Any link between AS and perfectionism?

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Yes and no. I have a tendency to be lazy and cut corners when it comes to doing something that I'm not looking forward to, e.g. difficult homework or tidying my room. If I'm doing something that I'm interested in, it's a totally different matter. I push myself too hard sometimes, and expect myself to be an expert at something when I've only been learning about it for about a week. I (metaphorically) beat myself up when I make errors, and end up thinking I'm stupid and incompetent. This sounds like perfectionism.

I probably would have been something of a perfectionist, but as a kid I was surrounded by people who taught me that nothing I did could ever be good enough. And on the rare occasion I got something right, they would shower me with empty praise, which is insulting and degrading and 100 times worse than their intended punishments. (I’m sorry and I will never, ever do that again.)

So I developed a handful of smaller areas where I could demand perfection from myself and no one cared. But then it turned out that I wasn’t perfect in them either. Whatever… who cares…

So now I’m seen as a lazy slob. If someone complains, I just give ‘em that dismissive snort and they go away and don’t bother me any more. That works for me.

I was raised by grammar snobs and became one myself for a while.
I think it dawned on me during high school how dumb it was.
At one point, my son started bothering my daughter about it. I called him a grammar snob and it became a joke. Nowadays, he can complain, but she can laugh and not take it personally.

This new-fangled chatspeak annoys me, but on the internet they can’t see me cringe.
I just noticed that no one uses it here. I suppose that’s a clue.

The rest of the items on that list I can sort-of see, but I would argue with this one. I think they are the ones who are blind, and judge everything by their brain-dead standards. I can see the big picture just fine, no thanks to them, and it's pretty ugly. So they want to kill the messenger.

Absolutely I am a perfectionist. I think this kind of orientation is going to be prevalent in asperger friendly fields such as accounting or computer programming.

I am definitely a perfectionist. And because I think everything has to be perfect, I put things off till I can do them perfectly -- which never happens. So I'm a perfectionist procrastinator. And I have a messy house and I take too long to do things.

These ideas aren't original to me; they're in a lot of self-help literature. I've been fighting against my perfectionism for years. I'm getting better at it, but it's still a struggle.

Check out this website. http://flylady.net It's a sort of self-help program to get your house clean and your life organized. This lady's basic tenet is that "perfect" is a dirty word. She teaches you methods to overcome/get around your perfectionist tendancies. She tends to focus a bit too much on housewives with kids and some of the stuff is pretty lame, but her system can be adapted to fit your lifestyle. It's working for me; my apartment is starting to look halfway decent.

I am a perfectionist, and it has created significant issues with beginning and completing some tasks.
I eventually learned to remind myself that tasks do not have to be done perfectly, they just need to get done. Otherwise, I focus on minute details.

Yeah, sometimes one has to stand up and put some limits, to them (the lazy) and to oneself (perfectionism).




Damn, spot on

This isn't a bad thing, actually. I'm not talking about the inability to see the "big picture" at all, but the tendency to see the details first, and put them together later on. It's more of a cognitive tendency than an actual handicap--and people with this thinking style will notice small details that most other people don't. That means that if you notice a small detail that's out of place, while the big-picture thinker sees that things are generally fine, you'll see the detail and correct it, while the big-picture guy will see "good enough" and not take the extra mental effort it takes him to take apart his big picture into the details you see first. If you're an editor, thinking in details is a good thing. If you're a salesman... not so much.

I am a perfectionist. Especially when I was in school. If the grade wasn't 100% or an A, I would think it was terrible and I failed. Luckily I was good in high school and college both giving me a grade point average of 3.7 out of 4. I know that isn't perfect and I wish I got a 4.0 average but that is hard to do and I'm not that smart. And yes, being a perfectionist is linked to autism because if something isn't pefect, it gives me anxiety. Oh my God! It's not perfect, we are all going to die!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !!