Anyone have aspergers? Is "weird"?

bowlofsalad said:
This is merely my opinion. Some people are very eager to diagnose themselves, even more troubling is some people are eager to diagnose others. Some doctors do plenty of harm. A lot of people live their entire lives thinking they are broken in some way, were all different some how, that is wonderful. Tolerating those differences can sometimes be very challenging, but so long as we all can respect one another, things can be very good. With that said, I think it would be wise to cast out thoughts of being weird, it's great to be different, it means were doing something that often goes outside the box. They want to diagnose and prescribe something for you. They give you the placebo at best, poison at worst, and you give them buckets of your cash. Find things that make you happy and share that happiness with others. Thousands of candles can be lit from the same candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened.
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Very edifying.

But, I never actually thought I was broken in someway. Growing up, I thought I was too smart for everyone and despite how lonely I felt, that felt like a reassuring thought. I knew I was 'weird' according to others' disparaging comments but I chalked it upto being so much more intelligent then them, so I felt good about it. :D

Then, I went to college and lived with people who were as smart as I was. Problem: The same kind of interpersonal problems persisted with them obviously not having the same kind of problems with similarly intelligent folks.

So, being puzzled over this discrepancy, I sought to resolve it and I now feel pretty confident aspergers reflects what's actually going on. Yeah, I have to admit, thinking myself weird because of being uber-intelligent was significantly more gratifying in a way than something like autism, :roll:, but at least I had a framework for understanding what was going on THAT MADE SOME SENSE. Finally, SENSE!

I read Leta Hollingworth's work "Children above 180 IQ"(I wasn't so presumptuous to believe I was in that group, only that if my characteristics were the result of being highly intelligent, then surely those of extreme intelligence would demonstrate the same characteristics, only worse.) and she stated people in her group tended to be popular and socially well-adjusted, with various descriptions of the kinds of lives each kid lived. That didn't describe me at all, so the high IQ explanation just wasn't making any sense. There was one guy who was pedantic and literalistic in the group, but that was about it as far as the unpopular. Like, what I'm talking about goes far beyond unpopularity, it's more like everything inexplicably turns to shit and you can't figure out how to stop it. You definitely don't intend for things to turn to shit, I actually felt quite optimistic and brimming with enthusiasm inside and took action, but it always did for some reason that was beyond me.
 
As the adage goes, there's reality and then there is our brain based picture of reality, the one that guides us in the world. Sometimes the latter conforms with some remarkable accuracy to the former. Science is all about lots of observing, lots of writing and communication, comparative analysis, to see if we can come up with a consensus about reality. It was a real breakthrough for mankind when we started doing that. Then came in the psychologists and behaviourists, starting with Freud, to see if they could apply the scientific model to the human creature. I don't think that venture has gone very far yet - its still at the beginning stages. So not ready for any summary conclusions.

A bit more about IQ vs EIQ. Most of us have fathers & mothers growing up. A simplistic understanding can emerge about the relative amounts of father-force versus mother-force one received growing up. By the time you're 12, going into puberty, its too late - you're already well into school, peer-groups, school and so forth. Some say that its too late by the time you're 6 or 7, it all happens in the beginning stages of growth. Too little mother-force, too little father-force and you're imbalanced. "Normal" is to get large amounts of both growing up, starting off and then remaining well balanced through the course of your life.

Think of mom as the one with the face you bond to first, and all the cooing, baby talk, holding, emoting and so forth from the time you're an infant until you're 3 or so, when independence kicks in. Then mom's job is to help you transfer mother-child bonding to a wider social circle. By the time you're 5 or 6, all that should be developmentally well along, in time to enter school and then begin the journey of peer-to-peer relations.

But if that didn't happen for you, because your mom was developmentally impaired herself, or not around or too busy or whatever, then entering school you may have a very low EIQ. So much so that your first childhood peers reject you, or bully you, or treat you as the wierdo, and so forth. Then your path is set. You just get wacked out more over time, because you're not relating to others, following them face-to-face, feeling them, exercising empathy and so forth. By the time you're an adult, you're somewhere on the autism-aspergers spectrum.

As human beings, we have to recognize that we're genetically coded to be a part of the tribe. We're primates, pack animals. Is what it is. Nature. Then nurture and many whoopsooos in the course of growing up. Without making too many excuses, avoiding the whole victim consciousness thing, yes, your parents may have been emotionally absent. Latter year compensation training can do some good, but will never be sufficient to the task, no matter what the psychologists earning a living from your disability may have to say about it.
 
arkmundi said:
As the adage goes, there's reality and then there is our brain based picture of reality, the one that guides us in the world. Sometimes the latter conforms with some remarkable accuracy to the former. Science is all about lots of observing, lots of writing and communication, comparative analysis, to see if we can come up with a consensus about reality. It was a real breakthrough for mankind when we started doing that. Then came in the psychologists and behaviourists, starting with Freud, to see if they could apply the scientific model to the human creature. I don't think that venture has gone very far yet - its still at the beginning stages. So not ready for any summary conclusions.

A bit more about IQ vs EIQ. Most of us have fathers & mothers growing up. A simplistic understanding can emerge about the relative amounts of father-force versus mother-force one received growing up. By the time you're 12, going into puberty, its too late - you're already well into school, peer-groups, school and so forth. Some say that its too late by the time you're 6 or 7, it all happens in the beginning stages of growth. Too little mother-force, too little father-force and you're imbalanced. "Normal" is to get large amounts of both growing up, starting off and then remaining well balanced through the course of your life.

Think of mom as the one with the face you bond to first, and all the cooing, baby talk, holding, emoting and so forth from the time you're an infant until you're 3 or so, when independence kicks in. Then mom's job is to help you transfer mother-child bonding to a wider social circle. By the time you're 5 or 6, all that should be developmentally well along, in time to enter school and then begin the journey of peer-to-peer relations.

But if that didn't happen for you, because your mom was developmentally impaired herself, or not around or too busy or whatever, then entering school you may have a very low EIQ. So much so that your first childhood peers reject you, or bully you, or treat you as the wierdo, and so forth. Then your path is set. You just get wacked out more over time, because you're not relating to others, following them face-to-face, feeling them, exercising empathy and so forth. By the time you're an adult, you're somewhere on the autism-aspergers spectrum.

As human beings, we have to recognize that we're genetically coded to be a part of the tribe. We're primates, pack animals. Is what it is. Nature. Then nurture and many whoopsooos in the course of growing up. Without making too many excuses, avoiding the whole victim consciousness thing, yes, your parents may have been emotionally absent. Latter year compensation training can do some good, but will never be sufficient to the task, no matter what the psychologists earning a living from your disability may have to say about it.
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It's quite popular to blame other people for problems in America, especially ones mother or father or whatever, but that doesn't have anything to do with aspergers. The heritability coefficient of aspergers is .9 and .7 for autism, which means that it's highly genetic. In the case of autism, it's thought that most of the environmental factors come into play during gestational development and there's a list of factors that's thought to be important. I could tell you if you're interested.

(Much of the gestational factors involve inflammation on some level, whether that be because of smoking, breathing in highway fumes, having celiac's disease/arthitis/some-inflammatary-disorder, etc.; Apparently early labor is associated with a greater risk of developing it; Maybe all of these factors involve inhibited development at the point of birth?)

As to humanity's tribal behavior, I think it's ultimately common to all mammals as "bonding behavior" underlies it and bonding behavior is typically mammalian.
 
I remember crying myself to sleep one day, a gal from afar broke my heart over my claimed insufficiency (She was quite detailed, too, beyond the typical level of detail you'd expect from the average gal.). I made analogies to Pinocchio in becoming a real boy but never being able to achieve it because nature had willed it that way but then quickly casted those concerns aside and became deeply embittered for the rest of my days. (Just exaggerating there, but it might be a contributor to a similar longer term trend)

There's a curious thing I've noticed: I can't really joke without accidentally pissing people off. I honestly can't seem to do much without accidentally pissing someone off (Just merely existing would suffice, it seems, telling me it has A LOT to do with nonverbal behavior), but especially not joking.

It's a curious thing. I would almost guess that 'joking' is the exclusive domain of those in the inner circle and that 'outsiders', in their various psychological/genetic forms, are held in contempt for attempting to use a tool reserved for those with tribal membership.

I guess maybe that's why I've cut down on sharing my jokes with the greater public over the years, in minimizing the resulting widespread negative social feedback, which may have eventually lead to my accusations of being an agelast. Albeit, that accusation came from another member of another culture, so I probably shouldn't take that too seriously (There's a disproportionate amount of people from other cultures that really aren't that funny and I'm guessing it's because they have a greater difference in their sense of humor due to, more or less, cultural differences.).

But still, it's interesting trying to understand the puzzle nature has laid for me. I've long given up hope on 'solving it' in practice, just merely understanding its greater themes would be fine with me.
 
swbluto said:
There's a curious thing I've noticed: I can't really joke without accidentally pissing people off. I honestly can't seem to do much without accidentally pissing someone off, but especially not joking. It's a curious thing. I would almost guess that 'joking' is the exclusive domain of those in the inner circle and that 'outsiders', in their various psychological/genetic forms, are held in contempt for attempting to use a tool reserved for those with tribal membership.
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Well, to joke, you have to have a "sense of humor" and context, timing, appropriateness, and emotive signals are all important. Watch a master of humor, George Carlin:
[youtube]MvgN5gCuLac[/youtube]
As far as George may be concerned, "pissing people" in a humorous way is part of the game. You can't care about it too much. Inject enough humorous anecdote into, enough emotive force, gesturing, facial communication and you'll captivate your audience. There are bad jokes and good jokes delivered badly. Your aim has to be good jokes delivered well. Practice young grasshopper, and may the frog be with you!
 
arkmundi said:
swbluto said:
There's a curious thing I've noticed: I can't really joke without accidentally pissing people off. I honestly can't seem to do much without accidentally pissing someone off, but especially not joking. It's a curious thing. I would almost guess that 'joking' is the exclusive domain of those in the inner circle and that 'outsiders', in their various psychological/genetic forms, are held in contempt for attempting to use a tool reserved for those with tribal membership.
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Well, to joke, you have to have a "sense of humor" and context, timing, appropriateness, and emotive signals are all important
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Yep, now I'm pretty sure it's a curse, lol.

Oh well, good to know. Good to know.
 
I also find if I try and wind people up it always almost gets taken the wrong way, I guess I'm more of a technical person as opposed to a people person, I'll give that test a go, but even if I do have it, there's not really much I can do about it as it's not like there is a 'cure'
 
As real as it gets.
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http://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=53034&start=100

An NT was spotted in the wild. I first hesitated interacting with said NT knowing that a negative outcome was likely, but he baited me and I took the bait hookline and sinker. However, I was fully prepared for what came having been hardened by a lifetime of experience.

The encounter has been fruitful, however, as it seems the specimen makes a reference to "realness" whenever someone makes social commentary of sort on another person, whether that person is referring to someone related to him or someone related to someone else. Why do NTs refer to social commentary as 'realness' when physics and the natural laws underlies all the universe and is the closeness thing possible to reality?

In my particular case, I didn't bring up his father because I truly thought he was relevant to the discussion, but that church conference I attended as a child did. Like, "It's all your father's fault you're life is screwed up! Blame Him!". What I find is that people often blame anyone/anything other than themselves when it's often THEIR fault and/or NATURE'S/FATE'S fault (I.e., ones genetic predispositions and genetically divined abilities/inabilities), but I digress. (Although, ones genes came from ones father, so I suppose you could partially blame him for that. But, then again, he was genetically predisposed to engage in activities known to cause reproduction, so we could blame nature once again for his children's birth.)

These are things science is beginning to uncover as further research into the human mind is done, with the various explorations of the various shades of the human mind on the psychological spectrum (Especially studies of the so called 'mental disorders') helping to highlight the differences.

One theory is that humanity's social cognition gave rise to social commentary, as the collective commentary helps define the relational web between the members of the species for each individual, which is important for some evolutionary reason. One aim is obviously in defining the relative status between individual members which appears to be used for determining resource distribution in NT-centric tribes (Attentional, sexual and financial resources. Even... food resources. *gasp* Oh, the inhumanity! But it's true, humans are fundamentally animalistic as much as they like to believe they're TOTALLY different than other species. I personally think they reject the differences because it's the tribal thinking that enables them to exclude animals from their mind's 'social circle', which may be important as it enables options that are important for evolutionary reasons, like killing and eating and it helps in establishing higher status/rank over other animals.), but there seems to be other unidentified aims.
 
I've worked with some autistic people. Adults with asperger's, most with normal IQ a couple with hiqh IQ. It should be stated for the record that I am not a patient person. The normal IQ aspies were, without variation, exceptionally annoying and demanding with no saving graces. The high IQ ones are about like anyone else with very high intelligence--weird but their abilities make it OK, and they have somewhat of an easier time compensating for difficulties IF they want to.
 
Hi all.... First off, I apologize for reopening such an old thread, especially in the off topic realm. I first read this back in December... maybe November. It seemed to hit a lot of 'buttons' for me... tried the on-line test linked to in this thread. scored 38.... I took the information to my shrinky doctor who did some hemming and hawing... but gave me an in-office test. She got pretty interested with the results. It was six weeks before I could see a "professional" (expert? specialist?). Long story short... I have learned something important affecting my life. It shouldn't have taken 60+ years to discover this. I have a lot to learn and explore now about myself.
bottom line.... Thanks ES for having an off-topic section. One can never know how important it may be to a life untill ....
 
2024 is right around the corner and im well rested
 
Being unique ain't nothing special isn't it?

Sorry. I mean society thrives of people specializing in their each and other academic or would we like everyone to be well-rounded able to do any work the boss or robot tells us to do?

Some things normally said to be normal may not have been from the start, so there is in essence no normal?

That is something to ponder about, not just head down into.

In general I see uniqueness as a very good special trait as harshness in a person life has supposedly made them better?

Acceptance or understanding does a lot but will not change someone. I am me and you are you. We either get along together well or we don't.

Do I have a letter combination personality. Sure they say: I say then what do I have? They say they don't know. Are you annoying. Yes, mum said, but not to me. Doctor wifey says: You have asd: I say no, you have, and we all know how one can be. Am I sad. No. Everything just great.
 
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