Thanks for the tip off!

I agree with you both – I too knew little and thought all autism was at the more traditional Kanner Autism end of the scale before I started to read up.

So I’m very aware that if coming clean is going to be a positive move, I have to have the right sort of support framework in place. I’m not going to be able to explain things well verbally to people, so I need good written material that I can fall back on.

I don’t plan to do this all at once. I’ll be clueing in my family first, and will see how that goes before taking things any further.

I’ve been thinking that it’d be better just to have names for my traits and not mention autism at all.

Everyone can understand hyperactivity or noise sensitivity. But start mentioning autism and people assume you are incapable of reading faces or feeling love.

I don’t have any blog or LJ at all, for AS or anything else.

“one or more of us writes something that is either separate but related”

I find Soph’s blog very easy to read too.

“An aspie style of thought, perhaps? Does that make sense?”

Yes. (What if I’d said no?)

“Going to look at the concise site now, wonder if there will be any diagrams?”

I suppose diagrams would be good for me, but the concise site is aimed at NTs.

Your comments made me smile.

Firstly, I too am merely self-diagnosed, but I’ve reached the conclusion over time that I know I’m right with my diagnosis. Your analogy with gay people and closets actually provides me with a similar analogy about my AS – whilst often initially confused, gay people typically figure it out and know where their sexuality lies – they don’t need a health professional to tell them.
I don’t need a health professional to tell me that I know I have AS either. Time and the application of thoughts to a computer terminal have got me to where I am now.

I’ll let you into a little secret that I haven’t written about yet. I’m not on the whole surprised that you were thinking broadly the same things as I was about the merits of labels. I read the blogs of those who comment here (I notice you don’t claim to have one, which is fine too), and I’ve started to notice a pattern. It seems to be surprisingly common for one of us to write about something, and then find within a few days that one or more of us writes something that is either separate but related, or is a natural progression from what was originally written. This is true across the comments too – my recent thoughts on labels stem partly from various comments that have appeared on here recently.

It’s like what we read sets us thinking – perhaps even subconsciously sometimes, and many of us think along similar lines and pathways, reaching similar conclusions. An aspie style of thought, perhaps?

Does that make sense? I’ll try and put a piece together with links in it to show how I see the pathway flowing (My instinct says that’ll be easy, but I wonder if it really will be when I get round to trying).

Clever and weird are also labels I’ve applied to myself down the years, as are many many others. None of them fitted all that well until Asperger’s came along.

As you will now have seen, there isn’t much on the concise section of the site yet. More will be added over the coming days and weeks.

James

And now I have commented on the title of your post, I will read the main body and see how close we go.

“You see – there we go already – lacking in intelligence and odd sense of humour are really labels that I was applying to myself to see if they fitted.”

Ah yes, that is pretty much what I came back here to say about my earlier comment. You’ll remember I was trying to work out whether I was borderline gifted, borderline Aspie, both or neither. Well, it occurred to me that these labels of gifted and/or Aspergers would merely be formal labels to replace the labels I have always been given throughout my life of being “clever” and “weird”, and therefore perhaps they are not of much more value except that they offer more precise information about my nature and way of thinking. Which is actually pretty valuable, as it helps one connect the dots. Which, as I read on, is I guess the same thought that you express here “Suddenly a large set of the characteristics that made me who I was could be parcelled under one label”. Of course I am still trying to work what exactly my label should be.

(If we were in different time zones I’d think you were using my brain while I slept. Perhaps I should not bother to think things through anymore, I can be lazy now and just read your blog. You seem to follow the same processes as me, and express them similarly. Except you write better than I do.)

And then I also was thinking about how others will see you because of your label – I am staying in the closet about possibly having Aspergers. I have to say “possibly” because I am selfdiagnosed, and of course going for a formal diagnosis would drag me out the closet. (I understand better now why gay people stay in the closet.) Even a so-called positive label such as “gifted” can be trouble, not just because of how others judge you, but because how it makes you judge yourself. If I had a gifted child, I’d be unsure whether/how to tell the child.

Going to look at the concise site now, wonder if there will be any diagrams?