there on my own.

I am very very self-conscious & aware that my posture is all wrong, but not what to do about it.

So I go and stand by the buffet table, where at least I can put my glass down, and just stand there & eat, so it at least looks like I am doing something.

I am relieved when the afternoon session starts."

OK - so then NT's, how would this story play different for you? How would you be able to start/join in conversations, get & keep people's attention, and do the whole "networking" thing (which is clearly what this situation is, but I am just useless at it!)

What "cues" am I missing out on here, both giving & receiving? I know there must be some, but what?

On another autie forum I post on, there is an ongoing discussion about the topic "where would you have been now if you didn't have autism". I always answer that I don't know, since I can't tell what it is tha tmakes me autistic, so how can I tell what it would be like not to be autistic? Like, I'm me and I know that I have the label of autism and this explains some of my characteristics, but I can't separate it from who I am.

Hmmm... I can't recall anyone ever bothering to ask...

I would tell them it's fantastic.