Who are these NT's we're always talking about?

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If there's one conclusion I've come to over the course of my dealings with the human race it's that finding a TYPICAL psychological profile is very difficult. Neuro Typical... Seems like a very rare species to me.

Just about everyone I've met has issues and baggage, they all have problems and I have to say, the majority of homo-sapiens-sapiens have got some degree of pathological or neurotic tendancy towards some clinical label or another.

I know many people with OCD. I've known those diagnosed with schizophrenia and those I've just suspected. There are sociopaths climbing our corporate ladders, as they are the ones best adapted to that pursuit. We have people with abandonment issues. Commitment phobes. Alcoholics and drug addicts. If you threw a handful of peanuts into a crowded shopping mall you're likely to hit a compulsive liar or two. Not having a phobia of something seems a lot rarer than having a handful.

Just about everyone I meet in my day to day dealings with people, seems to have something wrong with them that makes them part of some minority. And those of them without any psychological trauma or emotional difficulties (if such an enlightened being exists) are far from TYPICAL.

So what is this fabulous mythical beast I keep on hearing so much about. Is there really a majority group of people out there that can be described as neuro-typical?

Show me a sane man and I will cure him. Jung

Generic humans are a mix of it all, with no dominate feature.

We have Brand Identity, consistantly expressing one variation.

Life is a conflict between what they say and do.

The caring professions such as medical, are professional, in that they do not care, people are going to live and die weather treated or untreated, and treating them brings money.

Law enforcement does not work for justice, or equal treatment, some crime is allowed some classes, other classes are a crime by existing, such as, "Driving while Black." A DWB. A cop that pulls over the wife or child of a member of government, is soon out. Rich and important folks are above the police.

CEOs who are hired to improve share holder value give themselves raises, stock options, inflate share value, and sell out and get another job before the crash.

No one runs for President and says, I will make your money worthless, sell your jobs to China, and send the military to serve the oil companies. Haliburton has the largest private army on earth, with no review by anyone. It is what they all do, for Freedom, Jesus, and the American Way. It is not about oil, but Christian Soldiers smiteing the infidels.

NT means not only insane, but an acceptance of a world insane.

AS asks too many questions.

What? You're assigning meaning where it does not exist and complicating a simple definition. Here's the distinction (this is not tricky and there is no value judgment associated with either label. It just is).

Neurotypical, or NT = any individual who is not autistic.

That's it.


I am autistic. Another who is not autistic is NT. Got it? No different than most individuals are right handed whereas some are left handed - by analogy. (Self-evident that this analogy is not ratio equivalent to that of RH to LH; this was just an example to illustrate).

About your other post on Aspies vs. HFA - got it. Done. I am a HFA (w/ enhanced cognitive functioning). Many, perhaps most (?) Aspies consider themselves only 'partly autistic.' I am not - I am autistic in all respects and therefore am the full spectrum of autism. This also should be quite clear, in terms of diagnostics. Just to clarify. No need for obscurity.

That being said, certainly, autism is a mysterious condition but the definition is confined. I have written, as have others, about Theory of Mind, which may be the defining factor between autistic and neurotypical. Again, most Aspies feel 'in the middle.' I am not. I lack Theory of Mind but I understand well the concept and know of it only vicariously. ToM is a defining criteria.

As always, Inventor says it best and with eloquence
I have a beautiful asymptic to infinity mind that is elusive to NTs. I like it like that too.....

Mirror neurons! I'm look through a one-way mirror and am therefore confined to my mind. NTs are permeable to the outside - another distinction. In Greek the word 'aut' means 'mind' and this is where I reside.

NT's grow up with friends, start dating as teenagers, get jobs, marry and start their own families in their own houses, and have many people in their lives; they live the normal life cycle as surely as I don't, never could, and never will.

All of their individual quirks aside: that is what I consider to be the dividing line between them and myself.

(There are Aspergians who manage to achieve many of the things listed in the first paragraph, to be sure; but they have to struggle to the point of burnout in order to do so in most cases.)

But to say that something or someone is "typical" in this sense is to define them as being one of the majority.

typ·i·cal [ típpik'l ]
adjective
Having all or most of the characteristics shared by others of the same kind and therefore suitable as an example of it...

I'm saying that there is hardly a typical neurology, as the differences between one NT and another make them far from "typical".

There's no need to take offence. This is just a theoretical exploration of the concept people seem to have that you either have AS or you're just like everyone else, i.e. "typical". There's nothing typical about "NT's", they are a Noah's Ark of other neurosis.

I guess this could be the majority in question... But there are many NT's who don't live that cycle and never could. But the point of my post is that we describe them as "Neuro-Typical" meaning that they are classified as sharing a neurological profile that is seen as "normal".

Most NT's I meet are far from "normal" if it's even possible to put a label such as that on something as widely varied as human psyches.

It is obvious, and labpet made this abundantly clear, that the term NT is an oversimplification.

Did you know, for example, that most arabs are NOT antisemitic? It's TRUE! They are semitic, so antiseitic would mean they hate THEMSELVES! Yet many say they are, because antisemitic has been taken to mean hatred of jews! That is ironic because you can be jewish without being semitic, and be semitic without being hebrew.

What of the amish who call non amish ENGLISH? What of the Germans, Polish, Africans, etc....?

So NT is more to describe what they are not, than what they are. At least in the context HERE.

Thankyou! I've always thought that when I look at the other people on my bus, or the other people I work with, or just people walking down the street, they all have their own special kind of odd-ness.

Stop being a complete f*****g moron Unknown_Quantity. You're arguing the fine semantics when you know very well the answer to your own question. NT means someone whose brain isn't wired like an autistic's.

End of story.

Bye.

Well, Jeez. I guess we can't ask questions like this, huh?

I think 2ukenkerl has a good response though. It is an oversimplification and just one of those things that people do. Name something one thing when it means another, perhaps even the opposite of what you refer to them by.

This was a thread that I would have hoped would have been taken lightheartedly as an ironic paradox, that we call those who aren't typical in anyway, the typical ones. But I guess some people get upset when they get their definitions and routines questioned more than most.

sarahstilettos, this thread was for people like you and me. Helsinger, I guess just being an Aspie doesn't mean your wired the same as the other Aspies, huh? No matter, good on you for speaking your mind, I hope you feel better now for having done so.

I loved Bram Stokers Dracula, by the way. More when it first came out, it's sort of dated now, still pretty good though.

Peace.

true they all have quirks, but while they each have one or two, we have many many. But there is more to AS than quirks; the whole way of feeling the world and acting on it is different.

before knowing about Asperger i was already convinced of something: 99% of the poeples i met in my life had that little un-namable thing... I couldn't put my finger on it but i could feel it. It's thier way of beeing, thinking, acting etc, my thiking was: "they are all alike, and all different than me" (which lead me to the conclusion that *I* was the different one...). So "NT" or "AS" for me are in fact the words i was waiting for to label what i instinctively knew.

Unknown Quantity-- you are absolutely right. There isn't a one of us that does not have something to deal with. I take NT to mean those who manage to stay in the monkey troop, and those of us with asperger's are watching the monkey troop wondering why we aren't in. After 55 years I still don't know why people tell me I'm weird. What do I do that's weird? Well, being weird is minor compared to what a lot of normal people deal with once you get under their shell of normalcy. Knowing that creates compassion.

i should start a neurotypical support group

I don't subscribe to us and them theories. I think there's us and that's just about it. One being of humanity with different facets of DNA - and breaking it into clusters is an unhealthy phenomenum.

This thread is a welcome breath of fresh air. There are too many emotional traps in the us/them paradigm.