Very high functioning AS in denial -no I dont have aspergers

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Over summer I noticed a few surfers at my Beach appeared to be on the high end of the autism spectrum.

One in particular was in the over 50's, looked very youthful and talked a great deal. I engaged him briefly, and observed some raving and poor social skills. he was a very high achiever with a new SUV, had the AS look and face and is a very good surfer.

So I have this perverse habit of saying things to people like this:
Do you think many surfers have aspergers syndrome?
Him: Actually I have a relative...
Whos got aspergers?
Him: Yes
Thats what I thought

He didnt talk to me after that and was upset.

I wasnt very subtle but unfortunately I was born very Frank

Anyways, I see this a little bit with people in the cannabis culture too, musicians and artists would be about the same. I think bikers may be over represented by aspergians possibly as well....

The thing is, they are often so well functioning any admission of disability is an affront to their ego and self esteem.

I think its a shame really, as I think it would offer them some understanding, and then ability to work on areas of social interaction, that is currently unexplainable for them.

Difficult at first but overall enlightening

You must be careful with labels, they are linked with bigotry.

I am a human being. Within, at the very center, you and I are the same person. What makes me different from you is for me to explore.

You mention cannabis culture and I find it interesting, that those who enjoy to consume for the sake of the experience eventually move on, while those who medicate are oftentimes noticeably "different." I would imagine any counter-culture might display similar trends, as the title "counter-culture" would imply.

I can't seem to let the 'labelling' thing go - it's very difficult to not label myself as something.

It's very frustrating at the best of times.

Meh, I figure if I can't take being called an Aspie, then I should be hiding in a cave somewhere.

Labels are not necessarily negative. They are shorthand, but not negative. If I call my cat "a cat", I don't presume to think that when I tell you she is a cat, you will automatically know everything about her. And yet I would have to go on for a couple of hours if I wanted to tell you exactly who my cat was. So I just say "a cat", and that gives you a vague idea of a small furry creature with a soft paw and a tendency to sleep on windowsills, chase small moving objects, and purr. It's close enough for conversation.

Similarly, when I call myself "autistic", I don't mean that everything about me can be defined by that one word. Obviously, I'm a unique individual. Just because I can accurately be called "autistic" doesn't mean that that's all you need to know before you can define who I am. But, if "autistic" is the relevant fact about me in that particular conversation, then it's a reasonable label to use. If we're talking about why I wear sunglasses outside, you need to know why my eyes are so sensitive--you don't need to know that I'm good at math or that I have two little sisters or that I like to wear polo shirts. And the label that explains the sunglasses is "autistic". For that purpose, it's as good as any; and I don't see why labeling should be considered to be such a bad thing.

What we need isn't fewer labels; it's the understanding that any given person can be described by probably hundreds of labels--daughter, teenager, waitress, wife, surfer, gardener, dog-owner, recycling enthusiast, bookworm... I could use up pages and pages, but you get the point. Any one person can be labeled a hundred different ways; and the more labels you use, the closer you get to who he is--but it's asymptotic. You never quite get there. You never can quite explain who a person is in words. To do that, you have to introduce me to the person and let me get to know him.

DSM-IV about Asperger:

Then, I think that there is not such thing as a "very high-functioning AS".

Me thinks it rather arrogant of you to observe someone for a few times and make an assesment like this. I cannot believe that others are not calling you out on this. I was the same way at first at my work. I work in a lab with these exceedingly bright beings who all seem to be Aspies (most of them generate over 100,000K a year so pretty high functioning too). I politely asked them to take the AQ for me and I discovered that my initial observations were incorrect. MANY "types" of people including gifted people display a lot of the same beliefs and oddities that are in the DSM for Asperger's. That doesn't mean that they ARE Asperger's and making the statement you made is arrogant and rude IMHO. I wouldn't talk to you again either.... (and we wonder why we cannot make friends....)

I'm not wanting to be friends with these people, but to just be informative....

Many friends dont always tell the truth about you, but want you want to hear....

I'd say a very large group of 'successful' very HFA are out there, that may never consider their neurology.

I'd also say they would improve their lives with an understanding of AS

I'd also say that I am doing them a favour, rather than a disservice, by hinting at their autistic traits...

So I disagree with some comments above

Last edited by Surfman on 20 Apr 2011, 12:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

People who like being alone

Fishermen, mountaineers and trekkers, hunters, bird watchers, hobby and model enthusiasts.... so many groups of loners....

I'm afraid I have to agree. Even if you are correct in your assessment, it is none of your business. It's a bit like going around telling fat people that they will get heart disease if they don't lose weight, or -- to make the analogy more accurate -- assessing their heart disease risk based on what you perceive their excess weight to be, and telling them your conclusions. I wouldn't want someone to come up to me and tell me I have AS, or that I'm fat, or be diagnosed with any condition by a stranger or even a friend. I wouldn't consider it a favor. It's just rude.

Sounds rather NT not to honest or helpful.

I always acknowledge poor situations in others like obesity.

To leave others to themselves sounds like an uncaring society to me

My assessments are now quite accurate, along with narcissistic, ADHD, borderline etc

I'm sorry but I must concur and be of another opinion

It's not "NT" to avoid running around telling people things "for their own good" that are actually just plain insensitive. Telling fat people we could get heart disease is not helpful or caring, it's judging things based on surface appearances unless you run around telling thin people who eat badly the same thing (actually not even then, because being fat doesn't mean eating badly). It's not useful. And if someone persisted in doing that to me, I would avoid them.

Even if being fat meant the same thing that, say, smoking does (and it doesn't -- it doesn't signify addiction, vice, or even necessarily impending health problems)... I don't run around telling smokers they could get cancer or emphysema etc. Smokers know that already and telling them that doesn't help them quit, it just gets them annoyed at the self-righteousness of many nonsmokers. Anyone who is fat is bombarded with messages about their health among many other things and telling us what we already know generally causes self-hatred, not health. (And that self-hatred can lead to the dieting cycles that cause the weight fluctuations that put fat people at many of the health risks we experience to begin with. And that cycle nearly always leads to gaining more and more weight.)

It also singles us out in ways that thin people are rarely singled out even if they eat junk and never exercise... they're not really "getting away with eating badly" the way people think they are; their diet and exercise habits are quite unhealthy. But since they don't get fat from it, society doesn't penalize them the way it penalizes and scrutinizes fat people. This double standard (fat people assumed to be eating and exercising wrongly even when we are not, thin people free from judgement and scrutiny even if they do all the things fat people are assumed to do) shows that deep down the trend towards saying these things to fat people isn't about health. It's about a whole bunch of different ways that people hate and devalue fat people. Sure, for any one person they may mean it for health reasons (or think they mean it that way), but overall it's part of a trend that is anything but caring, helpful, or friendly.

I don't run around telling other fat people that being fat is unhealthy. Not because I'm even close to "NT". But because it's only partially accurate, part of a double standard, part of an overall rather hateful trend, and likely to provoke self-hatred rather than anything useful. Plus it's turning discussion of the state of their body into public property, which is invasive among other things.

That public property thing is the same thing pregnant women experience as well as many disabled people. I've experienced it as a fat person, as a cognitively disabled person, and as a physically disabled person. It hurts. It's like someone poking your insides with their finger. And while I can't claim to be perfect at it (I'm autistic after all) I have no desire to cause anyone that same pain. So I try not to tell people things like that (or to claim to know their thoughts more than they do, or to tell them smoking will kill them, or to demand to know about their baby, or to diagnose or undiagnose people who haven't asked for it, etc.) if I can at all help it. Not just the fat thing but lots of other things. Trying to avoid doing that to people isn't an autistic vs. NT thing, it's just s thing that many people of all neurotypes try to do. Sure I'm blunter than hell at times but some things I still try not to say (when capable of understanding enough) to do so of course).

Everything anbuend said. No point in repeating it.

I have a friend who's been describing a lot of things to me that sound both AS and ADHD, but she never asked for my opinion, so I never said "You sound like you might be autistic or have ADHD" to her. However, I did suggest she mention those things to her therapist, who did suggest to her that she had ADHD.

I had someone try to diagnose me with something over the internet recently, and it was pretty ugly and invasive. I wouldn't suggest to another person that they think they have something unless they explicitly asked what I thought and made it clear they wanted to hear the answer.

I had a cooking teacher who would come over every Thursday and things she told me about herself sounded AS to me. First it was with social problems and how her humor makes people mad and we both seemed to have the same attitude about life and people. I felt "Someone I can relate to." Then whenever she had to cancel she would call me ahead of time and was always sorry she couldn't come and would ask to reschedule and I would let her and she be thanking me for being so flexible and I was like I get to be on the computer and not have to get off. But when I asked her if people get mad at her when she has to cancel she said they all do good with it and understand and I asked her why does she always act like people aren't flexible then and she said she doesn't like change so she always feels bad when she can't keep to her schedule. I asked her what does change do for her and she said it upsets her. Okay two things, enough for me to think possibly AS. But I never asked her about it. It be rude if i did But I have wanted to ask her about it by telling her if she ever heard of it and she should read about it (being sneaky here to get my answer) but I wasn't sure if it be okay or not and it would also mean I outed myself. AS is something I don't ever talk about.

And I don't know if this is AS or her having ADHD but she frequently left her stuff here. She did it often about every visit. I would just hang on to her things and put it aside and wait for her to come back and give it to her. I would also help her put her things away and try and make sure she had everything. But one day she left her whole container right outside my apartment complex and my husband saw it sitting on the stoop so he brought it up and wiped the stuff up that got wet from the rain and organized it and got it to close. We had it sitting in the entry way on the bench until her next visit. But even though I would help her put her stuff away and making sure she had everything, there was always at least one item left behind or two.

People that don't know a lot about Asperger's syndrome are going to take offense when you say they might have it because they probably only know what they heard some misinformed person say, or only know it by what they hear in the news. So when you say that they have it they interpret it as you thinking they have something wrong with them.

I have been in this situation a few times. My friend who has many issues and is unemployed doesn't want to be labelled; she just wants to be unique, even if a diagnoses would get her the support she needs. Like if she had ADHD because she has executive functioning problems, she could get on medication and support for it.
My mother who I think has worse ADHD than me flat out denied 'having any problems.'

These are people that I know need to be diagnosed but I have to let it go. But the people you describe seem to be well off with some social awkwardness. If they are successful then you should just leave them be. Many people could have AS that are successful but if they don't have any significant impairments then they really don't need to know.

It's not always AS. Like someone said giftedness is similar to AS, as is ADHD, Bipolar, dyspraxia, social anxiety disorder, - lots of conditions are.

When you find out you have AS it can completely change you. It can depress you, make you learn more things about yourself and completely change the way you view the world.

Another point is people tell me I have OCD/ depression/anxiety all the time. People who I've just met online and offline and who have very little understanding about the diagnostic criteria for those conditions. When someone is told they have something that they don't believe they feel insulted.

Actually thin people do get judged, people assume they have eating disorders. They assume they starve themselves and when they do see them eat, they assume they must be bulimic. People who are that skinny usually have high metabolisms so they can't gain weight or they have a hard time gaining no matter what they eat or how much. Even if they do gain a couple pounds, they lose it because they can't eat a lot every single day or else they will run out of food in a short time and it get expensive, same as eating out gets expensive. So yeah it be rude too to go up to them and tell them how it's unhealthy to be that thin and what the health problems they are risking. They probably get enough of that already, all the "You're too thin" comments and the "are you eating enough" and maybe people trying to get them to eat more of this or that that is unhealthy because "they need to gain weight." But my husband does it to me but that is probably different because he worries about me and wants me to be healthy. Even my nurse said I was too skinny an asked if I am getting enough food and told me to eat more. I am sure this rule doesn't apply to doctors and nurses because it's their jobs to tell their patients and make sure they are aware of their health and if they are at risk for something, they tell them.

It changed so many things I did not expect. I'm actually okay with this, and I think I'm ultimately psychologically healthier for it, but quite surprising for that to happen at all.



Worth repeating.