Is everyone AS?!

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It's startling how many people I speak to who say, "Oh, my brother has Aspergers!", "My cousin has aspergers", father, boyfriend, husband, son, nephew...
Which kind of makes me laugh, because I've only ever met two/three aspies.
One, I think, was schizophrenic. People said he was aspie, but I don't think suddenly trying to stab me in the middle of a mundane conversation counts as "aspie behaviour"...
The other two were on a trip I went on when I was about 11! Funny story behind that, too...
Not to mention, all the aspergers books and documentaries popping up!
Aspergers is truly becoming the new fad; everybodies ill behaved brat has "aspergers", even when to someone more suited to know realizes it is painfully clear such children are not asperger at all. Random celebrities endorsing autism as they would cancer doesn't help, either.

It is even more frightening to hear, "Aspergers? Yes, my son *had* that."

It's starting to become a problem worse than the "every kid has ADD" problem of only a few years ago!

It's the latest "fad" disorder.

Having ADD/ADHD is sooo last decade...

Your friend tried to stab you in the middle of a conversation? That is scary.

Yes, yes they are.

They all talk about their interest in a droning and monotonous matter [with a few inflected rises on the end of statements] whilst lacking in empathy [as they only see their side] and also lacking two-way reciprocal social interaction [as they only throw echolalia-type factual knowledge at one another in turn].... No, seriously, just watch them interact.

It wouldn't exactly count as typical Schizophrenic behaviour either. The vast majority of people with Schizophrenia aren't prone to violence. Like those with AS they're more likely to be the victims rather than the perpetrators.

Mmmm I wonder if I really was a brat then.


(Not going to go there again)

I'd question the validity of my diagnosis if I didn't fit the textbook description of AS so well, just because I've heard of so many diagnoses lately. I know that I have AS, because I demonstrated symptoms long, long before AS was even ever talked about, but if I were growing up in today's world and got diagnosed, I'd wonder if the diagnosis were correct.
-OddDuckNash99-

Last edited by OddDuckNash99 on 14 Oct 2008, 3:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

definately not an issue in my corner of the world. I've never met any autistics, AS, etc. I was the only obviously ADD child in every class I went to (back in the days when nobody even diagnosed ADD). my stimming and autistic behaviours never got anyone suspecting me of autism- there was practically no awerness on that issue at all. and from what I observe there's still a lot to be done about it.

people here are freakishly sane.

<yawn>

Same here.

Hardly my friend. A classmate at school - I was about thirteen. It was home economics, I was sitting next to him. We were talking, then suddenly he picked up a knife - it was a cooking class, PC nonsense - and thrust at my stomach. I rolled over my chair, picked it up and hit him with it! It wasn't the first time I'd been attacked, usually just for being "the weird kid" - the only AS in a school of about three hundred, and it certainly wasn't going to be the last time somebody thought having my kidneys on the outside might liven things up!
Glad those days are long over.

Never met another person with AS recently, that I know of anyway... Have met a few in the past. Have seen some people display "stereotypical" AS "traits" though.

It seems a few of my closest friends show signs of AS, and one is most likely AS.

Like an earlier poster said, were it not for my childhood/adolescence, I'd question my own self dx. There is the possibility that I'm wrong of course, and am a low functioning NT (thanks Phagocyte for the term!)

Have met a number of students who were DX'd HFA/AS; my son is DX'd HFA. Given that the diagnosis of AS is less that 15 years old, it should not be a surprise at the wave of diagnoses, the number of misdiagnoses, and the flush of familiarity within society. That people continue to berate, being defensive of 'their' condition or dismissive of the issues of others, I find that simply appalling.


M.

^Well said.

Just out of curiousity - are you excluding your own family in this count? Or is AS not prevalent in your family? Outside of family (and internet) I don't know anyone with AS. But if I look at my family, it's everywhere.

Same here.

While I think it's possible that AS is becoming a fad disorder there is something else we need to consider.

The term "Neruotypical" is probably a bit of a misnomer. Virtually everyone has traits of some mental illnesses, but are only considered to have something if the traits are strong enough to noticeably influence their life. OCD is a good example, almost everyone has OCD symptoms but only a tiny fraction of people are considered to actually have OCD.

What you need to understand is that the autistic spectrum can also be viewed as a "intelligence-social spectrum". People on the Autistic side of the spectrum posses intelligence (not necessarily genius-level, just intelligence ) but have weak social skills. The far side of the spectrum is William's Syndrome where people posses weak intelligence, yet have fully intact social skills.

People with "fad-diagnoses" of the various sub-types of autism probably fall on the autistic side of center. So it's really just a matter of "where do we draw the line between autistic and nerotypical"? The line can be placed anywhere from almost dead center (thus including almost half the world's population) to so far on the autistic side that anyone who can talk is not considered autistic. It's really just a matter of opinion.