This post is primarily meant for all you neurotypicals out there. Most of us Aspies don’t have much of a problem with focus. In fact, we have it in spades, and simply can’t understand why you struggle with keeping focused. I recently read an article in the New York Times (click here if you want to see it) on how to maintain focus in your … Continue reading How To Increase Focus and Productivity
This post will be a personal story about ambition, but I kinda think some of you might be dealing with the same issues. Most of my life has been driven by ambition. From an early age, I believed that my life was meant to be lived with a purpose. I wasn’t just put here to suck air for a number of years and then become … Continue reading Lost Ambition…
Before I go any further, I should probably tell some of you that Neurodivergence means is that we don’t think or perceive the world as “normal” people do. Our brains are just wired differently than most. But, then again, what is “normal”, really? Being a neurodivergent person, normal, or neurotypical, is being like most other people. Why would I want to be like everyone else? … Continue reading Why I Talk About Neurodivergents
I spent the first day of this new year trying to figure out how I will live in the next 364 days. I also spent New Year’s Eve looking at what I accomplished in 2022. Before I go any further, I must admit that the whole decade before 2022, I was mostly in the caregiver hermit mode. My wife’s health continued to decline year after … Continue reading Looking Back So I Can Look Forward
I came across a post I put out a little over five years ago that deserves another go around. I think it will help some of my newer readers understand why I post the way I do, and it helped me to remember where my roots are. I have kinda drifted away from that recently. Just click on the icon below to go there. Continue reading It’s Just Who I Am
Sometimes I wish I could take back that time when I discovered I am an Aspie. I think that moment to some degree kind of ruined the rest of my life. But, perhaps the most damaging part of that was what was done by the website Medium because it provided me daily with hundreds of articles about Aspergers, and only Aspergers. When I discovered that … Continue reading It’s All About Masking And Maybe The Medium…
It’s time for another Aspie post here on RJsCorner. This one is about Aspie obsessions. I’m sure I have posted about this before, but I don’t specifically remember it. So, I will give you a brief story about Aspies and obsession. Here is a quote from a reliable source about Aspies and special interests. I recognized this trait in myself from an early age. I … Continue reading I Just Couldn’t Help Myself
They say that envy is one of the most common emotions. There is even a commandment about it. I never thought of myself as having envy, but in reality I have probably lived with it most of my life, and sometimes it even seems to drive my life. Except for my electronic gadgets, I am not much of a “things” person, so I don’t envy … Continue reading I Am Secretly Covered With Envy…
I recently read a post over at TheMedium.com where the author stated nine reasons why Neurotypicals (NT) don’t like people with Autism. I don’t really agree with her basic premise that most NTs just don’t like us. Yes, I do come across some of those types, but for the most part, NTs just don’t care to know much about us. They have enough troubles of … Continue reading Oh, Poor Misunderstood Me…
Sometimes we are forced into a group not of our choosing. In the working world, we most often don’t get to chose who our workmates are. They are chosen for us. It’s been a while since I was in that situation, but due to my deafness and Aspie traits that was about the only time I was eventually welcomed as a valuable member of a … Continue reading Forced Associations…
One of the things that has almost been a constant here at RJsCorner for the last few years is my statement that I embrace change and loathe routines. My recent On-The-Road journey across the South and Southwest U.S. has proven that to be for the most part inaccurate. I still like to experience change once in a while, but I have come to recognize that … Continue reading Oh, Those Dreaded Routines…
I have spent almost an entire lifetime trying to figure out why I am so different from many others. It wasn’t until a handful of years ago that I discovered Asperger’s Syndrome, and many of those questions were answered. Being an Aspie is not about being defective, it is just about looking at life with a different perspective. People with neurological differences are called neurodiverse, … Continue reading What If Neurodiversity Was The “Normal”?
I have been on the fence about folding Asperger’s into the Autism Spectrum as I see only disadvantages to us Aspies by doing that. Especially since, to the public, Autism is seen as a young person crouching in the corner twitching and babbling. Many Aspies are in fact are in the upper echelons of IQ and can do many things better than most others (called … Continue reading I’m Willing To Admit The Link Between Autism &Asperger’s, But…
This is just another reason why I don’t adopt the ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder). Those of us with Asperger’s know we have valuable assets to offer someone who hires us. Many of us are highly intelligent (>130 IQ) and our attention to details often dwarfs what “normal” people have to offer. Yes, we have some social problems that make it difficult for us to make … Continue reading Who Would Want To Hire Someone With A Disorder?
This post like many, came to me in my daily morning shower. Over the past many years I have come to realize that I am a “morning” person. Most of my creative juices come during the first five or six hours after awakening each day. Before I got out of my shower, I had already formulated the storyline for this post. I usually try to … Continue reading Until It’s Gone
I read a recent article over at The Medium about people, like me, who refuse to give up the Aspie label and be dumped into the ocean wide autism spectrum. Here is a quote from that article. (Click HERE to see the rest) The Asperger’s class is overwhelmingly white people who have been given enough advantage to turn a profit on what they couldn’t stop … Continue reading Hanging On To The Asperger Label
I thought I had resolved to thinking of my Aspie traits as just being part of the autism spectrum. With that resolution, I was ready to move forward and start advocating for autism in general. But, I was wrong. I am just too uncomfortable with throwing Aspergers into the autism ocean. I just don’t see the benefits of doing that for us Aspies. When I … Continue reading Having Aspie Traits Is Not A Handicap Or A Disorder
Have you ever stopped to think about all the great accomplishments in the world are done by strange people? At least, strange by majority standards. If you look at most lists of people who have likely had Asperger’s, you will see the best innovators, thinkers, and accomplishments in the world. It’s time to think about how we are currently trying to cure Aspies so that … Continue reading Strange People Have Done Great Things
No matter how hard the shell is that people build around themselves, there is always a creamy center. At least that is how some of us view things. Getting to that creamy center is not always easy. Narcissists and autocrats build grenade style shells around themselves, while those who wear their heart on their sleeve hardly have one at all. You could say that those … Continue reading There Is Always A Creamy Center…
Anomaly is a word that is not frequently used, but I kinda think it needs to be. The definition here is a good one, but I think it can be described a little differently. You might call it “an exception to what is commonly perceived”. An anomaly is not right or wrong, just different. It is just “on the margins” so to speak. I think … Continue reading Disorder or Anomaly?
I have been struggling about six months now, trying to decide whether to call myself autistic. My main trouble with that is that I just don’t relate to what the general population thinks is autistic. To them, there are two classes of autism. The first is the savant, that is a person who is exceptionally talented in one area of life. It is estimated that … Continue reading I Choose Asperger’s
A recent study found that the people with higher IQs have more stable interactions between regions of their brain. This seems to back up the general thought among the specialists in studying intelligence agree on. Simply speaking, high intelligence is linked to areas of the brain working well together. But this study suggests another possibility. “Our results suggest that processes of controlled attention – that … Continue reading High Intelligence And Asperger’s
The trouble with living on the margins is that we too often get trampled by the mainstream herd. The mainstream is like a massive herd of cows, or maybe I should say sheep. It is kind of like a super-tanker, it can’t be turned quickly. Trying to get the mainstream to understand those on the margins is a very long-term thing. It simply doesn’t happen … Continue reading The Trouble Of Living On The Margins.
I talk frequently here at the new RJsCorner about my deafness and autism. Many of the posts are about how I deal with all the obstacles that are a result of those two conditions. For this post I am talking about one of my superpowers that wouldn’t exist without both my deafness and my autism. That superpower is when I am In The Zone. When … Continue reading In The Zone – My Superpower
Those of us Baby Boomers on the spectrum have usually spent our lives trying to live up to other’s expectations. We were told very early own that we were too shy, so get over it and join the mainstream. That started us out on a life of low self-esteem until something finally kicked that falsehood to the curb. Being outside the mainstream is pretty much … Continue reading Living Up To Others Expectations…
I took a test years ago to determine where I am on the Intelligence Spectrum. That test gave me a number to know where I am on that spectrum. My number was 135. I didn’t think much of it at the time but, I later learned that number put me in the top 2% of the population. But, it did give me a little more … Continue reading It’s Time For A Re-Label…
After some serious study about autism in general and Asperger’s in particular, I am convinced that the scientific community has a basic flaw when it comes to autism. That flaw is that 95% of the studies and articles about autism concentrate solely on children. Here is why I think that is wrong. By concentrating only on children, they are losing information about “lessons learned” by … Continue reading I Think The Scientific Community Has It Wrong About Autism Studies
If you are a regular here at RJsCorner, you know that I have said that I had more meltdowns during the last week of my wife’s life than I thought I could endure. They came so frequently that I began feeling that if they don’t stop, I don’t want to live any longer. In this post, I will try to give you an idea of … Continue reading One Last Look At My Aspie Meltdowns…
I have made it no secret here on RJsCorner that I struggled through life trying to figure out what was wrong with me. My very narcissistic mother who abandoned me when I was nine years old did nothing but amplify those negative feelings I had about myself. In hindsight, I am kind of glad she left, as I don’t know how much damage she would … Continue reading Finding Yourself In Your Differences
I expect this post is going to surprise you. I know you have probably already finish the phrase in the title with a myriad of responses. But for me, it is I am the loneliest when I am in a large group of people. All my life, I have never been able to figure our why I have so much trouble fitting into groups. One … Continue reading I Am The Loneliest…
I have done a lot of reading about Asperger’s Syndrome and convinced that I have had many of those typical traits throughout my life, but only in the last decade found that they had a name. Now, the experts have decided that Asperger’s doesn’t exist anymore, it has been swallowed up by the general term autism. To me, that is about the same as saying … Continue reading I’m Still On The Fence With This Autism Thing…
The idea for this post came from Anna over at Medium.com which is one of my favorite sites. The article was entitled: Stop using Asperger’s as an excuse to be a jerk When I read this article, the first person I thought of was Elon Musk. He had recently come out as an Aspie. But, he was not the first highly successful person to be … Continue reading Stop Being a Jerk!!
If I were a bird, I would be a very rare sighting indeed! I am not “one among many” in most regards. Let’s look at this a little further. I am deaf. That makes me a rather rare character. According to the statistics, less than 1% of the population is without ANY hearing. I went deaf at about 40 years of age. When that happened, … Continue reading If I Were A Bird…
This post is just a quick educational opportunity about Asperger’s Syndrome I readily admit that I have some pretty significant Aspie characteristics and have been studying this neurological condition for several years now. I recently came across a very well written article with 101 questions about this condition. I am going to use a small part of that article to tell you more about my … Continue reading More About Asperger’s Syndrome
It’s nice to see some of the more famous and innovative people out there come out as being Aspies. Like me, most of us who are over 30 years old are self-diagnosed as the Asperger’s Syndrome establishment is almost totally concentrated on young children. Adults with Asperger’s just don’t appear on their radar. I didn’t know until I say the above article in The Week … Continue reading When You Have Seen One…
I, like Greta Thunberg, consider many of my Aspie traits to be my “superpowers” but some of them do need to be controlled sometimes in order to get things done. I love the fact that I can sit down and totally concentrate on one particular thing and make the rest of the world simply disappear. I still do that for hours at a time, and … Continue reading Reigning In My Aspie Traits… Sometimes
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