Understanding the Aspies are superior arguement

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I find it quite disconcerting that many people here believe that those of us with aspergers are in some way superior to 'NT's' be it more intelligent, more honest, more evolved, I even saw a post that we were better looking. As someone who has struggled with this disorder without a diagnosis for 43 years I see it as nothing but a curse. I am wondering if the belief that aspergers makes you somewhat superior comes with an early diagnosis.

To make the poll simple diagnosed means, suspect you have it as well as clinically diagnosed

This is a difficult poll to conduct as there are many variations on how we feel about aspergers, the way I am thinking if you feel that in some way AS is a gift you would generally agree with the question even though you may feel that there is a downside to having AS.

BTW I meant to post this in the general forum, oh well

I don't believe we are and I'm in my school years, I was diagnosed when I was 7.

All told, neither group is superior.

Autists of all kinds (who can speak) seem typically more honest than NT's.

But total honesty is not always a good thing.

etc....

I have always considered myself to be inferior in many ways. However, I made an aspie friend online once, who was diagnosed as an adult and openly admits to feeling superior to others all their life, even as a young child, regardless of diagnosis, and sometimes has to remind theirself that other people are smart too.

The best way to be superior is through conduct ... you can do this no matter what kind of mind you have

I knew a physics doctorate candidate who was a pretty foolish and arrogant Motherf***er

Hopefully, his drinking binges will start to cut into his intellect

I was diagnosed at 17 and a half years of age. Where do you want me to vote for classification purposes?

I'll post more complete thoughts later.

Well were you in school at 17 and a half or not?

I'm still in school, and will be through most of my twenties. There seems to be some overlap between schooling and adulthood. I got the impression that the "school years" option was meant to indicate that diagnosis was fairly early on and having Asperger's was known during most of development.

the way i saw it is that 17 is a minor and you're in school so school age.

Whatever. I do not agree and I was diagnosed as an adult, or close enough.

I can see the temptation to think Aspies are superior (I went through that phase shortly after arriving here, and later grew out of it) but when you look at it, there's not much basis to think of us as superior. I take my tests in a separate room from everyone else because I can't handle the noise. I look around me at normal human society, and realize that I can never truly be a part of it. Though I seem to have less of the negative impacts than other Aspies, and have been doing better since arriving at college, I still know that I can't fully integrate into mainstream society, and certainly not as easily as others do. Yes, it is easy enough, in a moment of bitterness, to say "screw the rest of the world, who needs them" but such a view is unproductive and inaccurate. The way I currently see it, is that Aspies and our special abilities can be an asset to society, so we do have value. It's probably useless to try to compare and see if we are "better" than NT's, but we aren't worthless scum by any stretch of the imagination.

give it some time. even just 7 years removed from 17 (for me): 17 is NOT an adult.

Re - the age thing I was wondering whether being diagnosed during the more formative years (in my mind I was thinking mid primary to end of high school) made a difference to this belief, so 17.5 is kind of on the border heading towards an adult diagnosis.

To say that this age is not adult is very subjective, I have met several 17/18 year olds that are very mature and plenty of 40 year olds that should be back at school

I think anyone who feels superior is compensating for a perceived flaw within themselves. In other words, people don't want to hate themselves, so they twist it around in their minds to see the flaw as a benefit instead of a problem. It's a natural defense mechanism that not everyone employs for every aspect of their personalities. There are all sorts of psychological defense mechanisms and that is one of them.

I chose the third option.

It's important to remember that the diagnostic criteria for Aspergers is average-range intelligence or above, not superior intelligence necessarily.

In all honesty, in spite of being neurotypical, my introversion and penchant for more cerebral pursuits made me prefer the company of those with AS or AS-like traits, but I hardly think one is superior. And let's not forget how pointless the term "NT" really is, it may say "typical," but all it really means in the context of an ASD discussion is that the individual does not have an ASD. That leaves a really huge demographic that really can't be generalized.

BTW, can there be an "NT" voting option? I don't want to skew the polls but I am really curious about the results.

Sorry phagocyte I cant add an extra poll choice. Apparently there is a time limit for editing.