Gary Numan is convinced he has Asperger's

Post Reply New Topic

source: http://tinyurl.com/yukmak

It could be that he has AS.If so then he can also speak for us.

Hope this doesn't balloon into a fad, like rehab or cabala or Ethiopian adoptions. However, my trust in newman was earned in some dern good tomato sauce.

I thought he *was* diagnosed...it's so obvious he's an aspie.

He isn't officially diagnosed.

But he has stated before he was almost diagnosed with classical autism when he was a kid, but his parents didn't want to put him in an institution so they didn't go forward with the diagnosis.

Does Asperger's have Gary?

If Gary is uncertain, he can be diagnosed. I knew nothing about AS until I was diagnosed in 2000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_numan#Personal_life

I'm sure I found another source some time ago, where he was mentioning his undiagnosed AS - something like his own blog, if I recall correctly. It was just a passing comment, dated rather a long time back.

Maybe he's on here talking to us.

I remember reading that, somewhere.

He does have it ! Also listen to a interview of his on youtube.

I thought this was old news. He's always cited on lists of celebrities who have spoken about having ASD

Isn't there a relationship of high musical ability and autism? or is that a myth? If it's true then you could probably expect that many popular musicians are Aspies.

As an 80s Music fan I think it's pretty cool to think that Gary Numan might be an Aspie.

I am aware this is bound to offend most people on the site, but I am quite disappointed that Numan is not officially on the spectrum. He has the money, why doesn't he get a diagnosis? Until he gets one, I will no longer view him as being "one of us." I could understand if he didn't have money, but the man's a musician who is actually semi-famous.

It's obvious that he has it, and he is world famous.

I can only comprehend this as Aspergers elitism / snobbishness, and it comes up again and again on the forum with frequency, people starting threads alleging the self-diagnosed are fakes and such. Someone who is on the autistic spectrum is so with or without a diagnosis - the diagnosis does not create the condition, which existed before the label did, and also surely some who are diagnosed are not diagnosed correctly. Remember many people on this board grew up long before anything was known about Asperger's / HFA and often those who bristle at the self-identified are too young to know that difficulty.

Do you trust doctors more than your own understanding of yourself? I certainly don't. And I think reluctance to accept those undiagnosed (who are in some cases pretty textbook, and obviously correct) is some strange possessiveness about the label, as if allowing it out of your hands somehow corrupts it.

So, I am not offended, but I think this sort of complaint frequently comes from a bad place, of identifying so strongly with the diagnosis that one does not want to share it. After several years of sitting with a hypothetical or "soft" diagnosis (therapists, who are not ASD experts, agreeing that I have it, but feeling unqualified to give an official diagnosis) I no longer see the point of spending several thousand dollars to get a real one. The important thing is not to be legitimate to people on an internet board who are determined to classify people as "authentically having Asperger's" or not (which I could much more easily do by changing my designation to "diagnosed" without even being diagnosed) but to find the correct tools to understand oneself and be more authentic and happier. Part of being happy is to ignore the judgment of others, which often says more about them than about whoever it is that they are judging.

And what difference does money & fame have to do with it? It's his choice. If you know you are on the spectrum, and who would know better than yourself, do you really need an official piece of paper certifying that you are?

BTW, after having a 35 year musical career where he's sold millions of recordings and toured the globe, he's far from being "semi-famous."