Common Myths about AS

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Here's a myth about Asperger's Syndrome that really bugs me:
"Asperger's Syndrome doesn't exist."

more myths

1.) Only white boys are autistic
2.) Autistics are incapble of being independent
3.) That we lack physicial development
4.) That our world is only our special interest, exclusively and inexorably.
5.) We are incapble of being affectionate ( I can be overaffectionate
6.) That we are inevitable and irredeemable failures at relationships ( i do have some relationships that NTs always me questions about, nananana)
7.) That we don't care
8.) We live in a fantasy world (I wish I had the luxury!)
9.) Ok the remaining is autistic stereotypes by country
USA 1.) That we are incapable of making money and suriviving
Mexico 2.) We cannot provide for our family (Nostros no puedemos a providar para uds familias)
South Africa 3.) We are the biggest psychopaths since the end of apartheid
Japan 4.) We are destined to work for Nintendo, Sony or some other electronic company
India 5.) A combination of South Africa and Mexico
UK 6.) Benevolent eccentric

Biggest myth of them all: AS is a disorder. Humans are just as neuro diverse as any other species. There is no such thing as "normal".

^true
Every one just pretends to be normal as far as Im concerned

I'm going to visit a psychiatrist soon, so I'll tell about my impressions!

Remember that the people who have the "dominant" gene like to play majority is normal, but when people like us with the "recessive" gene, are the crazy wild people .

Read Enemy of the People by Hendrik Ibsen and you will see what I mean!

Also NTs don't like the idea of the general population becoming autistic, I bet that there are people out there that don't want us to mate.

*mate* are you sure
Ive been with socologists and they didnt give me that impression

Well, now we get into the eugenics debate.

You see (and I am not a biologist),that some NTS thinks that we are disabled and thus a threat to the natural survival of humanity based on Social Darwinism.

So, mating is counterprodutive to eugenics.

Generally, I think eugenics is BS and bad science.

I am sure I will repeat some, I haven't read this entire thread:

Myths about Aspies...
Everyone with Asperger's Syndrome is:

a genius
has "rote" memory much like a computer's
walks without bending their knees much
is single
earns three digit salaries
has oodles of post grad college degrees...double majors with masters and PhDs
excells in science, math and/or computer programming
lacks empathy
is "a sociopath"
makes an excellent politician or actor

Regarding the empathy thing...

I can remember the first time I saw an autistic person without knowing they were autistic, and later found out they were autistic (as in, already diagnosed at the point when I saw them).

And that experience didn't involve thinking oh what a strange person this is. And I didn't really know what autism was, except that the word had been applied to me at some point in time. Didn't know it applied to her. But my experience was overwhelmingly one of seeing someone whose body language and reactions to their surroundings was completely familiar to me. I did with this person have instantaneous, intuitive empathy of the kind that autism researchers claim that autistic people don't have.

That and other similar experiences later led me to conclude that most people, autistic or not, have one kind of 'empathy' (of the sort the professionals claim autistic people don't have). And that is, the ability to see someone with roughly similar neurology to us, and make a good and rapid guess as to what they're feeling and responding to, and experience that guess as just 'knowing' what the person is feeling and why. Basically a sophisticated form of projection. (And no, I don't have this for all autistic people, just some who have certain things in common, but when I have it, it's real, and not impaired in the slightest. I think it is prejudiced to count non-autistic people's empathy for each other as empathy, but not count mine because it's not for the right people.)

And then most people, autistic or not, have problems with another kind, which is the ability to do this with people of extremely differing neurologies.

Since autistic people are the minority, many of us (although not all) appear to 'lack empathy' (of that kind). Meanwhile some of us have the first kind and some don't, I imagine.

Another problem with the empathy thing, is that I'm pretty sure that it was originally applied meaning 'ability to care about other people's feelings' and then later, instead of admitting they got that wrong, they changed the definition. The same thing happened with imagination. They used to believe that autistic people literally couldn't imagine things, as in dream up things in our heads that were not real. Then they found out this was not true. So instead of saying "sorry, we were wrong," they then claimed that 'imagination' had a very specific meaning of 'social imagination' in this context and that ordinary people were basically too dumb and uninformed to understand that's what they meant. So both of these words when used in these specialized ways, may well be relics of old assumptions about us, and of professional stubbornness when it comes to admitting mistakes.

Here is Jim Sinclair's article "Thoughts About Empathy" from 1988:

http://web.syr.edu/%7Ejisincla/empathy.htm

A quotation:

This entire thread reinforces my current belief about autism and that it is a large group of traits that have been labeled "autistic," many more than the famous triad of impairments. The traits may or may not have anything to do with each other. The more of these traits that an individual has, the more autistic that individual appears. Since the exact grouping of traits is different in each individual, as well as the degree to which they are expressed, few if any traits are going to be 100% true across the spectrum, hence what is true for one, will be a myth for another. Nearly all the myths in this thread seem to be of this nature. As far as I can see, the only 100% true myth about autism is that every autistic person exhibits exactly the same characteristics.

Oh, and more evidence for the fact that even professionals really meant the other kind of empathy (caring) originally, is that they still describe sociopaths as lacking empathy. When they really mean lacking caring. (Since sociopaths are often actually quite adept manipulators because of being able to understand and predict other people.)

That's one of the real problems with claiming that empathy has this second meaning that applies only to autistic people. It allows for sociopathy and autism to become confused because of a semantics problem, when they're really extremely, extremely different conditions (and when putting autistic people and sociopaths in one place is asking for rampant abuse of autistic people).

I've thought of this also, Abuend, and I came up with a term:

Selective Empathy

From what I have observed in myself and by watching others that I know and have been around, everyone has empathy in varying degrees and it fluctuates given the situation and the person experiencing the situation and the empathy.

For example;

When someone victimizes another person the victim will lose empathy for the perpetrator and it's a completely normal reaction, imo.

I have more empathy for certain situations and less empathy for others. For instance, if someone breaks their fingernail the reaction from some may be an empathetic one, and send someone running to find an filing board. I don't think my reaction would be to go find that board. I think I would just kind of stare and mutter an insincere sounding 'uh oh' or similar.
Not because I am a sociopath, I just cannot muster empathy within myself to that situation. It's because I don't think it's that big a deal, not like your finger getting jammed in a machine and you losing it.

Another thing, it's really difficult sorting "empathy" and "sympathy". I admit I do not always empathize but I do sympathize enough to help someone out whenever I see the need. I do not always "feel" their feelings too. Still, however, I am aware my assistance is needed and help out anyway.

When I think about this I confuse empathy and sympathy at times.