Although the answer to this question may seem simple, it recurs with alarming regularity on aspie forums everywhere. Often, it is confused with the aspie's ability to find a partner or the famous aspie empathy problems - these are different things altogether which I'll hopefully discuss in follow-up posts. Emotional Behavior in Aspies Aspies are very capable of loving but they often confuse the issue by adopting an altogether too rigid view of love. Despite popular mis-belief, aspies are generally fairly emotional beings. We have intense feelings of happiness and even more intense feelings of sadness. The smallest triggers can produce huge emotional responses in us. While a bad day at work may make an NT grumpy, it could make an aspie feel suicidal. Similarly, when something good happens an aspie may seem to be over-reacting or overly happy. Most aspie adults have long since learned to control excessive displays of happiness but it's very apparent in aspie children...
Comments
My just turned 2 year old has just been diagnosed ppd nos, and they susepct that will change to Aspergers at the next evaluation. So glad I found your blog. Before diagnosis I had often joked to my husband that he was autisitc becuase he took things so literally and was always the last one to get the jokes. Sounds like our story could be similar to yours.
Thanks for your blog, I look forward to following.
Sharon
but for over a decade i worked on a psych ward for schizophrenics. and it clicked fairly well with my personality.
i was able to identify several reasons:
1. schizophrenics are extremely literal, even more than the average person with AS. so, they're communication and ability to process info is very literal, very concrete. interacting with the clients was a fairly straightforward set of interactions.
2. schizohphrenics tend to be fairly shut down, socially speaking. so their interactions fall back into literal-minded scripts, there is very little nuance to their social skills.
3. working with clients who are concrete thinkers involves much, much repetition. you encourage something...and then repeat yourself, over and over, for (in some cases) years. the nature of the work is very slow, very repetetive. meaning that AS traits can click very well with schizophrenic traits. they need exactly what someone on the spectrum can provide: structure and repetition.
anyway. this was my experience, i'm just throwing it out there. thanks for the post.
http://nurseteaspoons.blogspot.com/2011/12/as-and-nursing.html