Does Accepting Your Aspergers appear EVIL to people?

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If the overemotional artsy types despise Aspies for not being as emotional as they are, I do not believe it is especially difficult to figure out who's really looking at the situation the wrong way. What do they expect us all to do, cry at every sad story in the news? We'd probably never stop weeping except to go get some water so we could keep doing it. I accept the way I am, and the things I don't like, I merely change. I also accept other people for who they are, because really, I have no right to judge them as being 'odd' or 'weird' when I so easily fit into those categories myself. If they can't handle the fact that Aspies aren't the most artsy, emotional people around, they need to just grow up and get over it already.

...In the same way I try not to judge others as being weird, I have little patience for those who don't even try to understand me. I work hard to make myself understandable; they could at least pretend to try in return.

I've dealt with this on a personal level...my ex husband.

As long as I tried to fit into that slot he wanted me in things were okay...but when I grew tired of making myself sick and being stressed out from trying to keep up appearances, and my health finally got to the point I could no longer keep up the "show" as well anymore...I was "evil", I was a "monster", I had given up "trying" to change, instead I was finally trying to accept myself for who I was and that was "bad".

Just because someone's different doesn't make them evil, it simply makes them different...what's really evil... is ignorance.

It's not really that they think we're evil as such. AS folks miss a lot of important subtle social cues, and as such, give off a weird "vibe" that may confuse or scare an NT. Another AS friend of mine put it like this, "To everyone else, I'm like some junkyard dog. I look unfriendly and likely to bite. I could be the nicest dog in the world, but people are too afraid to find out."

And he's got a point. Would you just walk up to some mangy mutt and start petting him?

That doesn't help us of course, but it's the best explanation I've seen. People may try to explain their unease as hate, or in the context of High School, mock or bully to put themselves at ease, but the core issue is psychological: something about us seems off because our social abilities are effectively damaged. It sucks, but understanding the psychology behind NT reactions makes it easier to empathize with them, and possibly assuage their fear.

This reminds me of a truly lovely young man, many, many years ago, an Iranian exiled in London, who had a PHD in something from Poland and filled pitta bread with kebab for a living, telling me a chilling thing, that was far out of character...

He believed that the soul was in the eyes and that perhaps blind people have no souls.

This was, of course, crazy, but a beautiful young man who has lost his entire future, his homeland and many family members is entitled to be a little crazy, I think? But then I am not blind...

I wonder what excuses the people who think Aspies have no souls...

I was just talking to a lovely lady who is a shrink when she is not maidservant unto her dog (who deserves it) about AS, and it came to me...we are simply a different neurological species. We are also in the minority, thus the planet we live on can be incompatible with us.

She asked me if I had ever wondered if I was as psychopathic as some of my family members, and I knew the answer without even thinking:

Maybe I am, but as I have always sacrificed whatever I needed to to live honorably and honestly...who cares?

Evil is, as evil chooses to be.

M

Haha just say wrongplanet as soon as u walk up, and i'll be happy to have u sit with me and rock haha, why did i pick royal blue? i really dont know growing up i was obsessed with purple, then its been royal blue ever since, i guess cuz theres a hint of purple in the blue, idk i just get this great feeling when i see that color.

I know what you mean. I accept my Aspergers, but almost no one else does. My ex wife thinks I'm evil and have no soul. My new wife doesn't want to hear about Aspergers. She just thinks I am weird, and that I just don't care. I prefer eccentric, but can handle "weird" because I've always been called that.

My new wife still gets mad and fusses at me when I lack social graces. I tell her "I love you anyways. It's not that I don't care. That's just the way I am."

I try to do what is "correct", but I don't always succeed. (Especially if I am left alone and expected to socialize too much.) When I act "weird", it's the NTs' problem not mine. If I have to make an effort to be "normal", they need to make an effort to understand me too.

From my own experience with Asperger's Syndrome,
I've found that it can be harder for me to "feel" than it is
for some other people.
That said, my particular Asperger's-related difficulty
is in modulating my expressions of feeling. When I
was younger, I tended either to "act out" my more
objectionable emotional responses (as I did in childhood)
or to go to the opposite extreme and suffocate my emotional
responses altogether for fear of the consequences of "acting out".

Since that time, I've learned a little about what Elaine Aron calls
the Highly Sensitive Person, or what others might call relatively
high levels of introversion.

Phrased simply, it takes more time for most people with Asperger's
Syndrome to trust another person than is usual for Neurologically
Typical sorts. Until that trust is present, we fear to express ourselves
emotionally for fear of being judged as somehow wrong. More to the
point, that slowed capacity for emotional self-expression makes it
not so easy for us to be "creative" or "artistic" in a conventional sense.

The other side of that coin is the capacity for relatively "pure", relatively "raw",
relatively "from the heart" self-expression that persons with Autism
Spectrum Disorders can bring out--provided that they have a capable
teacher or mentor to inspire them.

I hope that answers your point.

I've got someone stalking my blog who sends me "Rain Man" emails anonymously and posts photos of people in masks and straightjackets. Does that count?

Fabshelly:

That stalker can (your choice of expletive) off, for all I care and for all you should care!

Thanks. Wish there were more people like you in Hawaii.

I think people on the autism spectrum find it easier to show emotion to Films and Theatre, where there is a clear emphasis on emotions and they are simplified, music cues are used to exxagerate and hint at emotions, and it is intrapersonal, so the person has no fear of being rejected for displaying his or her emotions.

Perhaps thats why accents/personas can help aspies, they are secure that the accent/persona is socially acceptable and can use this as a vehicle to display their own emotions also with the help of a 'guiding path' created by the accent/persona.

What part of jersey are you from anyway? I go to college in newark, so... yeah...

Also,

Close enough?

You'd love my hair then. It's a deep bluey purple which I designed myself:
http://msbehaviour.blogspot.com/2006/09 ... urple.html

I'm a Happy Aspie and since I was about 14 have accepted and embraced my quirks as they make me who I am. If people find me weird then that's their problem. Life isn't a popularity contest. You sound adorable chica, and you stim if you want to. It's the trying to fit into boxes that causes the most stress. We're not boxed shaped and never will be. Which is great.

mm i love the picture haha, i live at the jersey shore, right next to seaside, literally 5mins away from seaside.

Yes i def love ur hair, i would just stare it all day haha

Psychopaths are described as lacking in empathy and the compassionate emotions; aspies are described as lacking theory of mind and the ability to form an empathic understanding of the other.

Aspies frequently have flat affect; psychopaths have shallow affect.

Aspies are aloof of people; psychopaths have contempt for other people.

Is there really any difference?