Asperger's & Autism Forum

Hi all,

Please may I ask, if the phrase 'Things not quite right' is acceptable to describe a person on the autistic spectrum? I ask, as a member of staff at the aspie drop-in centre where I attend, was conversing with two people from a group who offer support to parents, partners, siblings and carers of adults (over 16) on the autism spectrum, who use the drop-in centre too. One of the persons from the group used the phrase 'things not quite right'. A member of staff from the drop-in centre then said the person who made this comment was referring to his Daughter who is on the autistic spectrum, I then asked another member of staff from the drop-in centre if he thought some Aspies may be offended by this comment, he answered 'Yes'.

poll.

If you have one parent that accepts and/or understands and one that does not (or you don’t know or “other”) you may select two options - one option for each parent.

If your parents are deceased then please answer the questions in past sense - answer for if they understood when they were alive.

Here is a thing - I hate certain opinions and it's really hard for me to respect them.

I put the "(and very stupid)" in the title which seems kinda unfair because it looks like I call all opiniona that differ from mine stupid. But when I say stupid, I mean really awful opinions, like - for example - some racist and homophobic and xenophobic and all these extreme things.

So imagine you have some really good and close friend and you've been friends for years now. And suddenly he comes with some really REALLY horrible opinion that you can't stand. It's an opinion that you really hate.

So how to reply to such a thing? Usually I want to scream in anger "Are you serious? What a stupid opinion. What is wrong with you?!" and sometimes I do. Mostly because I am totally disappointed, hurt, sad...

Someone could say "But you should respect a different opinion from yours!" but it really hard because it's really something I deeply hate.

And even though I kinda... respect it and say myself...

I bet I am not the only one here who feels this way. I try to be myself , but I find it difficult to be ignored and not listened to.

I mean I thought “being yourself” and “just be yourself” was a way for people to fit in ? Instead of be yourself, but not the part that annoys others or questions everything.

This causes great anxiety in myself, so I take medication, but that doesn’t really fix the issue. I still don’t belong “here.”

What I am talking about is stuff you own? Example my glasses when they get one little scratch on them it bothers me to the point where I want to get them replaced. Also my cat scratched my Sony Bravia Anroid TV screen which still irritates me. You can still see out of it and only see the scratches in the light close up but it still bothers me to the point I want to replace the TV. I also tried those dumb fixes using toothpaste and other abrasions and they don't work.

Luckily my phone which is easy to prevent scratches I put it in an case and glass screen protector so it is still in mint condition.

I am just asking if this is a ASD thing or do things like this bother others too?

I have noticed throughout my life that I have met a lot more men who have some degree of autism or Asperger's who are single, compared with women with the same condition. Given that men are still expected to do all of the approaching and initiating, no matter how far society has advanced in gender equality, in my experience I have seen more men with ASD fail completely in dating, whilst quite a few women with ASD seem to have boyfriends/husbands.

I am not stating this as an established fact, it is just something that I have noticed from my own personal experience. Is there really a pattern here, that men with ASD have trouble because they have even more problems initiating dating than neurotypical guys, whereas women can just wait for men to approach them?

As a personal anecdote, my mother has Asperger's and mutism, and was single until age 27. She never approached during dating--men always approached her. What got me thinking about this topic is that my mother told me that if...

I just needed to take this out of my chest, idk if you have ever encountered someone like this in your work or in your study.

You see, for those who don't know me, I'm studying electronic engineering, I'm taking a course in Econimic engineering with other 5 courses. So , in this class the professor is giving us the oportunity to take the 2nd exam at home; great, you have access to your notes, books, etc. But, everyone in class must agree and sign a list.

Everyone in class agreed but one stuborn guy don't want to, he want's to take the test in class. He says he got a very low score in the last one (which was also sent to home) and he feels he can do better if he takes it on class.

Jeezzz I can't believe it, I may be a selfish sob sometimes, a very "make things by the rules" kind of person but if your professor gives you this kind of opportunity, you take it; we even have a chat group where we heelp each other if we have doubts or uestions about some topic and this guy don't want...

Aspies are know for being good with Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), what differs our thinking from NT's and enables us to perform better in this fields?

I'd say Aspies are born without built-in "framework" NT's have for integrating in society and world, therefore Aspies have to learn from scratch everything NT's can do fluently.

Our approach to learning and thinking is different we "brute force" everything, since we have no internal "framework" to guide our thinking, so we think constantly and train our brain day-to-day while NT's just follow built-in program without using much of their brain.

Also since there is no built in thinking patterns we we can view problem from different angles, whilst NT's are limited to only one way of look at things.

Person with ASD can form thinking patterns as needed e.g. "systemic thinking" or any other way its just a skill we can learn and use daily, NT's have to really focus and get out their head to apply different...

I am not sure if it's an autism related thing, but for some reason, most people seem to NEED to talk about other people all the time, while I totally... don't.

"Hey, do you know Patrik has a new girlfriend?"

"Do you remember Monica? She's going to have wedding next month! Yeeey!"

"Hey, recently I met Clara and guess what, she finally broke up with that guy she was with for two years."

"David left school and now he's travelling around the world. Cool, huh?"

Like... Talking about other people is totally okay, but I don't understand while so many people need to do so ALL THE TIME. For example I've never seen my mum and my sister to talk about anything else but other people and their lives. When I see my friend X, he wants to talk about our friend Y who is not present at the time (So I guess X and Y are talking about me, when I am not present...)

Also when I am at some family event like barbeque or something, they are just talking about other people all the time. About their...

I understand not all spectrumites have sensory hyper or hypo sensitivities.

So...poll.