28 April 2010

10 Reasons I don't have Asperger's

I recently watched the move Adam with my sister. The title character is a young man afflicted with Asperger Syndrome. After the movie my sister kept calling me Adam. A few days later a couple of my other sisters viewed the movie. Then on separate occasions they each referred to me as Adam. In college two of my roommates took a course on Autism. After one particular lecture they excitedly came home and diagnosed me with Asperger's. In order to help me manage/overcome my disorder they said they would issue me a card and each time I asked a question relevant to a conversation I would get a stamp; once I had filled up my card with stamps I would get a prize. I'm still waiting for my prize. Anyway, for some reason everyone likes diagnosing me with this disorder, so I did some Wikipedia research and found characteristics of the disorder that don't apply to me:

  1. Characteristic of Disorder: Failure to develop friendships
    Explanation: okay, so I'm not good at making friends, but failure indicates, well TOTAL FAILURE, as in no friends ever. I have a few, according to facebook I have 150!
  2. Characteristic of Disorder: Lack of eye-contact and facial expression
    Explanation: I kick ass at eye-contact! I'm so good at it that I freak people out by over-contacting their eyes. Also I've been told that I have some pretty killer facial expressions. In fact, since I'm not a big fan of verbal exchanges I've developed the ability to carry on ENTIRE conversations with facial expressions alone.
  3. Characteristic of Disorder: Awkward, but not withdrawn (will approach others)
    Explanation: Yes I'm awkward, however, I would also consider myself withdrawn -- no way in hell am I gonna randomly approach peeps I don't know and try to start a conversation!
  4. Characteristic of Disorder: One-sided, long-winded speech without noticing others' disinterest
    Explanation: So when it comes to some things (i.e. wine and Jenny Lewis) I can talk forever, however, I know that no one else cares, I just talk about it anyway.
  5. Characteristic of Disorder: restricted/repetitive routines                                                      Explanation: While I do like routine, I am not totally bound by it. For example, tonight I'm drinking Corona, last night I had hefeweizen, and the night before that I drank wine...would a person with Asperger's be able to handle such diversity? I think not.
  6. Characteristic of Disorder: specific/narrow/unusual areas of interest
    Explanation: JL is probably my only unusual area of interest, plus I like other things...I'll let you know when I think of them.
  7. Characteristic of Disorder: Atypical use of language/literal interpretations/difficulty with sarcasm
    Explanation: I guess I use language atypically in that I use it correctly, while unfortunately most folks today don't. As far as difficulty with sarcasm, I have difficulty not being sarcastic...I'm pretty sure that's not what they're referring to.
  8. Characteristic of Disorder: weakness in irony/humor/teasing                                           Explanation: I like funny
  9. Characteristic of Disorder: Marked verbosity
    Explanation: I rarely speak. Unless of course I'm drunk, but that doesn't count.
  10. Characteristic of Disorder: Advanced abilities/"gifted" in a certain area
    Explanation: I have little, if any, talent.