IMHO the weirdest side of being on the ASD spectrum.

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Esmeralda, I love your examples of the "discovered" areas where the indigenous peoples preceding discovery counts for nothing, and of the "only animals" who purr or have the flehmen response!

Did you know, ravens can "purr" too?! I recently learned that!

There is almost as much dogmatic thinking and failure to embrace other possibilities, by so-called NT people, as there is assumed to be in spectrum folk.

can't take credit for the indigenous peoples example, that's Pratchett at his best. His books (and Seanan McGuire's) are more or less my drug of choice, after music. If you enjoy compassionate satire served up as science fiction/fantasy, and haven't read him, you might find him very comforting. He pretty much kept me sane and functioning during years of workplace bullying (that and the fact that my work played to my Aspie strengths and special interests, so I could bypass much of the pain in realtime with hyperfocus on the job).

Re the fact that we Aspie folk are often accused of the sins of our accusers - I wish Linnaeus had named our species Homo Projector. Way more honest.

Ravens purr too? Wow

That irony is exactly why I never associated how I am with being autistic for a very long time. I just believed autism=no empathy and my problem is having too much of it, and I never knew the processing issues were related.

I might need to start a new thread for this, but I always wonder why autism is labeled as a social disorder and not a processing disorder/difference. The social stuff is a product of processing differently than NTs, not the other way around. I know that is what is most visible to NT psychs trying to diagnose, but social awkwardness doesn't feel to me like what autism "is."

What you're talking about is only a portion of all the problems I have because of autism.

Another thing is, having mostly only been around people on the spectrum my whole life, plenty of them have been jerks and bullies etc.

Starcats, I think you're onto something there. The myriad processing difficulties are in themselves the factor behind the social issues. I never thought of it that way but I agree with that.

My ability for empathy had to "grow" later in life but yes, for me too it was one of the things that made me think perhaps I don't fit the spectrum profile, although I was missing a chunk of it as a child, sadly.

Esmeralda,

Your animal facts are really interesting to me. As I am a cat lover, I find the cat facts particularly interesting. I have read about the "flehmen" response in cats, too.

Thank you! And BirdinFlight too for the cool info about ravens. I'm pretty new here still, is there an "aminal lovers" thread? (I'll look around, too).

(edited to remove a spurious question)

Acceptance is a very important thing for our Aspie community on the whole but for me, the NTs around me have ALWAYS been the very source of my problems. Especially when they compare notes together and make the assumption that I might be mentally handicapped (in their words) and take advantage of me somehow. Especially in a workplace environment. My responses aren't always what they expect and don't sound like their responses because my responses might be deemed too precise or factually accurate. Then, their "fun" with me begins...

Some NTs are actually impressed by my unusual Aspie memory retention, as you mutual High Functioning Autistics have this same ability I'm sure, but then again other NTs are intimidated by me and even threatened. NTs have always isolated and bullied me because I was so different so my cure has always been to simply avoid social situations whenever I can. Not one NT can get used to my stimming anyways. That alone is ALWAYS a deal breaker, it seems.

Acceptance of a type of human being who is both disabled and gifted at the same time will always be an impossible factor for NTs.

Sigh. Preach it, brother. (That is not sarcasm, it's full endorsement.) I am lucky in that my stimming has always been hair-twirling, which most NTs write off as a nervous tic. Which is something I can live with.

It's so interesting that this thread was started before the airing of terrific documentary that was on British TV two days ago, in which naturalist and presenter Chris Packham said the very same thing as was said in the OP of this thread, that for many of us our "cure" is simply in being accepted by other people, the way we are, and if small accommodations are needed then we would be closer to much more okay, than the current way society just wants us to suck up what ails us -- my words, not his, but his main point was the same as this OP's, that acceptance goes a long way to helping us function better.

Packham made a really important point there, as does this thread.