What THEY say about us (AS)

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In surfing I have found that Aspies:

1. have no sense of humor

2. Might be suffering from a "supermale" mind

3. Have a narrow range of "obsessive" interests

On the other hand, on WP i find that:

1. We may or may not have a sense of humor, i would guess more of us do

2. A lot of us are female women of the opposite sex

3. A lot of us have many interests

I thus wonder what else of us have THEY gotten wrong?

The problem with psychiatrists is they are arrogant, and DON'T ASK! Just like most doctors. It is like the mother in house that brought her daughter in because she was having "convulsions". She spoke of how her daughter would rock, etc.... and go stiff and start shaking, and thought it was FUNNY! Her daughter sat there through this smiling and looking like her mother was nuts. House KNEW what was wrong, but made funny noises and flashed a light to confirm it. I'll leave it to you to guess. I forget most of the funny slang he mentioned. She never asked her daughter? HECK, she was female, and couldn't guess? Oh well, psychiatrists are like THAT!

ASPIES are probably less likely to see the point in jokes, and may not understand some. There are a number of reasons for that. Some see alternate meanings NTs DON'T!

The supermale mind is because of analytical, and perhaps lack of some female interests. They forget language which is supposedly more female!

Narrow range of obsessive interests? I think the DSM says they CAN be! They certainly don't HAVE to be!

YEAH, they got a LOT of other stuff wrong like empathy, lack of feeling, etc...! AGAIN, misunderstandings!

Steve

1) Many of the best stand-up comics around are Aspies. I've seen some self-confessed postings on this board indicating such. In other words, we can be pretty funny people some times.

2) Supermale mind? In a way I can relate to that. I've had mysogynistic tendencies of my own before but that was way back when... Those Dark Ages of my life's landscape are bygones now.

3) Yes, Aspies are often narrow-spectrum in their interests, but gurus in their fields of expertise.



On the other hand at WP:

1) Lots of clever word-smithing can be seen here in some posts.

2) The ratio is about 4 males to 1 female. Refer to the Aspie Affection and you'll see the proportion there as well as what is statistically known.

3) Collectively speaking, we cover just about any and every interest that can be named, although most of what we do are solitary or one-on-one endeavors as opposed to team-oriented sports and games.

I contend that the DSM IV definition of AS is WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! Because it's all about what THEY see, it's about observation. It's NOT about how it is to actually experience AS. Any 'scientific' observation can be skewed according to the predisposition and prejudices of the observer (no matter how many letters s/he has after his/her name). Heisenberg showed this conclusively!

Thus, the DSM IV et al are meaningless in the real world. The fact that we all know MANY AS females is a case in point: H Asperger worked ONLY with little boys; little boys are the ones who are noisiest, most obvious - little girls present in quite a different way. But hey, just like almost everything else in 'science', it's heavily skewed towards 'Male-as-definitive' version. (Not that I'm a feminist by any stretch of the imagination - just being realistic here).

"A lot of us are female women of the opposite sex"

what do you mean by that?

allthou it is not a new disorder, the knowledge about it is still "new" a lot of difference between aspies between psychological interpretation vs psychiatric interpretation between aspie males and females, there are set criteria but these are not rigid, allow flexibility in your interpretation allow yourself to read others knowledge and build on their thoughts wp is great for this, dont critiscice others for what they dont know, try and find self awareness as aspiness applies to you.
its almost like finding enlightenment.

female....women....opposite sex...
opposite which sex?
HHHmmmm, good question, Jutty!

ahhhh. . . got that line from some ancient sitcom in which a guy is toung tied - I think trying to tell his son something about women. Line stuck with me, I always liked the multiple and self conflicting nature of it.

I do agree with you Donkey, and this is obviously the way to go. It's fine and good to be flexible - and necessary. But what I was ranting about is the narrowmindedness (uhhh, rigid hyperfocus...?) of psychs etc on what is exactly written in their little books. We know they don't bother to listen properly, that they usually just tick off the boxes depending on whether a) they believe in AS and b) whether they believe YOU! We usually come off worst in such scenarios. It shouldn't matter, but it does when you need a dx for school or work or to claim benefits/welfare.

I do sometimes feel like I have a male mind. I don't understand women at all!

They have it wrong about empathy! Just because we don't show in the usual way it does not indicate we're not feeling it.

I agree with en una isla, I am far MORE empathetic than most NTs, I just don't show it in a way that they wanna understand.

I wonder if there are more women aspies than scientists think. I think a lot of times our traits are more hidden, so it's less noticeable. Or maybe it's because social skills are pushed on us more and we've learned to adapt. Or maybe it's just less diagnosed for women because the majority of psychologists believe it's more seen in males. Or maybe there really are less women who have it, and they're just all on this board.

I think if I went to a psych and told them I thought I had AS, they might not believe me because I'm a female.

Well, yes, GG, all of that (but not that there-are-fewer-women-and-they're-all-here). You're probably right about the psych scenario - exactly that happened to me.

I think there are more Aspie women then they know about. They even think that because they believe they present in such a way that they are not detected. I don't know if I agree with that. I think it depends. When I went to Kindergarten, I'd only had experience with boys, never girls. So, I was very inclined to punch the lights out of any boy who teased me. It didn't take long for them to stop. I have five brothers, so if I want to punch your lights out, I know how to do it. That being said, the school of the 1960's started to try to get that out of me by telling me it wasn't ladylike (along with taking off my dress and other things. Hey! I had only brothers and they habitually took off their shirts in the summer and so did I. I was five then). Anyway, trying to reason with me and threaten me with authority didn't work at all. I wanted to be around my best friend, Mary, who was also tough. So, I made up my mind to conform to get what I wanted. I still beat up boys, I just made sure it was after school.

On the other hand, their description of Aspie girls as living in a fantasy world inside their own head and liking characters and scripting is me. I didn't like the world from the time I entered school, so I just made up my own worlds and ignored theirs. Even then I had no empathy for them. I have to admit, I did look down my nose at the other kids. I thought them stupid and inane. On the rare occasions they could get me to speak, I would let them know that. They liked my stories, so they put up with my bizarreness, but I never fooled myself that I was like them or that we were all best buddies. I never felt I had anything in common with them.

I still only have empathy for my family, friends, pets, animals in general and children. I feel bad for any child that's abused. I will step into that situation, even if I regret it because I become too involved (which doesn't take much for me). But there, my empathy ends. For the general public? Absolutely not. Most of what happens to them I watch them bring on themselves then whine about because they didn't use their head once before they acted. If they had, they could have avoided the whole mess. If I mess up, even in NT interpretations, I accept responsibility and go on. I expect them to do the same. I'm certainly not wasting my time feeling sorry for people who act like they have no control over their own lives. I have characters to create and worlds to build. They can go off and live in their own mess as far as I'm concerned.

Really? I was under the impression that it was more even. I guess I was really misled by this thread.

Anyway, yeah. NTs tend to take a tiny portion of the AS spectrum and apply its characteristics to all of us. We're certainly more lively and interesting than many give us credit for.

That is a loud of crap. I have a sense of humour!