What do Aspie women (and men) think?

Hey everyone - I've been pretty inactive on the forums as I emigrated to Germany four years ago and have been struggling to find my feet here, but I secured a diagnosis, which was really a huge relief!

Anyway, I had the opportunity to give a TEDx talk and I would love to hear what you think about it... did I actually represent the Aspie community accurately? I should have asked beforehand, but honestly didn't think about how far this video would go afterwards - I'd hate to think that I have made anyone else's life more difficult by telling my own story!

I hope you enjoy the talk either way, and I've had some feedback from people saying that they could relate to this and honestly, that made ME feel more like I'm not alone! Emigrating has been tough - I am extremely socially isolated but dealing with that is a challenge. Either way, it was nice to reach out into the ether in an unconventional way and experience understanding. I hope you all find the same!!

Parents
  • Hello Saraip.

    You talk is amazing....and I identified with it in many ways.  The idea of treating aspects of life like a university degree....if I try hard enough and read enough about the subject I can make this work and understand things a little better!!!

    Unfortunately, as you rightly point out this can help to a certain extent but it is also a great help if other parties also read the ASD/Aspie hand-out and can understand us a little better.

    I am also a programmer (I teach computer science) and a gamer (finished my Masters last year) and I laughed out loud about the appeal of your "sexy syntax"....see...we can even master other languages but in life we often get "logic errors" (sorry other forum members, if that is too geeky a response!)...so need to take time to examine the "code" of life and re-interpret and re-compile.... tried this....solved one error...generated another 100!... it certainly is a challenge intellectually, emotionally and spiritually.

    Your openness about the fragility of forming relationships also hit a nerve (emotional need and desire are again a mass of variables)...the fact that we can be prone to unhealthy relationships...to conform to others wants and needs to "belong", be "accepted", to "fit in" and this can easily lead to a path of being manipulated or coerced . Ticked that box (ticking it now in my current relationship) ...which is a mix of coercion and also frustrated care and protection on his part.  He also refuses to read the ASD/Aspie hand-out so my frustration that he is missing out on understanding and enjoying the specialness of our diagnosis.

    Anyhow, this is me...and this is "what I think!"

    Good luck out there

    Ellie

    42 and three quarters.....jumping life's syntactic hoops!

  • I love the fact that you enjoyed the computer science joke - it was originally a little more complex and involved a joke about recursion, but I had to simplify it because the curators said that it would be too hard for people to understand :D I absolutely feel like I am constantly trying to "debug" the areas of my life that are not working, but fixing an error in one area tends to cause a malfunction somewhere else... and then I have to calm down and remind myself that I didn't write the code in the first place! 

    I think the challenges that you are facing are hard because you are actually IN a relationship - and I think many of us will know how hard it feels to get into one in the first place... you want to do everything that you can to keep it going as long as you can handle it. Of course you develop feelings for the person, but it is still a challenge. I just hope that you get your partner to a point where he is not "scared" of your diagnosis. I wish you lots of happiness and hope that things work out for the best!

    Oh, and yes, I do feel like I am constantly trying to find intellectual ways to overcome life's problems and er... it seems to only work to a limited extent :)

Reply
  • I love the fact that you enjoyed the computer science joke - it was originally a little more complex and involved a joke about recursion, but I had to simplify it because the curators said that it would be too hard for people to understand :D I absolutely feel like I am constantly trying to "debug" the areas of my life that are not working, but fixing an error in one area tends to cause a malfunction somewhere else... and then I have to calm down and remind myself that I didn't write the code in the first place! 

    I think the challenges that you are facing are hard because you are actually IN a relationship - and I think many of us will know how hard it feels to get into one in the first place... you want to do everything that you can to keep it going as long as you can handle it. Of course you develop feelings for the person, but it is still a challenge. I just hope that you get your partner to a point where he is not "scared" of your diagnosis. I wish you lots of happiness and hope that things work out for the best!

    Oh, and yes, I do feel like I am constantly trying to find intellectual ways to overcome life's problems and er... it seems to only work to a limited extent :)

Children