People like Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Thomas Jefferson, Bill Gates, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, and almost all of the movers and shakers of the scientific world are alleged Aspies, as are many of the more famous writers, musicians, actors, and artists. Your world would be a shadow of itself without us.
(There are seemingly endless lists of famous Aspie names on the internet.
We see, hear, taste, smell, and feel much more of the physical world than you do. We are ultrasensitive to soft sounds than you are. Many of us can hear high-pitched (ultrasonic) sounds that your ears are incapable of hearing. We are driven crazy by tiny pinpoints of light that you can't even see. The seam in the bottom of our socks is very bothersome. (I'll bet the princess in the "Princess and the Pea" fable was an Aspie.)
We are NOT repeat NOT mentally ill. We have a different neurological system which is not yet understood. We are not schizophrenic ( a chemical imbalance); we live in the same world that you do, not little worlds of our own.
We are not sociopathic, people-haters,or wannabe hermits. We are nonviolent unless pushed beyond the limits of our tolerance. We do not have an attachment disorder, as so many people seem to think, despite the many differences.
And yes, many of us are clumsy. We walk funny. We are humiliated in our gym classes because we are usually the last people who are picked when the gym teacher tells his favorite "jocks" to choose up sides. We can't understand why the gym teacher thinks that everybody has to be an athlete, and gives us low grades because he thinks we are shirking.
We are subject to food allergies like you wouldn't believe. We have bizarre medication reactions which baffle doctors and pharmacists.
Our likes and dislikes are very different from yours. We could care less who wins the Superbowl or Wimbledon or the Stanley Cup. We like old coins and freight trains, and can drive you out of your mind by reciting an encyclopedic knowlege of the development of diesel locomotives.
If we were offered a "CURE", and become like the neurotypical (normal, whatever that may be) people, whom many of us consider to be dull and boring, we would refuse. We wish that well-meaning people would quit trying to "cure" us, especially those delusional people who think that behavior modification is going to do the trick.
