Aspies Book/Definitions: What makes me an Aspie?

What makes kitkatsavvy an Aspie

Hi, I am kitkatsavvy and I will list the points that make me an aspie:

I tend to obsess over mental health information.. i.e. phobias, disorders, and I was so bad that I believed everything I read and actually started 'feeling' real symptoms cause i was so absorbed in what i was reading.

I have a very good concentration span. I haven't timed it but once I spent 10 hours making a model without any breaks. I could go longer but I love my sleep.

I can sight-read music VERY VERY well (on brass instruments that is - I'm a brass player). Some people have told me I'm gifted in it, but all I see is just that the notes are just mathematical symbols in the language of music.

I am a very honest person and I don't know how to lie because I don't know how to read body language very well and I always give myself away if I lie anyway.

This isn't a direct one.. but I don't drink because I don't see the point of people drinking alcohol and then spewing up.. WHY?

Certain high pitched noises such as fire alarms, mobile phone ringtones, people touching me when I don't know they are there etc., make me JUMP in the air because I am very sensitive to sounds like that.

What makes Sibylle an Aspie

Well, what is it that makes me an Aspie?

I have a hell of a time if somebody does things different than I do, especially when it is at my home. I used to think this is because I think things through and do them in a logical way, but now I think it is more likely because of Aspergers. I have a hard time watching someone's eyes. I got used to it, but when I'm tired it gets harder to do (some people are easy and some are very hard work to watch their eyes).

I used to believe every word exactly as it was said when I was younger. When I found out that people almost always do kind of comforting lies, I began to be very critical on everything someone says and try to find out what his or her intentions might be. I need to think about peoples motives instead of just feeling them, but then I got quite fast in that so nowadays almost nobody notices.

I had to learn to smile, frown and make the face that would meet my feelings when I was a teenager. I found out at that time that my face did not look as lively as anyone else's face (especially of cause actresses faces) seemed to look like and so I sat down in front of a mirror and tried out what looks I liked and what not.

Whatever I'm interested in, starts to become an obsession after a short while. I got so much things now, I had to drop a lot of them because I don't have enough time. I try to know everything about a subject I'm interested in. Over the years this have been:

• cats
• dogs
• wool/spinning/weaving
• pottery
• doing water color paintings
• doing portraits (very hard thing to watch a face for such a long time)
• gardening/plants
• biology (especially genetics)
• kids (when I started to have some)
• healthy food and a lot more I forgot over the years.

I feel uncomfortable in any crowd (that is more than at least 6 people). And I have the biggest personal space of all people I know, that means when talking to someone else it's me who walks backwards to keep distance.

There are times that I think it would be ok if one put me in single-prison, giving me enough to eat, all the books I want and a computer with internet. But then I remember I would miss my garden-plant-obsession thing, so this is no option. I put a lot of time and work into being able to act normal only to be accepted when I was a child and teenager, but never was.

I am very sensible to smell and it makes me sick going to a perfumery or smelling someone's aftershave/perfume too intense (well, I can smell it even when nobody else does, so it's me and not only people who put on too much of that stuff), on the other hand I love smelling flowers and natural odors (no, not the ones sweating men produce) like grass and the woods after rain and so on. I'm also sensible to certain sounds.

What makes Datariumrex an Aspie and others not

Metainformation

Information might change as time goes by and my views and opinions change, thus I might edit or revise this section in the future.

Introduction

What makes me an aspie I believe depends on what an "Aspie" is. Since recent times I see it as an identity and a nickname for Asperger's/ASD. In my earlier days being diagnosed with Aspperger's when I communicated for the first time with others who also had Asperger's or a similar diagnosis, it was mostly a quicker way but also a sort of re-branding of the word "Asperger's". Without realizing it I believe I very early on identified as an "aspie", I just hadn't realized it yet to see "Asperger's" and "Aspie"/"Autie" as identities.

"Aspie" as an identity

Me and my father we have often talked about Asperger's.

One day he brought up that he has suspected for some time that I "identify with my diagnosis" and he started attempting to explain to me what he means with the word "identity".

He talked about things that interest him, like sailing and him being an engineer(he is actually very good with mechanical stuff and working with metal/wood etc.) by profession and that he identifies as both a sailor and an engineer, that he believes that I identify strongly related to the term "Aspergers".

After that discussion I became aware and started thinking, in a serious way, about whether the term "aspie", among being also an "also known as" or "nickname" for Asperger's, could be an identity.

"Aspie communities"

In "Aspie communities"(both in physical offline meetups and in online virtual spaces) where people with Asperger's/ASD/Autism refer to themselves as "aspies" and "auties", why somebody is an aspie or not is more or less about if they feel they identify with that term.

My Aspie identity

What makes me cling to the "aspie" identity strongly enough I believe is a lot about having received positive feedback from "Aspie communities" and specifically members from those communities who recognize behavior and thought processes in me that remind them about how Asperger's/ASD/Autism is, to their current knowledge, and/or how my behavior/thinking reminds them about themselves.

The Big Picture and Details

From personal experience of what I've read about Asperger's it is about being good with details or 'the big picture'. I personally feel I'm good with details, that's why after discovering Wikidata I've realized it's my new 'home Wikimedia project'. Everything in Wikidata is details. Though Wikidata still has support for 'The Big Picture' kind of information using Wikidata queries to give meaning to lots of individual data.

Why others might not be aspies

From my experience there was a trend in which it was 'cool to be Aspie', I do not remember during what year this was though people saw it as a way to be 'cool'. I'd assume that if somebody doesn't fit the criteria of ASD/Asperger's that they are probably not an Aspie, although this is all about how somebody identifies. If somebody identifies as an Aspie anyway I guess they are an Aspie for as long as that identity stays strong and when that identity grows weaker I assume they stop being an Aspie if they don't identify as one.