Asperger's or socially challenged? As a younger person, I was definitely socially challenged.

[raccoon]

And I still am to an extent, but at least I can better "read" people than I have most of my life. I used to be dumb as rocks about that.

In my family of origin, there was parental alcoholism and we were pretty isolated. I believe because of that, I didn't learn many social skills and consequently was "socially challenged."

I had a co-worker some years ago, he said his mother said he must have Asperger's. And he might, but his background was a lot like mine so I wonder if he was just socially challenged.

Maybe there's a better phrase for that besides "socially challenged."

[In_The_Wind]

1. I have dated two men who are Aspies.

Really enjoyed their company.

[pipi_k]

2. A question

I've often asked myself as well!

Same background...alcoholism. Some social isolation but not total. We did socialize with people, but they didn't often come to our house. We would more often visit them.

I too was socially challenged, and it took a long time for me to ...well, not outgrow it, exactly.

My next younger sister does, I believe, suffer from Aspergers. She's always been very very different, even from infancy, so my mother has said. My sister used to rock back and forth on her hands and knees in her crib, banging her head on the headboard, in a rhythmic motion. I looked up the symptoms of Aspergers and she falls within the parameters.

As for the issue you and I and others like us deal with, I have never heard of any other way to describe it, but I don't have a problem with "socially challenged" until something better comes along.

[Loryn]

3. Socially challenged is a great phrase.

I have always experienced what I call Social Anxiety. I don't know if it is the same as socially challenged. "When I was a girl" no one was aware of ADD, or ADHD, which I'm sure I suffer from. I was always quiet, and appeared calm on the outside, but my mind was never in one place for any more than a few minutes at a time. Hurt me in school from a young age, and I was terrified of my teachers.

I was lucky to be able to bond with a few other "strange" kids, who remain friends to this day.

Shame really. I so regret not having gone to college, with the exception of a night class here and there.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

4. Socially challenged?

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Do you now read people better and see yourself as more socially adept?

Few people, a very few in fact, really 'read people' well. Most fall into one of two categories....
(a) They project onto everyone their own reactions, intuitions, thoughts and desires. Thus the cynic, distrusts everyone or the shy hear mockery in every phrase. or (b) they adopt an universal image and see most people as conforming to that image. Neither allow for the millions of subtleties that exist within all of us.

I think all of us have experienced a touch of Asperger's at different times in our lives.... even the most gregarious extrovert, gets it wrong occasionally.

If you have learned to actually read people ...you are far from socially challenged today...that's a certainty.

[pipi_k]

8. For me...

being socially challenged involved acting in socially inappropriate ways, or saying inappropriate things.

Just basically being sort of clueless.

Being overly sensitive in some cases.

Never quite "fitting in" for some reason or another, going overboard in an attempt to fit in, but then pissing people off when I didn't get it right.

I was often very confused about what people expected from me.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

11. Yes,

I understand...perfectly. It led me to first adopt a very low profile and then refine it as I became an adult. There are times I still don't 'know' what people expect of me.... But at my age, it is considerably less important!

[Ron Obvious]

13. People

As for what people expect of us, I recall reading that a very large majority of people (70%) feel like imposters in their own life/job, and it's only a matter of time before they get found out. maybe some of us are more introspective about it.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

15. Some of us are more introspective

about a lot of things. That's interesting that 70% feel like imposters. However we all have 3 'faces' if you will.... The person we think we are, the person other people perceive us to be, and lastly the true person! It takes some navel gazing to know truly know ourselves....it's too bad the activity receives such bad press.

[raccoon]

9. I second what post#8 said. Also, I was so used to people being snarky and snappish that I took it

as the norm. I accepted way too much crap from other people.

Someone would've just about had to wear a T-shirt saying, "I HATE RACCOON (not my real name)"
for me to get it.

Thanks for your post!

[Sekhmets Daughter]

12. And I, eventually, developed a ferocious bark...

so I wouldn't have to bite!

[Newest Reality]

5. I was

completely mis-acculturated.

It sets the tone for the rest of your experiences and reactions to the social sphere. Whatever label that they place on it, it can be a reactive experience to early modeling and rewards and punishments that sculpt and dynamite one's map or conceptual and perceptual landscape.

People are different and that's not always cool to those who think they are normal or use difference to try to bolster normalcy. What is normal? Nobody really seems to know for sure, but there are many theories and guesses about it.

So, be it one's physiology, neurobiology, role models, socialization mishaps or environment, their are variations and responses and the expectation is that most of us have to fit into the molding process created for the sake of a larger agenda that tends to be both xenophobic, self-serving, and unforgiving as well as subtly adverse to compassion and largely disinterested in persons as an ends in themselves rather than a means of acquisition, control and profit.

Of course, we are living in Huxley's, Brave New World, where conformity can be induced chemically and help relieve the necessity of being more accommodating to differences in the sense that all human beings have both things in common and also unique potentials and permutations of a spectrum of traits and capacities.

As we move towards the alternative of accepting the unique nature of each member of our species, we can see a robotic, cybernetic trend where happiness is sameness and a gram beats a damn. While people are being told they can choose what they want and should celebrate their "choices" and need for customized, trivial items, they fail to see who is deciding the available choices and that they are actually succumbing to manipulation that makes them standardized, predictable models of consumption.

It is easy to see how being socially challenged relates to fitting in and why that's going to be a motivating factor for how our culture is shaped by corporations who want to continue to design our reality, sell it to us, and construct generation after generation of robots programmed to think they have choice and free will.

Enjoy being different, especially if you see through the shell of conformity and how it shapes people's behavior though they know it not.

[dawg]

6. I feel like an outcast sometimes.

I was happy with just my family and a few friends. Now that my marriage is kaput, I'm a little flummoxed as to what to do next.

Truth is, I'm probably better with socialization than I think I am, but I lack confidence. What little I had has all been sucked right out of me.

[Ron Obvious]

7. I wondered myself...

I moved virtually every year when I was growing up, and consequently became a bit of a self-reliant loner. I've always felt I missed a lot of the socialisation cues that most people pick up automatically. I never assumed it was more than that, but when I read a list of signs of Asperger's, I also recognised:

"Doesn't like loud noises".

That's me. I utterly hate and detest noise. I've nearly come to blows with neighbours in the past whose stereos I could hear. If there's one thing that sends me frothing at the mouth, it's those arseholes who play those thumpa thumpa thumpa stereos. I have a huge need for quiet. Most people don't seem to understand that at all.

On the final balance, I still don't think I have Asperger's and I've gotten a lot less solipsist as I got older. In any case, I like who I am and wouldn't want to be different anyway, even if I go for months without seeing my friends.

[pipi_k]

10. Sensory stimuli...

I totally can't tolerate loud noises, bright light, extremes of temperature, and I have a slight aversion to being touched. OK, a little more than slight aversion. More like moderate.

Cannot tolerate being around people for an extended period of time. Happy to spend quiet time alone with my knitting/crocheting or reading.

I've talked with my therapist about this, she says I do not have an autism spectrum disorder, so....

I dunno what to think about that

[Ron Obvious]

14. Sensory overload...

It's true. It extends to other sensory stimuli as well. I never could take too much of any of it before becoming exhausted. Even some restaurants tired me out if there was one or more TVs on. Some department stores I can't take for more than a few minutes.

I suspect it has a lot to do with how little I've had to compromise my life for others. I've been happily married for nearly 30 years and I've always had a couple of good friends, but I live essentially as though I was alone in the world. Thus, I never built up tolerance for those things other people have to put up with.

But I still think I'm better at reading people than most extroverts are, and thus not an Aspie.

[alarimer]

16. I feel the same way

Socially challenged is a good way to put it, to the point where I avoid social interaction. I am not assertive and will not take the initiative in anything. I always feel as if I am on my back foot with people. I can't seem to say what I really feel.

I isolate myself because it's just easier than dealing with people. People tell me that they can't get close to me, that I don't reveal anything of myself. But the weird thing is, I do what I can, but it never seems to be enough.