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Question: Can those who know teenagers with asperger's tell me a little bit about them?

(Posted by: Chloeh on 2010-02-02 14:28:17)

I would like to know how other teenagers with asperger's act. My brother has asperger's and he gets away with a whole lot. More than most kids with autism and such. I would especially like to know what teenage girls with asperger's act like. So I was wondering if you could describe anything that they do that is a little different or weird or just not like everyone else. Thanks Chloe :)

Posted by: undir on 2010-02-03, 04:09:59

Well, I used to be a teenage girl with Asperger’s syndrome. I’ll tell you a bit about what I was like, but please keep in mind that each individual with Asperger’s syndrome is different, so I was probably very different from many other teenage girls with Asperger’s. By the way, I was not diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome until adulthood, so when I was a teenager neither I nor the people around me knew I had it, although all of us had the feeling that something was unusual about me. This probably made it harder for everyone involved to understand things from the other perspective. I had only one friend to hang out with and usually was alone the rest of the time. I was usually ok with being alone a lot, I quite enjoyed it, but many people found it weird that I didn’t seek to have more social life. I’d spend breaks at school alone someplace quiet, writing lyrics or writing stuff in the runic alphabet. I’d go home and cook or bake something for myself, watch TV, listen to music, do my homework and such, but when someone else came home I went straight to my room and closed the door and spent the rest of the day/ evening in my room doing my hobbies and I usually only came out to eat or use the bathroom. I found this perfectly normal at the time, but I can see now how this must have felt weird for the rest of the family. I usually did things in dark (and still do), even things that most people need a light to do. I’m sensitive to light and prefer to rest my eyes in the dark when I can. People often thought I had been asleep when I came out of my room and squinted because of the lights and they wouldn’t believe me when I explained that I wasn’t sleeping and told them what I was really doing. People thought it was strange that I was always sleeping (which is what they thought), but I guess they found the truth even strangers, too strange to believe. That’s something that happened a lot... people not believing me when I told them the truth about what I was thinking or doing, because it seemed too weird or unusual to them and they rather believed their own (wrong) assumptions because they thought they could read something from my body language or know better. People accused me of lying and that bothered me a lot and made me angry, because I was extremely honest and hated lies and did not like being wrongfully punished or scolded for things I didn’t do. I had a really vivid imagination and day-dreamed a lot, so I probably came across as absent-minded sometimes and many times people thought I was thinking about something that was bothering me and tried to get me to “get it off my chest�, which wasn’t necessary because I was just day-dreaming about something fun and didn’t have anything I needed to get off my chest. I didn’t use much facial expressions or body language at all and I spoke in a rather monotone voice. People often misunderstood my blank facial expression as sadness or couldn’t tell how I was feeling at all, because I didn’t show my feelings on the outside or in the same way as other people. Some people also mistook my lack of eye contact for dishonesty or low self esteem. People misunderstood me a lot. I was a geek and had unusual, geeky interests (I'd read dictionaries and encyclopedias and draw maps or learn new, unsual things for fun, for example). I did really well academically and many of my peers imagined that I spent all my spare time studying, but I actually learned most things fast and easily and spent little more time studying than anyone else and was instead minding my solitary hobbies most of the time. I was not into the same things as other girls my age and I was always kind of boyish. I was extremely quiet. I’d usually only talk if someone asked me something or if I needed to talk for practical reasons. I was not much into chit chat and was always more of a listener. People thought I was shy and that I’d “come out of my shell� and develop better social skills if they could just push me into enough social situations, but of course this didn’t work, because people with Asperger’s syndrome cannot pick up social cues or learn social skills naturally like others, we need to be told and taught social skills and even then we’re clumsy at it. Those are a few things that come to mind about how I was different from other teenagers and how people were confused about me or just didn't understand me.

Posted by: Heagskrace on 2010-02-02, 15:07:51

I do not know what aspergers is. It might have a different name in my country, if I ever met anyone, I do not know. Sorry I cannot help with that. Anyway I have searched for that on Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ Asperger_syndrome "People with Asperger's often display intense interests, such as this boy's fascination with molecular structure. " EDIT: I read that article and I do identify with a lot of what is said there... But I also identify to the symptons described on many other articles on symdroms like that, then I cannot know what I have, if I do have something to start with. I have reached my limit of answers for today.

Posted by: David on 2010-02-02, 15:29:37

Im going to be no help, I do know a girl - hardly, with it.From what I understand she is just like a male will act with aspergers. You know difficulting empathizing, If you told her about your problems she would tell you something thats really kinda insignificant was a much bigger deal than your problems. Usual difficulty to control anger and inability to socialise aswell as keen interests and hobbies. I remember this person was like obsessed with eragon and dragons and stuff. Oh your question was specificlly to how others act in general. Ok well we have a family friend with aspergers. He ok well the description above is pretty much him lol. hes always loved warhammer -you probz dont know it, and at the moment hes going through a gun phase, he cant stop talking about it, and reads everything there is to know. He can be very blunt and rude but thats ok, except when he does things like kick me in the balls and try and karate chop my face lol. Im not sure what else, but as I understand it this is quite normal, he also has add and is 17 yo

Posted by: Russian roulettex on 2010-02-02, 19:37:11

Well, people with aspergers are prettymuch non-social people... matters how high functioning it is.. and behavior is mostly geeky...lol not too different...but different enough to be bullied aka: you'll only be accepted by deep ppl

Posted by: Jenjen on 2010-02-03, 09:58:35

I'm a teenage girl and have just been diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome and I would say there's so many different things that make me different from people without it. Crowds of people are quite scary, I quite often take things very literally, not always being able to understand peoples facial expressions, don't have very good social skills, normally have a subject in which they know pretty much everything about. There's so many different things it would take me forever to list them all but another thing about Aspergers Syndrome is that some people have it worse than other people and many people have bits of Aspergers in them but don't have Aspergers because they only have one or two likenesses to Apergers if you know what i mean. A lot of people that know me have said that I don't seem to have anything wrong with me but I know I do have it now and the thing is I don't think of it as having something WRONG with me I see it as a good thing, as something that makes me who I am, a part of my personality as I love to be individual!! But others do have it much worse I think it's when they're really bad it's called autism this is like a much more obvious version of Aspergers I would say. I find it really hard to explain but hope I helped :)