Seeking an AS role model

Hey guys,

You will most likely find this post strange. I am looking for an aspie role model whose achievements aren't highly academic (eg/ Bill Gates, Albert Einstein), but rather demonstrate incredible social skills. For example, someone with Asperger's who went from being a completely awkward loner to becoming a motivational speaker. The best example I've found so far is Al Gore: people claim he has AS, and yet he's a politician who speaks well in front of millions of people.

Why is this important to me? Because I want to become such a role model myself. I've lived the experience of being a socially awkward hermit, and now I'm able to do things like strike up conversations with strangers in the streets, or be the life of the party in a night club, and I'm always looking to grow.

I want people to change the way they view AS. First, that AS is not a disease or defect, in fact it's a gift. AS is the gift of an incredible mind, a mind that views the world differently from everyone else. I mean, if it weren't for people with AS, we wouldn't have Isaac Newton inventing most of calculus, or the invention of computers, or the internet, things that have fundamentally changed the world. I see it as a balance: If you have AS, you've basically traded social skills for intelligence (not by choice obviously), but it's definitely within the realm of possibility to build those social skills to a level that is considered "neurotypical", or even above average for a normal person. I don't think I can ever change the way I view the world, I'll always be over-analyzing and mathematically minded, but that won't stop me from excelling at the spontaneous, emotionally driven world of human interaction.

Second, AS is not a life sentence to having poor social skills. Never think for a second that just because your brain is wired differently from others, that you cannot become an amazing conversationalist, or read non-verbal cues, or be spontaneous. The underlying problem is social anxiety, and to reduce that, you have to push your comfort zone. It takes paramount bravery, in fact I often feel my heart racing before I take a leap of faith, for instance talking to a gorgeous woman. But with repetition the fear slowly lessens, and you gain experience, your mind reframes how you perceive social interactions.

Maybe I'm way off-base here, this is just my perspective as someone who is considered to be high-functioning asperger. Even before I tried to turn my life around I've had people tell me they'd have never known if I didn't tell them, and I know this definitely isn't the case for most aspies out there. So if anything I've said thus far seems grossly misinformed or insulting, I apologize. I don't want to undermine your social struggles, I just feel in my mind that social awkwardness is something people with AS can overcome in a powerful way.

Adolf Hitler?

I think Dan Akroyd of Blues Brothers and Saturday Night Live fame is supposed to have Asperger's.

TNSe wrote:Adolf Hitler?

That made me chuckle. He did invent the nannystate some people rather forget.

He was a pretty awesome speaker. Some swedsish psych suggested both him and his father had AS. Obviously he did do some rather nasty things, but you don't have to do those nasty things, you can just rip off his ability to speak to people and make intricate leadership so complex it makes everyone unable to launch the proper action in any given situation.

You don't get that far by being stupid that's for sure. His basic idea's about the nannystate were so good, after the war the laws he passed were legalized. The Dutch welfare state is based largely on Hitler's vision.

Pity he lost it. I guess his obsession got the better of him. Torquemada has been said also to have been dumped by a jewish woman, reason why most witches were female and jewish.

It's all the fault of women