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Recent content by Silverwhistle

  1. Silverwhistle

    What is the greatest compliment you have ever received?

    One of the best I've ever had was: "You're a very strange lady, but you're on the side of the angels."
  2. Silverwhistle

    Accents??

    Listen to Valerie Singleton on old broadcasts of Blue Peter. No. I don't think the people on radio/TV were autistic. But it was the fact that I spoke like them, not like anyone in the working-class Yorkshire environment around me, that made me conspicuous. I also had a very advanced...
  3. Silverwhistle

    Accents??

    Listen to Valerie Singleton on old broadcasts of Blue Peter. I also had a very advanced vocabulary, which the knuckledraggers I was at school with didn't appreciate, either.
  4. Silverwhistle

    Accents??

    Yes: I had this as a child. I was a small girl in the North of England in the 1960s, with a mother from the area, and a Highland father, but had a very "BBC" accent, presumably picked up from the radio/TV. People used to ask my mother if I'd had elocution lessons, while at school, I was bullied...
  5. Silverwhistle

    How are Asperger Syndrome and High Functioning Autism Different?

    As far as I understand and from my own diagnostic journey, the significant differentiation is over language development. I had no language delay, so am classed as Aspie. But it's a sub-category of autism, in any case. Among the adult friends I have who are on the spectrum, some are classified...
  6. Silverwhistle

    MY PARTNER JUST TOLD SOMEONE IM AUTISTIC WITHOUT MY CONSENT

    Again, I'm in the UK, so not sure where you are/what things are like. I'm "out" and haven't found it a problem beyond nonsensical remarks like, "But you don't look autistic" (WTF does that mean?). If anything, I find it easier to be "out", rather than as things were when i was young, being...
  7. Silverwhistle

    Is Asperger's hereditary?

    I think there is a genetic component. My maternal uncle (a working-class Englishman, born in 1930, with a fairly basic education) was never diagnosed, but his personality and behaviour in adulthood were patently autistic. I wonder, too, about some traits of other maternal and paternal family...
  8. Silverwhistle

    What is the greatest compliment you have ever received?

    "You're a strange lady, but you're on the side of the angels."
  9. Silverwhistle

    Does anybody else absolutely hate the term "aspie(s)"

    I'm fine with it. It doesn't sound as "medicalised" as "Asperger's Syndrome", and it's part of my identity. It doesn't have the problematic historical baggage that (for example) "Queer" has for some LGBTQ people, men especially, for whom it was a term of abuse before being "reclaimed"; whereas...
  10. Silverwhistle

    Virgin Shaming

    It's not just male. I'm a woman. At the inner-city 'sink' junior high I attended in northern England in the 1970s, aged about 12, I was called a "lemon" and "lesbian" because I wasn't interested in sex acts with boys in the bike shed. Even at a single-sex high school, for the rougher girls...
  11. Silverwhistle

    Virgin Shaming

    Don't let it bother you. I'm 51, and haven't "done it" either. If you're Asexual, it would be wrong to feel you have to go against your own orientation to keep others happy (on a par with the way gay/lesbian people used to be pressurised into marriages with the opposite sex). Be true to yourself...
  12. Silverwhistle

    Unexpected Effect of Asperger's Diagnosis

    I was diagnosed at 50 last year, and I worry less about "fitting in"; I know there's a reason if things are difficult. It's slightly annoying when people say (as an acquaintance did yesterday) that I "seem normal", but they don't realise the years of effort that go into learning to "pass", and...
  13. Silverwhistle

    Leonard Cohen on his way out

    And? Nominations & c happen well in advance. He could have been put up for it. It would have been a good note to go out on.
  14. Silverwhistle

    Leonard Cohen on his way out

    Absolutely gutted. One of my favourite singer/songwriters. A poet. He should have got the Nobel, not Dylan...
  15. Silverwhistle

    My project - ASD coworking center

    Hi! Where are you? There is an Adult Autism Centre here in Glasgow, and I've been attending a post-diagnosis group for women. What we are hoping is perhaps being able to get something going on a more regular basis.
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