𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬 & 𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐀𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬

3. Asperger Syndrome

"Asperger syndrome (AS), also known as Asperger's, is a developmental disorder characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests."

Wikipedia's description is pretty accurate but is still lacking in giving you a lot of info on what the disorder really is.

Asperger Syndrome was first discovered in the 1940's and remains apart of the Autism Spectrum because it is, in itself, a milder form of Autism. Although it's classified as "high-functioning".

High-functioning basically means that I'm able to read, write, and speak on my own and need no help in that way. But Autism is still a neurodevelopmental disorder so I still struggle and have certain difficulties I deal with on a daily basis.

Because of my Asperger's (we prefer to call ourselves 'Aspies'), I have problems maintaining friendships. So basically sometimes I forget to message people back, I find it difficult to keep in contact with people a lot of the time which can leave me seeming scatterbrained - in fact, some people have described it the situation as "I thought you fell off the face of the earth." Well, possibly :P

I also get really nervous in certain social situations - especially if I don't know people personally, that makes it ten times worse for me because I tend to get really quiet and reserved and I tend to go off somewhere by myself. But otherwise, I'm actually pretty extroverted in smaller gatherings and around people I know well.

Sometimes, I also have problems maintaining eye contact with people - not always but sometimes it can be issue for me.

One thing that I deal with all the time though is interpreting different gestures, tones, and facial expressions. I have issues with this constantly! Sometimes people have said things to me and because of their tone, I feel like they're getting mad at me and I literally don't know if they are or aren't. Also facial expressions are really hard for me to grasp - I mean, the basic ones like happy, sad, etc, I understand but for example, when people narrow their eyes at me, I automatically assume they're angry. And people narrow their eyes and it has different meanings, I know, but when it happens to me, that's usually how I perceive it. So that can be frustrating.

On that same note, sometimes I'm not good with detecting sarcasm or humor. And that's not the case always because over the years, I've gotten better at discerning that but there are times when I really don't realize that someone is being sarcastic.

I also take things really really literally. So idioms are massively hard to understand for me. As I've gotten older, that's another thing that's gotten a bit easier to discern but regardless, whenever I tend to hear different idioms, they still sound literal to me. Or if someone mentions an idiom in regards to doing something, I'll probably take it way too literally and do the exact thing they said.

I'm not that great with empathy if I'm being honest. It's not that I don't care - in fact, I do care. A lot. But sometimes it can be really hard for me to try and understand someone else's feelings and relate to them. For example, if someone tells me a sad story, I know it's sad but it's hard for me to feel sad about it myself, if that makes sense. Sometimes I joke around that I'm a sociopath to lighten up the mood but in all seriousness, empathy and feelings have never come easy to me.

And I'm not good at all in expressing my feelings. In fact, that's something I struggle with a lot. It literally takes a lot for me to be able to express myself and most times, I'm not even sure if I do it all that well. Truthfully, I worry that I come off as a bit detached because of that. Again, it's not that I don't care but it's very hard for me to express how I feel.