How Would You Define Severe or Mild Aspergers?

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I was making a joke. I really have no frame of reference for mild or severe. I feel my limitations are pretty thorough, but I don't have a good idea how they compare to others (although Pensieve told me what she thought once, so I guess I have that much of an idea).

I was being a bit facetious, too

I assumed you were but your second reply didn't read that way to me. Of course, I am often mistaken on this.

The second reply could have gone either way, but it rings true to some extent. People tend to judge whether they (and others ) are mild or "high functioning" based on what they themselves do well.

I agree. Thinking back, I have seen a lot of statements like that here.

Well, I can do some of this to varying degrees. I'm not normal but I can look it when I'm on my game. I don't have friends and throuhgot life i've really only had acquaintences. I have a relationship and it is NOT easy, satisfying or solid in any way. I have shotty control over my obsessions. I have learned coping and adaptations but they are extremely draining. My social skills look good on the surface but it doesn't take long to realize we are not on the same wavelength. I'm lucky with my meltdowns - they are almsot eculsive to emotional overload - either mine or someone elses. Self defense is a big trigger. Is that mild? I don't really know. I assume so. I suppose when i was 20 or so I would have been considered not so mild - I have learned alot.




Agreed - someone who has issues with the basics of daily life. This could be any number of symptoms that affect someones ability to function or cope.

I am severe HFA, but I can drive. I am definitely not mild.

The same with me.

I agree with Draelynn.

My family say I have mild Aspergers because I held 2 jobs for 9 years each but they were jobs no one else would do so the bosses did not want to get rid of me. The other jobs I held were only worked at for a week or two before they got rid of me. As for the long term jobs I held down my parents would have to wake me up in the morning, yell at me until I got ready, remind me to take my blood pressure medicine, and then I needed to get my dad to drive me to work. (I always get lost when I took the bus.) If I did not have them proding me along I would have slept all day or just sit on the couch forgetting to go to work while playing CIV IV.

My anxiety in public and on the job is extreme I get sweaty and dizzy from my blood pressure spiking. I believe its the reason I have an enlarged heart, lessen kidney function, and had congestive heart failure in 2005.The year I have been laid off has been great for my health I only get dizzy when I am in the store but its not so bad when I go at 1am there is only like five or six people in the super market and they are just as weird as me

It's perhaps more beneficial to describe it the way most of the psychs do: "on a spectrum", rather than "severe" or "mild."

The farther you are along the spectrum, the more self-absorbed and withdrawn you are. (I mean these terms to be clinical and not in any way degrading.)

I believe that the deciding factor is how you answer this question:

Do you want to have children and raise a family?

If you do, you're mild.

If you don't, and your entire life's purpose is pursuing your special interest and various agendas that suit yourself, with no desire to involve another person, you're pretty far along the spectrum.

The motivation for having children is completely foreign to me, and I could never imagine a life more desirable than a perpetual solitary road trip (this is my special interest).

If you look at people who are far along the spectrum like Temple Grandin the prospect of having a family is completely nonexistent, she's even said herself that the component of other people that has emotional relationships is not a part of her.

But John Elder Robison, on the other hand... he's got a son and a wife... so according to my theory, he's mild.

Full-blown autistics are not only disinterested in nurturing a family, they're generally asexual as well. I am not by any means. So I place myself squarely in the middle of the spectrum.

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I know what you mean. I wanted that kind of prodding from my mom but she refused and wanted me to do everything but the will was not there. I cannot explain why. That's the fundamental difference between me and others, imo. They have the will to go and keep going while I need all that external prodding or I won't do it.

I've had 3 independent psychologists tell me that I have severe ASD symptoms recently.... Yet...

I have had constant employment for the past 31 years
I make (salary) in the top % of all people in the world
I have an IQ in the top 1% of all people in the world
I have two grown up and successful daughters
Been driving for 30 years
Have more friends than most NTs


My symptoms, however, are very outward and cause me to do a TON of accommodating.
I wear glasses and ear plugs in public
I live all alone on 40 acres in a remote location
I have never been able to keep a relationship
I need to have no surprises/schedules
I am black/white to my detriment
I cannot context switch and people have to adjust their comm style around me
I cannot travel with my football team nor party with them
I miss about 25% of all conversations due to my literal interpretations and no context switching ability
Some days my inability to leveler detail is so bad that I have to move through the day in a "sensing" way as I cannot see or hear anything in a more reasonable way
I spend HUGE amounts of time on my obsessions
I shutdown regularly
I cannot understand John Elder's stuff because he has WAAAAAY more social awareness than I have ever had
etc.....

What would you consider me?

It seems to me that people are looking for neat, precise categories that cut across real people. Any definition of severe or mild will ignore realities that people live with. It doesn't seem simple at all to put people into these categories on the basis of what they seem to be capable of without taking into account how much energy it takes.

It is of course not the case that there's no value to looking at symptoms as severe or mild, but it seems like it has to be a case by case basis. It's not possible to pick pieces out of the whole and say "This defines one entirely severe or mild." I mean, I know we focus on the details to the exclusion of the whole, but it is possible to examine all the details instead of whichever details supports one's biases.

I agree with Verdandi

Last edited by Wooster on 20 May 2011, 3:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

yeah so.... These same psychologists are also saying that I am a statistical anomaly so perhaps I am an outlier to this thread?