Autistic count

Teehee. In my school, my teacher pronounced Asperger's as Ass Burgers.

My dad went to find a book about it, he told the librarian person to search for it, and he said they spelled it that way.

I honestly do not see the point of this thread. I appreciate your condition, but throwing it out in a public forum achieves what? You will only cause more drama and headaches.

Why not just keep it to the fact that you're another member. Why the need to declare yourself differently? The mods/community here are pretty inteligent and reasonable. History shows they dealt with things as expected.

how else will we ever know what other autistics there are on southperry?

you don't object to questions like "who else here peels grapes before they eat them?". am a bit skeptical of how huge amounts of spam threads are accepted around here, yet the validity of a single question about social preferences and behaviours (this is the question, after all!) is doubted every other post.

if i asked "are you obsessive, do you have extreme difficulties understanding relating to other people and do you use repetitive routines and behaviours?" with a poll, it would be asking the same question, but no one except those who knew the definition of autism would say "you shouldn't ask that question."

i still do not understand why you say "drama." maybe it is because everyone thinks "autistic" is somehow an offensive label and in fact there are no autistics or something. well it is a real disorder, a real problem that i struggle with every day. it's only the truth. it's like saying "i have a cold." except a cold doesn't last a lifetime, and it doesn't affect every aspect of your life. is it inappropriate for us to exist?

the point of this thread is to find more people who have pathological psychological, social and behavioural difficulties. it's just not the same talking to someone who's never flapped their hands or rocked in a corner or forgot to go to sleep because they got fascinated with a pencil...

you can't empathise with that, because you have never been there. no offense.. it is just true. So, obviously, that is why we want to find more like us (because other autistics HAVE been there). if you became paralysed from the waist down, you'd want to find more people like yourself too. am finding it bizarre that people would say "please don't post about yourselves, we don't want to know about it" when people do it constantly on forums.

(is there some unwritten rule, that autistics alone of all people in the world are not allowed to seek out others like themselves on forums? seems illogical to me, but maybe there is some social nuance that have missed)

i thought about making this thread for a long time, just so happens ablu2 has made it instead.

if you are not autistic, no need to post, there is no desire to count you. no offence is intended. i just want to know if there are other autistics around.

If people are not asked to raise their hands, then they won't do it. Pretty much the same when it comes to people wondering who's autistic or w/e. People won't just say it without being prompted to.

This is in response to all the people thinking others will somehow gang up on these people in one form or another. It's quite immature if you end up doing so.

I honestly do not see the point of this thread. I appreciate your condition, but throwing it out in a public forum achieves what? You will only cause more drama and headaches.

Why not just keep it to the fact that you're another member. Why the need to declare yourself differently? The mods/community here are pretty inteligent and reasonable. History shows they dealt with things as expected.

The point of this thread, as has been stated multiple times, is for autistics to find other autistics.
Autism isnt such a bad thing, there are diseases twice as bad. In fact, you can make Autism to your advantage and control the obsessive part to focus on your home work. If thats even possible I mean.
It achieves us making friends with other autistics.
We will recieve drama from people like you who must insist against this thread.

Because, as said before, we want to know the other autistics!

I have HFA (High Functioning Autism), so that kinda counts that I have Autism.

yes, it does. welcome to the thread!

ooh hfa.. am curious, do you know why they gave you HFA and not AS? i am just wondering because they gave me AS and not HFA... but i think my daily life is affected at least by my executive dysfunction, maybe not as much as someone who has a diagnosis of HFA.

unless you live in the UK, where they classify HFA and AS as the same (i think..). they are different diagnoses in other parts of the world.

sorry, slightly rambly.

I have HFA (High Functioning Autism), so that kinda counts that I have Autism.

Added. And yes, as long as it is a form of autism, it counts.

Btw, just to throw this out there, my name is Austin. Re-arrange a few letters, change a letter, you have Autism. Weird huh?

I'm EXTREMELY slightly autistic. My sister was diagnosed with a form of autism while I wasn't, but I do know that I am. I can feel it in a way. I'm not the same as everyone else and I feel like I have larger mental limitations than other people, but some things comes a lot easier to me than other people. I do believe I am, although I've never been clinically diagnosed with it.

Shikage: Added.

Hmm... according to the autism description autistics can have a tendency to get off topic. Interesting...

actually, what ShiKage describes is where i feel my sister is, haha. she is not dxed either and refuses to believe that she is anywhere on the spectrum, nor does she really need to, i guess, she is functioning ok... as an adult aspie, i WANTED to be diagnosed because it was affecting me so much. if it hadn't, guess it would have been a "take it or leave it" thing too.

there seem to be a lot of autistic/aspie people, even some significantly affected, who are just self-diagnosed or who don't feel they need to recognise their limitations at all. if they don't need the support/label that's great.. good on you for living up to a neurotypical world!

edit: lol ablu2. the reason for that is low topic maintenance, ie can't stay on topic with their own OR other people's topics, partly due to (i think)
- lack of theory of mind (can't think from others' perspective)
- detail-oriented processing (focus on the small details first, and gradually slowly expand to include a general picture of what the topic was about), and
- inability to multitask due to executive dysfunction (organising your thoughts/behaviours.).

i think detail-oriented processing is a huge deal in autism! almost to the point that it could be one of the basic deficits.

edit#2: oh, and one of my obsessions is autism... can you tell? (: (will twist other people's conversation topics to chat about autism too!)

actually, what ShiKage describes is where i feel my sister is, haha. she is not dxed either and refuses to believe that she is anywhere on the spectrum, nor does she really need to, i guess, she is functioning ok... as an adult aspie, i WANTED to be diagnosed because it was affecting me so much. if it hadn't, guess it would have been a "take it or leave it" thing too.

there seem to be a lot of autistic/aspie people, even some significantly affected, who are just self-diagnosed or who don't feel they need to recognise their limitations at all. if they don't need the support/label i think that's great.. good on you for living up to a neurotypical world!

edit: lol ablu2. the reason for that is low topic maintenance, ie can't stay on topic with their own OR other people's topics, partly due to lack of theory of mind (can't think from others' perspective) and partly due to, i think, detail-oriented processing (focus on the small details first, and gradually slowly expand to include a general picture of what the topic was about) and inability to multitask due to executive dysfunction (organising your thoughts/behaviours.).

i think detail-oriented processing is a huge deal in autism! almost to the point that it could be one of the basic deficits.

Actually im pretty good at multitasking. Just last night I was doing about 5 things at once (Talking in southperry chat, talking in private chat, lurking on forum, looking for flame battles on another forum, and breathing all at once.)

yep... thats why it's a spectrum

my most pervasive problem at the moment is executive dysfunction, probably different from your most pervasive problem

ji <-- can't even talk in multiple MSN chat windows or she gets confused (can't say anything, can't remember what the topic was about, etc).

(edit: if more than one person chats me, i tend to randomly disappear from one or the other window, and completely forget that was having a conversation with them in the first place. Until there are too many windows and i start closing them, then realising i suddenly ignored the person in that chat, heh.)

could be that i'm a female aspie too

yep... thats why it's a spectrum

my most pervasive problem at the moment is executive dysfunction, probably different from your most pervasive problem

ji <-- can't even talk in multiple MSN chat windows or she gets confused (can't say anything, can't remember what the topic was about, etc)

could be that i'm a female aspie too

I actually get confused when multiple people are talking to me in the same window. Theres like 5 people talking to me and I cant talk to them individually, so when I say something everyone thinks im talking to them. Brb lunch.

actually, what ShiKage describes is where i feel my sister is, haha. she is not dxed either and refuses to believe that she is anywhere on the spectrum, nor does she really need to, i guess, she is functioning ok... as an adult aspie, i WANTED to be diagnosed because it was affecting me so much. if it hadn't, guess it would have been a "take it or leave it" thing too.

there seem to be a lot of autistic/aspie people, even some significantly affected, who are just self-diagnosed or who don't feel they need to recognise their limitations at all. if they don't need the support/label that's great.. good on you for living up to a neurotypical world!

edit: lol ablu2. the reason for that is low topic maintenance, ie can't stay on topic with their own OR other people's topics, partly due to (i think)
- lack of theory of mind (can't think from others' perspective)
- detail-oriented processing (focus on the small details first, and gradually slowly expand to include a general picture of what the topic was about), and
- inability to multitask due to executive dysfunction (organising your thoughts/behaviours.).

i think detail-oriented processing is a huge deal in autism! almost to the point that it could be one of the basic deficits.

edit#2: oh, and one of my obsessions is autism... can you tell? (: (will twist other people's conversation topics to chat about autism too!)

Well, I was diagnosed with ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) as a child, but I don't think that was my problem. I've never been able to talk to people straight and when I do, things do not come out like I want them to. I can't communicate with people well and the way I think is not the way I should be thinking in most situations. I can't do school because I have extremely attention problems and I can't do any of my work just because it bores the living hell out of me. I'm one of those who seem normal when you're around me, but until I say something about having a mental disorder, people don't know that I do infact have one. It's weird. I'm pretty sure I'm at least slightly autistic, but I haven't been diagnosed with it yet. When I took an efficiency test at the doctor's, they were confused with my test scores because I scored extremely high in most areas, but in a lot of important areas, I got either on the low end of average or way below average.

ah, me too ablu2!

just remembering from chats with my fiance: a lot of the time it happens even with just one chat, even if am not doing anything else. i can be just looking at the chat and typing something, and suddenly my mind goes fuzzy and can't figure out what they are trying to say or what i am supposed to say back. usually will just not say anything at first, then read the words out loud to try and understand them, and/or type a test response to see if it looks sensible, and retyping if it's not. sometimes will give up and just say something completely unrelated, lol.

the blanking out happens irl too which is a real problem when you're trying to "be professional"! for the irl one, am aware of the silence but can't do anything about it except filler (eg "ahhh... mmmm...mhm mhm.. right. [insert generic interested facial expression]")

that could be the executive dysfunction or the ADD (which was also dxed with.)

edit: shikage

interesting that we both have diagnoses of add! it's a common comorbid dx with autism spectrum disorders. and yeah, not sure about stats for ADD but autism definitely has skill spikes (areas of normal/above-normal/near-normal functioning, that is different from low functioning in a lot of other areas.

and yeah, a core deficit of autism is communication (social interaction). the profession am studying to become is one that requires extremely good communication. was doing fine + getting great marks in the theory/research areas but actually failed a practical paper, that's when i realised this was bigger than anyone thought it was + went for a dx.

I call those brain farts Ji. Sometimes I would be saying "The wall is red" and forget what its called. So instead I say "The... er... whats that called again? *Points at wall* OH YEAH ITS A WALL! What were we talking about again?"

(Btw, Ji, I can tell your invisible.
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ablu2, TKWizard, *Insert Ji here*)

yeah xD invisible yay

am actually studying to be a speech language therapist, ironically, ironically, ironically... don't know if i can make it with my deficits, i really hope so.

and the wall thing - do you mean kind of like... the word is floating up there, among heaps of other words, and you know which one it is, but you're struggling to just reach out there and grab it?

like a vocab thing? i get it a lot.

in my mind, my vocabulary is like an ever-increasing fractal tree, bigger for some words than others. (fractals were an obsession too.) only, when i need to find one, can't view it from the trunk to the branches to the twigs, just view it from the twigs downwards (if that makes sense). am sometimes overwhelmed with all the "twig" words that could be appropriate to describe whatever word is at the "trunk" of the tree, and it can take a long time to travel down the tree to find the word i'm looking for.

sometimes weeks. by that time the conversation is long over and people look at you weirdly if you suddenly say the word out loud because you've finally figured it out!

i think that's what is meant by detail-oriented processing. normal people are at the bottom of the tree, looking up, but my brain being wired the way it is, am at the top of the tree, looking down.

I just simply cant remember the word. Its like my brain is searching for the scientific version but I want the common conversation version. (Like Cat and Feline, Dog and Canine.)

I've definitely got something wrong with how I process information (can't tune out multiple distractions, especially voices/people standing behind me).