There MUST be different types of aspergers

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There's no way to say this without sounding ignorant, so here goes. Just know that I don't want to offend anyone.

From what I've read in books, seen on these very boards, and experienced in person, AS seems to have a very very different effect on people. One population of aspies (the majority) seems perfectly content with their personality, and have an intense aversion to the notion of altering themselves to fit in. This is the "I shouldn't have to change- there's nothing wrong with me. If you don't like it, that's your problem!" group. Then there's another population (to which I belong) that would give anything to know what causes this, and how they could cure it. They want to fit in, see it as a disadvantage, and actively disguise their affect.

Neither population is right or wrong! It's the why of their outlook and attitudes I'm concerned with.

I don't think it's a matter of how bad one has it; I think it has more to do with a different type of aspergers, and how it effects one's perceptions and outlooks. I know there's a bazillion possibilities, so I do want your feedback. What do you think's going on here?

I don't think there's more than one type of Asperger's. Remember, to receive a diagnosis, you don't have to have all of the symptoms. This means that different people will have different combinations of symptoms. Even people with the same combination may have different levels of impairment within those symptoms. This lends itself to even more variation among Aspies.

EDIT: and this doesn't even begin to cover all the variables. Someone who has minimal social issues (but still goofs occasionally) and who is surrounded by negative people will find it hard to be happy if nobody accepts him. At the same time, a profoundly affected person who is surrounded by understanding and supportive people will be more positive, as even his big screw-ups will have minor consequences.

Last edited by pat2rome on 18 Feb 2010, 9:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm of the type who's happy with the way that they are. I'm quite satisfied with the way that I am. I love my kinks, so to speak. Most people call them quirks. I like being different, and the best part of it all, is that I didn't choose the 60s. That decade chose me, at the age that most kids start listening to Top 40. I love my accent, and my unique beauty. I also don't hide my feelings from anybody. If I feel like crying, I cry. I don't care what people think of me. If they don't like the way that I am, than they don't have to look at me, plain and simple. I have nothing to hide.

I would give a great deal to change my Executive Function weaknesses. Plus I could live without the embarassing habit I have of talking to myself -- even arguing with myself -- quite loudly without even realizing it. But I'm not really sure how much further I'd want to go than that. At what point would I would cease being, well, me?

I remember once I so desperately wanted to go back to 1968 in Paris. Students riots etc. My sister and I were even guessing who we'd be. I'd be the tom-boyish mod and my sister well she's got this 60's housewife thing going on.

Anywho, I think it does matter how bad you have AS. On meds I was content with myself, but off meds I have days where I really struggle. I'm content with who I am but I still hope in a cure, not eugenics but for those severely affected with autism. I'm a bit positive and negative about my AS, so put me in a third group.

Third group. I'd like to be cured, but I can care less about fitting in.

The more I think about it. Its not the autism I hate. Its the comorbids of anxiety and OCD. They can be absolutely debilitating at times.

Then again, I am making the assumption that the comorbids would go away with the autism. I don't know if that would true. If the autism would go away but the OCD/anxiety remain, then I have no need for a cure.

OK. Fourth group. There is not enough information at this time to make a decision.

I think it has more do with personality, attitude, outlook etc. I think if you take a group of congenitally deaf people, there will be a number who would want to be "cured" and a number who do not want to be changed and do not see that they should become hearing just to fit in with the majority. It would be odd to interpret that as being the result of different kinds of congential deafness rather than as the result of different personalities and attitudes.

I'd like to be able to switch it on or off when it suits me.

Maybe, but congenital deafness deals primarily with the absence of one of the senses, and we scientifically know what causes it, or what's missing in those people. Aspergers is neurological in nature, and is more likely to have some kind of impact on our personalities. It impacts the senses too (can, in some cases) but deals mostly with cognition, behavior and personality (if not, then I don't know why everyone's saying aspies are less likely to judge, steal, lie, etc.) Actually I like what somebody said earlier, that one's attitude toward AS may have to do with certain variables, and the symptoms you have that others may not.

EH, I DUNNO BOUT THAT

Yes there are different type of Aspies, and all of them are called individuals.
Asperger/Autism affect the way people sense and react to the world. It does not mean that every individual with Asperger/Autism came from the exact same mold. People with these disorders are still people, and have all the same variety of traits that every human being has.

Having diabetes doesn't mean the person can not be different and unique like other human beings and having Asperger/Autism does not mean that the person can not have a wide variety of personality and cognitive varieties shared by all human beings. These are conditions that affect the way the person fits into the world, they don't change the person from being human.

That's not two different groups of Asperger's. That's two different perspectives on having Asperger's to begin with.

Two people can be in exactly the same situation and react to it differently because of their different personalities. Two people can have the same exact autistic traits and react to them differently because of their different personalities--to say nothing of upbringing, environment, and learned coping skills.

The people who figure there's something wrong with them and they're unacceptable as-is have the exact same Asperger's as the people who figure there's nothing wrong with them and the world is unacceptable as it is. They are just reacting to it differently.

I agree with much of what's been said here. Individuals. With a lot of variation.

Some of us have the aversion to changing to fit in, but not the "I shouldn't have to change- there's nothing wrong with me." attitude. I've changed for my own benefit, to become a better me. I'm really quite content with my lack of intuitive understanding of social hierarchies and my lack of ability to pretend to be something I'm not in order to fit in. I fit in, where I do, to the extend that I do, by finding a place I fit in, not by changing to fit in.

For the hundredth time:



Note the gradual slope?

Autism spectrum is a slope, not a stair-step. There are as many shades and variations as there are us.

If you've met one person with AS, you've met one person with AS.

That is actually a very typically autistic thing, to see every thing as a different thing.
But this counts for everything.
If you have seen one specimen of something, you know only that specific specimen.