Okay. Name the benefits!

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Most Aspies wanna keep on the positive outlook by saying "I have an ability... not a disability." You ask them if they'd ingest the cure, they say: "No way dawg."

We're making a comprehensive list of benefits someone has when they have Asperger's Syndrome. So instead of being ambiguous, and keeping these positive traits as phantoms in the dark, we can be CLEAR to naysayers.

I take the initiative.....

Mysteriousness.

- D

Well having a much better memory than average is pretty good. I can do math and technical
jobs good enough to blow most people out of the water. Thats about it, asperger's has definitely
been more of a curse than a blessing in my life. The reason I am not wanting to take such a drug
is because if I turned stupid and still had my lifetime buildup of shyness and insecurity as a conditioned response then I would be really screwed. Also there have been many drugs like Interferon that have been found to be much less than the initial trials and hype suggested. That doesn't mean necessarily that research should be stopped, but I think people should be pretty sure what they are doing.

The same ability many people with an altered state of mind have, being able to and/or always looking outside of the box. I tend to look at many things in a completely different perspective then others around me, especially conflict. Then again, I beleive that's usually attributed to (my) ADD/ADHD.

An ability to deal with nasty situations without becoming emotionally involved.

I also always know what time it is. Without looking. I know how long a minute is by feel, and I guess that all implies that my sense of time is not overly distorted by perception, event and experience. Usually.

The ability to do my own thing, and to not follow the trends, because that's what everybody else is doing.

Cockney Rebel, is Sid the Rat a Saturday morning cartoon character? Thats one I never heard of.

It's made me so much stronger than I ever would have been had I not had to deal with all the issues that come with it.

I'm very self-aware; I need to be to avoid meltdown, so I know exactly where I'm at emotionally and physically and mentally, and what my triggers are, what I need to do when etc. Self-awareness is a big bonus.

Empathy. I know they say people on the spectrum lack empathy, but when you've been through the bullying and the lack of social awareness and the hassles that go alongside, I find myself empathising with other people caught on the fringe and left out of things a lot. If someone's going through a bad time, I can empathise and help them. I may miss a cue, but I can still empathise and feel for them, offer a hug etc.

Social awareness. Yes, I don't pick it up intuitively and I've had to teach myself what to say and do and what's ok and what isn't etc, and although I do stupid things still myself, I can watch other people from the outside and tell you exactly what's going on when I see an interaction - who the happy one is, when someone's upsetting the other person without realising, when someone fancies someone else, etc. From a voyeuristic point of view I pick up cues better than anyone else around me - I just fail to apply it to my own life.

Strength of character. AS means I have strong morals and ideas of what's right and wrong, and as such I never went off the rails so to speak as a teenager, and so never ran into any of the problems that my friends did. Smoking weed is bad, so I wouldn't do it. Getting totally smashed is bad, so I didn't do it. Lying is bad, so I wouldn't do it (little white lies, perhaps, but I cannot do out and out ones!). Etc etc etc. And in doing that, I've found more than a few times I've had to stand up for myself or others around me in the same uncomfortable situation of peer pressure and told the people doing the 'peer pressure' where to go, so to speak. This has left me again, a stronger person for it.

I'm very outgoing now. I think a lack of awareness socially leaves me less open to embarassment because I simply do not care what others think of me. This means I can happily do my own thing and talk for hours and do public speaking and whatever else, staying true to myself, because I really don't care what other people's opinions are.

Obsessions - whoever said this was a bad thing?! My obsessions have meant I consistently have something to occupy me throughout life, rather than crying the eternal childhood line of 'I'm boooooored!", they've meant I've ended up well read and well spoken and have met some amazing people along the way. They've meant I know where I want to go and what I want to do in life, without the confusion people get. They've given me great experiences, and hey, it's just nice knowing stuff about stuff, ya know?!



I could go on and on and on... I love Asperger's. Yes, it's bloody tough to deal with and it can be a real pain and leave you a wreck both physically and emotionally. But it's only ever temporary, and every time something goes wrong because of it, I learn from it and it makes me a better, bigger, stronger person. Aspergers gives me drive, inner strength, determination, stubbornness, stickability, a never-give-up attitude... for all the problems it presents me with, the good things are always bigger and better.

It's individual isn't it...

ASD has made me very self-aware by making me an excellent observer.

I notice things, despite my lack of knowledge of their meaning, but I notice these details even in complicated processes I don't know and most importantly, I notice that which others repeatedly miss. It's like my head is a huge camera which, instead of focussing on one area to photograph, has lost its focus and takes in everything it can.

My very first obsession is/was not narrow, and I have an interest for pretty much everything due to wanting to learn everything there was as a child. I still find this prospect very intoxicating. This childish ambition coupled with being an involuntary observer is making me, what friends call, a big library on random facts of random topics.

But I would not think that this applied to all/many autistic individuals, I can't know that and I rather think it's a matter of chance and individuality. Though autism plays a big advantageous part in the two above.

Nothing that "normal" people can't have.

Sometimes I get excited about sharing my obsession with others. Not as much these days. I'm more solitary about it now, probably because of the mainstream's disinterest in whatever I'm interested in. I learned that not everyone is going to care about whatever I do, no matter how many times or how many ways I point out the "coolness" of say, Bram Stoker's Dracula. Lol.

So I can specialize, and become extra social as a result of that.

- D

A natural tendency to be precise to the point of anal-retentiveness helps me in my research

And not getting laid gives me more time to work

Well, I am always very resilient and always resolved that ultimately lemons will become lemonade

I do have my obsessions but that word has so much negative connotations, it just what mediocre people call people with visions and aspirations.

My friend works day and night about Darfur, would she be obsessed with Darfur? (she is a nt).

At least it something more useful then videogames that people seem to be engulfed in.

I love learning languages
Ngithandile umfundale olimi
My lief die sturre tale

Yo encanto de estudiar lenguas

I love geography and politics and international relations

I am also tired of being treated as being special, I am just being human