My Life With Asperger's

I appreciate your post. Keep in mind though that you are genuinely smart and always have been. That much is evident from your insightful writing. But your point is well taken that individuals like you can sometimes miss out on some important attention, caring, and help. Best, Scott

We have it even more radically difficult for the same reasons as you described. Imagine how a perosn gets treated by others when the person is an autistic savant who can paint like Michaelangelo and write White House level federal appellate briefs at a top level, yet cant do meal preparation or have a conversation on a telephone or see the letters to read them in paper print and some other type font styles even on a computer medium.

An Autistic savant is a paradox condition -- mixed very high and very low functioning in the same person at the same time. Add synesthesia, and "normal" people just can't quite grasp how colors evoke emotions or letters are "Thinking in Pictures" symbols that come in colors. I had an FBI agent seek me out after my re-confirmed Autism savant DX and ask: "How can you be smart and not smart at the same time, and you expect us to believe that ?"

It is a basic lack of understanding of the complexities of the human brain. What can we do to educate the masses ?

Great article.

Loved reading your article; very insightful.

My son is 3 1/2 yo and has been dx'd with autistic disorder. Everyone comments on how smart he is. I'm sure this will continue throughout his life. What can we say or do to help our son feel good about himself?

Thanks.

Once again, John turns himself inside-out for us all to see and captivates.

Sincerely,David

Finally, words have been given to an idea that has occupied my academic and professional careers ad-infinitum. My words are heard, or read, and I am consistently labeled as inattentive or lazy when encountering information or concepts that I have any degree of difficulty integrating. My mother was a one-woman vocabulary and grammar police force who insisted that her bright child have exceptional communication skills. Without her, I would be perceived as average.

Hi John, I so agree with what you say and this para sums it up for me "A person like me is torn to pieces because I sound so good that I'm held to an exceptionally high standard; one I often fail to meet. "
and even when we try and explain the reply that happens to me, but really they have no idea... yes everyone is exposed to the world but so of us are affected so much more intently, its like we are more in tuned with the world around us and affected by things others do not notice, continually exposed to a world that does not get us is exhausting. and as I just put on a face book post "I have come to the conclusion if we do not explain, others may not understand us and even them I wonder, but I refuse to play act and put on a none spectrum performance at my expense any more..." Aspergers Parallel Planet.

Wow! The previous post mentions "if we do not explain, others may not understnad us. . ." I suspect that my sisters mother in law struggles with high functioning aspergers, however, it seems like it is a highly protected secret. After reading this article I realize I must not be offended by her behavior nor take it personally. However, if my sister and her husband could have been open and shared with us the information, it would have brought understanding and tolerance much quicker. Not to defend my avoidance of his mother, I have to say interacting with her was painful for me because I was taking her behavior personally. She is so bright, capable, attractive, etc, that I assumed she was a "rude snob". Perhaps the advice of "Judge not" is applicable here - you never know what is truly going on in another persons life.

I think there are degrees, too. It's even worse if the contrast is lower. That makes any random gaffs more shocking to the listener/observer. You see the double take...
Is it possible that the narrow (usually not very creative) paradigms we aspire to in society need to be broadened? Maybe the ideal of becoming one of those (often judgmental) people who want to label anyone who ruffles the smooth (and for them comforting) social waters is not so high.

Hey, There!

Nice explanation about smartness. I am still looking for the universal definition for Smart as I am not agreed with your explanation. You have explained your theory based on your previous encounter with others from different perspective. As I understood, It's your emotions, which you have to understand in order to understand smartness. Smartness is kind of emotion, which makes you feel proud, egoist, and warm feeling of happiness.

From my perspective, Smartness is something which is lies within all of us. But, we are not seeing our self, we are not observing our self as a object, instead a living creature. Smartness is like pattern of your emotions and thoughts, which will proceed in a series. And the pattern is designed that way, which will makes you feel secure, proud and top of the world.

Please write back if you have any questions to ask.

Thanks,
VP

I am so glad that I read this post. I have high-functioning Aspergers, and I have always had trouble reading "in-between the lines." Now I'm in high school, and English classes are getting harder. A test question will ask: what was this character feeling in this paragraph? Well, if that character didn't say or mention any feeling or if the author didn't mention a facial expression, how can one know what the character was feeling? I have trouble with things that aren't absolute, like the theme of a story, or second meanings. How am I supposed to read the author's mind, if they don't say what the theme is? Math is so easy because no matter what there's only one answer. Sciene is easy because there's always a logical explanation behind everything; there's no guessing involved. It's either right or it's wrong. I can never explain this to people, because they don't understand. I've been called stubborn because I "refuse" to look behind the obvious, but it's just that I have to have a logical explanation for EVERYTHING or I can't support it.

This is just one of the problems I have with Aspergers; though I'm doing better now, I used to have outbursts of anger and tears from certain noises, and no one would understand--they'd say "get over it." It's really nice to read something by someone who has had similar experiences to mine, and I'm looking forward to reading Look Me in the Eye!

Yep.. that was me. I sounded so smart. I could talk about such adults things. I had a HUGE vocabulary. I had no idea how to get along with other kids. I had no idea how to introduce myself to someone I didn't know...
So, I just waded right in, and messed it all up.

And all the time I heard things like "you have no common sense" and "you're SO bright, how in the WORLD did you think to do something so dumb." That one rather confused me - you don't think to do dumb things. You just do them, and not thinking it what made you do the dumb thing. :P Huge vocab does not equal understanding figures of speech.

And then, because I was smart at learning factual things, I was expected to be smart at everything that wasn't based on physical coordination. And, over and over, I heard, "RyAnne doesn't live up to her full potential." No one every told me right out what that full potential was, but everyone seemed to expect me to be this genius who could think up anything, be anything, and solve all the world's problems.

I suppose a normal kid would have resented that. I just felt like I kept failing everyone - failing myself. My grandpa apparently did that to my dad, and he resented it... but then he did it to me.

I have tons of my school report cards, and they all say that in some wording or another - Doesn't work as hard as she could. Doesn't live up to her potential. Could make friends, but doesn't try. It was all like -- I could just be normal if I tried harder. Pssshhhh.

Now that I don't try so hard to be normal, I'm a really happy person. :D And I have a job I like - even love sometimes - and I have a husband, a 15 year old son, and I love my family and they love me. And, you know what? If this is below my potential, I don't care. :P This is awesome.