Some questions from a scared not yet diagnosed girl

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Not all 'aspies' are the same, as NT people aren't always the same. There is a lot of literature about ASD but since you ask the question in a forum I presume that you are prepared to accept that there might be different opinions. Judge for yourself.
I think I'll chip in despite the fact that, like you, I haven't been officially diagnosed. But then I am a health professional so I think that I am qualified enough so as to diagnose myself, albeit unoficially.


1.Many Aspies feel the need to follow a routine. there are other's however, who do not. I myself can put up with some change but I most of the time this will make me feel upset and anxious.

2. Like another member said, I don't know what you mean exactly - perhaps you are talking about general neglect of hygiene norms. It's different, as it is with all people. I know a couple of aspies who are right old slobs and then there are a lot of others like me with, to quote, 'ruthless attention to hygiene'. With clothes choice, it's again not straightforward, as there are NTs with terrible taste for clothing who are happy to wear different styles in one outfit, clashing colours, etc. I myself wear most often jeans and T-shirts with weird prints but they are always crispy clean and pressed. When I have to get dressed up though, I make no clothing faux pas but that's not because I follow the current fashion trends but because I use the old-fashioned criteria (e.g. classic cut, sombre colours, etc.). There are a lot of Aspies who like to dress gender neutral for a variety of reasons, like a desire to avoid being regarded in a classical gender role or to avoid being hit on. But the main point is, I think, that Aspies are very often too casual or too smartly dressed and stand out because they are is rarely dressed 'just right' for any occasion.

3. Some Aspies might seem detached and aloof, but 'cold' is not the precise term. They might be unable to recognise or express emotion or they may choose not to get involved in emotional turmoil because that's overhelming. Or they might react in a way that is not expected (e.g. when you come to them with a problem, they mayt not try to offer calming words and generally 'talk you out' of the problem but might come up with a practical proposal on how to make the situation better. The latter might seem cold and insensitive if you just wanted to talk to someone - though the solution an Aspie can come up with might be exactly what you needed.

4. Again, there is no telling. There are Aspies who are good at maths and there are Aspies who are good with art or languages, or perhaps cooking, etc. You might want to see Temple Grandin movie, it depicts very well a case where a very gifted HFA person has trouble with abstract aspects of math, such as algebra but has no problem to do complicated calculations when they are required for a particular project. Capability for 'technical stuff' also may vary, as it requires some fine motr skills and there might be some motorics impairment that may get in the way of being a technical genius. Anyway, Aspies are usually good at understanding how things work so they generally fare well with 'technical stuff'. I am myself I am a self-taught techie but to a degree, I can fix your computer but I can't repair your car. Also, I can do some maths but only if I know exactly the purpose these calculations will serve. A formula is meaningless to me until I get its
practical meaning.

5. Again, it varies - though it seems to happen quite a lot. Aspies generally have odd prosody, that is, the sound of their speech sounds different. They might talk too fast or too slow, might get inflexions wrong, put accents where they shouldn't be, get the intonation of the sentence wrong, etc. I myself am a fast talker who does not sound monotone but the intonation is never quite right in all the 4 languages I speak.

6. Oh my, this is complicated. Aspies have problems with inverbal sign language - they rarely get inverbal signs at all or interpret them properly or give off the right inverbal signs so as to communicate that they feel. But Aspies might mirror other people's emotions. Which is rather troublesome, I'd say, because, if I could use the example from 3., if you are upset, you need someone to console you. If you relate that you are upset to an Aspie, he or she might get upset as well - though they might not know exactly why - and might need to be consoled themselves - while all you needed was someone to listen to your troubles. Also, Aspies might identify your mood or emotional state incorrectly and/or get to confuse your emotions with theirs so as to which is which. Can't explain it more clearly, sorry.

7. Well not exactly, there are stony-faced aspies but for all I know, mimics is best described as 'sparce' rather than as 'nonexistent'. That is, you might get only two modes when it comes to facial gestures, 'indifferent' and 'angry'. A happy Aspie might not smile or laugh, as it is described in a thread/s here on WP. Or, you might see unadequate mimics, like laughing instead of crying. But ASD might come together with a number of facial stims, like pouting, frowning, biting lips of inside of cheeks so it might seem like there are a lot of weird facial gestures while they are only stims. I myself frown a lot in order to to concentrate, don't nod and don't say 'a-ha' when I am listening and I don't have a ready-made grin so I might seem as though I am angry at you or disapproving while I'm just concentrating hard on what you are saying.

8. Many Aspies have an area of special interests (or several areas) in which they are really very, very good so the use the word 'expert' might be justified. There's however, a whole lot of hard work to be done by the very same Aspie so as to put his or her knowledge and talents to a practical use (by this I mean earning money). Aspies are usually very good autodidacts so they tend to easily learn things for which NT people need to attend a course or take lessons, so an Aspie might seem an expert in botanics until the moment you realise that they know all about green algae, for an example, but don't know how to repot a plant. When I was about 6 years old, I could recite the 500 pages of the mushroom encyclopaedia from cover to cover, latin names and all, but I couldn't - and still can't - be relied on to find a mushroom in the field even if my life depended on it, let alone decide whether it's edible or not, even though I could recite all the differentiating traits. So much for being an expert.

Sorry for the long post, but I would like to help dispel the mythology surrounding Asperger's . Of course, it's only my own way of seeing things and I really don't want to impose my ideas onto anyone.

This does not describe me.



I do.



I'm not.



Bad at math. Not enough experience with "technical stuff" (nor am I sure what you mean) to know whether I have the aptitude, but I do not have the skill.



Not usually, at least for me. Sometimes I have trouble modulating it when very tired.



No, there's no problem with feeling other people's feelings given that you know what those feelings are. But there's the rub.



Nope.



Most, if you're willing to allow that you can be an expert on Tetris and equally trivial things.