The Asperger's Epidemic - not just restricted to Atlas anymore

[Tetro Kornbluth]

Now Russian Presidents are included at least according to one Pentagon 'think tank'.

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Oh dear. This may explain nothing. Or everything. Or both. What about the evidence you ask, well, here's the clincher

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(There is no brain or any other type of Biological test for Aspergers' or any Autistic Spectrum Disorder. But we'll let that go for a minute...)

Also worth mentioning this here:

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Oohhh... he's a bit defensive in social situations. Good thing then he isn't a position where skills of diplomacy and tact are needed then.

On this note, several Pentagon studies have revealed that ISIS is actually a mistranslation from Arabic and should read ADHD. I mean they like killing, fire, violence, and hyperactivity...  so they must have it, right?

[Antonio the Sixth]

As someone who actually has Asperger's, f**k these morons.

[rpryor03]

As someone who actually has Asperger's, f**k these morons.

[TDAS04]

As someone who actually has Asperger's, f**k these morons.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

lol

[courts]

ayy lmao

[Illuminati Blood Drinker]

Oh come on what is this.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Glad to see the cottage industry of diagnosing famous or historical figures with disorders is still going strong in these trying times.

[Insula Dei]

But, was Putin vaccinated?

[Stranger in a strange land]

Putin is way too good at reading people and manipulating them to be on the autism spectrum.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I don't have aspergers and neither does 90% of those diagnosed with it, me thinks. They are really stretching this line thin.

Edit: By the way, I don't mean this in response to any posters. I'm talking in general. I have no reason to doubt any of you.

[DC Al Fine]

Glad to see the cottage industry of diagnosing famous or historical figures with disorders is still going strong in these trying times.

[Murica!]

ERMERGERD IT WAZ THER VAXINES!!!!111

[Vosem]

ayy lmao

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

As someone who actually has Asperger's, f**k these morons.

Putin is way too good at reading people and manipulating them to be on the autism spectrum.

[DC Al Fine]

It's amazing how these folks can diagnose a man they've never met from thousands of miles away. Now if only they would turn their attentions to cancer.

[RFayette]

I'm surprised at the # of people here saying they have Asperger's.   Is it much easier to get diagnosed in some places w/ it than others?

Where I go to school, the kids with Asperger's/autism do nothing but rock back and forth, switch lights on and off, barely talk, and take classes in a special room with toys and special ed instructors instead of mingling with the general population.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Where I go to school, the kids with Asperger's/autism do nothing but rock back and forth, switch lights on and off, barely talk, and take classes in a special room with toys and special ed instructors instead of mingling with the general population.

I have an autistic brother, and this is basically what he and his class do (though they do learn a ton of skills and have improved their speech beyond belief). Aspergers is seemingly getting way over-diagnosed these days.

[RFayette]

Where I go to school, the kids with Asperger's/autism do nothing but rock back and forth, switch lights on and off, barely talk, and take classes in a special room with toys and special ed instructors instead of mingling with the general population.

I have an autistic brother, and this is basically what he and his class do (though they do learn a ton of skills and have improved their speech beyond belief). Aspergers is seemingly getting way over-diagnosed these days.

I guess so.   I just remember that the special ed class goes on "field trips" to places like White Castle or Target to learn basic social skills like ordering food, answering questions like "Paper or Plastic?", etc.  I can't imagine Atlasians have problems doing that kind of stuff.

[NewYorkExpress]

As a diagnosed Aspie, I find it hard to believe Aspergers is as prevalent as it appears to be. My guess is that roughly 40-60% of Aspergers diagnoses are bought and paid for by the pharmaceutical industry, though it's unlikely we'll prove it anytime soon.

[Lurker]

Where I go to school, the kids with Asperger's/autism do nothing but rock back and forth, switch lights on and off, barely talk, and take classes in a special room with toys and special ed instructors instead of mingling with the general population.

I have an autistic brother, and this is basically what he and his class do (though they do learn a ton of skills and have improved their speech beyond belief). Aspergers is seemingly getting way over-diagnosed these days.

I guess so.   I just remember that the special ed class goes on "field trips" to places like White Castle or Target to learn basic social skills like ordering food, answering questions like "Paper or Plastic?", etc.  I can't imagine Atlasians have problems doing that kind of stuff.

Well, it could be that it's overdiagnosed (who are we to tell?), but you have to remember that the diagnosis includes a very wide spectrum, particularly if you include all forms of autism and aspergers. It includes people  like those you mention - and people in far worse conditions, mentally - but it  also includes some very intelligent people, who (to very varying degrees) have trouble understanding social cues.

Of course, the idea that Putin or other world leaders/famous people have such diagnoses is probably bullsh**t 99% of the time, but I don't think that has much to do with a general overdiagnosis, if the latter is accurate. Rather, it's just attention whoring by "experts" who are desperate to get their fifteen minutes of fame.

[morgieb]

I'm surprised at the # of people here saying they have Asperger's.   Is it much easier to get diagnosed in some places w/ it than others?

Where I go to school, the kids with Asperger's/autism do nothing but rock back and forth, switch lights on and off, barely talk, and take classes in a special room with toys and special ed instructors instead of mingling with the general population.

Yeah because all forms of Autism are identical

[free my dawg]

As someone who has been misdiagnosed with Asperger's, this sort of armchair psychology that tries to pigeonhole everyone (including famous people or fictional characters) into certain diagnoses is arguably more harmful than ignoring these conditions altogether.

I wouldn't like to focus on the details, but despite being able to read social cues and having a more heightened sense of empathy than others throughout my life, I received a diagnosis because two of my teachers in elementary school thought that I had it because I was intelligent, but a little weird. Everything was fine during elementary school - I was surrounded by people that supported me and actually saw me as a person, and actually integrated into "normal society", but during middle school, that slowly evaporated. I'm fairly sure at least a third of my "friends" then were only friends with me out of pity, and not because I was actually a decent, funny, happy person to be around. Another decent chunk were acquaintances who either couldn't be bothered to care, and the rest were people who actually saw me for who I was as a person. Needless to say, I pushed on, although I was a little unnerved over being treated slightly differently.

In high school, everything boiled over. Late in eighth grade, I started to essentially question my condition after learning a bit about it, but it was explained to me that Asperger Syndrome was a broad spectrum. Even those who thought I had it knew that I was very "high-functioning", so my main focus was on blending in with the "normal kids". During this time, my grades began to slip, and with that, anxiety started to build. Growing up smart meant that, of course, I felt like I was expected by society to get good grades, and, quite frankly, I felt like it would make me more "normal" than the rest of the population.

And then, during sophomore year, I was shooting the sh*t with a few of my friends, when one of our autistic friends in our inner circle came up. My friends tried to wonder what was wrong with him... until one of our closer friends revealed to us that this kid also had Asperger's. Long story short, I loved the kid, but the way we acted had nothing in common, and now, our brains were supposed to be wired in a similar way? I couldn't believe it, and I didn't believe it. At that point, I essentially stopped believing I had Asperger's, and I fought for about nine months to remove myself from any sort of special education and be integrated into "normal society".

Unfortunately, a year and a half of "normalcy" doesn't wipe away nine years of stigmas told to you and everyone in your school about who you were and how you were. I remember out of around 800 girls in my school, only one "liked" me, and even then she wasn't in my grade, so she didn't know I was "special". I had very few close friends, and only really caught on with two social groups throughout my life in school. Hell, even today, I met most of the people who I went to high school with after I graduated, and through the two kids in my graduating class I talk to nowadays. I still felt an overwhelming pressure to act "normal", and eventually I cracked.

Ironically, the pressures of trying to overcome being wrongly diagnosed with a disorder that I never really fit in the first place eventually got so large that I developed an actual mental disorder - anxiety. I fought a very long, very hard battle with anxiety that was so bad that I had to take a year off from college to recover from it. Hell, even though I've "won" my battle, if you even so much as speak to me the wrong way, I start to panic that you know my past and that you think I actually have something wrong with me besides the fact that I panic over things like this. I never socially broke out of my shell until I took my gap year and actually integrated myself into society, and at college people seem to be unaware of my past.

Long story short, throwing around mental disorders lightly is one of the most harmful stigmas in the psychological world today. While Asperger's is a very real thing, some people are just weird, and we need to teach our kids that being a little weird is okay instead of trying to fit them into certain categories that psychologists lay out. Because if they don't fit, you f**k that kid up for life.

[RFayette]

I'm surprised at the # of people here saying they have Asperger's.   Is it much easier to get diagnosed in some places w/ it than others?

Where I go to school, the kids with Asperger's/autism do nothing but rock back and forth, switch lights on and off, barely talk, and take classes in a special room with toys and special ed instructors instead of mingling with the general population.

Yeah because all forms of Autism are identical

All I'm saying is, Atlasians don't really seem impaired in any meaningful sense of the word......

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I'm surprised at the # of people here saying they have Asperger's.   Is it much easier to get diagnosed in some places w/ it than others?

Where I go to school, the kids with Asperger's/autism do nothing but rock back and forth, switch lights on and off, barely talk, and take classes in a special room with toys and special ed instructors instead of mingling with the general population.

Yeah because all forms of Autism are identical

All I'm saying is, Atlasians don't really seem impaired in any meaningful sense of the word......

oh?   

anyway I thought the whole point of Aspergers was that it was a relatively "high functioning" form of Autism.