do you ever feel that people think your a fraud?

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I'm the same way. I learned french and did fine in Paris and Montreal, but now that I don't use it-- it's all gone.

When I read books, sometimes I have to go back and start again because I can't remember who characters are.

I've heard of a lot of Asperger's people having this "working memory" problem, but I don't know the statistics.

Sometimes people don't understand why it is that i'm different. but for the most part, they can certainly pick up on the "difference".

BTW, I've really got to comment on this thread. Particularly Serious Girl, very good observations on your part and while I've kinda had bits and pieces of that circling my head for the last 5 years or so I still wasn't sure if other animals were really as engrossed in that kind of petty behavior until I saw something much the same on National Geographic, not about that particular ape but about the fact that tribes constantly kill each other. Its weird because the more I feel like there's absolutely no point to life and no value to human life over much of any other animal (add to that the definite probability of no god) it strangely makes things a lot easier because you start to realize just how little your missing out on and how ironed in fate is by genetics (at least in the social sense).

As for bringing up my AS to people, I feel like I've actually gotten good at finding the sort of moments to say something about it where when the subject veers a certain way and it would actually help forge group identity rather than break it. Hard to explain that but its kinda like that discovery process when new friends are crossing out of the acquaintance threshold and you're talking a lot about yourselves, when you say something like that and state it more as a fact about your past (leaving out the unneeded details but just stating the core of it in a completely non-whiny way that shows you understand that everyone has problems, if not just as bad as yours often worse, and its you just sharing something about yourself without really asking anything of them). I really think with most NT's that they don't specifically have a problem with AS per say as much as the phraseology and what we have behind it, especially when we are in fact busting up social convention and asking the world to bend itself to us (which I flat out won't, my main reason is for people to understand my social fatigue or understand things like why I can be a bit of a hermit at times or why I don't particularly try to go out and get it much).

I could maybe think of a few more things to add but I'm not going to be back until this upcoming Friday. I'll be trying to watch this one if I can though because it seems very promising and its loaded with enough golden information that I almost wish everyone in this forum could be reading it.

No problem, happens to me a fair bit too though. (I.e. read something, get stuck on one tiny bit and then later realise that bit wasn't what the person was on about...)


Yeah that's quite possible. I do have ADD (or rather "attentional dysfunction" - my main diagnosis is ASD) on top of AS/HFA though so perhaps it has more to do with that. I have recognised a lot of these experiences in some of what Donna Williams has written about "unknown knowing" (linked with problems in communication between the two hemispheres of the brain) though although I sometimes find it difficult to tell how literally some of her writing is to be taken.

There was this one thing where she mentions attaching labels to things when learning a new language, and because some of her writing can be quite symbolic I thought she meant she mentally attaches these labels (perhaps this is a problem linked with English not being my mother tongue, in German there is a difference between a physical and mental label) and then sees them in her head when looking at things. But nope, she just meant good old sticky labels


I have although he was more for ADD (and didn't do scans or anything, could not have afforded those privately anyway!), and sadly he died last year so I cannot ask him about this and other things.


That makes sense, perhaps the stress during exams (although for the most part I rarely got severe test anxiety in any "conscious" sense, i.e. fretting etc.) negatively affected my memory in that way. It's definitely a subject I'm wanting to learn a bit more about

Do you think it would come back to you if you went there again? It's the same for me but having watched Pan's Labyrinth this weekend I realised that I still remembered a lot of Spanish (and I never spoke it as such, but I learned French, Italian and Portuguese and picked up bits of Spanish from a family friend who was from Venezuela) and when triggered by the film I started to remember lots of little phrases I'd overheard in the past, and kept repeating some Spanish words and phrases in my head). I couldn't do that kind of thing voluntarily though, e.g. if you just asked me "What does X mean in Spanish" I would just blink at you and look confused.


Yeah me too, I've been getting better over the last few years at keeping track of characters in books and films. I still mix some up though...


That's certainly true for me, in online IQ tests I get Spatial as my strength but both visual and verbal are let down by my memory issues, and short-term memory problems make my PIQ slightly lower than my VIQ even though my strengths mainly lie with spatial skills and other stuff more associated with PIQ.

I'm not sure if my french would come back or not. Honestly, I can still read bits of it sometimes. And when I watch a french film, I'll turn off the captions and see how much I can grasp. But without the back-and-forth of conversation, I guess my mind gets lazy.

It does sound like it would come back though, which is always handy to know

"Unknown knowing" is unlikely to have anything to do with brain hemispheres. It's more about explicit and implicit learning (implicit learning generating more of the "unknown knowing" stuff), which from everything I've heard has to do with whether something's being handled by the traditional "higher cognitive" areas of the brain (presumably the frontal lobes) or the more perceptual areas of the brain (presumably further back), both of which exist on both sides of the brain.

That sounds plausible, it was in one of her older books and she's revised some of the definitions etc. over time. It's just the context in which she mostly brought up the term "unknown knowing".

But yes it makes sense that it's more an "areas of the brain" rather than a "hemispheres" thing (I believe we had this discussion before about DW's writing), although I guess lessened communication between the hemispheres might well trigger different processing between the various cognitive areas.

People (psychologists and therapists for example, or teachers) never believed I had problems because of my intelligence, they considered me someone who deliberatly didn't want to take part in society, and so I was convicted to fraud and not knowing what the hell was going on really.

In a way I am a fraud of course, I live with a system that I composed of a set of 'do's and dont's' and that works out really well. If I'd tell (NT) people about this system, they'd probably be shocked.

But so am I, I am thouroughly shocked by their behaviour, they lie, turn with the wind, have habits to denie all sorts of truths, provoke serious damage by hiding into their 'taboo'-things, slow down learning because of habits just for the sake of habits, etc.
Not that I mean to insult them, they are very skilled in many ways (and they saved me as well!)

But honestly, telling someone is a fraud is just another way of turning things around, and hiding not to be interested in really investigating the things that need to be cleared out. I agree it can be quite tyring to follow an AS-personality, but there are much easier and more interesting ways to state it then calling this person a fraud, right?

yeah, I agree, they can't understand what it means to have said something you shouldn't have and don't have a clue about it, you hear them think "it has to be deliberate". But this doesn't mean they are wanting to hurt you, they just don't get it.
To have been occupied in some obsession without being able to stop, they are convinced "this is not really possible, is it?"
To suffer sensory overload gets you a reply like "Isn't it all a little exagerated?"
To have insulted some high placed person because you asked a question perfectly logic to your mind and they are ready to kill you.

So what I'm doing is explaining everything to everyone all the time (even to my own (nt)husband) and that works. I'm not saying them it is about Asperger's (or only if I consider it possible, cause sometimes it is a benefit) but I say "Well I always have got difficulties with this kind of things, it makes me feel like..., wouldn't there be any way around it?".
One of the best tricks is call for the 'intelligence' of the one you're talking to, not just supposing it and acting accordingly (=mostly a big mistake) but exagerate in your interest for the speaker's knowledge, skills. (which I consider as an insult actually -except when it's genuine of course- but NT's don't, they think it normal, it makes me sick when I recognise it but well, it's just the way it is)

As a matter of fact I believe their 'social abilities' is a myth, they are capable of making some kind of mysterious agreement yes (and the older we aspergers get the better we can play it too). They are very good pretenders making outsiders believe that it is a very coherent agreement. Nothing is more wrong, it's not coherent at all, it just changes whenever some anomaly turns up.
At the limit if you always pretend everything is going like planned, even if it isn't, then it's ok.
How many people are hiding their illness for fear of losing their job, how many housewives have trouble with a drinking man, how many people suffer a low self-esteem? But if you pretend everything is ok then it is...That's how the NT-world works, not because they are evil, only because they wouldn't know how to solve things otherwise. Not understanding someone's inner-issues is not that social, is it? Not being able to explain or figure out there needs to be some explaining is not very social either. But an anoying, questioning, puzzling, weird Asperger who wants to go to the bottom of things (especially young ones because they have less experience with nasty situations, and how to deal with it) is a disturbing factor and in case of trouble, people need to get rid of disturbing factors. Or the disturbing factor will be the easiest victim for blaming it on. It's a survivors rule, nothing more. (i'm not being sarcastic here)

omg, it seems like i'm writing a book ...
didn't mean to, don't know what happened, hope i did write something usefull for someone somewhere ...

EXACTLY

Hello,


I am a fraud, if people knew the things I have done and the violence that takes place in my head towards many NT's (that is already how I look at others as NT's and it has only been a few weeks) they would recoil. I put on a shiny happy face for the world.

crazedchef

So often they would say, "you're just not living up to your potential." Well, they were both right and wrong. I really don't know how to focus my energy and intellect on some things. I can have a terribly strong will about some, but often I just can't bring myself to act.

I've tried to explain it to a few people, but no one really gets it. For the most part I've found it's best not to bother. The most annoying part tends to be when someone doesnt get it, their response is never just to say "I dont understand that" - it's always either a straight lie to appear intelligent, like "Oh, aspergers, yeah, I know all about that (then proceeding to prove they don't)", or some fake attempt to be nice, which is completely unneccessary, or worse, pity. Then, of course, there are those who think you are actively looking for pity by making something up.

None of those responses are even close to neccessary.

yes, that's the usual sentence, i think they learned by heart all over the world ...
yeah, if we could 100% control ourselves that'd be great, we'd be superpeople,
unfortunately...
we suffer it ourselves, nature has trouble calculating properly perhaps?
or let's hope that it only takes a lot of time before we get ourselves adjusted but then it will be great ! (isn't it nice to dream sometimes )

I tried explaining to someone why I didn't want to do a particular task. I didn't mention AS, but I discussed, in depth, what my personal hang-ups are. They were very supportive and understanding at the time - but within days they'd given me another task that caused me all the same problems

I don't know if they thought I was just pulling a scam or whether they just ignored or forgot everything I had, at great distress to myself, explained only days earlier. It made me feel like a fraud though, because the more I explained stuff the more stupid it sounded to me, and then when they later ignored it, that just turned the knife.