What of the AS symptoms DON'T you have?

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I don't have the "lack of imagination" that people with AS are supposed to have. But I suspect that whoever said that people with AS are supposed to lack imagination was / is an idiot.

And I do understand metaphor, although there are some I have to think about on occasion. (If I didn't understand metaphor then I'd be a pretty lousy writer, ne.)

Certainly you must know there have been several threads here about that already. Almost everyone, if not everyone, has the same opinion that you and I have. The people that said people with AS have no imagination were/are IDIOTS! Many of the symptoms of aspergers almost scream that the person has an imagination. Give me a break, you daydream and live in your own world literally and don't have an imagination? WIERD!

I guess one reason why I always hated psychiatrists is because their "profession" basically consists of observing a black box, and asking questions, and come to a conclusion.

MOST people can't really observe a black box. And QUESTIONS???? DON'T make me laugh! When is the last poll you had that was correct?

My job is similar:

A customer tells me there is a problem, and I ask for detail and ask questions. Sometimes, they LIE on questions, even if I guess right and ask THE question that would answer the problem. Sometimes I get lucky, but it could take hours or even months. That is almost at the level of a psychologist.

Then I may get on the system and be almost like the customer. I can see the black box myself, and run tests. I can test things. Sometimes I get lucky, but it could take minutes, etc... That is almost at the level of a person with a problem.

Then I may get access to code. I can then change the rules, and test. I am usually done within an hour. This is almost like someone that could actually work with the brain directly.

Just look at the petals around the rose:

http://www.borrett.id.au/computing/petals-j.htm

You COULD look at the black box, and it could take a while.
You could look at the lists of results(akin to polls), and it could still take a while. Some supposedly have STILL taken DAYS!
You could look at the code, and it might not even take a minute.

Anyway, questions and observations can't define something as (ahem) abstract as imagination. Then again, they say people with AS can't understand abstract concepts either!

From what I've seen, most Aspies I know have plenty of imagination. Maybe we just don't have the same kind of imagination as the rest of the people.

Although I am sensitive to touch, smell and light, it doesn't bother me now. It used to but I got used to it so I don't have any real aversion to being touched etc.
I don't have a monotonous voice.
I seem to get on with people so I don't think that my social skills are that bad. Despite this, I do have trouble reading facial expressions and body language, so am largely unable to tell if anyone is bored, confused etc. I can easily pick up if someone is angry, depressed or happy though. I also have trouble picking up how anyone feels through tone of voice.
Although I do have obsessive interests and they have a tendency to dominate my thoughts, they don't dominate my life.
Although I can experience a sensory overload, I am able to have control over it a lot of the time and so don't have meltdowns. The last time I did have a meltdown was when I was a small child. I seem to have largely grown out of them.
I used to have a need for routine in my life but I banned myself from doing this as I found that if my routine changed, I got incredibly upset (as I'm sure many understand). I have had no routine (apart from going to work and back) for a long time now and so don't feel the need for one anymore (except the work one which is important).

I have good fine motor controls. My large motor skills are quite clumsy, but my reaction time and fine motor skills are excellent (I'm the guy who will catch the sugar bowl if you knock it off the table).

I have good fine motor control but it's said that this isn't common for aspies to have.

I don't stim much, but for some reason it really bothers me when other people do things like fiddle with their fingers or tap their feet or paw their face. Also, rubbing hands together or people rubbing other people, especially on the back. It's like I can feel the touch on my own body, greatly amplified, and it's frying my senses!

-My voice is not monotonous.
-I am able to be in social situations often.
-My grammer and spelling are not good.

But who decides the "diagnosis"?

Symptoms I don't have:

1. Stimming
2. Problems with gluten or other foods
3. Motor skills-I can do many things, and I drive
4. I often make eye contact
5. I have friends who are NT and they can't tell that I'm Aspie

The reason I have the diagnosis is that there are situations such as job interviews where I haven't gotten hired after being interviewed.

Yes, the things that annoy me the most are where people click or tap pens, click their fingers and noisily clear their throats. I sit next to a fellow aspie at work. He had got into a habit of clicking his pen, especially when on the phone.

I found it driving me more and more barmy and eventually asked him to stop. He said he found it therapeutic and that maybe I should get better headphones. I didn't say that I found it very aggravating and even felt like confiscating the pen. My boss ended up asking him not to click the pen in my presence and that lowered the stress levels quite substantially. Now, if only he would stop saying "haitch".......

That's true. I'll highlight and un-highlight text or windows repeatedly. If I'm not typing or actively doing something, I will also move my mouse cursor around non-stop. I didn't realize I did that.

It seems to me like a poor choice of word (since it is misleading if I am correct) based on a very subtle distinction between create and imagine (the earlier being about the gathering and composition of materials and the latter about believed constructions formed in the absence of materials).

I create out of materials I have gathered, I do not 'imagine into being' complex fantasies that are believable to myself. For instance when you meet someone for only a short time and speak to them, how can you possibly believe you have enough information to make a decision about the likability of the person since you only know a few details and not the person? I find it hard to believe you can but most people I know seem convinced I am 'holding back' and 'just not saying' when I cant report an opinion of a person I have very limited information about.

Telling them I dont know them gets responses along the lines of 'but you must know what you think of them', which makes no sense to me since I've just admitted I dont know the 'them' at issue. This leads me to believe that these people have some composite model of others that is much more than the sum of the facts they know about them. Further that they compose these imaginings with very rapid speed and apparently without understanding that they have in fact constructed an elaborate fantasy and proceeded to believe in it rather than are actually 'knowing the person' (in order to have formed an opinion). I think this kind of imagining has carry through in ways that explain why most people are not as discomforted by change and novelty, they rapidly imagine into being a notion as to what is going on that is so believable to them, they actually fail to realise the situation is novel at all.

In a sense they fantasize a sense of familiarity into everything they do and even into their perception of the people they meet. It makes sense to assume if people think they know someone they clearly cannot possibly know, and feel familiar enough to form normative and preferential opinions they genuinely appear to believe correlate to the person, that they are imagining something and more significantly believing it. So when I hear 'AS people lack imagination' I think not of the ability to construct from raw materials, but rather a fantasizing behavior where the image (formed mostly from pre-existing stimulae) is fully believed to be the thing rather than an importation of previous experiences superimposed over the novel one. People with AS can create fantasies certainly, but they do appear to differentiate between memories brought forward and the actual event happening right now, unlike the imaginings of non-aspies that seem to convince them that they know what they cannot possibly know given the information to hand. Or at least that's my take on it.

Clicking pens should be outlawed! I remember when I was in university, in the big lecture theatres with hundres of people: a lot of people would buy those 4-coloured pens to take notes, and use the different colours for diagrams or things of varying importance... anyway, the the whole room was always filled with echoing clicks when they changed colours... it was a nightmare!

I have almost all the symptoms, but I'm not resistant to change and I do care about hygiene and appearance.

Another AS symptom that I don't have is obsessions.