Aspie girls

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well, it was very nice for me to read.

I'm not as horrible as people imagine. Want to have coffee sometime?

nah - i don't reckon you seem horrible at all. just straight down the line and blunt. and by the way, i am not a delight when it comes to my meltdowns!! Tomboy aspie woman at 46 sure lets the neigbourhood know when enough is enough! how do we go about having a coffee? ciao mate, as we say here in australia!

Stranger things have happened.

I'm having some of that same anxiety, waiting for my follow-up with the neurologist on the 2nd.

Well, Tiff and I wouldn't mind having a roommate and have had horrid luck with NT roommates thus far. If you ever find yourself in the area around Dallas, drop me a line, we might consider a roommate situation. The job issue seems like more of an issue to me -- and it's been more of an issue in my life in general as well. And admittedly, that complicates the whole roommate idea, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's out of the question.

Actually there are some places where you can legally go topless now.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/di ... 05x3548946

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topless

If it's any comfort, this is exactly what I was terrified of when I had my assessment, and I was not alone. Many people here have felt that way. It was really incredible for me to find that out.

One thing that I say to people going for an assessment is that usually, the AS specialist is an NT, so he can read those nonverbal social cues things and body language whatevers, and will see past either what one might consider amazing masking skills or terrible, horrible, "WTF is wrong with me?" dysfunction.

At least for me, the truth was that I neither had those amazing masking skills I was so proud (and afraid) of nor was I just a lazy child who wasn't working hard enough at therapy. I have AS. I have never really fooled anyone into believing that I have conventional social skills, and I am not a failure. Now I'm just me.

And BTW, your picture looks so much like me, it's amazing. It's not your features so much as your expression. It's a very cool picture.

I can understand your apprehension. Being 'normal' is in many ways far more terrifying than being found to be a little strange. Having to be normal is hard as it has so many constraints and conventions. I'd personaly find it almost impossibe to do. I can't inagine why anyone would want to be that way.

No, not true, and I believe this is one of the most damaging preconceptions, prejudices about aspies, by aspies themselves

It is just that 'Asperger's' is defined by a certain and somewhat arbitrarily chosen 'amount' of IQ (75, 80, 85???).

Avarage IQ is between 110 - 120.
There are many many more aspies in the area between 80 - 110 (below average) than there are in the area over 120.
According to the latest figures, around 25% of the entire autism spectrumites would be LFA (low functioning autism = below IQ 80).
This, by definition, means that 75% of the spectrum consists of HFA (high functioning autism = over IQ 80, including Asperger's).

I believe it is said that University will demand an intelligence over 120. Over 120 = above average.
There are many high functioning aspies in the area between 80 - 110, much more than over 120 - they are usually considered 'stupid'.
This of course is not fair, but relatively speaking quite simply true. Life is not fair.

The next sharp line is IQ130. Over 130 is diagnostically regarded as "the top 2%", which means you may be diagnosed with highly-giftedness.
This too could generally be seen as a neurological difference, as it comes with traits which can be very resemblant of HFA, especially when presented in terms of Asperger's. High intelligence is a distinct neurological condition, and can explain psychiatric suffering.

"Highly gifted" was the first hypothesis I got, very likely as a stand-alone diagnosis, but there might be adhd and/or bipolar to consider.
When the clinical psychologist later told me I was "in the top two percent", he had also sort of lied by having that preceded with "around 130". I must be over 130 (generally, with a remarkable verbal spike).
There is some discussion about the difference between 'highly-giftedness' and 'high intelligence', where the first would require the intelligence talents also having been put into practice. In that application, it can be argued I am not highly gifted (not completely true, but my talents have never found any source of parental or other social stimulation - that coupled with the lack of internal drive that I believe is totally autistic, may easily explain all of the total mess and failure that I have made out of my life, and the impossible corner I have come to paint myself into, still). Have I already said that life is not fair.?

Mind you, these figures are very conservatively set in 'new money'. The figures that an actual IQ test come up with, are extremely hard to appreciate. Which test was used, and which reference points? What do the figures mean? The same psychologist confirmed that I would have scored well into the 140s in 'old money'.

Finally: intelligence and wisdom are not synonymous. However, it is generally deemed wise to accept facts a given.

I think you're numbers are off... At least according to Wikipedia, the design of IQ testing is to create a system in which 100 is the peak of the average curve.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ

And of course there's the question of what exactly IQ is testing or supposed to be testing, as it is in the industry, very difficult to get people to use the newer, non-culturally biased IQ tests for anything to do with autism, not because they're not good, quite the contrary, because autistic people score higher on those more accurate tests! The reason why they don't ever want to use the more accurate test in autism studies is because culturally speaking, it's a lot harder (nigh impossible) to get funding for any kind of research unless they can show what is considered to be a "disability". That being the case they avoid the more accurate test because the higher IQ scores would make it harder to get funding merely because the test subjects would be considered "less crippled". Or is that what you were talking about re: old money vs. new money?

That being said I have a difficult time understanding how it could be damaging to aspies for an aspie to be mistaken in thinking that we generally have higher IQ scores...

Yep, I can relate! :-/

Charlie x

It's interesting that a lot of you are saying that you wanted to be a boy/or thought you were a boy.
I used to be FtM Transgender for 4 years (13-17) so yea... pretty much all my teen years were hell too.

Charlie x

what, like being labelled with the 5 personality disorders I had before my shrink actually woke up and realised 'hey, this person has Asperger's!?
I've been through psych hell over the last few years... especially this year... went into a psychiatric ward for a week before they kicked me out and I had a meltdown... a major meltdown.. Psych units are NO places for Aspies.
Then when I came out, I got labelled with Borderline PD, Schizoid PD, Schizotypal PD, Histrionic PD and Narcessistic PD.

I don't want to scare you! :-/
Good luck with your diagnostic assessment. I hope your professionals listen to you.

Charlie x

AS just allows that a person can have a high IQ.

It says one cannot have early cognitive delays and/or MR.

So all that is for sure if that by the current definition, those who get the label AS cannot have mental retardation.

IQ is not connected to AS as it is currently defined.



A small note;

Not correct like that. That IQ test would be a very uncommon and strange one.

70% of the population have an average IQ between 85 and 115 if the mean is 100 and the SD 15 - which is common.

Average is 85 to 115.

Of course there would be many with AS who have an IQ under 110, because that's simply average.

This thing about men being more obsessed with sex than women is a myth, I think. It's just that it has always been socially acceptable to for men to be sexual beings. Female sexuality is so taboo, girls aren't even taught words for their own "parts" or how their bodies work (other than the basic reproductive stuff). Women are said to want "romance" and "love", because for so long it's been taboo to even consider the idea that a woman might actually desire sex. I think more women and girls are obsessed with sex that you'd think; it's just that they don't talk about it, or if they do talk about it, they put it in the context of relationships and romance, because THAT is what is considered socially acceptable. Also, an AS girl might think of herself as uninterested in sex, because she equates that with relationships and romance, rather than the feelings in her own body, because a girl/woman is not "supposed" to think of her own body in that way. Again, it's how we are conditioned. Remnants of the Victorian era, I suppose. I hope that makes some sense, without crossing any "lines."

It worked for me. Of course prior to the Victorian era there have been a lot of cultures where that's not been the case. The Mosuo tribe in China as an example are still matriarchal and it would be hard to imagine someone suggesting that a woman in that tribe was disinterested in sex, given the way their culture is structured.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosuo