Autistic traits in everyone

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Does anyone see this in lot of people? How does it make you feel about yourself?

I see inflexibility, rigidness, lack of theory of mind, lack of empathy and common sense, invading personal space, not understanding other people's intentions or their motives, troubles understanding point of views and putting themselves in their shoes, expecting you to know what they are thinking, and of course stimming.

Yep this all makes me feel normal and there is nothing wrong with me and I always think sarcastically "And they say we (insert aspie trait here they are doing)."

Sometimes I feel I am the normal one and the rest are autistic. I started a thread about that once here asking if anyone ever feels they switched places with people and I only got one reply.

Yes, every individual embodies one or more autistic traits. The noticeable symptoms of AS are not unusual things, just exaggerations of 'normal'.

I am too new to all of this to venture any kind of sensible opinion on your question, but I do hear a bit of what you seem to be seeing. My wife is noticing the "peace" I am finding here as I learn more about myself as likely having either AS or HFA, but now she has begun wondering even about herself ... and a mutual friend I talk with about all of this believes she also has AS, and she has commented that "everybody" she knows seems to display some kind of autistic symptom. However, I know many people who definitely do not -- obstinate and "inflexible thinking" are not synonymous, for example -- so I say we should not begin using broad brushes.

Oh, yes, autism is definitely an extreme version of typical traits. The genetics for autism, I think, must be scattered around the population pretty much uniformly, so that only when they concentrate in one person does autism actually appear.

The line between those typical people with their minor autistic traits, and an actually autistic person, is the "significant impairment" line that determines whether or not you diagnose. There are people rather close to that line, and some rather far away.

Making this sort of thing generally known has both benefits and drawbacks. On the one hand, NTs learn that we are not actually that much unlike them, and may find common ground to connect with us; on the other hand, it may just lead them to minimize our very real differences and end up either ignoring them and becoming uncomfortable, or assuming that we are exactly like them and simply not trying hard enough.

One of my neurologists made this remark to me a couple years back, saying that I was "an extreme version of normal".

This view seems to be popular these days, but I wonder if it will pass the test of time. For instance:

- Are we all a little schizophrenic?
- Do we all have a bit of an eating disorder?
- Do we all have seizures from time to time?

Just to pick three common disorders that have been around for a long time and yet still are misunderstood and misrepresented regularly.

I don't know NTs who have the kinds of sensory issues or savant-like abilities I and many other Aspies have. I don't mind the idea that everyone has a touch of autism, but I'm not sure that view helps much, if at all.

I don't see them.

I see traits associated with AS in the general population, but it could vary, depending on location. My theory is every place has it's own "culture" or, "way of being". Some places are just more empathetic than others. I don't believe where I live is a very empathetic place. Empathy isn't stressed or cultivated in our community, so you see it lacking a lot and I do mean A LOT. There are other places like this, I am sure. Lack of empathy is the most obvious of all the autistic traits to detect, if you want to call it an autistic trait. Some people do while others disagree.
If you live in a community that stresses bonding, communicating, and empathetic responses, most of the population will reflect that. It will be ingrained in the culture, autistic or not.

Recently, the autistic trait of difficulty with communication was applied incorrectly and abstractly to a difficult situation with which I had been dealing, placing the blame for the situation on me somewhat. However, in the breath prior to that, the person had mentioned the pathological lack of communication among those involved in the system causing the difficulties. I had to point this out to them because they had failed to recall this previous comment. Disorder categories can be a dangerous thing when people use them to apply the associated traits broadly and incorrectly. This is not the first time someone has attributed the consequences of disorganisation and lack of communication within a system to my autism (and at one point misusing my label to obtain funding to cover up the true cause of dysfunction due to the system); before the label, they could not do this.

This is false.