Too AS for the world, too NT for AS meetings

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It has only been 7 months since my Dx with AS.

It was a life-saver to understand so many of my problems within the context of AS, such as sensory issues, information processing difficulties, imagination and play anxieties around my son, etc, etc.

However, when I got my dx I thought I would be entering into a club that would offer me a strong source of emotional and intellectual support, and apart from a little pub meeting me and a friend of mine in the spectrum organize every other week,I feel very out of place in most aspie meetings and frustrated.

At times I have wondered if my dx was correct, as often I am told that because of my ability to articulate my feelings with such clarity and expression that I am very NT. I have often responded to this by saying perhaps that is because of 14 years of intensive psychotherapy and 12 step groups and also growing up in a severely abusive home where I learned the art of social interaction as if my life depended on it.

However, I am interested if there are any other aspies that like me have a real need for emotional expression beyond the conceptual thus feel frustrated in the aspie and NT worlds alike?

This topic needs to be moved to a more appopriate board...

Anyway, I know exactly what you're saying, criss. I was originally diagnosed with AS back in 2003, and I never really fit the criteria for it. The only things I can really think of are the obsessions and meltdowns. Nothing else. Well, when I was rediagnosed last year, I was diagnosed as having NVLD, which fit me a lot better. You may want to look into that one as well.

I was diagnosed with AS in 1996, and I have just as much trouble fitting in with other Aspies as I do with NTs.

I find a lot of Aspies seem NT to me. But I score very low socially so I guess I notice it more when people have more social skills than I do.

I'd love to go and hang out at some of the autism/AS meetups around my area, but feel like I'd stick out like a sore thumb. Instead, I spend all my time in my apartment by myself because every time I go out to socialize I just don't fit in and don't seem to "connect" with the others, as they don't get me and vice versa. Unless you're severely A.S. or severely N.T., it's hard to catch a break.

You are AS, as it should be.

They are whiney brats, seeking someone, something, to blame for them being lazy, self indulgent, apes.

For some it is just an excuse, about me, me, me, and why I don't have to. Psychobabble exonerates them from being responsable for their own lives.

Like you, I only learned of this recently, and at 60. Not knowing any better I came to terms with the world, and did well.

I do not have sensatory problems, some things agravate me, so I change them, or avoid them.

I speak the common language well, excessivly well, to where I have to explain the concepts I am trying to convey, for I am hired to explain things that normal people do not get, I am a business consultant.

I had a business doing IT, most problems were caused by users, so I fixed both. When I lost that in the New Orleans flood I started over, Publishing and Fine Art Printing.

I like it, I do not like leaving home, dealing with people, traffic, and my intense focus on quality is sought by those who want the best.

I only speak about my narrow interests, have no time for chit chat, people living without purpose, and worse, who think I should join them, or that I would be a good horse for them to ride, so they do not have to walk, which is too much work, so they crawl and whine, and louder, when I tell them to get a job, do something with their lives.

The best quote I have heard about the world,

"Shoot low, they are short!"

NT is a limited perceptual range, vrey narrow and restrictive behavior range, and have only two answers for those who do not fit their world view, defective, or superior.

I present myself in the context of being superior. I speak well, and get right to the point.

I can do small talk, and the price is still $100 an hour. People who wish to complain about my behavior are told there is a four hour minium, with a $400 deposit required, then I will listen to them, and tell them why they are wrong.

I like your point of view, a strong source of emotional and intellectual support. I wish I was closer to your pub, I would enjoy a pint in the company of a grown man who takes responsibility for his own life.

My knowledge of the aspie world is limited to what I have seen on Wrong Planet over the last year.

On one hand I feel that an early Dx, childhood treatment, is the way to deal with it, Smelena is my model mum, her boys will do well.

There is a middleground that has been poisoned with psychobabble, pills, and a view of life where they are defective.

What you report is typical of people who discoverd it had a name later in life, after they had come to terms with themselves, and the world. As psychobabble is a new means of, will lie for food, which we were spared, most of us changed the world to fit our needs, and did well.

We have always existed, we are not a modern plague. Due to our different skill set, we have always had our own places in life.

We do face a barrior between us and the world, I like the idea, as a protective filter. We do have to break through to learn what comes natural to others. That is not a problem, it is one of our skills, for we can break through other barriors, not to do what everyone does, but to do what no one ever has before. I am a problem solver that gets patents, the first to discover.

I identify and solve business problems, and see the range of application of new technology. Both are mental constructs. The answers come from my mental world.

From the NT point of view we suffer a developmental delay. They admit we catch up. They cannot admit we exceed them, for they are blind to that extended range.

You are doing well, you learned in the old school, as we did, and we do catch up, for the autistic become invisable after forty. Life begins at forty is us, where most are strong from twenty to forty, then coast to the finish, "You are where you are at forty", we peak later in life, and apply our skillls and adaptability to new problems.

Humans have two patterns of doing exceptional work. One group, the Sciences, gymnastics, peaks in the twenties. another, writers, painters, business, inventors, peak in their fifties.

We are second wave. We have learned the ways of the world, yet kept a mind of childlike wonder in all things.

The next twenty years will be the best part of your life, 42 is as 21 to us.

We once had a Mens' Forum, but it filled up with venom spitting feminist trolls. Avoiding Harpies, we now have an underground that runs by PM, email, without the input of children and hags.

So please contact me, about your views, we do learn from each other. Mature men do have a point of view not shared by others, and since we, like Atlas, carry the world, we do need to help each other.

We can leave behind the frustrations of aspie and NT wold views, and deal with ours.

If my artistic life really wont begin for anther si or seven years I can feel less guilty about being lazy lately. Ok not lazy hooked on this new gizmo the computer.

It IS the devil just as I have said for the past decade.

Now I'm hooked.

I feel the same way. I feel I am too NT to fit into the aspie world but not NT enough to fit into the NT world. It's like I'm in between NT spectrum and autism spectrum.

I feel your pain, my friend. I have several friends who, it seems, just don't "do" emotion. They feel, but they hide it and do NOT talk about it at all. However, I have spent so much time alone, self-analyzing, etc. that I have gotten pretty good at figuring out how I think and why I feel the way I do (in most cases) - though it often takes time. When I try to explain or talk about my feelings, I get shut-down...sometimes rather harshly. I have learned to try to keep things to myself.

My best friend was never that way...she and I shared EVERYTHING. But, she has passed on and I have no one to discuss things with anymore. So, I try to keep it to myself - mostly to avoid the negative reactions.

I don't know whether I am AS, NT or something else. I just know I need to keep a lid on to survive, snce I no longer have safe place to share.

Thank you everyone for your replies, I found them all very helpful indeed.

Much peace to you all.

Chris

i fit right in with other MFA-HFA-LFA autistics... and certain aspies...

I am a MFA-HFA

Don't worry about it. We are as diverse a group as any other and just because you don't fit (some of) the stereotype certainly doesn't mean that you don't belong.

The only place that I feel I fit in are my shoes.

Oh, Lord -- I don't even fit there half the time. They rub my feet and make blisters, but I keep having to walk around them because the only other option is to go barefoot. Which means stepping on broken glass.

This is me in a nutshell. I go to college in a semi-rural area, and the nearest support group is 100 miles away.