Hi! Another newbe here!

Post Reply New Topic

Never dared to come 'aut' as aspie online. Offline, my friends mostly know, family knows, employer knows, colleagues mostly know. But I'm still somewhat undercover / would not put it on my website. Still fear mispreconceptions / prejudices I guess. (And the only way those get any less if there are more openly aspie aspies. I've seen an aspie get banned of another board because typical behaviour that did not match forum rules and got misunderstood. And I did not dare to speak up for them.)

Had diagnosis since I was a single-digit age or shortly there after (don't know exactly, lets say 10-ish). So I had a bit of time to get to understand myself. Still don't entirely ofc but still learning and so far so good. Mostly.

Somehow got more interested in aspie-ness / neurodiversity recently. (Mine and in general)

Just a few opinions to have something (extra) to talk about:
* A country's preoccupation with their national sport is not that much different from an aspie's preocupation with their favorite subject or hobby. (Somehow painting your house orange because that's the Dutch national team's color is "strange but normal enough to be acceptable", and talking about football is entirely normal. But talking about whatever special interest you have is "strange" unless it happens to be football or music in which case maybe no-one notices. If it's trains or dinosaurs however... IMHO, it's very similar and both are just as normal. Or weird, if you prefer. )

* An (NT) woman not daring to change a fuse "because she's a woman and she has never changed a fuse before and its technical and women don't like technical things" is not much different from an Aspie not daring to travel by bus "because he's an Aspie and he's never traveled by bus before all by himself and it's new and Aspies do not like new things".
(Maybe the "because woman" is only in The Netherlands and women from other countries are less afraid of technical things and it's a bit of a cultural thing. IMHO again normal in both cases though of course both woman and aspie shouldn't be afraid. So you could make that: "unfortunately, normal".)

Sorry. Long sentences. I'm the wordy type I guess. And English isn't even my native language. And I haven't even started about the drivers license thing... (Might be a Dutch thing. Expensive* extra questioning about Alcohol and drugs. Why?!? Don't see the relevance with autism. I've never been drunk / drink so very little I probably get most of my alcohol intake from fruit juices. And certainly wouln't want to put any substance into me that makes my brain behave any stranger, so no drugs either. Caffeine even: I don't drink coffee, I take tea my dear.)


TLDR: Hi!

* yes, I mean expensive, not extensive. It's 200-something euro's.

Welcome to WP!

Hi! Very interesting introduction. And English is your second language? You use it well and even made me smile in enjoyment of the humor.

When I was young, nobody talked about Aspergers; I don't know if it had even been identified yet. I was really shy, and didn't relate well to other people, but did my schoolwork well enough and didn't cause any trouble that I can remember, so I wonder if I'd be evaluated for it even if young today. When my son was a teenager, in the 1990s, I knew he was having some kind of problem and took him to a psychologist, but he just said Dysthymia. I had still not heard of Aspergers by then but if I had, I would have known, if only by the hand-flapping when he was excited, plus of course that he also didn't relate well to other people--just like me.

I see your point about interests and reluctances. So much judging of other people although EVERYBODY seems to be weird to some extent.

Welcome to Wrong Planet!

Hello and welcome. Nice to have you join us. I write too much as well.

Hi and a warm welcome to you, strokarton .

Great introduction and hallo!

Welcome to WP! You 'aut' not be concerned about being an Aspie here.

I agree that you write well in English. I am a typical American and only know English...and it is sometimes questionable if I use it well.

Your comparison of Aspie special interests to national special interests was great. I agree! Perhaps because NTs are inherently more inclined to travel with the herd they are only comfortable with a group consensus on what is interesting.

And I believe another Aspie trait is wanting to be correct. The NTs seem to be okay with being sort of probably approximately right. I prefer to be right. I think some of the Aspie traits NTs think are odd are actually cases of Aspies making an effort to be correct and to use experience to be sure they do something that works. (Of course I order the same thing over and over in a familiar restaurant. If I know I will get a great meal by ordering "X" why the heck shouldn't I order "X"?!)

welcome to the wrongplanet! we are all a family here

Hallootjes

welcome

Ja Welcom und Hallo Jonge man

Welcome to WP.

You'll feel right at home here. There are lots of awesome and friendly people on the forums, I hope you'll enjoy our community as much as we do!

Dani.

Thank you all for the warm welcome!

I don't know if I'll post much but I started reading and sometimes I might want to chime in, even if it's just something silly.

(Also, I kind of like joining a group of people who don't like groups of people )