The world's worst prison state . . . . .

[C0ckney]

[Lorizael]

If they dismiss any suggestion after only ten seconds with the patient in question, they're lousy shrinks and you should ignore them.

That was my thought.

[Al B. Sure!]

Nah I don't have it. I don't imagine I could have worked so much in customer service and management/supervisory roles if I had aspergers.

Is this typical? Or are these people extreme?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Only on 'poly could a man diagnosed with Aspergers be one of the funniest posters on the site.

[Al B. Sure!]

I took this ****ing long test, albeit it's self-reporting:

http://www.rdos.net/eng/Aspie-quiz.php

and got this result:

Your Aspie score: 28 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 168 of 200
You are very likely neurotypical



Yeah I'm no Aspie.

[Elok]

Take another internet quiz, and it'll tell you that you've got morgellons, schizophrenia or, if published by Cosmo, that you simply need to "put more zoom-zoom in the bedroom."

Anyway, as Loin said, psych diagnoses are ultimately just convenient groupings of symptoms that tend to come together in certain oddballs. Not everyone has every aspect and certainly they can't describe a person's whole personality. I, for example, have no obsessive interests AFAIK, and to call my math skills "savant abilities" is a real stretch (though those are only found in something like 10% IIRC). I do have very picky tastes in food, I'm somewhat face-blind, don't like being pawed and have a poor sense of tact, among other things. Whereas my father will eat just about anything and has multiple things that he won't shut up about if you get him started. And he's much more aspie than me. Both of us have a sense of humor, albeit his is more unconventional and often falls flat.

Now, I had a stats prof in college who was blatantly autistic. He actually got excited while discussing the different permutations of the letters in the word "Mississippi." While I didn't really know him personally, I don't believe he would recognize a joke if the ghost of Groucho Marx rose from his grave and hand-delivered a pie to his face. But to make a long-winded explanation short: there is no "typical case" of Asperger's.

Also, I can do customer service just fine. All you do is act polite and apologize as soon as they get pissy. The important thing is that under no circumstances should you swear in their hearing, no matter how swell you think you're getting along, because that's simply unprofessional.

[Proteus_MST]

.... The important thing is that under no circumstances should you swear in their hearing, no matter how swell you think you're getting along, because that's simply unprofessional.

With other words ...
no job for people with Tourette syndrome

[The Mad Monk]

...we are not all Bobcat Goldthwait.

[Elok]

Coprolalia (babbling swear words at random) is actually only one symptom of Tourette's, and not even an especially common one IIRC. I think mostly they twitch a lot.

[loinburger]

Obviously anybody with Tourette's who doesn't have coprolalia is challenging the traditional psychology

[The Mad Monk]

"Twitch" doesn't really do it justice. It implies that the action is involuntary, which it isn't. The best description I've come across is that it's like an itch that absolutely refuses to go away until you scratch it -- except that, in this case, you're not scratching, you're exhibiting a tic of some sort.

It's better than involuntary tics, because you can resist for awhile, so as to avoid embarrassment out in public for example, but it depends on how bad it is, and that varies by person and over time. Stress only makes it worse, as does focusing on it. Holding off makes it worse as well, once you give in. You always give in, eventually.

AFAIK, tourettes sufferers never tic in their sleep.