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Joe90
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30 Nov 2011, 1:14 pm

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I would say a mild Aspie is someone who can cope in public, doesn't have severe sensory issues and can get through more than one day without having a social burnout. That's just my opinion though, I doubt it is fact.


I have mild AS but I can't really cope in public - but that's to do with Social Phobia, which I consider as co-morbid to my AS, so maybe if I wasn't do socially phobic, I would be able to cope a bit better than I do.
But (not sure if this is right or not, so don't make me feel like I've accidentally started a war zone here), I think people with mild AS (like myself) react differently to those with a more severe case of AS. For example, the reasons why I can't cope in public is because I feel uncomfortable when strangers stand in my space, I get upset when people look at me, I get overwhelmed with noises like noisy traffic or screaming toddlers, I have anxieties with crossing the road, and I suffer with extreme self-consciousness - but the way I react to all those things aren't notable. I don't react by melting down to the floor and rocking backwards and forwards or whatever some Autistics could do. Instead, my reactions are either glaring at the loud noise and tutting, or just walking away when somebody stands right on top of me for too long, and I just hope for the best when I cross roads because I know that sometimes crossing roads can't always be avoided (I feel I have got better at crossing roads), and when I catch someone staring at me I just get all those irrational thoughts in my head but I don't show any body language that tells everyone that I'm upset, I just think it. So, basically, I can't cope in public at all but I have self-control and I am self-aware and so I seem able to handle the situations moderately.

Basically, my anxiety disorder is more severe than my AS - that is what my counsellor said.


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Tuttle
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30 Nov 2011, 1:26 pm

Joe90 wrote:
Basically, my anxiety disorder is more severe than my AS - that is what my counsellor said.


I actually explicitly was taking you describing yourself as mild into account on my idea of what I mean by mild - with the note of mild Asperger's doesn't mean having mild anxiety developed partially because of the Asperger's.



Ghonasiflaids
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30 Nov 2011, 1:44 pm

Mild aspie is having some of the aspergian traits, not all. For example, you could be shy and awkward but not tick.



SammichEater
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30 Nov 2011, 2:34 pm

Joe90 wrote:
Basically, my anxiety disorder is more severe than my AS - that is what my counsellor said.


Based on your previous post, I agree.


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30 Nov 2011, 3:03 pm

I guess ill add. With mild aspies, people never think disability or they might not even think social awkwardness. They think aloofness, rudeness, bitchiness, bluntness, being an ass, etc. People think the actions of mild aspies are more due to delibratness then awkwardness. And even your friends have a hard time understanding that you have a disability.


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MindWithoutWalls
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30 Nov 2011, 3:34 pm

I still think I have mild Asperger's, even though my assessment went really screwy. I've written in latest my blog entry about why I think this. Here's that section:

I've had struggles with eye contact, reading other people, and pacing conversations properly (speaking at appropriate times and for appropriate lengths). I didn't interact well with kids my own age when I was growing up and spent many hours upon hours playing alone, which I generally preferred. (Although it wouldn't be true to say I never had any friends, I generally went at least somewhat outside my age group. I also usually carried out my friendships "lightly", which is to say, with little exception, there was not any real consistency or great frequency regarding playing with any particular kid. Even the exceptions didn't last all that long.) My mother noted that I seemed self-centered and insensitive to others as a child (though I think at least part of that was because I couldn't always understand other people, not because I didn't care about them, part of it was that I was just really self-contained and somewhat independent of a certain amount of need for social outlet, and part of it was because I got somewhat preoccupied with things like my pain from being bullied). I had to learn to respond to the interests and feelings of others, not just blurt out things that interested me but that were unrelated to things they said. My areas of interest may be singular or multiple (in small number) at any given time, but I do really delve in. (This may not always be noticed, because my usual practice is not to collect and memorize facts and figures. But I do get very focused, and then it dominates my time and conversations unless I really make myself not behave that way, which I've learned to do better over time. My poor girlfriend, however, gets the "less abridged", shall we say, version of my conversation. Right now, it's all about Asperger's, of course!) I also do repetitive motions that have no apparent practical use. I think this is what I've read is called stimming. I rub the same spot on my teeth with my tongue. This is almost constant. I also have some shoulder movements I can't seem not to do sometimes. (I originally thought this was because I felt uncomfortable with something about my clothes or a seat belt, but I've since discovered that I also do it when I'm at home and not dressed.) When I was a teenager, I remember how my family pressed me to stop jerking my head to the side to get my bangs out of my way. I repeated this movement so many times in a row that they said they were concerned I would hurt my neck. I succeeded in suppressing that one pretty quickly, but the tendency to do one thing or another never went away. I'm also sensitive to certain kinds of physical sensations, sounds, and light (though at least some of this can also be attributed to fibromyalgia). I'm very particular about being touched, as some of the people around me can attest. I can generally mask that one, for the sake of social acceptability, but when it's too much, it shows. I can get overwhelmed by things that don't seem to bother other people, whether they are sensations, activity around me, or my own feelings (though I've learned both to deal with it and to hide when I'm not dealing with it better now than I used to). I sometimes have trouble processing information.

I think my ability to learn to do things others pick up instinctively, compensate for what I can't do, and mask what I can't compensate for are part of what makes my case mild and easy to miss.

<shameless promotion of my thread>
I'm only doing this in two threads, so please don't worry that I'm doing this all over the place. I'm just looking for a little support, and I'm maybe a bit anxious about whether or not I'll find it. Anyway, I just posted - with an attached poll - about my assessment results, so I'd appreciate any input anyone can give and any support anyone thinks is genuinely appropriate. It's this:
[Poll] Something Went Wrong with My Assessment, I Think
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt182126.html
</shameless promotion of my thread>


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