Found this thread by accident and boy is it a beauty!

Like Winterchild, I am an Asperger person and I play guitar (badly these days due to head injuries from an accident - but that's in another thread)

My eldest son is a VERY mild Asperger - you can't tell unless you REALLY know what you're looking for and my youngest boy is a fairly severe Asperger.

I am somewhere in between: much higher functioning than my youngest lad but more socially inept and profound in symptomology than my eldest one.

Like other "Aspies" (which is how we prefer ourselves to be called, generally speaking) I, too have great difficulty reading social situations, people's moods and emotions / faces etc. Like virtually all Aspies I am TOO trusting; (Aspies rarely lie so it's difficult for them to detect one!)

However, growing up in a society (I am 46) which knew nothing about us except for a few obscure journals: was horrendous. I never knew WHY I was different. Why other kids avoided me - I was simply too weird! I didn't understand their play and when I tried, I got it wrong. These days I can pass for normal but to get to that point has cost me a LOT of punches in the face in order to learn NOT to say the wrong thing at the wrong time (or even the RIGHT thing at the wrong time); I still get agitated when my 'routine' is broken - even going to the supermarket and finding the shelves rearranged can render me almost catatonic with panic. I get agitated and jittery because "It's different".

Those who do not know an Aspie or who are not one themselves will never understand how confusing this world is to us - it simply operates on rules too subtle for us to understand. We tend to be straightforward and the world is just not like that!

I am lucky though - my parents loved me despite my awkwardness: though I can now understand why my mother used to say "Now don't show me up" whenever she took me to a social function (Christmas Party etc) for her work - even though she never could! I am married to a wonderful woman who supports me and has learned to help me compensate when the routine goes off the rails.

I was also a more fortunate Aspie in that, though I was physically awkward, I was never unco-ordinated: I played soccer at State level, cricket at turf standard, Indoor Cricket at representational standard; swam at Olympic trial speeds (back-stroke) and am a black-belt in Shotokan Karate. I also have an IQ of about 160 - I could read and write by the time I went to school at 4yrs 7 mnths.

Famous Aspies have included: Mozart & Beethoven. Bill Gates is an Aspie and if you watch CSI (the one set in Las Vegas, Gil Grissom, the head of the Vegas CSI team exhibits CLASSIC Asperger traits. The most obvious is that he tends to obsess about odd things (bugs) and his propensity to say the wrong thing at the wrong time (though bluntly and blatantly honest) and hurt the feelings of those around him - and then wonders why they go off hurt!

I would also say that Aspergers is NOT a condition which can be medicated and it is NOT a catch-all nor something made up for convenience. Lepus Rex you are an ignoramus for even suggesting that it might be so. Get informed before you open your big mouth. However I shall now take the advice I give others in this situation: "Never argue with an idiot - he will just drag you down to his level and beat you with experience!"

BTW - my obsessions are: 1:48 scale models - World War 2 Tanks (German); WW2 aircraft (fighters and some bombers - all nations; allied and axis) and some German
artillery - anti-aircraft and anti-tank. But they MUST be 1:48 scale!

Dinosaurs: Books, models, toys

General Knowledge of the above

Trivia

Collecting "Yowies" (a toy found in a chocolate snack in Australia)

If you want to know a little about the positives of being an Aspie try reading Dr.Tony Attwood's site and an article entitled "The Discovery of Aspie Criteria". I have a copy of it on my computer - if you wish I can send it to you via email. contact me via this thread and I will email it to you if you wish