Several people (all of them complete strangers I have never met) have mentioned over the years via Internet forums that the way I talk and act in my YouTube channel's videos suggested to them that I have "Asperger's Syndrome." One person even made a video mocking me, speaking like how I speak (and calling it "satire"), and called it an "example of Asperger's Syndrome." Considering the facts I am 57 years old; I have always spoken this way; no doctor, teacher, parent, or acquaintance has ever mentioned "Asperger's" to me; and I am cursed with far above average intelligence (if the test scores mean anything), it seems to me these people are wrong--- but it bothers me because perhaps they are correct.
o) By the time I was 8 years old my parents knew I was "different." I was taken to a doctor for evaluation, and diagnosed with Hyper Activity and Attention Deficits. Considering I seldom talked to humans (and usually only talked to dogs, cats, horses, goats, birds, chairs, doors), why didn't the doctors diagnose me with Level One Autism? I am thinking I do not have Asperger's Syndrome because no professional spotted it. Maybe I talk oddly for other reasons.
o) Even though by the time I was around 15 years old my reading comprehension skills were at an academic / university level, my school teachers considered me illiterate and I was often told, during in-classroom reading time periods, to "just look at the pictures" in text books. For the following 40 years after that day I have constantly wondered why I was treated that way by my teachers, and it makes me think they observed intellectual deficits in my behavior that I'm just not seeing. It makes me wonder if I'm dim of wit and I don't know that I am.
o) Universally speaking I have only a dim understanding of what strangers are saying when they speak because they communicate so poorly. When a person uses sentence fragments, or fail to include the subject of their discourse in each sentence, I perform furious mental gymnastics to pick out of the many hundreds of possible meanings those which seem most likely to me for what the speakers meant--- and I fail so often in being correct that I dread having to talk to strangers.
o) People forced to interact with me (store clerks, police officers, educators, librarians, guests visiting the vacation area I live and work in) treat me like I'm an idiot. They look at me like I'm mentally retarded, and they talk to me like I'm an infant. I get talked at as if I were a dull-witted pet; like an inbreed dog. This bothers me because I think it impolite and abusive to correct their misconceptions about me.
o) I came close to starving to death twice; I have been shot in the back once; I have been shot at several times; I was within a day or two of dying from pneumonia; I cracked my skull; I dislocated my right arm; I broken several bones; I finally consulted a physician and she asked me why I sounded "so calm" when I reported these injuries. It may be unfathomable, but it never occurred to me to seek medical care. The pneumonia was treated because someone literally dragged me into an automobile and forced me to go to a hospital for treatment; a physician put my arm back in its sockets after I tried and failed to do so. At the moment I cannot recall any time when I thought my life had any value.
o) As far as I can tell I have very few "genuine emotions." I pretend to be fond of my friends (both of them). The girls and women I have loved in the past 50+ years may have been "lust objects" instead of love interests, but I have no clue at all which was and is the case.
Now that I am 57 years old I wonder if it is even worth the effort to talk with a physician about the issue. What would be the point? I spent 29 months living alone in a cave, after which I have spent 17 years living alone in a tiny shack in the wilderness, miles from other people. Addressing any emotional or intellectual deficits at my age, now that the suggestion has been made that I might have some, seems utterly pointless to me.
o) By the time I was 8 years old my parents knew I was "different." I was taken to a doctor for evaluation, and diagnosed with Hyper Activity and Attention Deficits. Considering I seldom talked to humans (and usually only talked to dogs, cats, horses, goats, birds, chairs, doors), why didn't the doctors diagnose me with Level One Autism? I am thinking I do not have Asperger's Syndrome because no professional spotted it. Maybe I talk oddly for other reasons.
o) Even though by the time I was around 15 years old my reading comprehension skills were at an academic / university level, my school teachers considered me illiterate and I was often told, during in-classroom reading time periods, to "just look at the pictures" in text books. For the following 40 years after that day I have constantly wondered why I was treated that way by my teachers, and it makes me think they observed intellectual deficits in my behavior that I'm just not seeing. It makes me wonder if I'm dim of wit and I don't know that I am.
o) Universally speaking I have only a dim understanding of what strangers are saying when they speak because they communicate so poorly. When a person uses sentence fragments, or fail to include the subject of their discourse in each sentence, I perform furious mental gymnastics to pick out of the many hundreds of possible meanings those which seem most likely to me for what the speakers meant--- and I fail so often in being correct that I dread having to talk to strangers.
o) People forced to interact with me (store clerks, police officers, educators, librarians, guests visiting the vacation area I live and work in) treat me like I'm an idiot. They look at me like I'm mentally retarded, and they talk to me like I'm an infant. I get talked at as if I were a dull-witted pet; like an inbreed dog. This bothers me because I think it impolite and abusive to correct their misconceptions about me.
o) I came close to starving to death twice; I have been shot in the back once; I have been shot at several times; I was within a day or two of dying from pneumonia; I cracked my skull; I dislocated my right arm; I broken several bones; I finally consulted a physician and she asked me why I sounded "so calm" when I reported these injuries. It may be unfathomable, but it never occurred to me to seek medical care. The pneumonia was treated because someone literally dragged me into an automobile and forced me to go to a hospital for treatment; a physician put my arm back in its sockets after I tried and failed to do so. At the moment I cannot recall any time when I thought my life had any value.
o) As far as I can tell I have very few "genuine emotions." I pretend to be fond of my friends (both of them). The girls and women I have loved in the past 50+ years may have been "lust objects" instead of love interests, but I have no clue at all which was and is the case.
Now that I am 57 years old I wonder if it is even worth the effort to talk with a physician about the issue. What would be the point? I spent 29 months living alone in a cave, after which I have spent 17 years living alone in a tiny shack in the wilderness, miles from other people. Addressing any emotional or intellectual deficits at my age, now that the suggestion has been made that I might have some, seems utterly pointless to me.