[QUOTE=JRDelirious]
Y’know, it’s not like they are in on an evil plot to medicate humanity for the hell of it…
[/QUOTE]
No, but KGS isn’t the only one who is troubled by the way prescription drugs are marketed to the public. I think that’s at the root of this thread, although it’s more of a GD topic.
[QUOTE=Marley23]
No, but KGS isn’t the only one who is troubled by the way prescription drugs are marketed to the public. I think that’s at the root of this thread, although it’s more of a GD topic.
[/QUOTE]
Being concerned about prescription drug advertising is one thing. It’s quite another to state that said conditions are just “made up”.
Asperger’s is popular amongst certain subcultures on the internet. Furries, otaku/otherkin and werewolves/vampires (not the roleplayers, the people who think they really are) tend to have a certain “Badge of Pride” attached to anything that they can use to blame the rest of the world for not “getting” them. And AS is perfect. It’s an autism spectrum disorder, so instead of trying to cope and fit in with the world at large they can just go “I’m autistic, my brain doesn’t function like the rest of those mundanes”, but it avoids all of the nasty stigmata that used to be associated with Autism. Very few of them have actually been diagnosed officially. They’ve just taken the online test at quizilla, posted the results in their myspace page or livejournal and then sat back in their forums waiting for the huggles that result from being spechul and majikal in their autistic brains.
AS is real. Certainly I believe from cites given here and elsewhere that diagnoses are on the rise. But I’m pretty convinced that 99% of the people online who are trumpeting the fact that they have AS actually don’t.
Does anyone besides me want to nominate Pábitel to do an “Ask the guy with Asperger’s” thread?
[QUOTE=bigbabysweets2000]
**Should of course read: ** Does anyone besides me want to nominate Pábitel to do an “Ask the guy with Asperger’s” thread?
[/QUOTE]
And remember kids, to always preview.
[QUOTE=Sierra Indigo]
Asperger’s is popular amongst certain subcultures on the internet. Furries, otaku/otherkin and werewolves/vampires (not the roleplayers, the people who think they really are) tend to have a certain “Badge of Pride” attached to anything that they can use to blame the rest of the world for not “getting” them. And AS is perfect. It’s an autism spectrum disorder, so instead of trying to cope and fit in with the world at large they can just go “I’m autistic, my brain doesn’t function like the rest of those mundanes”, but it avoids all of the nasty stigmata that used to be associated with Autism. Very few of them have actually been diagnosed officially. [snip] I’m pretty convinced that 99% of the people online who are trumpeting the fact that they have AS actually don’t.
[/QUOTE]
Ah, that does make more sense – especially considering reports in this thread about how AS really sucks. I didn’t think about that.
I’m a real vampire, btw. 
[QUOTE=KarlGauss]
There are almost 1400 articles on RLS listed on PubMed.
[/QUOTE]
Is that a lot? How many articles are there for cancer? Diabetes? I need a standard of comparison for this datum to be meaningful.
(a) I used to work in Pharmacy, so it’s not news to me that the DrugCorps will stoop to fabricating demand (“Ask your doctor if new Bendoveryl is right for you” = March into your doc’s office, where our sales rep just left him ten cases of samples and two Pistons tickets, and get yours), but the “whether it works or not” bit was a bit over the top. Mostly when they fabricate demand it’s for a “new improved” med that does something that for a large number of patients another (likely older, time-tested, off-patent) product already does adequately.
(b) As Sierra Indigo and others have pointed out, a proliferation non-professional **self-**diagnosis is a possibility and that can be problem if it dilutes the significance of a true diagnosis. Of course, it’s understandable that claiming there is a special condition is simpler than trying to fight for society to become more tolerant of eccentricities, but Eccentrics’ Rights should be an issue on its own (if someone’s geeking out, as long as he’s not hurting anyone, why should we judge him harshly if it’s just being geeky, but embrace him if it’s a developmental condition?). As Mr. Slant , Gleena and Plábitel mention, part of the actual course of action for those with the disorder is learning coping mechanisms to adapt to the environment, not to expect a behavior waiver.
[QUOTE=Fear Itself]
Is that a lot?
[/quote]
Yes, it is a lot.
You’re comparing apples and oranges. It’s like asking how many copies of Dickens’ “Great Expectations” a library has, and then deciding “Great Expectations” can’t be that important, because they only have 20, while they have 5,000 books by European philosophers, and 50,000 books classified as fiction.
[QUOTE=KGS]
It’s just that – well, when it comes to any psychological issue, I can’t help but wonder if there’s a shrink somewhere who TOLD this person what they are, and is raking in a profit because of it.
[/QUOTE]
Again this is not a “psychological issue” this is a inborn trait. Recent discoveries suggest there is even a brain abnormality associated with it. Psychological problems are treatable by drugs/therapy and can be completely cured. Aspergers and similar conditions can only be lived with.
One reason for the pride is that “normal” people tend to see us as broken. Rather we have a different set of strengths and weaknesses. We are justifiably proud of our strengths just like you guys. It happens that those strengths come partly for the Aspergers.
[QUOTE=Pábitel]
It happens that those strengths come partly for the Aspergers.
[/QUOTE]
Or FROM the Aspergers, even.
[QUOTE=The Flying Dutchman]
AVERAGE TO ABOVE-AVERAGE INTELLIGENCE.
DIFFICULTY MAKING AND MAINTAINING AGE APPROPRIATE PEER RELATIONSHIPS.
INABILITY TO ORGANIZE AND STRUCTURE THEMSELVES
DISTRACTIBILITY AND DIFFICULTY WITH CONCENTRATION.
[/QUOTE]
Are you saying these are the criteria by which AS was diagnosed at this camp you were talking about? Because these are not the right criteria.
-FrL-
Don’t be so quick to bash drugs for AS either.
When our son was diagnosed with AS we tried to avoid drugs. We sent him to PT which is said to have a high success rate with Apsergers kids. It didn’t work out. His specialist recommended a drug. No help. Then another and another. They didn’t work either. I was ready to give up, but we went along with giving fourth medication a try. Bingo! It has made a huge difference. It doesn’t cure AS or fix all the symptoms, but it still has been a big help. We were hoping it could improve his ability to concentrate which was absolutely dreadful before the medication. A typical evening of homework before the pill consisted of him taking forever to do his exercises with constant (and I mean ALL the time) admonitions from me to look at his homework and do it. There would usually be a total meltdown with him bawling and crying out that he can’t do it. His grades were awful too, though I know he’s pretty smart kid.
Enter the meds and almost overnight things changed. He can do his homework now. His grades have gone way up. He routinely beats the other kids in chess club now, whereas before I would have to sit next to him and tell him when it was his turn on every turn because he couldn’t look at the board for more than a few seconds. If he misses his pill for even one day he reverts back right away.
Not that this fixes everything. Life with AS is hard. He has a very hard time with interpersonal relationships. We are coaching him now to say “hi” to people. So far he won’t do it at all, not even if someone says “hi” to him and waves hello. He just will not respond. Needless to say, he has few friends. He also has a hand-wringing tic that is very intrusive in his life.
I just want to emphasize to parents out there that are faced with these issues that drugs are not something to be avoided like the plague. They can’t fix everything, but they really can make a positive difference in your kids’ lives.
[QUOTE=Captain Lance Murdoch]
I just want to emphasize to parents out there that are faced with these issues that drugs are not something to be avoided like the plague. They can’t fix everything, but they really can make a positive difference in your kids’ lives.
[/QUOTE]
Absolutely, I don’t want to give the impression that I am anti medication. I myself have taken anti-anxiety meds. But there is no anti-Aspergers pill that is going to be a cure.
[QUOTE=Frylock]
Are you saying these are the criteria by which AS was diagnosed at this camp you were talking about? Because these are not the right criteria.
-FrL-
[/QUOTE]
The camp does not diagnose as far as I know. While AS is the most common disorder there are several others that they deal with as well. And they must do a good job, because these counselors get some fairly huge tips from parents.
I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome when I was 34 (I’m 38 now). I was seeing a psychologist for depression and she had a book about it on a table. I picked it up, skimmed the first chapter, and said “This sounds like me”. She said “Yes, it does.” Based on our previous conversations and some further diagnostic questioning, she determined that I have AS.
I have never had real friends. I hung out with some guys, but I never liked them and I withdrew from them in my early teens. I have never felt a need to find other male friends. I did seek out girls, but that was mainly in hopes of having sex with them.
I was obsessive about computers and computer programming. This has served me well, as I am a highly paid programmer and I met my wife at work. All of my relationships have been with women I met at work (luckily, most of them have moved onto other jobs, though there still is one a few offices away).
Knowing that I have Asperger’s has helped me quite a bit. I now recognize that I need to look people in the eye when I speak to them. I understand why people would get upset when I didn’t tell them about good things that happened in my life. I pretend to be interested in other peoples’ lives now, because they find it rude or mean when I’m not. I basically get along with people a lot better now because I know what they expect from “normal” people.
There are some things I can’t do anything about, however. The main one is that I have no real emotional connection with anybody. The psychologist once asked me about my mother (as psychologists tend to do). My response was “She’s nice and all, but I can’t say I love her. If she was standing in front of me and her head exploded, I wouldn’t feel a thing.” You can be pretty sure there’s something wrong with you when you disturb a psychologist.
You may be wondering how the fact that I can’t form emotional connections fits with the fact that I am married. My wife is one of two people I have met in my entire life about whom I thought “I can stand to be around this person for long stretches of time.” I figure that’s as close to true love as I can get. I just cannot feel what everyone else seems to feel.
I was always the “quiet one”. Beyond the shyness, the quietness may be explained by AS, also. I speak and write in a fairly formal way. I’m a bit of a pedant, and I labor over each word, phrase, and sentence. That’s fine when typing a message such as this as I can go back and fix it until I’m satisfied, but when speaking I don’t have that luxury. Instead, I pause to think about exactly how to say what I want to say. Someone else usually pipes up in the meantime, and I come off as a mute. People at work are now used to this and know that I will speak up after I’ve gathered my thoughts, but it is a handicap in day-to-day living.
[QUOTE=Gus Gusterson]
You may be wondering how the fact that I can’t form emotional connections fits with the fact that I am married. My wife is one of two people I have met in my entire life about whom I thought “I can stand to be around this person for long stretches of time.” I figure that’s as close to true love as I can get. I just cannot feel what everyone else seems to feel.
[/QUOTE]
I’m curious to know what your wife thinks about that.
-FrL-
[QUOTE=Gus Gusterson]
There are some things I can’t do anything about, however. The main one is that I have no real emotional connection with anybody. The psychologist once asked me about my mother (as psychologists tend to do). My response was “She’s nice and all, but I can’t say I love her. If she was standing in front of me and her head exploded, I wouldn’t feel a thing.” You can be pretty sure there’s something wrong with you when you disturb a psychologist.
[/QUOTE]
I’m curious as to how Asperger’s Syndrome is different from psychopathy. You’re describing one of the classic symptoms of a psychopath (or, in modern terms, a sociopath.)
[QUOTE=Gus Gusterson]
The psychologist once asked me about my mother (as psychologists tend to do). My response was “She’s nice and all, but I can’t say I love her. If she was standing in front of me and her head exploded, I wouldn’t feel a thing.”
[/QUOTE]
Clearly you would feel something. Wind, certainly, and probably brain. 
[QUOTE=Frylock]
I’m curious to know what your wife thinks about that.
[/QUOTE]
She doesn’t know about it. Only the psychologist (and, now, the SDMB) knows. As far as my wife knows, I love her to pieces. I do like her and I desire her sexually. I can’t feel love as everyone else seems to, but I have seen enough of it in my life to know how to verbally and physically express love to her. I know it sounds awful, but if she lives her whole life feeling as loved as I make her feel I don’t see the harm, even though it’s something of an act. It probably helps that I don’t believe in God or an afterlife or anything spiritual. All there is is what we see, and she sees that I love her.
I can’t speak to that question from a clinical point of view, but I have been accused, jokingly and not so jokingly, of being a psychopath. I was at lunch with some coworkers once and the guy beside me asked, “So what do you do on the weekends?” I answered, “Boring stuff. Woodworking, watching TV, stuff like that.” His response: “Huh. I figured you killed small animals or babies for fun.” He was only half kidding.