Asperger's Syndrome (AS) is a set of words used to describe a group people who's minds work in a specific way, one noticeably different from the norm. While there are different intensities, we share certain symptoms that allows the world to sort us into one category. There are certain defining features that a person with AS may have some, if not all of.
People with AS interact with the world differently. Our sensory input is different from the average person's. We are more effected by our senses than most people. For me, it's visual and auditory stimuli that cause the largest problems, but looking on this site, I have found examples of people who have trouble with other senses. It is not uncommon for people with AS to have sensory overload issues.
We often have trouble with communication. The finer nuances of human language, such as body language and subtle jokes are hard for us to get. It is not uncommon for us to have trouble with key parts of interactions such as eye contact and verbal expression as well. People with extremely mild cases of AS can sometimes learn to overcome most of these issues with great effort but many never get the hang of it.
It is easy to become stressed when we have to deal with these issues on top of what the average person has to put up with. When people with AS become stressed, we can have meltdowns. These meltdowns are intense expressions of our emotions, usually the negative ones. Different people experience them in different ways but lose a great deal of their self control when they are in progress. Usually, when I breakdown, I usually cry intensely, sometimes screaming or sobbing extremely loudly. Other people can be more violent, breaking things or injuring themselves. Once they occur, the person's stress is often reduced. After a meltdown, I feel emotionally relieved and can go for weeks to months without another one, depending on how quickly my stress builds up again.
People with AS also have intense but narrow interests. In these topics, we are extremely knowledgeable and try to find out all that we can about them. For example, I've spent over an hour and a half, all in one sitting to complete this piece. I didn't do it because it was some requirement but because I was interested in the topic. Examples of such pieces can be found throughout wrongplanet.net. On the other hand, if something does not hold our interest, we find almost impossible to focus on it. It can often cause problems in areas such as school, if a person's interests do not coincide with the classes. At the time I write this, there is even a topic on the subject in the General Autism forum.
Often, our obsessive behavior expresses itself in other ways... habits. We have to do things in specific ways, like eating candies of different colors in some specific order or we have to proceed with getting ready for our day in a specific way or we will become uncomfortable. We also have ones with more negative connotations, whether they creep other people out, act as a form of self harm or both. We know they aren't good for us but have a hard time stopping ourselves.
To have AS is can be good or bad, depending on the intensity of the case and the perspective it's considered from. Our interests can lead to us becoming talented experts in our fields of interests who make progress where others might not be able to but our lack of skill with social interactions and odd habits can often alienate us. Some of us are so mild that someone who doesn't know the symptoms for AS don't even recognize us while others are so affected by it that we cannot function without someone else's assistance.
I suppose the bottom line is people with AS are too different from average to be considered Nuerotypical but are common enough to be identified for their unusual set of behaviors. We operate differently from regular people in a specific way that has been used to define what we are. It doesn't necessarily mean that we are all the same, far from it. Many people with different personalities have AS.
This is how I see AS based on my experience with my extremely mild case, in combination with the knowledge I have gathered about it through sources such as general information sites, specific articles and forums like this one.
09 Feb 2015, 6:49 am
