Lucky Aspies

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do you ever meet any diagnosed Aspies who fit in and develop normally?


like there's a guy I play football with who seems like a completely normal 15 year old guy, albeit with speech impediments

he's not a party animal but he seems basically normal, whereas I feel a little unwelcome and occasionally get made fun of.


That being said if I were normal and made the varsity like all the other players my age, I'd probably get made a lot more fun of due to the jv guys being younger than me.



But anyways I've seen a lot of posts on here suggesting some very developmentally sound Aspies

You probably don't notice as much "wrong" with him as you do with yourself. He probably has things he worries about or feels he doesn't fit in at times, but because you're not him you don't notice it. But that said, everyone's affected differently and yes, there are some people who are more able to blend into NT people.

Ur at a time in ur life where being social and "popular" seems important. Trust me.....a couple years from now it won't matter. Once you get out of the hell they call school, everything changes. Being popular and fitting in doesn't matter as much. There are exceptions of those pathetic individuals ages 18-25 who still live in that high school mindframe. Be proud of who you are at this instant and do not dread being yourself. EVERYONE HAS ISSUES to deal with no matter how they portray themselves to the outside world. Getting caught up in all that social conformity means ur just part of a larger and idiotic mass.

You could just try forgetting about the kids at your school and try making friends within the metal community (since you're a metalhead). I NEVER had friends in high school. My first group of REAL friends were metalheads from my area that I met online, and the great part was that we were all kinda awkward so it wasn't like I was the "odd one out". We would all go to shows together, and my earliest memories of getting drunk and partying were with them. That's the great thing about metal, when you meet another metal fan its like you instantly have another brother or sister and doesn't matter at all what your "social status" is.

yeah i totally agree. ive met the people who became my first group of friends through black music and goth music. nothing better than this.

highschool suck for most of us. i have developped social skills with time but then again. i always feel kind of odd.

try to meet people like minded, it will help a lot!

I knew this one guy in highschool that I heard was diagnosed with asperger's. He did seem a little eccentric but I strongly felt like he did not have aspergers. He socialized very well and knew a lot of people. He was always the life of the party. He was a smooth talker to the ladies had a lot of lady friends. He always liked and disliked the same things that most NT people like. Sometimes I think some people get misdiagnosed, kind of like how many suckers these days claim they have ADHD.

Well, I didn't get my diagnosis until after high school and ignored it for about two years. Never had a diagnosis, so I never had a reason why I couldn't do something besides that I sucked at it.

In a lot of ways, I'm more functional than many "nerdy" people I know, and I'm naturally outgoing. For whatever reasons, my social anxiety is fairly low, just I have a tendency to be weird/awkward.

I'm lucky in that I look reasonably good and have a high vocabulary and people think I'm smart. The rest I had to learn through brute effort and trial by fire.

I think the awkwardness in some ways works for me, and others against. IE, almost everything I learned ice skating I learned just by asking random skaters questions. So I got a lot of "coaching" for free, but also unwittingly annoyed many people in the process. Or didn't and some of them like me. Who knows. Either way, I found a way to accomplish what I wanted. If I was shyer/less socially awkward, I'd have an awesome job and have hired a coach, but I'm not, so I just made things work a different way. Is one way better? Well, probably, but you have to use the way that you have easiest access to.

So luck is part of the equation, but efficiency of work (smartness) and hard work is another.

Autism was one of the things that made my life a living hell in every possible way up until now. Now I am 21 and people don't notice my autism. I do, but it gives me very little trouble. It can get much better for you, you know, your autism. It might not, but it def. can. And even if you don't change, your environment will, and trust my once you're out of high school and people around you are older -it will definitely get better.

Ironically, but the best time of my life was at school (at the age 12-15 i guess). I had the same classmates since 1st grade, at first it was quite difficult to belong, but after several years I started to see tendency in social interaction and started to make friends. At the age 12-13 I became quite popular. I was one of the best students at school, despite the fact that I was making fun of almost all teachers. Played in a band. Also got respect from boys, because I was into sports and made great results.
Gymnasium and university - the whole different story...

Yep.

HS is pretty great for me too, though primary school was nine years living hell.

Finding a community where nerdy/quirky/awkward people are accepted is extremely important. I love my high school because I have friends with whom I can talk about my love for biology without making myself an outcast, with whom I can make horrible chemistry and calculus puns and get laughs, rather than slaps or look of confusion, and with whom I can spend hours talking about politics and religion, and yet can still discuss romance and gossip.

I think I would be able to fit in more better if I wasn't so shy. When I was at my first volunteer job, I tried my hardest to act more confident than I really am, and it did work, I fitted in, made friends, even got asked out by a chap who also volunteered there. I did have a few hiccups though, like somebody pointed out one common social quirk I had, but then she also added that ''everybody's got something annoying about them'', which I still wished she hadn't said that to my face, but there you go, maybe people think it's OK for me to be spoken to like that (even though I show plenty of emotion).

At my new volunteer job, I made myself not act so confident here, and just be my shy self. I still do fit in, but I have had less conversations with some of the people there than I did at my first volunteer job.

So it's act more confident and have more chance of being included in activities outside of work with your colleagues and make friends by having them ask for your number first and receiving personal birthday cards, but then say the wrong things a lot and get yourself into trouble
or
Act more shy and stay quiet so that you don't say the wrong things and give yourself more time to think before you speak, but then be thought of as ''very shy'' and not get invited out or asked your phone number so much.....
Hmm, tough call.....

Everyone has their own challenges.

Never forget that.

I'm curious, what do you mean by "developmentally sound"?
Or are you simply referring to people who appear by outside standards to function normally and fit it? (Keeping in mind that as an outsider, you rarely see the whole or an accurate picture)

By definitation, we are aspie because we do not meet the appropriate developmental level, we are either behind or in front of it which is what usually causes the problems.
By definitation we are never really going to "fit in" or "develop normally".

Eh, I'd figure behind as it is an "impairment".

Yeah, I mean people who may have a diagnosis but basically act normal for their age and background.

If you are behind or in front by a substantial degree, both can be an impairment.
If you are in front, then the things you are interested in, the way that you conduct yourself will result in you being either picked on or excluded for it. More maturity than they have is not an asset in high school, quite the opposite - especially if you have other obvious things that are not normal. (gifted, etc)

And for the opposite, if you are behind the developmental level, all the things that others do at your age which you can't do will result in being picked on or excluded also. But they would pick on you for things like not being able to play sports as well, or not being able to drive yet, not being able to date, etc,

Basically, no matter which way you go you are going to have problems, the question is only what kind of problems. Perhaps because you are behind you can only see the problems that come with that and not the problems that would occur for those who are the opposite of you.

Them "acting normal" may very well be an act. You don't see what goes on at home for them, what they can or cannot do there, etc.
How someone appears at school and in public is not going to give you a accurate picture if they have ASD.
There are many of us who try at school to act "normal" and then become unmanagable at home because we have completely exhausted all our energy, some of us won't even have the energy to do homework. The guy you see might be one of those.