Asperger's syndrome is one of many disorders that forms part of the autism spectrum.
I'm not an expert in that field but, recently started to learn more about it when my wife went to work for a school that specialises in children within the autism spectrum.

To be honest, I think that I also fall with the autism spectrum but, haven't had myself assessed. I also think that, over the years, I've learned how to cope with my surroundings better as I grew older.

If you look at the symptoms for Asperger's Syndrome, pretty much all of them stem from simply being introverted. If you're an introvert, you're probably going to have poor social skills from not getting any practise socialising, and you're going to have poor motor skills from not being physically active. And of course that's going to give you anxiety and make you depressed from living in an intolerant society.

In my opinion being labelled an "Aspie" is just a way to write you off as defective because you don't fit a certain mould (a phony extroverted jerk) and you don't conform to group think.

I have been diagnosed with non-typical Aspergers syndrome in a mild degree. I am not that affected as people with full degree of Aspergers. And the non-typical comes in, were I am affected on different points, than people with typical Aspergers is affected.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Personally, I think Asperger's "Syndrome" is just a bunch of bullshit. It's really just a personality type. A geeky one at that.
What exactly does "Neuro Typical (NT)" mean anyway? Most people just seem kind demented as far as I can tell. I think the medical community should come up with a good syndrome for over-extroverted jackasses who are obsessed with team sports and belittling those who are physically weaker than themselves. Let's call it "Jock Douchebag-Syndrome"...or maybe "Aggressive Neanderthal-Syndrome". It should be classified as a Retard-Spectrum-Disorder (RSD), and the treatment should be weekly estrogen suppositories.

Well.... It is not a bunch of bullshit as you put it. It is actually a kind of bitch to have. If you are on the spectrum, you do not have any filter for incomming impressions. Whatever it is sound, light, smell's or whatever there is around you. You kind of take note on everything around you, without any exceptions at all. In most cases, you can have breakdowns or meltdowns. A meltdown is were you just shut down completely. Changes are one thing that are bad as well. Like if you have planned that you need to go to something, and then there is a change in last minute, that prevents you from doing what was decided. That will leave you in a state, were you can not focus on anything else, than "But it was decided how it was supposed to be". You can not do any last minute change, or you will have a mental shutdown. Depending on how you are wired, you need up to a week, to adjust to the change. I however, need only one day, so I am well off on the spectrum. Even the change from weekend to normal week (school or work) can affect you. And the other way around. Like there is a story, in were every single friday. One person had to vomit on the floor in the hall, whenever that person came home and had to begin the weekend. After he vomited, he was able to begin the weekend. Then there are stuff like irony. People on the spectrum does not understand irony. Except when he or she know how a person uses it indevidually. Some on the spectrum do understand it. Like I do. Yet my irony is dark. Way dark. Like logically dark, and that can scare a lot of NT's. Even my humour are extremely dark. Then we have empathy. Yes. People on the spectrum do have empathy, it is just the thing, that people on the spectrum do not know how to show it. Empathy will kind of stay inside without being able to be displayed. And regarding love. Well... If a person on the spectrum love someone, then you will sometimes find that person close to the one he or she loves. And in most cases, then that is enough. Just to be in the proximity of those you love.

This is just a small part of what it means to be on the spectrum. And yes. There is a big difference in how boys and girls act and think, when they are on the spectrum. Girls tend to emulate whatever they see, that is the usual way of being social. It is called masking. And boys tend to just show no interest in being social, because there is no need to do, what one can not do. That is actually the sole reason, why it is so hard to get diagnosed as an adult woman. As you have so many layers of masks, that you actually have forgotten who you are.

Sorry for the long post. I just got carried away. And yes. I have only just scratched the surface. As there are aprox 12 points that decide were on the spectrum you are, when you are born on the Autism spectrum (ADS). Yup. You are born with it, there is no medicine for ADS, no cure and you will die with it. Basically, it is a mental handicap. And a handicap it is, acording to one of the leading scientists on the field. If you have the diagnose and take medication, then you have another diagnose as well. Like ADHD or ADD and that can be the primaery, secondaery, third diagnosis, or even fourth diagnose. Depends on what you have. Like schitzofrenia have Aspergers and Autism as one of many diagnosis. Yet in that case it is not that severe.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

If you look at the symptoms for Asperger's Syndrome, pretty much all of them stem from simply being introverted. If you're an introvert, you're probably going to have poor social skills from not getting any practise socialising, and you're going to have poor motor skills from not being physically active. And of course that's going to give you anxiety and make you depressed from living in an intolerant society.

In my opinion being labelled an "Aspie" is just a way to write you off as defective because you don't fit a certain mould (a phony extroverted jerk) and you don't conform to group think.

Born with it. No cure. No medicine. You will go to the grave with it.

This channel on youtube have helped me a lot, if anyone here want more information on the subject. 😀 I am not shitting you all, it is a wealth of information.

Like this video here that explains 10 symptoms, that are common.

Half the people here probably fall somewhere on the autism spectrum. I probably do too.

I just looked up Aspergers and... "restrictive or specialized interests" seems to me like a bunch of BS. Everyone has specific interests. Maybe they're trying to point to obsessions?

Personally I think anything other than low-functioning autism is really just a description of personality. Of course it varies from person to person.

You are born with it, or maybe it is Maybelline 😉 (joke), but seriously though yeah aspies are born with it, there is no cure. Or as brostenen said about empathy and love for that matter. We do feel love and empathy, not all aspies shows it, other times in the spectrum we feel it way too much. And show it that way. I have been asked whether I was high or drunk, when in fact I was just having a jolly good time, and I was feeling giddy like there was fireworks in the air. And shooting stars was pummelling through the sky like there was no tomorrow. And here comes the kicker, I was stone cold sober.
Change is a factor that is hard. And it ranges from one day to a week for some. It really depends on the situation, and how much sensory overload you have that day whether or not you have can have a mental shutdown or a mental breakdown because of it. I also see situations like being social, is something you can learn , and a Danish expression/proverb is this. "You howl with the wolves you are around". Many things I feel I can learn, it just takes time. But I know for a fact I can not program, and will never learn it. But I know how to do basic stuff like dos commands, and other small stuff when it comes to computers. And I try to help with what I know and can. Even if it means uploading back in the day, when it came to drivers here and there and showing the upload links here, so people could get them. I highly enjoyed that, since it helped other people getting the drivers. And it worked out in the end with the creation of a great site known as vogonsdriver.com But if I over excert myself, then the next day I am royally smashed and I need a day to recuperate. But it depends on the situation. Irony and sarcasm is something that can be really hard to get, but the more time you have around people who uses it, the more you as a person learn.

here is a bonus from me upon having Aspergers. When I write a post, I check it for spelling mistakes , even though my spelling is pretty much spot on, and then I double check to be perfectly clear that is spelled correct and then there is me checking the whole message , and see if it makes sense. Grammar speaking when it comes to commas. Periods ! And other funky signs, well that depends on so many other factors from person to another. So I throw them around in giant mixture just so that it makes some kind of sense. So no, Aspergers is not some kind mumbojumbo bollocks. It is in fact a bitch some times. And there are both introverted and extroverted human beings with autism to be more inclusive in my post.

WolverineDK wrote:

You are born with it, or maybe it is Maybelline 😉 (joke), but seriously though yeah aspies are born with it, there is no cure. Or as brostenen said about empathy and love for that matter. We do feel love and empathy, not all aspies shows it, other times in the spectrum we feel it way too much. And show it that way. I have been asked whether I was high or drunk, when in fact I was just having a jolly good time, and I was feeling giddy like there was fireworks in the air. And shooting stars was pummelling through the sky like there was no tomorrow. And here comes the kicker, I was stone cold sober.
Change is a factor that is hard. And it ranges from one day to a week for some. It really depends on the situation, and how much sensory overload you have that day whether or not you have can have a mental shutdown or a mental breakdown because of it. I also see situations like being social, is something you can learn , and a Danish expression/proverb is this. "You howl with the wolves you are around". Many things I feel I can learn, it just takes time. But I know for a fact I can not program, and will never learn it. But I know how to do basic stuff like dos commands, and other small stuff when it comes to computers. And I try to help with what I know and can. Even if it means uploading back in the day, when it came to drivers here and there and showing the upload links here, so people could get them. I highly enjoyed that, since it helped other people getting the drivers. And it worked out in the end with the creation of a great site known as vogonsdriver.com But if I over excert myself, then the next day I am royally smashed and I need a day to recuperate. But it depends on the situation. Irony and sarcasm is something that can be really hard to get, but the more time you have around people who uses it, the more you as a person learn.

here is a bonus from me upon having Aspergers. When I write a post, I check it for spelling mistakes , even though my spelling is pretty much spot on, and then I double check to be perfectly clear that is spelled correct and then there is me checking the whole message , and see if it makes sense. Grammar speaking when it comes to commas. Periods ! And other funky signs, well that depends on so many other factors from person to another. So I throw them around in giant mixture just so that it makes some kind of sense. So no, Aspergers is not some kind mumbojumbo bollocks. It is in fact a bitch some times. And there are both introverted and extroverted human beings with autism to be more inclusive in my post.

True words.... 😀

keenmaster486 wrote:

"restrictive or specialized interests"

Translates to:

You do not stop playing with that computer, until someone come and asks if you have eaten or slept. And you realise that 36 hours went by as if it was 1 hour.

Or...

You talk so much about that computer, that it takes the breath away from people, because you overload them with an extreme amount of information. In the shortest possible time frame. And you don't even see people's reaction or people rolling their eyes, because you picture it extremely clear inside and see nothing else.

Or...

That computer, is the only thing that you want to play with, and you only want to do it solo. And you want to know everything about it. And even more, like stories from those that invented it, why and how and the reasons behind the invention.

Or...
All three at the same time.

I don't mean to imply that autism isn't a valid illness. I work with children that have full blown autism and adhd (mostly unmedicated ones). I've been through the whole process of being labelled Aspie, visiting the web forums and feeling bad about myself...but then I really sat down and thought about it. Just think of any person you know. I bet all of them have some pretty annoying personality quirks or defective behaviour. Everybody is on some kind of spectrum for mental illness, be it ADHD, schizophrenia, bi-polarism etc. It's only when they're on the extreme end of a spectrum that it becomes a problem. Just check out the statistics for the number of people using psychotropic drugs. It's like 20% in the US. Probably similar in other developed countries. Why are so many people on them? Because Western countries are in decline and people are overburdened with all kinds of problems and can't cope. They go to their doctors, get some kind of diagnosis and start taking the drugs hoping that it will "fix" them.
You are not the problem. The stupid assholes that indebted our nations, cheapened our labour and destroyed our families are the problem. Everyone in my family seems to have Asperger's. My mother seems to have a pretty raging case but, she's attractive so it's largely overlooked. Both of my parents were able to lead largely normal lives just because they grew up in a time of general economic prosperity when people were more tolerant. I'm more or less exactly the same as my father personality wise, and education wise. Future generations just got a raw deal.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

I don't mean to imply that autism isn't a valid illness. I work with children that have full blown autism and adhd (mostly unmedicated ones). I've been through the whole process of being labelled Aspie, visiting the web forums and feeling bad about myself...but then I really sat down and thought about it. Just think of any person you know. I bet all of them have some pretty annoying personality quirks or defective behaviour. Everybody is on some kind of spectrum for mental illness, be it ADHD, schizophrenia, bi-polarism etc. It's only when they're on the extreme end of a spectrum that it becomes a problem. Just check out the statistics for the number of people using psychotropic drugs. It's like 20% in the US. Probably similar in other developed countries. Why are so many people on them? Because Western countries are in decline and people are overburdened with all kinds of problems and can't cope. They go to their doctors, get some kind of diagnosis and start taking the drugs hoping that it will "fix" them.
You are not the problem. The stupid assholes that indebted our nations, cheapened our labour and destroyed our families are the problem. Everyone in my family seems to have Asperger's. My mother seems to have a pretty raging case but, she's attractive so it's largely overlooked. Both of my parents were able to lead largely normal lives just because they grew up in a time of general economic prosperity when people were more tolerant. I'm more or less exactly the same as my father personality wise, and education wise. Future generations just got a raw deal.

Well...
I don't know how bad the medicine situation is in America, as a whole. However one can not help but notice, that the opioid usage have reached epidemic levels in America. That said. Here in Denmark, you really have to have a diagnose, done by an licensed psychiatrist, and the correct medicine. You are being strictly followed by the psychiatric system for at least one year, just to check if the medicine is working as intended. Once everything is stable, your case will be transfered to your personal doctor. These things are not to be messed with, especially anti psychotics, and they want to make sure that it is the correct choice given to you.

Regarding the term "Aspie" then I don't think it is a good way to describe it. Like I fucking hate that term. You are not your diagnose, the diagnose are not you. You have Aspergers, you are not an Aspie. A lot of people, when they have gotten a diagnose, then they kind of tend to define their personality from the diagnoses perspective. So yeah.... I can follow you. The problem is, that people have not moved on, and realised, that they have it and they are not the thing. Aspie as a term, is a big NONO in my book. I am not an Aspie, I am a person with Aspergers Syndrome.

That brings me to the second thing. It is not an illness. My god have I tried to explain it to other people. Especially those with Aspergers, that think they are the diagnose, and do not realise that every persons diagnose is unique to them. As I explained earlier. Then it is a mental handicap and not an illness. The difference is that a mental handicap, requires mental tools to be able to cope with. An illness can be cured with medication or other means. More correct, an illness can be cured. And as the entire Autism spectrum is a cronic mental birth defect of a specific kind, then it is classified as a handicap. Call it a condition if handicap is too strong a word, yet an illness is not what it is.

About a two or three years ago I was starting to become rather convinced that I was on the high functioning end of autism. I have highly specialized interest. I find social situations and social rituals confusing. I very occasionally have some sensitivity to auditory and visual stimuli. I have trouble making friends and connecting to people. I struggle with small talk. I am rather attached to my habits and routines and I do feel stressed and drained when they are disrupted too much for too long.

I took a few online quizzes and I scored right on the border in just about everyone one. At the time I was feeling particularly socially withdrawn. I lacked confidence and I had no meaningful social interactions with anyone outside of my wife and my most immediate family - and even with them I felt distant and uncomfortable.

With that said, there were many symptoms I couldn't identify with. I don't have trouble with eye contact. I don't have trouble with abstract thinking. I can visualize people's faces and read fiction novels just fine - those things have never been a problem for me. I also can't really identify with childhood symptoms of autism hardly at all. I don't remember being totally disinterested in other kids, being fidgety , breaking down in stress fits and tantrums, or being obsessed with tiny details or having highly specialized and eccentric interests. As far as I can remember, I was a fairly normal kid between 0 and 12. I have always been a bit shy and reserved, but not obviously autistic. My problems really started at puberty.

After seeing this thread and reading the comments, I took a couple of online quizzes again . This time I scored much closer to the normal range. A lot of those questions are subjective.

"Do you have trouble with small talk or social situations?"

Well yeah, but do I have more trouble with it than anybody else?

"It is difficult for me to understand how people are feeling when they talk?"

Sometimes I think I have no clue, and sometimes I think people are just guarded and only projecting the emotions they want you to see.

More recently, I have been doing a lot better. I work as a software developer. I really excel in my line of work right now, which has helped a lot with my confidence. My work and home situation has been stable for several years, which also helps a lot. I have started to develop a closer relationship with some of my coworkers, and as a result I have begun to learn that they are a lot more like me than I initially thought.

I think some people, maybe half, are perfectly comfortable around other people. They just flow. Conversation and friendships take very little effort. I wish I was one of those people... it sounds nice.

For me, just about every conversation I have feels like I am working from an script or elaborate flow chart. I have strategies for different contexts with different kinds of people. As my social skills have improved, I feel like I have really just gotten better at interpreting the background context and expectations, and I am only really learning to apply my social strategies better. It doesn't feel very intuitive at all. It is actually extremely mentally taxing and I don't particularly like to do it. Strangely enough though, because I am a human and crave social contact, I need to feel at least some what connected to other people or I get anxious and depressed. As I have developed a report with the people I work with, it has gotten a lot easier. It doesn't always feel like an elaborate math puzzle in my head that I have to compute in the background while also attempting not to seem like an alien.

The good news is that I think at least half the population is like that to some degree. I have become more confident and settled in my myself, which has made it a bit easier to read other people - just because I am not quite as focused on myself all the time. A lot of people struggle with small talk, eye contact, social cues, discerning the difference between politeness and genuine interest and engagement, ect. There is a myriad of unwritten rules and guild lines that we are all expect to follow, without anybody ever explaining or articulating any of it. They are just weird, mostly arbitrary rules, with very little justification. Of course it is confusing. I don't know why it is like that - I think if introverts ruled the world it would be different. But it is, we all have to figure it out, and it is ok to not be particularly good at it.

So am I autistic? I think according to any meaningful diagnoses I am not. But I do sympathize and empathize a lot with people who clearly are. I think at times when I was more depressed and socially withdrawn that I could have fit a diagnoses. Autism spectrum, especially on the high functioning end, is as much more description of a type of person or individual as it is a diagnoses. It really only needs to be addressed when they symptoms pose a real problem. I think many people who are autistic live their whole life without ever needing an intervention, and I think many people, like myself, who probably aren't autistic, might need help under the right circumstances.

I have a friend who is diagnosed as autistic. He's only mildly autistic, not like a Rain Man or anything. You probably wouldn't really notice until you get to know him better. I've known him since preschool, so I pretty much grew up with him.
While I do think to a certain extent, all these modern 'diagnoses' such as ADHD and Asperger's are given way too quickly these days (and medication as a result of that), there certainly is something 'not quite right' with my friend.
Because of the way his brain is wired, he is rather chaotic in his head, and has trouble with certain everyday life tasks. Things like balancing his checkbook, or even having a regular dayjob and showing up for work on time everyday. So he needs a coach to help him with his finances, and he can only work certain types of jobs, which are flexible enough to meet his personality traits.
So yes, it is a bit of a handicap. It's certainly not an illness. He's not depressed, and has plenty of friends, lives with a girlfriend, and has a daughter.

I would also think that many of the people on this forum would tick at least some of the Asperger boxes, as said before. We're all nerdy, and I suppose many of us are reasonably introverted. At least with the hobby discussed on this forum, we can't relate to 'neurotypical' people.

I think in general if you're 'smart', school may be a bad way to spend your early years. Your class mates are class mates because they are the same age, not because they can relate to eachother on a mental level. Social interaction will always be troublesome if there is a big gap between the frame of reference, choice of words, experience etc between people.

I used the term aspie, not to be rude. But to make my point through, I am not my diagnose either, I am a human being who has a diagnose too. And in my humorous ways I say, I don't suffer from my diagnose I thrive with it. But anyway I hope we can have this great conversation and topic the next time I check the thread 😀

Throwaway for obvious reasons.
I think the A-word is thrown around far too many times without actual diagnosis.
The worst you can do is make a self-diagnosis based on online tests.
Parents think their kid has autism because he uses fewer words than the neighbor's kid or doesn't walk when they think he should walk.
I just checked some of those tests and most of the questions are confusing to say the least.
I have trouble forming friendships. I have trouble socializing. I'm nervous if I have to deviate from my daily routines. Am I autistic? No. I was brutally bullied in elementary school and it formed my personality this way. Grownups knew about the bullying and didn't help me, they let me suffer. People saw me getting beaten up in public when I was 9 and nobody came to my aid. I don't trust a living soul anymore because of this. People only came to me when they wanted something computer-related from me. No more, I'm closed up. Am I autistic because of it? No, I juts have social anxiety disorder.
So get help from a professional before you diagnose yourself, because these online tests are created to make you think that you have a serious problem and the only way to get better is to buy their book/product.

Going slightly off-topic...

Lately, I've been reading many threads (not only on this forum) related to mental illness, and I must say that I have got only three things for sure about mental illness or conditions:

a) It's hard to imagine what's going on. I think that there is no "normal" mental states, everyone of of is more/less paranoid, anxious, focused/unfocused, pessimistic... without nobody being in an "optimal" state. I guess that someone pessimistic is called "depressive" when the amount of pessimistic thoughts don't allow him to be functional. So most people know what is to feel very sad/pessimistic and say "depression? you can't be depressive, go out and drink some beers". Again, it's VERY hard to imagine what's going on inside other's mind and out experiencies tends to downtone serious conditions. Think about it: if someone can not judge what's inside its own mind (and sometimes with fatal consequences)... how can you know that he's exaggerating things?

b) Something even more difficult is knowing what to do with other's conditions. I'm loyal and protective towards my friends, so when I was told that a friend of mine have had a psychotic episode and was interned in a mental institution was a hard blow. Fortunately, she was released some weeks after that but was under constant supervision for a time. During that time we all knew that she was suffering (trying to appear as
"normal" as it was, but also beause her 4yo daughter noticed that something happened to mom and was behaving erratically) and I feel helpless because I feel that I could do for her but I didn't know what (BTW... that caused me almost crying and ultimately abandoning "Figment". I started to play it shortly before the episode and started to despair when I advanced into later stages of the story).

c) Maybe I'm slightly paranoid or my knowing of mental illness is shallow, but don't really feel or trust that metal conditions can be cured with pills. Maybe pills can help as a "shock" treatment to avoid murder or suicide behaviours, but I don't think that pills can be a help on the long term. Or maybe they do, but I feel like there are many doctors that take a "happy trigger" approach to giving pills to people.

I needed to say this because in those threads I've seen some posts that downtone mental illness, and (after seeing what happened to my friend) I think that mental episodes can happen to anybody and nobody knows really how to avoid them or take care of people that suffer them.

I also feel that society drives us into more and more stressful environments, and that we all should learn how to give our loved ones a better mental environment. I guess the worst enemy of anyone suffering a mental illness is their loved ones downplaying their condition or not bringing them full support... and some innocent words from a strange one (like a forum poster) can sound harsh and do much harm.

i have not been diagnosed but i im almost certainly autistic (people notice this 'something' about me) and i did focus too much on singular topics in the past, social incompetence is strong with this one too;
i did hear a few more serious terms for my mind state as well though, no idea if these should be taken seriously though;
i do think sometimes that al these terms are poorly defined or they intertwine so strongly that the classification makes little sense.

Anonymous Coward wrote:

Personally, I think Asperger's "Syndrome" is just a bunch of bullshit. It's really just a personality type. A geeky one at that.

I kinda agree on this one. There are far too many new syndromes popping up and everyone seems to have something. It's like you HAVE TO be diagnosed with something if your behavior doesn't fit into "normal" categories.

I think the medical community should come up with a good syndrome for over-extroverted jackasses who are obsessed with team sports and belittling those who are physically weaker than themselves. Let's call it "Jock Douchebag-Syndrome"...or maybe "Aggressive Neanderthal-Syndrome".

Welp, I guess that's me then.

I don't really have much to say other than I was officially diagnosed with this years ago before my parents decided to keep me away from doctors and professionals for most of the rest of my life.

There's a lot more wrong to me than just that diagnosis but I cannot afford any kind of health care where I'm stuck living. It might not seem obvious when interacting me, and this isn't due to me "bottling it up", but believe me I am quite mad and have been getting worse as the years go by.