Outspoken Aspergian: Is it possible?

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A few hours ago, I had an argument with my mother. She was complaining that I'm now very outspoken as opposed to my younger, quieter self, which is really bad considering my lack of self-censorship (can't think of a better word).

Anyway, she made me think. Being too outspoken is precisely my problem. It's what makes people think I'm too weird. Supposedly, Aspergians really are prone to saying what's in their minds, but they (we?) shouldn't be as outspoken as I am. I am the kind of guy who will interrupt a teacher during class to make a weird remark about something loosely related to what he is saying. In fact, I'm frequently derailing topics.

Add to that the fact that, when I read other members' posts on this forum, I feel I'm no less stranger to them than I am to neurotypicals and you have a good reason for me to suspect my self-diagnosis. The only thing I'm truly 100% certain is that I have ADHD with a lot of AS symptoms.

Well, at least I'm not as clueless as I was one year ago, when I knew there was something wrong about me, but couldn't understand what it was.

Ask her to call you the 'vociferous malcontent', like Bill Hicks was


I'm a very outspoken aspie too. You are probably coming into your power, be wary, some people can become unwise, ungrounded and intoxicated from aspie highs, like Bill would tend to do

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZub-7ulikc[/youtube]

Last edited by Surfman on 07 Sep 2011, 2:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Of course it's possible. I'm one of 'em.

The idea that Aspies are naturally socially withdrawn, quiet, anxious, etc. is probably only the result of the common social anxiety disorder many people with AS also have. The anxious social withdrawal is probably not a component of the Asperger's at all. Of course, many of us are introverts; but remove the social anxiety, and an introvert is just as comfortable interacting as an extrovert--he simply prefers to be alone, and his social withdrawal is a preference and a way to relax, rather than avoidance of something that is frightening to him.

In light social banter I am quiet and withdrawn, mainly because I don't care, but when the topic turns to weightier issues I'm likely to speak up. Even though I hate calling attention to myself that way, it's a lesser evil than letting my views, which are often quite radical, go unheard. If I don't promote them, who will?

Bill Hicks. My Hero.

I think that's fairly normal. I'm a wallflower if its just a matter of casual socializing, but bring up something on which I actually have opinions and/or factual knowledge and you'll be wishing you knew how to turn me off, because I will not shut up until I'm done sharing and I am prone to bitter cynicism and biting sarcasm.

I'm the opposite from outspoken. I don't verbalize whatever's in my mind - unless I'm positive that it's an appropriate thing to say.

Aspergians who just don't know when to shut up and make tons of social mistakes. It's possible.

I'm living proof.

For wahet I know, this is typical Asperger.

I resemble this remark! I also often find myself in hot water because someone doesn't like what I've said.

See, I know when to shut up. I just don't. The way I see it, if someone is worth being around, I shouldn't have to shut myself up arbitrarily. I've been accepted by my peers for a while, but the minute I start talking again, I'm no longer accepted. It's as if the less you say, the more you are accepted. Silencing myself to please a bunch of sycophants isn't exactly my idea of practicing social skills. This is the real reason social skills are going out the window. It's not just people with Asperger's, it's NTs who are told they can't speak for whatever reason or excuse; maybe they don't have enough wisdom or age or experience, maybe they are speaking "out of turn" (who's turn is it anyway?) maybe they should speak when spoken to (how would anything get said) but the real reason for all of this, and I hate to be cynical, is that people are afraid that someone out there is smarter than they are. We have turned into a nation of individuals. The United States of Me. So anyone that doesn't play by your rules is wrong, and their punishment is to deprive them of the one thing they need more than anything in the universe: You. If they have the NERVE! to not want to be in your presence, no worries, that person is an illegal immigrant, so people like that don't count as citizens of your great nation. Even on sites like Facebook you can choose who your friends are and who your friends are not. The illusion of power is intoxicating. This is why texting is more popular than phone calls now, because you can choose when YOU want to respond to this person.

Now, it's always been like this. Mark Twain once remarked that there is nothing so rare in American life as a man exercising his right to freedom of speech, for fear of losing his social standing. Today, the degree of that is amped up. That's what many supposedly "new" trends are, older trends with an increased voracity.

There’s a beautiful logic to some of that; for instance, ascribing individual differences to the introvert/extrovert dichotomy - since everyone must be either one or the other - while introducing a separate element (social anxiety disorder) to account for the withdrawn reputation of Aspies. However, within your brief reply, you give no evidence for why you believe that social anxiety disorder as opposed to introversion is the cause of that reputation. Plus, the phrase “socially withdrawn, quiet, [and] anxious” could equally well apply to an introvert as to someone with social anxiety disorder, at least given the colloquial definition of the term ‘introvert.’ If it’s the reputation we are concerned with, and not the inner life of the commonplace Aspie, it would seem that either would do equally well given this information.

Introversion isn't a matter of anxiety, so I do not understand why Callista should have to demonstrate that introversion is not social anxiety. Perhaps you could elaborate on that.

I am extremely introverted and I can also be extremely outspoken face to face. I am not socially anxious, but I am often mistaken for such because I prefer to spend as much time as possible away from other people.

Any discussion of autistic people that fails to take the autistic person's inner life into account is just the standard research and discussion that denies subjectivity to any and all autistic people, and effectively casts us as objects to be studied and explained.

Okay, so I'll have to be more precise. I am talking about "introvert" in terms of the personality trait referred to in psychology. Psychological introversion refers to a personality trait that does not have to do with shyness or anxiety. It has to do entirely with preferring to spend more time alone than with other people, being less socially active. It is a preference and a matter of personality.

When I am referring to "social anxiety", I am talking about shyness, fear, hesitance--the traits of what would be called social anxiety disorder, social phobia, or avoidant personality disorder. These are not associated with introverts. Extroverts can suffer from them too (and here I do mean "suffer", because they are the people who most want to spend time with others). They are two different things and have to be separated.

An introverted autistic person who does not have social phobia acts differently from an autistic person who has social phobia. An introvert is the sort of person who prefers to spend time alone, but is not afraid to talk to others. He will be confident in social situations (or as confident as the average person, anyway), and will leave them and withdraw not because he is afraid or embarrassed, but because he is tired or has simply had enough. He will prefer to socialize with a few close friends, and will feel comfortable with them; or he may spend time with very few people and prefer the company of on-line friends or animals. He dislikes large crowds mostly because they are too intense and active, and he prefers to connect with one or two people at a time; in a large crowd, the one-on-one time that an introvert prefers is unavailable. He does not have too much trouble dismissing worries about what other people think of him or whether he has made a social mistake; while he cares about what others think, it does not preoccupy him.

Someone who has social anxiety will withdraw from all social situations, small or large groups; he will worry about others' opinion of him and get mentally "stuck" on whether he has done or said the right thing. He is afraid of rejection and may base his self-worth on whether or not others accept him. He may be unable to engage in social high-pressure situations like public speaking, dating, or leadership. He generally has a poor self-image and criticises himself a lot, and is likely to be exposed to bullying because the sort of person who becomes a bully can read tension in his body language and sees that as a vulnerability to be exploited. He is very sensitive to and afraid of rejection and criticism. He may rely on alcohol or tranquilizers to relax in social situations. In extreme cases, social situations may provoke panic attacks.

Do you see the difference? They are two different things and they exist on their own. An introvert who does not have social anxiety is actually pretty unlikely to be thought of as "shy" or "withdrawn" because, in social situations, he is as confident--though not as active--as an extrovert. At a party, the introvert will have found a quiet place and be engaged in an active discussion with one person with whom he shares interests, mostly ignoring the rest of the party. The socially anxious person will be trying to fit in, watching everyone else to see whether he's being watched, trying to figure out who to talk to and scared that he'll say the wrong thing if he does.

I think it's the social anxiety--not the introversion--that's what people read as socially withdrawn, shy, anxious. Introversion, without social anxiety, simply doesn't look "socially withdrawn, shy, anxious". It looks more like "prefers solitary activities, small groups, and a few close friendships".

It's very possible to be an outspoken Aspergian, it's one of the Aspie stereotypes, I believe.

I'm also a very outspoken aspie.

SECTION I

First of all, I never said Callista should demonstrate that “introversion is not social anxiety.” I wrote that she gave no evidence for why she believes that social anxiety disorder as opposed to introversion is the cause of the reputation Aspies have for being “socially withdrawn, quiet, anxious, etc.” Your statement is, ipso facto, irrelevant.

Secondly, you ignored my statement that I was referring to the colloquial definition of introversion. Most people associate introversion with anxiety (that fact is obvious, otherwise you wouldn’t have needed to assert that wanting to be alone isn’t necessarily anxiety; it would have been a given).

Thirdly, you latched on to the fact that she ambiguously may imply that social anxiety is the better explanation because she lists “anxious” as one of the traits associated with Asperger’s Syndrome. However, that is in and of itself mere word association. And a graver problem arises when we test that assertion’s appropriateness, and I will elucidate that here:

A) If one wanted to describe the social stigma associated with Asperger’s Syndrome, one could easily leave out the concept of social anxiety. E.g., the best known caricature of an Aspie in the US is Sheldon Cooper of the show The Big Bang Theory, and he does not display a high degree of social anxiety. B) Callista also lists the qualities of social withdrawal and quietness as being associated with Asperger’s. However, these qualities themselves are inconsistent with your own definition of social anxiety, which bear in mind has been differentiated from introversion in this context. In fact, people with social anxiety can presumably be loud and socially active -- as opposed to quiet and socially withdrawn -- if we care to distinguish social anxiety and introversion in the way that you have done. Hence, your assertion that that was what Callista was implying has, through reductio ad absurdum, only one logical conclusion: that Callista wrote something illogical, and since you yourself contradicted that viewpoint your objection is invalid.

I will conclude by noting that while this objection was invalid, that does not necessarily mean that Callista could not elucidate her point. I would not like to see the beautiful logic I referred to get lost.

SECTION II

In your section about an autistic person’s inner life, you seem to have not understood that I was referring to Callista’s post. Her post in and of itself is trying to connect society’s notion of the Aspergian with social anxiety as opposed to introversion. Since we are dealing with such broad concepts, her presumed exclusion of the inner life of an Aspie is highly appropriate. I will note, however, that I’ve never understood why people wouldn’t want to be studied and explained like objects.