Adults with Aspergers Seem 'Normal' to Me

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Her statement - I'm a she!

I totally agree with you

It doesn't surprise me in the slightest that even within the field of engineering today they'd say such things as "Social ability is more important than professional knowledge" - FFS! It's true in today's society and all the more depressing for being so! How on earth is humanity to progress when the ability to talk the talk is rated more highly than the brainpower necessary to invent new things?? Society is well and truly f-ked!

This is part of the reason I don't work.

I'm sorry! I blame Germanic languages for not having gender-neutral personal pronouns that can be used in reference to people



It surprised me, to be honest, and made me want to go back to my old university and apply to graduate school in Philosophy instead. But social security won't pay for education that doesn't qualify for work, so I stuck with it. And Philosophy was ages ago anyway, so I'd have a hard time refreshing my knowledge enough to be ready for graduate school. Now I just hope society is unf-ked when I graduate...



Believe me, I'm tempted. But the low disability payments and lack of activity would kill me. If I really can't get a proper job due to being a social misfit, at least I'll have the qualifications to design things myself and try to sell them. Or I'll just leave Europe (it seems to me that Europe is worse than the rest of the world when it comes to this) for good and live somewhere else. The thing I love the most about being overseas (as in out of Europe, not just out of my country) is that people ascribe my behavior to being a foreigner, not a weirdo.

Depends on how you define normal.....but considering its a mental disorder and our brains work differently I think it's safe to say people with aspergers are not what this society considers normal......regardless of if anyone thinks how we function is normal. But in the end who cares whether someones 'normal' or not why should it even matter?

Also as much as I feel I am somewhat intelligent and introverted, that's not all that's going on.......I also have sensory overload issues, can't look people in the eye, process things slowly so when I'm having a conversation it can be hard to word things right or quick enough......it leads to being interrupted(I might pause too long), people assuming I'm ret*d and then talking to me like I am So yeah I do have actual difficulties because of the AS, I don't see anything 'meek' about acknowledging that.

Though I do dislike this society as well so I am in agreement with your dislike of it.

How the hell does it do that? I did not see it say anywhere in the criteria that encouraged such things......and some of us are victims of things, kinda hard to go through life without ever being the victim of anything even if its something as insignificant as a cold. But yeah especially when you differ from what is considered normal......and then have to deal with bullying and being singled out by teachers who are in on it. ........and its not a normal style of thinking and communicating, the whole reason its in the DSM is because it is different....if it was not different than neurotypical thinking it would not be listed as a disorder at all.

I totally understand you. I also wanted to add that being in an "international" group makes is so much easier for me to socialize, as people who are accustomed to that tend to avoid relying on figures of speech and body language, and to repeat in case someone doesn't understand.





In my experience, I have noticed that in school/college there is little chance to learn work-oriented social skills properly, even for NTs. As business major, I have been taught how to "be social" at the workplace, and all the logical reasons behind that. It is way more complicated than greeting people and trying to be nice, so I don't think that even NTs would be proficient in them without the proper training. I wonder why not teaching these things to everyone in grade school already, since they are so important in modern society.

They are already great at teaching kids how to be slaves to corporate america at school.

I don't even know how to build networks. I see other people just do it effortlessly, and I can see them in operation, but the only times I've ever been able to benefit from social networking is when someone else basically used theirs on my behalf. Whatever I try to do myself falls flat.

No, I'm not.



Society is no more "dumbed-down" than it ever was.



No, it isn't.

"Aspergers" is not "just introversion."

I swear, this is why I don't bother with this forum hardly at all anymore.

That depends entirely on WHY you can't function in that "burger stand in Ohio."

How? (I'm not from the US)

Anyway, the discussion is getting Off Topic.

Maybe, by some people. My new therapist (here in Germany) was very open to the idea I had AS and said that she didn't know a lot about it but that if I had it it was genetic. She saw that as relevant for the therapy, which of course it is. I was pleasantly surprised how open minded she was about the whole issue of autism spectrum disorders. But of course it varies greatly between different "specialists".

I must say that from hanging out here on WP and reading the asperger's forum in Germany the level of public awareness about ASD seems to be much, much higher in the US than in Germany. Maybe because of Silicon Valley (?).

That's a good example . I don't agree with Prof Dose, especially if what he means is that people who somehow manage to compensate or adapt don't have to work hard to compensate or adapt or that it doesn't wear them out and push them to their limits. I think what he was objecting to was people who didn't have any AS related problems presenting themselves for an AS diagnosis because they were nerdish and their wives had decided they must have asperger's because they ignored their wife's feelings and spent all the time on the computer.

IQ does not determine if you can pass. Having a very high IQ doesn't cause your problems to go away, and doesn't innately mean you can fake it.

In my case, I can "pass" as not autistic just by being passive, but I could never fake being NT. I cannot act in a manner that is not autistic, its just that my autistic manner isn't stereotypical and at times looks like someone who is just an intelligent introvert because people expect things like monologuing (which I basically only do while typing).



I've known about Asperger's since I was 13. Until the past year I viewed it in the manner you're describing. That had absolutely no affect on the level of my disability, and actually was far worse for me than admitting I'm disabled.

None of my disability comes from viewing myself as disabled. I don't view myself as lesser. I don't view myself as wrong. I just view myself as a Tuttle who happens to be disabled. Disability doesn't innately come with non-neutral emotions to me. However, the particular label for the style of my disability allows me to research how to respond to some of my challenges as well as see professionals (mental health therapist, occupational therapist, vocational rehab being the three most relevant ones) who know how to work with someone who has the traits that I do. My diagnosis has been hugely helpful and the admitting that I'm disabled has done similar.

Suggesting that if I think I have no problems, that I'm just a different sort of normal, then I won't need professional help, that I'll be able to act NT, or that I'll even be able to fake being NT for periods of time, is incredibly incorrect. The labels don't cause my problems, they give me a name for the challenges I will deal with, and with that name easier access to resources to get help from others and to help myself.

I am Tuttle. I am autistic. I am disabled. I am not just different. I am someone who needs help in this society. I am someone who can't imagine a society that has any chance of occurring that would prevent me from needing help. While I am introverted and gifted, those traits are not my autism, those are other parts of me that interact with my autism.

well I did not know that....sometimes I forget to check where people are from....so yeah never mind, I guess that's not very relevant.

A lot of these idjit so-called eggsperts like Herr Professor Doktor Dose think that any autistic person who can do anything at all cannot possibly be autistic. It's easy to dismiss all of our views this way, rololol, so only their voices are heard, teehee.