Are autistic people often Perfectionists?

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I am in some ways. I'm quite pedantic & like things to look perfect, etc. & I've found this a lot in people with autism. Is this actually a characteristic of autism? Are there any autistic people here who are like that?

Last edited by AlexWelshman on 05 Nov 2011, 4:12 am, edited 1 time in total.

I don't know. I'm not quite a perfectionist, as in, my house isn't perfectly clean, etc, but it's more when I decide to do something, I never think it's good enough. I think it stems more from treatment when I was younger. I never tend to think of things I'm doing as good enough, and I always try to improve all the time. That, and I tend to reach for very "professional" goals when I do things, even things like cooking, ice skating, working on cars. I have this tendency to want to be the best at things I like doing.

(DXed NVLD, but have another psych saying I am HFA)

Sure am! I wish I could tell more about it though. I think that decreased with years when life tought me its lessons. Perfectionism has done a lot of harm to me. With understanding comes an appreciation for imperfections.

I've heard that its common for autistic people to have the type of perfectionism of not knowing what is 'good enough'

You misspelled a word in your title

Figures. You beat me to it.

Nah, we aren't ever perfectionists.

If we were all perfectionists though, this would prove the OP is not Aspie though, wouldn't it?

Truth be told though, I am a perfectionist, but only in certain ways. For example, I think I hit the backspace button at least dozens of times per post to correct mistakes, and will even edit posts if I see any after posting, just to fix every little typo.

If you were to look around my house though, you'd never guess I have any form of perfectionism at all. It's a freakin' mess!

When it comes to projects such as building a roller coaster model, I am a perfectionist. Every piece of balsa wood has to be as close to accurate in placement as possible. Strange though, the actual balsa wood itself doesn't have to be exactly to scale to the original's lumber. I use the same thickness balsa wood for the uprights as I do the cross bracing, when they were actually different size. But on these models, it would be very difficult to tell since the scaling amounts to errors that would nearly take a ruler scaled down to 1/32 of an inch to detect it.

In typing these posts, I proofread for spelling errors and most types of grammatical errors. I feel I must correct them.

In remodeling our house, I often go in behind the contractor with a ruler and level to make sure things like windows and doors have been put in accurately.

And there are many other examples of this in my life.

I'm definitely a perfectionist in many areas. Especially with my art or basketball. I tend to be really hard on myself if I make mistakes in either to the point where it can affect my mood for a while.

im perfectionist about things i care about.

I'm a perfectionist about most things, and am trying hard not to be so hard on myself.

I'm not perfect with objects. You should come into my room - nothing is in place. It's tidy enough, but all the shelves are cluttered up with things, which are relatively neat but probably not like what you are talking about (after all, everybody likes to have things in their homes put neatly to a certain extent, unless they are really careless, messy, slapdash people, and I know people who judge those types of people and their houses.)

I am a perfectionist in my typing. When I spot a mistake after submitting a post, I get annoyed and have to edit it to correct it. And when I see a mistake in a title, I get annoyed because I think, ''how come the OP doesn't see his or her mistake?!'' But lately I can't always be bothered to correct my mistakes in my posts (unless it's in the title). But generally I do like to make sense, and I can't read posts with too many mistakes.

But sometimes I find that I have wrote something opposite to what I wanted to write by missing out a word, like say for example I was meant to put ''I do not like snow'', and I accidentally miss out the ''not'', then I submit it then about 2 days later I see my post again and notice the most important word is missed out, then somebody has quoted it so I can't change it, so then everybody thinks I like snow.....

And I wish WP had a spellcheck aswell!

"You misspelled a word in your title"
LOL... So I have; I didn't look before I clicked "Post". I'm not really a perfectionist in that way. But I am in the way that I make sure CD's are perfectly straight, I keep things in order & in sets.

Last edited by AlexWelshman on 04 Nov 2011, 6:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'm definitely not a perfectionist which means I need to apologize in advance to all the grammar police on WP every time I post.

So sorry about that.

I am quite perfectionistic and suffer in areas where I "have to let go" - for example I would like to live with a minimum of "stuff" in the house, but as I have a husband there is a lot of stuff (I guess alone, I would live with almost nothing, only the most necessary to live). My perfectionistic side wants everything to be cleared out of my sight, because it is too confusing for me but my "not-be-able-to-organize"-side can't take care of it. It's just too confusing and too much to take care of and I get into overload and it stays chaotic.

Does perfectionism has got to do with being fixed on details?

Being a perfectionist is something that I had to learn to let go of. Otherwise I would never be finished with my work. I had to learn that there comes a time when things are basically "done," and I need to stop. Further work and puttering will not really improve things and might actually make things worse. It's not always easy to let go of something.

I'm also not a perfectionist. I've had perfection crammed down my throat when I was a child and I now wish for things to be real and not perfect.