Not superior, but different enough that I have trouble mixing with non-Aspies. I don’t get their humour. I don’t get their interests. It frustrates me that it takes them months to notice what I can see instantly (patterns). They can do things I can’t in social situations and that’s important, too. My wife is a neurotypical and she really balances me out. Me parenting on my own would be a gong show.
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I’m poor when it comes to pattern recognition . I’ve tried various abstract/diagrammatic/inductive and spatial tests and score : Abstract 13.04 % Diagrammatic 19.30% Inductive 22.76% Spatial 15.45% .
that’s what I really hated. Being lumped in with people that beat their head against stuff or throw hissy fits. The monotone voice and poor eye contact has gotten some people with low functioning friends/children to ask me if I’m autistic and when I say yes they treat me like I have the IQ of a plant. I hate it.
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I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Disorder by my last psychiatrist. My current psychiatrist basically says they don’t know what I have, they just know I need medication.
I think they are concerned that if they give me a diagnosis, I may use that diagnosis to go to a psychiatrist who accepts insurance.
Doc says they only give a diagnosis so they can write prescription.
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I’m waiting to see if I have ASD. It’s obviously not clear cut as after three assessments I still have to do the ADOS. A major reason for that,I believe, is that evidence of very early childhood is lacking. I am the oldest child with one parent still alive who is 88. His memory of 59+ years ago is , as he has admitted, very patchy.
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I think the Aspergers and high functioning autism movements do a disservice to those that are truly disabled by the condition. Most are not high functioning, a lot of them don’t talk, etc. They need the resources and we might be taking it away from them. I don’t need services for my AS.
I also read the biggest disability with Aspergers is the lack of empathy. I know it messed me up and made me question myself. But the schizophrenia made me humble, have more compassion, and more empathy. I’m a better person.
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Once a doctor told me I could have Asperger’s but I don’t know what to think about it, in fact I believed it during many years until I realized I was having social anxiety
I think it may depend on how you define disabled when you talk of ‘truly disabled’ .
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Alan Turing had Asperger’s I think, and he had a lot of empathy, he made the allies win WW2.
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It’s hard to diagnosis people postmortem. Sort of impossible actually…
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Oh my G-d, now I realize I’m a fool
I needed services for mine when I was younger. I didn’t know how to function in a room full of distractions. No one helped me. No one gave me the option of schooling with fewer distractions. I dealt with it by self-medicating and that just didn’t have an optimal outcome. Also, no one will like this, but it bears pointing out: When you only have so much money, do you bet on the slow horse or the fast one? If you’re short on resources, you’ll get the best return by spending them on the Aspies.
Yes, I’m very short of empathy for people I don’t know and I’m okay with it. Means I make more logical decisions than people who lack my “affliction”.
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All I know is whether Aspie or ASD or not I’m not what is called ‘neurotypical.’ I can dredge up a list of things I’m not good at,but struggle to think of anything I’m particularly good at.
I do wonder how I’d have got on if people had realised early on there was more than just plain vanilla mental illness going on.
As for empathy I have affective empathy but struggle with the other type where you have to put yourself in other people’s shoes. I’m thinking theory of mind here.
Mine was mild enough or undetectable until university or after my psychosis. I guess I was really stressed, had OCD, and anxiety. The lack of empathy thing went unnoticed for me. I just thought i was logical and a libertarian.
My mom thought I had ADHD as a kid in the early 90s. She never heard of Aspergers or anything. I guess I didn’t have ADHD. I might have had oppositional defiance disorder growing up. I outgrew it. I was easily manipulated or whatever by others like friends or fake friends.
It took me till middle school to figure out people had emotions. Never considered it. I might have prayed in this life or a past life for God to give me empathy or more empathy…
I’m lucky I never got in trouble with the law. I was also paranoid about it. My behavior was out of control and i had anger issues and impulse issues.
It took maturity ( I was a late bloomer) to get better. But I was going down the wrong path. I was scared of women.
I think schizophrenia made me follow down the right path, in a difficult way.
Luckily, I was never in the slow class and I was highly intelligent, borderline gifted. Even if I was in the slow classes it wouldn’t matter because employers and colleges don’t know. You get a regular HS diploma.
The hardest part growing up was the isolation, zero friends, and getting bullied. I blamed my dad for lack of social skills due to isolation for years. Never considered Aspergers until university…I also had chronic depression growing up.
The thing about aspergers and being logical I’ve noticed is that we can be dead wrong and illogical about a lot of things like what women want, what motivates people, God, etc.
I initially wanted to be an economics major because I wanted to study and understand peoples behavior.
I self medicated with energy drinks. Still do.
In high school and work, people accused me of being high even though I wasn’t. I was tired, zoned out, depressed, sensitive to florescent lights, and laid back.
The perk of aspergers is our honesty.
I swear I saw my okcupid profile on reddits cringe subreddit lol years ago.
That sums me up.
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I was diagnosed with asperger’s 11 years ago by a psychiatrist, it got changed in 2017 to avoidant personality disorder and social anxiety.
I have social communication disorder but I am not sure if it is a diagnosis in the UK.