A safe place at last

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Sadly, at 19, I only today discovered, via Wikipedia, that such a community of aspies even exists. Previously, I thought the only help for aspies was to find a way to cure them, or information that consisted solely of diagnosing behavioral signs in autistic children, usually represented by a blond-haired, blue-eyed pouting poster child.

At least I can be grateful that I have finally found such a place. I would have given 3 of my limbs to have a place such as this to consult earlier in my life, as some terrible things have happened to me. Perhaps now, I needn't fear this strange world.

My name is Kamex. I have a real name, Jason, but even in real life, I prefer to make use of it only as a legal name. I hate how common it is, and I simply cannot stand how my individuality is defined by one of about 10 cookie-cutter names assigned in my culture. Furthermore, I also think it's sad that completely different names are given to males and females, as though male and female are different types of entities rather than an only mildy important characteristic of the same, but I need to stop myself at this point before I get carried away.

I've managed to have friendships in the past, but they always end up with the person avoiding me. Part of the problem is that people seem to think I'm faking the fact that I find the grease from my own oily face and hair painful, forcing me to wash myself roughly every 8 hours and immediately upon waking. The problem occasionally even wakes me up at night, and also prevents me from rolling over and going back to sleep if I wake up. When added to my severe insomnia (which is so severe, it baffled a sleep specialist, who had never heard of anything so bad), it makes for hell, and it's very difficult for me to handle my friends thinking the problem doesn't exist - that I am either imagining or intentionally faking it. Hell, I only recently managed to convince my own father, a doctor no less, that these problems really existed.

In addition, my friends have always either been unable to accept/looked down on me for the following characteristics, or the situation indicated clearly to me that I was not to tell them:

- That while I do have sexual urges, they are secondary to my dream of becoming a productive member of society, and I would rather die a virgin than never manage to get a job.
- That I do not consider the fact that I am a man to have any influence on how I think of myself. I have no urge to prove my manliness, and am not insulted when mistaken for a girl online. I consider someone's genitalia to be about as important to who they are as their eye color, and I think of myself accordingly. This has caused some to misunderstand me, interpreting it as homosexuality or denial. Personally, I merely interpret it as a lack of sexism. How can I consider women to be equal to me if I would be insulted by a claim I am like one?
- In an emergency situation, I would not place priority on saving human beings if multiple types of animals were in danger.
- I consider patriotism to be a bad thing, something I associate with "clumping", a term I like to use for a behavior in which a community of people attempt to think they are better than everyone else rather than simply attempting to gain support from one another. The only difference between the words nationalism and racism are the words race and nation. Given that I live in the deep south of the United States, I need to keep tight-lipped about this one, even to my closest friends.

I can speak and understand English perfectly, and have even gotten compliments on my large vocabulary. However, this is only when the subtle implications of modern speech are not thrown into play. I have mastered some of them. For example, the idea that "curious" and "nosey" have distinctly different meanings, but for the most part, they are lost to me. This can sometimes lead me to misunderstand people, but more importantly, it causes them to almost always misunderstand me. When I asked my friend if I could have some space on his homemade server, he interpreted it as "give me space on your server". When I told him he didn't have to do it if he didn't want to, he interpreted it as "look how nice a guy I am, offering to take back my offer, it would be so terrible of you to deny me now you bastard". Thus, after he gave me the server space, our friendship has been shaky ever since, with him regularly avoiding me. Now I know the Neurotypical mind is missing the concept of asking for something without demanding, and I know to avoid it in the future, but for each thing I learn, their's a million I have yet to, and I pay for each one time and time again.

I never got along well in school. Both teachers and students would pick on me, and several of my teachers, particularly Mrs. Kelly of 4th grade, liked to integrate insults towards me into their lectures. On teacher even advised me to kill myself on the basis that I was a burden to everyone, and did so in the process of screaming at me in the middle of the classroom. That last year put me through so much stress I was proscribed anti-psychotic drugs for problems that I didn't have previously and had nothing to do with autism (which included paranoia and suicidal thoughts). After that year, I was such a mess I was pulled out of school in favor of home schooling, and do this day, I have trouble getting near the school building. I generally am incapable of getting mad at individuals rather than only situations, but the exception is that one teacher, who I also hate so much I continue to have occasional dreams, good ones mind you, of me torturing her to death, and I fear I may if I ever meet her again. I looked her up online once, and people seemed to think she was notorious for picking on disabled students of all kinds. She doesn't even want me cured - that b***h wants me dead.

Ahem....Anyway. Hello.

Welcome to WP

What game is your avatar out of?

Welcome to Wrong Planet.

Thanks guys.

My avatar is the bloodmage model from Blizzard Entertainment's Warcraft III - The Frozen Throne (a realtime strategy game that preceded the popular World of Warcraft). Normally, it is impossible to convert the image into avatar form due to the fact that the portrait is normally displayed in an oval-shaped window in the GUI, complicating cropping. However, it is displayed in a square border during campaign cutscenes. To obtain the image, I had to take a screenshot at the exact second the character stopped talking, which took me a number of tries. I then GIMPed it into various sizes, which I use on different forums depending on the limitations imposed there. Prior to the resizing, the image was an incorrect ratio. This is due to the fact that Warcraft III doesn't support widescreen monitors like mine, and I prefer to cause an obesity epidemic on the characters in the game rather than see black bars on the sides of my screen. Oh well...

I play WoW. I didn't know there were other ones.

Hi, Jason!

Welcome to Wrongplanet!

My name is Jason also, and I am 19 as well.

I hope you enjoy posting here!

Despite it's popularity, WoW is actually a mere spin-off of the regular series that takes place in the same world. Whereas WoW is a Role-Playing Game, the normal Warcraft series is a Realtime Strategy Game, meaning you construct a settlement and an army to try to eliminate the base of your opponent, secure resources on the map for yourself, etc. World of Warcraft actually takes place immediately following the events that occurred in WCIII's single player mode. Warcraft III, for example, let's you play Prince Arthas throughout his downfall, chronicles the origin of the blood elves, including the destruction of Quel'Thelas at the hands of Prince Arthas, whom you get to play during that mission, etc. I have never played the previous games, but I must say I quite enjoy this one. It has old-looking but nonetheless cheery, pleasing graphics, and has very low system requirements (including Macintosh support). It also has a very powerful map editor that enables you to create your own units and buildings - it's so flexible, completely different games have been produced with it.

And thanks for the welcome, larson.

You're welcome!