What it's like to have Asperger's Syndrome

by ThJ

I don't have it as strongly as many, and your question is akin to asking a squirrel how it is to be a squirrel. The squirrel only has his own experience to compare with. Experiences will vary from person to person. However, I'll give it a try...

If you think these things sound suspiciously familiar, then, oh my god, you totally have Asperger syndrome! Just kidding. Do not self-diagnose, folks. I used to be nearly convinced I had ADHD (it can be superficially similar), but it turned out that I was mistaken in the end. Seek a psychiatrist if you are having problems in life. Get a second opinion. Psychiatrists are only human, after all.

In general...

• Before you know you have it, you simply assume that you have an odd personality.
• After you find out that other people are in the same situation as you, you realize that you are in fact quite a normal autist, and that many of your quirks are symptoms.

Social experience...

• You have some trouble taking hints, but only figure this out very late, or when other people tell you. It takes you very long to learn how to pick up in hints, and you never learn pick up on all of them.
• You sense that other people place more importance on how they are feeling. It affects their judgement, and things that are not based on logic and facts may come off as unreasonable or immature to you.
• You notice that people spend more time on small talk and polite phrases than you, but you don't like it, as it don't really convey useful information. You may have trouble initiating conversations with strangers because you lack skills in this area.
• You notice that everyone is more concerned with events among family and friends than you are. You don't particularly enjoy Facebook. But you do like how it lets you keep in touch with people while maintaining a safe distance.
• You feel less worried about sharing private details with people, as they don't embarrass you to the same degree.
• You frequently forget that your words and actions could affect other people, and if you do remember, you often underestimate it. Other people assume that you are selfish, because they seemingly refuse to accept that a brain disorder can make you momentarily forget that other people have intents and preferences, and that this is different from being consciously and deliberately malicious.
• You have some issues with the tone or the volume of your voice, as you may forget that not everyone in the room wants to hear what you're saying.
• You have more technical, geeky or obscure interests than others.
• You really love cats, and find dogs overwhelming much in the same way you find people to be overwhelming.
• You think parties and concerts are too hot, crowded and noisy.
• You have only had short romantic relationships, if you had them at all, and they only happened in your mid-to-late 20s. You're probably unmarried or divorced after a short marriage.
• You much prefer to stay inside your house.
• You really want people to notice you and your abilities (from a safe distance), but you aren't so good at extending that to other people.
• You like receiving clear emotional signals, since you're not so good at picking up subtle emotions, but you are bad at sending these signals to others.

Sensory experience...

• You notice that other people are less sensitive to heat, touch, noise or light than you.
• You have trouble picking out voices in a crowded or noisy room. You sometimes find it difficult to understand voices on the phone.
• You often completely forget about time and place if you're enjoying something, and will often experience a level of immersion akin to that of a child watching an exciting movie, even if you're an adult, and you're merely building a model airplane.
• You often remember that something happened, but not when it happened, or who said what. You get reactions from people when you can't properly account for these things.
• You remember all the mathematical powers of 2 up to 262144, but you can't maintain balance on your bank account, nor can you remember to pay your bills.
• You're clumsier than other people.
• You're very concerned with details. You notice small mistakes everywhere, and they bother you until they are corrected.
• You can't sit still. You often shake your foot, bite your lips or fidget with your hands. Not doing so feels uncomfortable, because tension, anxiety or frustration builds up inside, and your body feels numb if it's not moving.
• You occasionally feel like acting like Jim Carrey, and contort your body and face. With your friends, you usually manage to fit this into the context of being goofy.
• You tend to sit lopsidedly and lean on things, because this is more comfortable somehow. You might find yourself tilting head more often than others.
• You may have some issue with controlling your food intake. I suspect that the feeling of satiation may be offset in some autists, and people with weight issues in general. You may have apoor appetite instead. You are particular with the mouth feel of foods.

Emotions...

• You have a full range of emotions, but you're terrible at displaying them, so everyone, including the psychiatrists who define the symptoms, assume that you're devoid of them.
• The effect emotions have on your decision making is smaller. You may feel a certain way about something, but your logic will often override it. You accept uncomfortable truths, and may seem jaded. People will occasionally compare you to an old man.
• You are a hard person to motivate. Most people are motivated by their emotions, but this doesn't have much of an effect on you, so you're stuck tickling your logical brain constantly, thus the preoccupation with obscure, nerdy interests at all costs. You have trouble keeping a job because of this motivational issue. You have perfect order in the computer programs you write, or your collection of Star Wars paraphernalia, but your apartment is a mess.

You're prone to getting depressed, and find it hard to pull yourself out of it, much like you find it hard to take control of your life, and stop doing entertaining but useless things all day.

Advice for all of you: How to deal with us?

Social situations:

• Switch off your social facade. It's creepy to us, and we trust you more if you're not pretending to be a perfect person. Unlike some people, we won't exploit this vulnerability in order to boost our self confidence or social standing.
• Understand that we will never approve of an action you took because you were worried about fitting in, if that action hurt us. If you trust us you either stick with us even when it makes you look bad, or you are not a true friend.
• Let me again emphasize that we really like to stay at home. I have to force myself to occasionally visit my friends. I hardly ever see those of my friends who have Asperger syndrome themselves, because we hardly ever want to leave our houses.
• Our sleep cycles are often off whack. Going to bed at 5 AM is not uncommon for us. If we are employed with you, be very flexible about work schedules. Allow us to do some of the work from home, if possible.
• If you are our neighbor, realize that we're not playing music or practicing our guitar playing at 3 AM because we hate you. We simply get our creative spikes in the middle of the night, and tend to forget that people are sleeping around us. We often forget to keep track of the time, because we're so absorbed in what we're doing. We try hard to improve on this, because these mistakes are somewhat embarrassing, but we basically have some limitations when it comes to this.
• The symptoms will seem to get worse as we age. Just as regular people become more secure and let down their guard with age, we will do the same. It's easy to make a constant effort when you're a child or teenager, but most people can't maintain the same energy into full adulthood. This is a sign that we're more relaxed and at ease with ourselves now, and not constantly worried about appeasement.
• We often get along very well with people who are older than us because of this. Right now, I feel as blunt and jaded as a 70 year old man. I totally view the world now as George Carlin did in his senior years.

Work/school situations:

• Give us clear cut requirements. We don't know what you had in mind.
• If you are our manager or coworker, and you have a talented, but apparently unambitious and irresponsible coworker in your department, realize that he may have a brain problem, not a character problem. He would probably be a lot more happy and productive if he was given intellectually challenging tasks all day, but is not capable of advancing because of his lack of social skills. If your business cannot give him a stimulating environment, he may not ever reach his full potential. Go ahead, and ask him what types of tasks he would thrive with. Make sure you're don't appear guarded and professional, as he'll probably seize up then. This kind of thing applies to tech workers in general, a higher percentage of which have Asperger syndrome than the general population.
• Put us in a quiet office. Other workers are okay, so long as they are the mellow T-shirt-and-jeans type, not high strung people in suits. People who have a lot of phone conversations or like to small talk are bad. Chances are, if you put your smart, friendly but quiet people together, they will cease being quiet real fast, talk in fast technical jargon, and hopefully get more work done.
• If you ever had an employee who was extremely fast and skilled at first, but gradually lost his drive, and didn't explain what was going on, so you were forced to fire him: That's exactly what happened to me in my programming jobs. I was always assigned a challenging task first, presumably to give me a test run, and then many dull tasks after that, because I was the new guy. At which point the bottom fell out of me, and I was eventually fired. This all happened before I knew I had a condition, so I blamed it on myself, tried again, failed, tried again, failed, etc, until I was completely unemployable.

Romantic situations:

• Ladies: We'd prefer it if you approached us. We don't approach you, because rejections are devastating to us, and we wouldn't know how to start a conversation anyway. You'll probably need to exaggerate your usual flirting routine with us a little bit, because we're even denser than normal guys.
• Accept that we show our love through words, gifts and kind acts, not facial muscles and theatrical displays of emotion.
• Understand that if you are upset, we will not always know how to comfort you. It won't always occur to us to give you a hug when you cry, or to follow you if you leave the room.
• Ladies: Like normal guys, we are capable of issuing a diplomatic apology in order to end an argument (while still thinking you're wrong), but it may take us a bit longer to remember that. If we have to do this too often (read: the normal amount), we will eventually need to vent. Now, this may not sound pretty, but the more emotional you are, the less mature you will seem to us. We will, at some point, grow tired of what we see as your childish temper tantrums, and tell you what we really think about them. You will perceive us as insensitive, and break up with us. Thus our terrible marriage and relationship statistics.