Sunday, March 14, 2010

I Find the Similarities Eerie

"Eerie" is a weird word, much like "weird" so I'm appreciative of the opportunity to use it.

The background to the title is the eerie comparison between the description of Asperger syndrome and me (I'm like a hypochondriac, but for ambiguous syndromes that could apply and won't likely land me in a hospital).

Although individuals with Asperger syndrome acquire language skills without significant general delay and their speech typically lacks significant abnormalities, language acquisition and use is often atypical. Abnormalities include verbosity, abrupt transitions, literal interpretations and miscomprehension of nuance, use of metaphor meaningful only to the speaker, auditory perception deficits, unusually pedantic, formal or idiosyncratic speech, and oddities in loudness, pitch, intonation, prosody, and rhythm.

Hmm..Verbositiy check; abrupt transitions, check; literal interpretations, check; miscomprehension of nuance, not sure; use of metaphor [...], check; auditory perception deficits, check; pedantic, check (when not meaning pedestrian); formal/idiosyncratic, check; oddities in [...], check.
People with Asperger syndrome often display behavior, interests, and activities that are restricted and repetitive and are sometimes abnormally intense or focused. They may stick to inflexible routines, move in stereotyped and repetitive ways, or preoccupy themselves with parts of objects.

Oh dear God, yes. Well, not so much the "inflexible routines" part but really, yea.

Of course the big one with Asperger's is the lack of demonstrated empathy. I hesitate on this one, because I don't know exactly how to figure it. But, in the end, I really don't empathize well. Mostly I fake it because I can and do understand well. Really, though, I have to force myself to understand that when a friend is upset about something, she may not be so keen on listening to me bitch about some unrelated thing or that he may not be in the mood to play a game or watch a movie.

Plus, I am a scientist. Autism of some sort is practically a given.

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