tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8466691337834051176.post8724837662507215055..comments2024-03-01T03:37:20.420-05:00Comments on I'M SOMEWHERE ELSE: Like meAmanda Foresthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04200794053287551087noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8466691337834051176.post-43394080779492346242010-08-20T09:41:34.072-04:002010-08-20T09:41:34.072-04:00so i found this through your list of posts post. n...so i found this through your list of posts post. no, it doesn't strike me as odd, though i remember noticing as a teenager, once i started observing the handful of actual people with asperger's dxes that i knew, that *none* of them fit that very stiff, arrogant, robotic, mr. spock-like stereotype. a few of them-- including me, sadly-- are people who can sometimes come across as cold and uninterested in friendship or human contact, but underneath it's actually a result of anxiety or shyness or a deep conviction that other people don't like them and never can or will like them, combined with weird body language. <br /><br />i don't know, though, the people i get along with best are often considered mentally ill rather than autistic-- people with "personality disorders." also, for some reason, i tend to get on well with people who smoke a lot of marijuana (even though i don't). sometimes i feel like the dsm categories are all wrong, that there might be a good way to put people into groups according to how their brains work, but that what we have now is not even close to it. <br /><br />also, i wish that the asperger's stereotype would stop being "people with crappy social skills." i mean, i do have crappy social skills, but being overwhelmed by the constant intensity of my senses and emotions to the point of either freaking out and acting really manic or shutting down and disassociating is probably the thing that causes me the most problems in my everyday life and is probably the most significant way i'm "different" than most people.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8466691337834051176.post-41200569713811394542009-12-22T18:09:37.579-05:002009-12-22T18:09:37.579-05:00In some ways i'm probably more like the "...In some ways i'm probably more like the "stereotypical AS person" than you - i'm very "academic/intellectual" (and obscure and convoluted) in my style of speaking/writing, for example, and very socially phobic/anxious (which is NOT the same thing as either "shy" or "aloof" - see what, for example, Jane Meyerding has written on that topic), and very, very uncomprehending of any sort of nonverbal communication or non-literal aspects ("subtext") of verbal communication - but, in other ways, i'm also very unlike the "stereotypical AS person" - i have an extremely, sometimes painfully, strong desire for both intense friendship and physical closeness with other people, i like certain sensory things that people with AS are "supposed" to hate, i'm very passionately emotional and not always "rational", etc.<br /><br />I actually think that the "stereotypical AS person" probably is a stereotype that very few, if any, people diagnosed with AS actually "live up to" (and that's not even going into the IMO total meaninglessness of the distinction between "Asperger" and "non-Asperger autism"), and large chunks of it are based more on NTs' misperceptions of what autistic people are like rather than on anything actually self-reported by autistic people.<br /><br />(For example, the "autistic people lack empathy" thing, which actually made me spend several years thinking i <i>couldn't possibly be</i> autistic, because if anything i "over-feel" empathy to the extent that i get utterly overwhelmed by it - but recent studies have shown that autistic people actually are more likely to "over-feel" empathy than to lack it, and the "lacking empathy" thing comes from a confusion between *actual* empathy and NT assumptions about how one "should" <i>show</i> it...)<br /><br />I also feel a very strong identification with developmentally/intellectually-impaired people, despite the fact that i was always seen throughout my childhood as "intellectual", scored very highly in school exams, have a degree, etc, and often feel like i have more in common with them than with neurotypical people, although many people seem to see me as on the "opposite" side of "normal" to them. Whenever i see anyone in the street who has mannerisms that come across to me as either "autistic" or "learning disabled", i feel a strong sense of... i dunno, it's hard to describe, but a sort of "comradeship", sort of desire to watch out for that person, not in a patronising way, but in a "watching out for one's own kind" sort of way... i'm not sure if you know what i mean, but it's something quite primal and powerful in an almost "my tribe" sort of sense.<br /><br />It seems like maybe a lot of the people with AS you've encountered have been of the "Aspie supremacist" type? Personally, i don't really encounter them at all except online (and i can't really be bothered any more with the forums that they mostly frequent), but then i guess i move more in "wider disability movement" circles (containing a very wide variety of people with different impairments - although actually not that many with intellectual impairments, now i come to think of it, among those i know, but certainly a wide range of physical, visual, etc) than in specifically ASD circles...stevethehydrahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18334234855643025449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8466691337834051176.post-54740325673215546732009-12-02T17:34:31.483-05:002009-12-02T17:34:31.483-05:00I don't feel like a typical ASD person. I am s...I don't feel like a typical ASD person. I am spacey and say dumb things all the time. When I don't eat food that I am allergic too I am way less spacey. I bet many people think that I do drugs. The ASD people I met at my support group did not seem stereotypical at all which was really helpful in accepting my own identity. They seemed alloof, slow to develop thoughts, very cautious with their words and body movements, and very normal as far as interests and jobs go.Jesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06001020811877167957noreply@blogger.com