How sever is your Asperger?

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You are into something there. Anyway, aim diagnosed by a professional psychiatrist, he said I have moderate Asperger.

Well I've heard many times (not just in this thread) that someone can pass as just eccentric or strange and they believe their condition to be mild. Surely if AS was mild it wouldn't be notible. And if it were moderate one would appear eccentric or strange.

Am I wrong?

I would say probably mild, I just don't do a very good job of hiding it...

I don't have huge sensory issues and I don't have huge meltdowns like some do. But my communication is absolutely terrible... even to my family my responses are often limited to a couple words and pointing and grunting when asking for something a lot of the time. I really do not like talking. =[ And I stim a lot... so I'm pretty sure it's obvious there's something different about me to others.

When you have moderate Asperger, have you also problems whit your academic skills, self care skills-(not significant) etc. etc. You are more autistic than an eccentric smartass.
Do you get it?

I would say mild. I do well in school and, while I am by no means a social person and I'm not really close to anyone, over my lifespan I have picked up more and more casual friends and I've been getting better at talking to them. Also, I had speech problem up through middle school, but not anymore. I still have horrible handwriting, but I'm getting better. So, I think II'm in fairly good shape, better off than some others on the spectrum.

I have replied to this SOLELY because I believe in adding my agreement to posts that agree with, and include, posts I agree with. I HAVE done it for a while.

I STILL sometimes spin my wheels on even minor things. I may write a program and acheive a LOT, but trying to create a tiny piece may cause me to spend half my time working on it. I try to be less of a perfectionist now, and USUALLY avoid it or, at least, mitigate it. I have spent TENS of THOUSANDS on my interests, but I mitigate THAT also. BTW That is NOT an exageration! Just on LAPTOPS, I paid over 2.5K for 3, and over 600 for 4 others. That is over $9900 JUST for laptops! By 1987, I spent over $5000 for my desktops. I went on to buy 4 others. EACH cost about $2500(As the prices went down, the need for power increased, so the average price stayed the same) I haven't even included software there. Just C compilers cost over $3000. I also knew PASCAL, LISP, DIBOL, FORTRAN, COBOL, 6502 assembly, Z80/8080 Assembly, 8088 Assembly, BASIC, and a few others. I am not including PERL, PHP, LINUX, etc... because they are USUALLY open source, though I DID buy active state PERL, at one time! And that is only ONE "interest". I spent WELL over $3000 for Electronics, but that was before I was even 18. I spent thousands on languages, etc... At times, I went to work, and worked from 6am-6pm, without even a LUNCH BREAK or going to the rest room! I once went 2 weeks with less than 4hrs sleep per day. I STILL tend to go to sleep at 12MIDNIGHT and wake up at 6am.

I used to speak VERY little. I STILL tend to speak little. I constantly change direction to keep my distance and/or avoid people. And I could cover other things! So you don't sound very different from me.

Still, I consider myself MILD. If I were a bit milder, I don't know if I would even care.

Prosser,

I was once SURPRISED that people said MILD! I read about this A LOT, and about 80% of all people saying they had AS said MILD, and the rest didn't specify. The definition doesn't seem to allow for really severe problems.

That sounds more sevre to me. Although I'm having academic problems (only coz schools have people that scare me... NT'S! ) so I don't know really.

EDIT to smilyme that is^

Last edited by Prosser on 01 Feb 2009, 5:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Keep in mind that many people see themselves as being 'mildly' affected but to a stranger they may appear to be much more unusual than they realize. It is very dangerous to attempt seeing ourselves as what we visualize is what we 'wish' others saw in us which is not necessarily reality.

You CAN'T have significant problems with school(on a real academic basis), or self care skills, according to the DSM.

NOT significant!! !! ! MILD!! !! MORE PROBLEMS THAN THE AVERAGE!!
OMG

Mild...
But perhaps slightly more moderate regarding certain things. A lot of aspies can drive, and i can't drive, for example.
I did have trouble with my academic skills. Self-care took me a long to develop.
I am kinda like a 33 year old teenager.
Def. not severe.

hard to quantify though.

Sock monkeys.....hahahahahhahahaaa SWEAT

Love u, poopylungstuffing

I told my friend once a few years ago and she said she never noticed ANYTHING different about me so I don't think I'm milder than I really am.

Then that makes me autistic, not AS, because I do have self-care problems. Not bad ones; more delays than an inability to learn at all; but they're there. If your executive dysfunction, emotion regulation, or sensory processing is bad enough, then you will have AS that is considered to be "severe".

I've always thought that Kanner's and Asperger's ought to be merged, anyway. I'm such a classic Aspie in all ways but the strength of the traits. Asperger's is my official diagnosis despite the fact that I fit very neatly into classical autism too. Yeah, there are a lot of people out there with autism who need a lot of help to live; but I don't see why that should separate the two categories particularly, since some aspies need that too and some non-aspie autistics don't. We're all basically autistic; only the Aspies are better with spoken language (and quite possibly the auties are better with visual/spatial stuff, though that's not in the official diagnostic criteria).

I don't like saying "Severe Asperger's" because that makes it seem like I think it is some kind of all-consuming insurmountable obstacle. Yes, I have problems; but I also have a lot of strengths. I'm more likely to use the AS to my advantage than to try to "overcome" it. I'm just me. In some ways, Kanner's would be less "severe"; in other ways--especially language use--being Aspie instead is an advantage. And beyond all that, there's all the other things I know and can do just because I'm a unique individual. You can't assume that just because I am very Aspie I will automatically be unable to do... whatever you think severe AS keeps you from doing.

Bad enough that people avoid me? I am pretty bad... but not bad enough I am incapacitated. You know?