A Thought About Aspergers

Post Reply New Topic

AS is too complex to be summarised. It won't fit into some witty word play.

I like that perspective on how fear causes us to hide and not "do" some things that we might otherwise do instinctively. On the other hand the original "Aspergers do, NTs talk" line brought back a strong memory of an event that took place in 1984 or 1985 in which I was ready to do while a group of NTs just wanted to talk. I used to be a radar field engineer overseas. A link to a pic I found online of the larger of my two radars in question follows that was taken in Feb 1985... at roughly the same time that this story happened. The radar is called TTR for Target Tracking Radar (thus my TTRSage UsedID). That thing in the front is not radar related but is a British weather station.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/26502588@N02/2905532292/

One day we had a significant problem with the antenna pedestal that was going to be difficult to find since the pedestal wire lists were so old (TTR was built in 1959). My politician coworker, Harry grabbed the wire lists and suggested that we go to the break room and look them over first while having a cup of coffee. There were six of us in there and much of the talk ended up being random chit-chat unrelated to anything. I was getting bored and eager to start tracking down the problem. Then Harry said, "lets have another cup of coffee while we talk about it some more and then go deal with the problem". This didn't fit well with my Aspie "just do it" nature, so I headed towards the door saying, "I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm just going to go up there and fix the damned thing". And do you know that all five of the rest of them started scrambling all over each other to be the first person to follow me out the door? I will never forget that. NTs are so fickle and spend endless hours in useless talk while Aspies follow that "just do it" way of life.

So true. I do think that I need to change my wording just a bit and use the word "presume" as opposed to the word "judge". The difference is slight but I think it is more precise.



That's funny. NTs do seem to love to lean on the car horn when things don't go exactly their way as if it will change the outcome one iota. They use it as an expression of their ego. And then there are the people who are too lazy to walk 25 feet to knock on someone's door and sit in the parking lot honking nonstop for 10 minutes until the intended person emerges from their apartment. I think I have used my car horn fewer than a dozen times in the nine years since it was new.

The "yell at me" part reminds me of one of my favorite sayings:

The less brains they have
The more their jaws flap.

Actually I make judgment based on pre-conceived info too, and I have known other aspies who do as well on other forums.

I must say I'm tired of hearing about how my way of being is the way NTs are all the time. It's not an NT thing. This has nothing to do with Asperger Syndrome criteria, it's just presumed personality traits. IDK if they really are more more common in us or if it's simply a matter of those with those traits being more vocal here, but it doesn't hold true for all of us, and I'm fed up with it. We are all individuals! I am a healthy mix of greys and I wouldn't want it any other way. That doesn't make me less aspie, and all this talk about aspies being this way or that only serve to isolate and create divisions in a group of people who are already outcast. We're all here because we need a place for us.


And as for the term NT, I like it. It's very accurate. It's about them having a specific type of brain, just like aspies have our own specific type. http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/08/0 ... ces-found/
It doesn't lump them together any more than "aspie" lumps us together.

Why make the comparison at all. It's like comparing chalk and cheese.
As soon as you compare one group of humans against another group, you inevitably wind up starting WW3.

If you're writing about Aspergians, describing Aspergians, then stick to Aspergians.

The way you've worded it certainly sounds like a "them and us" statement and then the pack mentality kicks in and each side wants to defend whichever team they think they belong to to the death.

Just describe Aspies - leave the other team out of it!

That's my advice.

Here! Have a ... thing:

Not every NT judges before observing and not all aspies observe without judgement. Everyone is different.

I have actually wondered in the past whether this may be a potential "cause" for Aspergers. By "cause" I mean the underlying symptom that explains all the other symptoms.
-I think being fluent in body language, eye expressions, empathy etc. is the extremely rapid application of pre-conceived ideas. If a person does not have a tendency to think that way, then they will suck at it.
-Inability to deal with the world fluidly and spontaneously leads to confusion and withdrawal. Routines may be developed as a coping mechanism.
-Lack of filtered thinking leading to sensory overload, as described in the "aliens" book mentioned earlier in the thread.
-The pattern of thinking also fits with the observation of AS having deep narrow interests, NT having broad, fleeting interests.

I don't think this will apply to all AS people though. I strongly suspect there are maybe 3 or 4 different disorders or thinking patterns all looking similar and all living under the umbrella term of Aspergers syndrome. I think it best describes the "absent minded professor" brand of high functioning autism.

I am reading an interesting book by Dr. Valerie Gaus entitled, “Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Adult Asperger Syndrome”.

Dr. Gaus writes, “A major assumption behind the material I present in this book is that AS is driven by an idiosyncratic information-processing system that leads to numerous negative consequences for the affected individual”.

She has developed an interesting model that explains how this leads to other mental health issues (including, but not limited to, anxiety and depression). I would be more than happy to include a picture of it, if anyone is interested.

From my perspective, this deficit in complex information processing explains the Sensory Processing and Executive Functioning issues that we all seem to share.

Yes please! Sounds very interesting.

[img][800:664]http://www.anony.ws/i/2014/05/08/8lWAo.jpg[/img]

No one ever quotes me - quote me God damn it. Starting to feel ignored HERE!! !

Here - Have a headbanger:

Just kidding - couldn't give a toss - silly humans

This is interesting!
Also makes sense with the Intense World Theory because it is based on sensory processing differences. Then sensory processing differences create problem (difference!) processing information.

It is nice to see this book is Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy for Adult Asperger Syndrome. I am currently doing cognitive-behavioral therapy

That chart made a lot of sense to me too, and I was surprised to find the language about an underlying processing disorder echoed in the 1978 report about myself from the child study team that I dug up as part of the research around my diagnosis.

The chart from Dr. Gauss' book maps to my experiences quite well.

A very interesting book.

If you had been introduced to five Irishmen in your life and every time the first thing each of them did was to kick you in the shin, you might want to step back or cover your shin if you were introduced to a sixth Irishman.

Some call this racism, some called it prudence, some might call it bad luck. However, the use of experience to influence judgment is just learning.

An NT might use his experience to see the requirement to fix something on the roof as an opportunity to first engage in social stroking that is pleasurable. An Aspie who does not receive the same pleasure and is in fact made uncomfortable would be more inclined to get the job done. Later, the NT group following the call to action may have been more motivated by a slight fear of getting caught for goofing off than persuaded of the merits of quick action.

It might be that if a task could be accomplished along with a detour that provided an Aspie some pleasure, that approach to the task might not look too dissimilar from the "politician".

NTs have learned that they can take social pleasures where they can. Aspies have learned that they can avoid social discomfort by sticking to a task. Both have learned to "judge".