Oddities and odd theories

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First of all, I THOUGHT I mentioned this before, but I was reminded of this odd characteristic I have!

Tony Attwood speaks about it in his book "Asperger's Syndrome A guide for parents and professionals" on page 62-63. He says mild distress, and I say major stress, but the idea is the same. The odd characteristic? I feel like laughing! He says giggling. There have actually been times when I have been hurt, angry, and yelled at, and fought to hold laughter back! BTW internally it is more of a detached laughter at myself. It isn't that I am happy with the situation.

One other thing he speaks about is an inability to use learned procedures to handle new problems. To be quite frank, I used to easily remember words and could easily pick variants and convert to/from. SO, for example, if I learned that 2.54*xcm=1", then I could determine that 1"/2.54=1cm. That is an over simplification and not a good example, but now it seems like I now almost sometimes have to learn both.

It spoke of how the average AS person will do FANTASTIC in earlier grades, and worse later on. The reasoning it gave was because early grades were rote, and later were "cognition". Well, I NEVER did homework in the earlier grades. They even spoke of holding me back, but didn't because my tests were so good. One reason I think I did well is that I don't think I learned anything in school prior to the 3rd grade, and much is even doubtful after that.

Anyway, it is odd because I wasn't really bad in later grades, did a relatively small amount of work and, frankly, didn't view very many as being any smarter. Still, it IS interesting. I know my mindset about my grades. I went from a lazy perfectionist that could easily excel with no work to a lazy person happy to do little better than average that could have worked a little harder but excelled in areas just not generally used at school. My ability to do better was demonstrated in spades when I made the honer role in highschool, and do well in a number of college classes, on basically a dare.

My school record followed that pattern TA mentioned, but I have learned so much on applying learned information, and even have a job where I seem to be THE one to excel. It is also an industry TA says AS people may do well in. So I was wondering how many here showed that pattern, and what THEY thought of TAs theories. TA ALSO claimed that Aspies and, indeed, even industries like the computer industry, learn/use some words just to SOUND smart. The fact is that the computer industry used the terms because they were efficient.

The following are some examples, but I continue! Sorry.

Instead of RAM, you COULD say solid state randomly accessible writable memory.
Instead of PROM, you COULD say fixed solid state preProgrammed Read Only Memory.
Instead of EPROM,you COULD say fixed solid state ultraviolet Erasable preProgrammed Read Only Memory.
Instead of EEPROM,you COULD say fixed solid state Electrically Erasable preProgrammed Read Only Memory.
Instead of CORE, you COULD say ferrite core based magnetically controlled randomly accessible writable memory.

BTW all of the above are memory, but often not interchangable.

Instead of BIOS,you COULD say custom system specific preprogrammed Basic Input Output System.
You could even call a hard disk drive a fixed high speed block addressable hard disk.
Or USB could be a Universal high speed Serial Bus, which shouldn't be confused with an RS232 Serial bus which shouldn't be confused with an RS232 Null Modem Serial bus.
Instead of Dynamic, you could simply say it requires refreshing.

And people rarely talk about wait states, latency, settle time, cycle time, etc... but they are still important.



HELL, I wrote a term paper in highschool on C.O.S.M.O.S.! Complementary Symettry Metal Oxide Semiconductors! WHY? Because it was a complicated well documented subject I had TONS of information about, and wanted to study. It WAS an interest after all. Nobody else cared if I knew about it and I didn't care what they thought.

Heck, I was happy when my doctor said I had no stenosis in my carotid arteries. How hard would that have been to describe in simpler terms?

Anyway, I just wanted to know how many of you just thought you were parroting, etc... How many have the unusual laughter when stressed.

BTW ONE person in TAs book even spoke how AS seemed to make him a pacifist! SAME HERE! I have been trying to get kids to believe that since I was 7 or younger. If they TRULY believed, they might respect you. If they don't, they figure you are a weak coward. Well, they didn't respect me for that.

Last edited by 2ukenkerl on 23 Oct 2007, 5:58 am, edited 1 time in total.

This is why I adore you, 2ukenkerl. I had a mini (sublte) show-down with the lab safety officer because she printed in the student's lab manual (I teach the chemistry lab session) that significant figures are a measure of accuracy. WRONG. Significant figures (sig fig) indicate precision, not accuracy. Well duh.

2ukenkerl, we are precise for certain, and usually accurate (at leat I try at this). This is NTs can fall down hard! Ie: lack of precision. Now that's mildly distressing. BTW, I have a crush on Dr. Tony Attwood. I'm his favorite Aspie

I may have my fantasies too.

Much of your experience is echoed here.

I taught myself how to read at age 2, was for some strange reason reading and memorizing anatomy/physiology books a few years after that, and was considered a complete prodigy up until my first class. There I ran into something I couldn't memorize, and struggled off and on. Sometimes I would be a complete math dunce, other times I would get things and be promoted to honors math, and by college I basically learned that I can consistently get A's in it if I just study. But that's something I'm still not good at, because I never took a single book home from grade school as they were already memorized in the speed-reading I did in class.

I do have some of the moments he mentions though, but I'm afraid I can't single out any example off the top of my head. Sometimes I understand subjects thoroughly, sometimes it is obivious that I'm just parroting my rote memory. That's why I've been trying to ask myself at the end of every read: what was the main point, and these moments become fewer and far between.

That's about the only step in the right direction I've made though. I've been battling debilitating exhaustion for at least two years, and the faculties I once enjoyed have deteriorated since.

THANKS, I like you also. If I ever did go to your area, you are one I would like to meet. Just to chat, if possible(I don't know how often or far you take being mute. ). I think we could hit it off, as friends, because I LIKE my personal space, and we may just have some things in common!

Anyway, I seemed to rant a little too much there, so I cleared it up a bit. I can't STAND people that think speaking up and/or providing detail is trying to show off. I HATE it when people throw me TONS of complicated work, and expect me to have it done in minutes or seconds, just because they think I am the smartest person on the planet with regard to some talent. But I ALSO hate being under someone that has a job only because I do his work for him. Other than that, and related attitudes in daily life, I really don't care that much if people think I am really intelligent. I'm happy with what I know about my intelligence. Every persuit I take is for myself. I'm not going to try to remember PI to 2000 places, or go to some game show, etc.... If I had an eidetic memory, and found it easy, I might. That would be just to test myself, etc... but not to flaunt it in front of the general public.

TAs book caused me to think about reassessing some things in my life. Luckily, because of my job, examples in the book, and achievments, I know he is off base somewhat. I just want to see how far off he is in general with AS.

LabRat, these little things can make the difference between say, the space shuttle making it into orbit and ending up in the atlantic ocean...As for that bit in TA's book, pissed me right off too... But haven't seen much of it going on on WP, and anyway I think this is a typical NT behavoir...

For the record, her handle is labPET! There IS a slightly different connotation.

ANOTHER is that TA says speaking about interests is rehearsed and scripted. With ME, it NEVER was! I said things that fit, even if people thought they didn't, etc... It changed based on the circumstance. Oddly, I DID have an URGE to continue, it was LENGTHY and detailed, and I DID often speak even when THEY were, so it was typical AS behaviour as described.

The last time I did it was a couple days ago(I have cut down, and am often alone), and I probably spoke for a few minutes. The guy was SHOCKED when I came right back on subject and tied it all together. At my old job, I did it ALL THE TIME, and I would be asked a question later and say **I ALREADY TOLD YOU!** In my little monologue I answered all the questions, even ones NOT ASKED!

I HAVE heard some speak of stuff that is interesting trivia for an interested party, and little else, but at least 30% of what **I** say in that regard is worthwhile stuff people could build a business on.

I do this too sometimes. Sometimes when I'm being insulted or verbally attacked or something. And also sometimes when I see something bad happening like on TV or something. My mom's been disturbed sometimes when I've laughed at things inappropriately (like I laughed when i saw people jumping out of the twin towers on 9/11). But I wasn't laughing because I was ENJOYING it at all.
In my case I think it's because I'm laughing at the insanity of the situation or something.



I was like that, though I think for different reasons. I did well in early grades, okay later on, and did as little homework as I could get away with (in I think third grade I hid most of my homework behind a filing cabinet at school).

In my case though I *HATE* rote learning. I'm bored to tears by just memorizing stuff (hated spelling for that reason). I like knowing WHY something works, the process behind it, whatever it is. I like knowing the basics behind something, without caring if I remember every little detail (that I can look up)-at least that's for general stuff. For some of my interests I'm more into details too.



Yeah, I agree with that. For the most part, the computer industry uses words because they obviously NEED words to describe stuff-new and different things that haven't existed before. And precision matters. I mean if you go to buy RAM, you can't just go "I'd like to have some 'o those remembering sticks!" you've got to know precisely what you need, because your computer doesn't care if it's too hard to remember or not

(I guess computers are one area where it bugs me if people don't use the correct terms at least in a broad sense. I worked at a helpdesk, and was annoyed when some coworkers used some cutesy terms for things-it's like why not just have them learn the real term, versus learning some make believe cutsey term?)



I do the unusual/inappropriate laughter thing sometimes when stressed. But I don't think I parrot stuff or ever have that I can remember. I tried to know what I was talking about...I think...well...hmm, I'm not 100% sure when I was younger I may have kind of parroted some stuff. Not really sure.

I thought others might find this amusing.


Some years ago a guy jumped on me in a park with the intent of committing rape! However, I started laughing out loud and it so unnerved him that he left -- mission unaccomplished.

That's awesome! I mean terrible, but we have super powers! We're too weird even for horrible evil rapists! (Sorry if this seems insensitive, I probably shouldn't post it.)

NO, That IS funny! We can ALL appreciate that! One day I was tired, upset, etc... Some jerk threatened me BIG TIME! You know what REALLY bugged me? YEP! I was fighting to not even crack a smile when I felt like LAUGHING at how absurd everything was! I wonder what he would have done if I had. His FRIENDS were there ALSO!

Laughing when yelled at, when sad, or someone shares sorrow is called 'inappropriate affect' ... it is not unique to ASDs. By itself it is not always a big deal (although it can freak others out), but it is an indicator of the brain not working 100% right and is a symptom of several DSM categories.

WOW, Do I detect ANOTHER troll!?!? SO, if I give them what they want, THAT is normal! OTHERWISE, I have the problem!? WOW! Now you see, THAT warrants