Fact or Crap: You can usually tell just by talking to someone

[Granta_Omega]

On some videos of people with Asperger's you can tell people have odd facial expressions or jittery movements and can tell that they have some kind of syndrome or disorder just by talking to them. Is that the case with most people with Asperger's Syndrome or just a select few.

I am pretty sure I have it and people can't generally tell until they get to know me so I didn't know in the past if that was something that might be a deal breaker or if in reality it is a very cloaked syndrome that doesn't come obvious for most people?

 

[pjcnet]

As far as I know it depends on the person with Asperger's as not everyone inherits all the traits and some traits are more prominent in some people than others with various levels of severity. There are some people with Asperger's that can appear normal at first to most people, while with others it can be quite obvious that something is at least different about them from the start. Also it depends on the other person's knowledge and experience of Asperger's who's making the judgement, if they know a lot about Asperger's they're obviously more likely to notice smaller giveaway signs and understand them much better.

For myself I can often disguise my Asperger's to most if I'm feeling calm and especially if I'm conscious of it, but some people say that my voice itself often lacks expression and sounds like someone "droning on" while I can struggle to control the level of my voice too (E.g. I can shout without realising it, it doesn't sound like I'm shouting to myself), I can also still apparently give myself away with lack of eye contact even though I can somewhat consciously override it at times. Not many people will however take a lot of notice of this when they're short acquaintances, for instance when being served in a shop normally, but if I for instance had to complain about something I was returning to a shop then my traits are a lot more likely to be picked up upon (not always in a good way if they don't understand Asperger's). Obviously if I'm not calm I can let go of conscious control and all my traits will all come out, then I'm told that it is obvious something isn't quite right (well not quite right is an opinion), but even then if the person doesn't understand Asperger's at all they may jump to the wrong conclusion about me, E.g. that I'm being purposely rude, insulting or even aggressive (I'm not really) Etc. I'm obviously talking about first impressions, obviously anyone who gets to know me a little will know that I am at least different no matter how much I try. When I was younger however it was always more obvious from the start that I was different to others as I've learned to improve as I've got older (yes, people with Asperger's can still improve and get better to a certain extent even though it obviously cannot be cured and you'll always have the underlying traits even if you can override and control them better).