Do you have an inherently positive attitude?

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I was just struck with this realization . . .

My older son (undiagnosed Aspie) always had kind of a downer attitude, always unsure of himself, fought depression when he was a teenager. He is none of those things now -- he worked his way through all of this -- but he still retains some of this in that he is often disappointed in the behavior of others, is often skeptical, tends to have a pretty tough measuring stick for other people.

My younger son, diagnosed PDD-NOS, on the other hand, is unbelievably cheerful. He does not, and may never, recognize when others are making fun of him, doesn't notice flaws in the character of others. He seems quietly sure of himself -- which is interesting, because I don't think that he actually IS sure of himself. He just doesn't care about appearances at all, and doesn't ever think badly of other people.

This characteristic of my younger son doesn't seem to gel with what I have read about people on the spectrum, and so I'm wondering if there are others out there with a similar positive outlook.

I'm an Aspie, and I'd say that I'm more like your younger son, especially now that I found out about my condition. Although a while ago, I used to be pretty depressed, and even tried to commit suicide.

At a young age, I got upset easily and cried a lot, too, and the fact that I tried to isolate myself all the time probably made it look like I was miserable. I could cry for hours loudly when I was younger, but now I cry very quietly and subtly.

Im very optimistic.

I tend to be very pessimistic, because frankly being pessimistic is being realistic in my life. Nothing ever goes right.

I think I'm neither optimistic nor pessimistic, for I don't really think about the future too much.

However, this:

...kind of sounds like how I am.

I've had a positive outlook and been cheerful since I can remember.

i tend to be pessimistic but i have a tougher yard stick for myself then for others.

I'm pessimistic on some things, and optimistic on others. Skeptical with some things, and cynical with others.

Mostly cheery though, with some bouts of depression.

Thankfully not as much anger as in my younger years.

That reads like a description of me.

With the difference that in later life, I started to recognise that people bullied me and that they care about appearances, which was utterly confusing for several years and thus a source of great physical and mental exhaustion.

I am now very aware of and at times I'm very frustrated with it, because the idea is still so confusing (for whatever reason, things that don't make sense literally kill my mind, lead to meltdowns, whether it be maths or other people) as I'm still spontaneously reacting on my perception of the world in which such things don't exist and don't work. I often also still miss that an argument or any other situation was about how others saw things. I forget to consider, because I am kind of imprisoned (in a good way?) in my perception and despite my knowledge over such things it still takes a lot of thinking and hints from the outside to point out that I am subject to what others think of me. I hope this makes sense. Basically, I feel normal and real and in my world's everything's perfect and everybody else feels non-existent and weird and not making sense.

I always thought this was evidence of that my TOM - my realisation that my world isn't true, but that others have another point of view on matters I should be spontaneously aware of - is still deficient in some way. Not like the TOM of some other autistic people who feel what others think is important and who were touched by cultural believes and these social rules when they were raised.

I feel burning anger and true sadness when I'm confronted with these things I can understand but can't think myself, but depression, anxiety, trust-issues, thinking things will go wrong, thinking people are frightening or so never followed these events even when my emotional reaction was strong one for that moment (I have professionals agree with that so I know it's not just my perception).

I think the deficit in my theory of mind is a good thing for that.

I'm very optimistic. My life has been going the way that I want it to, since I've been living on my own. I have friends, I'm working and I've found myself a hobby that I can make my own money off of. :O)

I have always been an optimist. It can be hard sometimes because I always believe people when they say they will do something, so I get disappointed a lot when they do not do these things, even when it is the 10th+ time they have lied I still expect that they might not be lying. I tend not to be upset for long though. Life gets better every year for me after a really crap childhood. I am lucky, I guess.

I have both optimistic and pessimistic qualities. If I get down, I tend to go way down, but when I'm up I can't get down. I have fought depression, although it has been minor, on and off for years, and denied it because of the causes, mostly my transexualism. I just never could admit to myself that my gender and sex were different (gender being what I am, and sex being what I was born). Unfortunatly for me, this is an uphill battle, as outside of the intersexed community, transexualism is strongly frowned upon. Unfortuantly, if you are intersexed, it is so okay to be transexual that they don't call transexul, and they call it normal, which for those of us who are not, makes it harder as we have to go through all the motions and then get thrown into the mold of some freakshow... Gays are viewed as equals where I am, transexuals are lesser things... We will probably never be viewed as equals when viewed as trans though, but we don't want to be viewed as trans, we want to be viewed as the gender we feel we are. Anyways... I'm ranting now... so I'm gonna stop rather than go on for a couple more hours...

I used to be a downer until I almost died from celiac disease at age 36. That and knowing I have AS has caused me to take a more optimistic approach to things. I've come to realize that most things in this world are just not important. I pick my battles very carefully because most just aren't worth fighting.

I've been told I was an "overly cheerful" child, always smiling, laughing, exploring and eager to learn (much like your son). Quite the opposite of what I'm like now, it all went downhill once I started figuring out how society works, around the time puberty kicked in. But that's not unique to people with an ASD.

i am not "cheerful", because i never experience any level of euphoria.

but i have almost never experienced either boredom or depression because i am kind of self sufficient in my own world.

my world is comfortable and is just the way i like it.
so i guess i am more relaxedly complacent than most everyone i see, but they experience periods of euphoria which i will never rise to feel.

i guess it all balances out in the end. i flat line in comfortable numbess, and others soar into bliss then dive into despair in a regular cycle.
they may pity my inability to experience bliss, but i pity their ability to experience despair.

it all is even in the end.

It's very interesting to read so many of your posts -- it would seem that when one is young, and cheerful, later life can really be a disappointment when you come to the realization that all is not well, not all people are trustworthy, and dealing with that is a big pain. I guess I was hoping against hope that my son would manage to retain his cheerfulness and pseudo-self-esteem.