I'm not really like anyone else...

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I don't think I can properly be called an Aspie. Some people describe coming here and immediately feeling like they are on the "right planet." That's never happened with me. Even the professionals diagnosed me with PDD~NOS, which in this particular case I think meant "Let's slap a label on this girl, she seems to have a few aspergers traits, but we don't really know what's wrong with her." I hope I'm not sounding self-pitying here. I enjoy life, I enjoy the people around me. I am a happy person. But... I don't really know if Aspergers can really be the reason I'm so different. It helped for a while, because I no longer felt like this "weirdness" was my fault. But now... I don't know.

I have several reasons to think that I don't have Aspergers, but before I disclose them, could somebody give me a definition of what Aspergers is, which is not from a textbook? Certain traits like "lack of imagination and empathy," I have found to be false about the majority of people I know who are on the spectrum. I

You could just look up the DSM definition on the internet. But it's better to have a local resource where you can look at the many facets of the condition. One of the best I've found is the wikipedia entry, it has tons of really great links and good information on the page itself.

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

AS is basically autism in which the psychologist figures that you're good at speaking and not developmentally delayed by much. Aspies are very varied; you get introverts, extroverts, scholars, artists, housewives, and professors, and just about everything else. (Not a lot of salesmen and politicians, though.)

The traits we all have in common are that we're bad at socializing--maybe we're bad at reading people; maybe we use only words (and not much non-verbal stuff) to communicate; maybe we're just not sure about how to keep up a conversation or maintain a relationship. Speech itself is usually idiosyncratic, odd, or scripted; but with practice, we tend to become decent at speech itself even when we're missing the peripherals.

Most Aspies have obsessions of some sort; it can be pretty mainstream, or rather unusual. Collections are common; collections of facts about a favorite topic are very common. Given our way, we would probably spend most of our time on these favorite pastimes. They can be constant throughout one's life, or change; the one thing that makes them uniquely autistic traits is that they are very intense, past what a typical person's hobby would be.

In the physical domain, we tend to be clumsy, but aren't always. Repetitive movements, everything from foot-tapping and finger-tapping to full-out rocking or hand-flapping, are present to some degree for almost everyone. Sensory processing issues are also common, like being over-sensitive, under-sensitive, easily overloaded, or having a good deal of difficulty interpreting some sorts of sensory input.

Beyond those things, we are very different. People with AS have all kinds of personalities, all kinds of preferences. They can be jerks or they can be altruists; you might have everything or nothing in common with them. They can be conservative or liberal or care nothing about politics; they can be deeply religious or absolute athiests. Some have lived through hell just for being autistic; others have been mostly protected. In general, though, we all have the experience of being different from most people around us.

Thank you for that definition, Callista. Socialising is one of the things I struggle to do, but it's strange, because when I am somewhere I feel comfortable in I can hold well-flowing conversations. A lot of people in a particular place where I feel comfortable have been surprised to hear that I have Aspergers at all. This makes me think that it is shyness/anxiety, but that doesn't really seem to fit either. Over-sensitive has been used to describe me, but not for sensory matters: I am extremely sensitive to insults and criticism. I am also very sensitive to my environment; if other people around me are suffering, I suffer.

I'm the most obvious aspie here.

Well, the lack of imagination bit is flat-out wrong.

AS for sensory, I don't have much of an issue with that, but I do notice many things that others don't.

I have to kids on the spectrum. My son is more "classicly" autistic. He has OCD-ish issues. Gets really upset when unexpected changes happen. Completely zones out in noisy, crowded environments. At the age of six, already talks like a little professor and has extreme interest in dinosaurs. No real friends to speak of because he just doesn't really have a desire to interact with his peers *unless* he can use them "actors" in his highly imaginative play sequences. He isn't always in tune with the feelings of others, but if he realizes that someone is hurt (and especially if he was the culprit) he has an incredibly tender heart and will cry at great length.

My daughter (5 y.o.) has a diagnosis of PDD-NOS, but is completely missing traits from the "stereotyped behavior" category, so doesn't seem "autistic" in the stereotypical sense. She has lots of sensory issues. She has a flat affect a lot of the time, so people end up asking her "what's wrong?" because she often looks glum. She is amazingly smart and also talks like a little adult, which doesn't bode well in the five year old girl friendship world. She often forgets words and has huge pauses in her speech due to processing issues. She is extremely oppositional and sometimes her behavior seems to border on mean- for some reason she laughs when her sibs get hurt. Yet at the same time she can be sweet as anything- today I had the stomach flu and she kept tucking me in and bringing me water, so I have to believe there is some empathy there.

Your post reminded me of my daughter. I don't think she would identify with a lot of the things discussed around here. Yet her differences are marked and I have to believe they are somehow related to autism because it's very much a part of our family. I think that autism can just express itself in so many ways. And maybe it expresses itself differently than the norm in women/girls?

What about this? http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/What_is_Gifted/characgt.htm

Hi Rosiemaphone,
There is a significant overlap between the experience of being an introvert and having AS. Perhaps the introverted aspects of AS are the parts you relate to?

About introversion: http://www.davidsongifted.org/db/Articles_id_10343.aspx

It's interesting that you should mention the introvert/extrovert thing, because I've been thinking about it in regards to myself recently, and I seem to be both intro- and extroverted

I'm not really like everybody else, here and I don't give a rat's ass.

I am also pretty atypical, I think...the ASD specialist insisted she thought I was an aspie...but I have always sorta questioned it...I have alot of atypical quirks...combined with stuff that seems to obviously put me on the spectrum. I do not think I would have been addicted to this site for as long as I have been without somehow being on the spectrum...but I have never stopped occasionally doubting that I am a real "Aspie"....In AS meetings..I always seemed a tad "sideways" of Aspergers and HFA folk...having traits of both, but fitting into neither group.

I'm pretty obviously AS... or a large humanoid housecat.

As I have no urge to integrate into the furry subculture (still trying to figure out what exactly the point of yiffing is), nor to make myself appear like an animal outside (already one inside...), I'm happier with the AS diagnosis.

Though: http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/Visual ... er/vsl.htm

That describes me as well to an extreme degree, this is the problem I had in math in school, teacher would ask the class to find x for x+(36/2)=(4*6)+5... while the other kids start cranking away on the problem, I sit and fit puzzle pieces together in my head and notice that 11 fits, so I write x=11.

I'd get asked to show my work, and didn't understand why, if I had the right answer. Years later I learned on my own that algebra is about the relationships between the parts of the equations, not merely the solution, but yeah... lots of things that could have been better explained had I known why I was so different.


I identify with people here in ways I never did before, but I'm not exactly like anyone in particular either, and this can be misleading at times. For example I assumed my spatial~musical synesthesia was more common among Aspies, but it's apparently not.