FWIW, I have the diagnosis, and a lot of what Neikirk said (not all) resonated with me.
Gee, I think maybe I was right about you wanting to feel righteous. :rolleyes:
And just to make shit stranger I meet pretty much all the aspects of AS yet LOVE change, I love new experiences and get bored easily.
And oh fuck me about the labels and commercialized bullshit, there are a ton of adults like me who grew up in a time when no one knew about AS. We got labled ADHD, or retarded or autistic(obviously retarded was slang non professionals would use). The country I live in no one even cares about AS, they had PSAs recently explaining profound autism. So yea I am looking for a label to use, sure.
Asperger’s Syndrome didn’t even “officially” exist until DSM-IV, which I think was published in 1994 or so.
And next thing you know, you may be looking for some other label to use. Have y’all heard that DSM-V, which is supposed to be published some time Real Soon Now, has discarded Asperger’s Syndrome?
(Not sure how DSM-V will deal with all the people who are diagnosed with Asperger’s under DSM-IV.)
When did it become a thing for people say someone is Aspergers? A person has Asperger’s (or Asperger’s syndrome to be precise). They, themselves aren’t Aspergers.
I apologize in advance as this is not at all the point of this thread, but saying someone is Aspergers is annoying, and stops me in my tracks every time.
Carry on.
Although I think that if someone is going to profit from their story as a person with AS, as the blogger has, they should get confirmation from a qualified practitioner regarding any self-diagnoses, I don’t blame someone for not going through the trouble. It’s expensive to go the doctor if you don’t have insurance (which is typical if you don’t have a job or you’re underemployed). It’s hard to find someone skilled and experienced enough to render a good diagnosis.
For a lot of adults it is also pretty pointless, they had to learn TO learn social skills the hard way and are no longer troubled by AS for the most part. They can hold a job, have learned to imitate social back and forth, and are functional in life.
So getting diagnosed is expensive and doesn’t really serve a purpose unlike with a child.
Last time i heard, there was a lot of money being put into education and training in some places, which may make diagnosis worthwhile
Probably just lump them in under the general Pervasive Development Disorders category (which includes things like “pure” autism).
Diagnosis, even as an adult, still has value. There are a lot people out there who’ve managed to get by for years, but have had a lot of struggles, lost jobs, failed (or nonexistent) relationships, etc. - finding out that they have some spectrum disorder can be VERY eye-opening. It can help them understand why life has been such a challenge, and help them with therapy to “learn to speak the languaqe”. Not to mention, some SSRIs (antidepressants) are or were used to treat some of the behavioral issues (I don’t honestly recall what they do, as my son never needed them).
Oh - and re armchair diagnosis: My son has autism. He’s fairly high-functioning now - is even going off to college in a few days (EEEEKKKKKK). When he was a toddler, however, he was a pretty challenging kid. As we started to do research, read books etc., and began to understand the nuances, we saw a lot of similarities in our own behavior, social cluelessness, etc.
Do we have autism / Asperger’s? I doubt it - not a clinically significant case, at least. Do we have Aspie tendencies? oh hell yeah.
I think the language comparison is a very apt one, and one I’ve seen elsewhere. A neurotypical kid grows up learning the “social language” as he goes, an Aspie is plunked down at age 7 with a little bit of language study. Someone with autism is plunked down at age 16, and if their autism is severe enough they don’t care that they don’t speak the language.
[total hijack]
Go Dweezil!
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Do people with Asperger’s tend to get along well with other people with Asperger’s? I understand that of course a lot of it will come down to individual personalities, just like with the rest of us, but is it like a breath of fresh air meeting somebody else who doesn’t “speak the language?”
Sometimes, yes.
If the other person has problems in an area where you don’t, they can come off as annoying to you as you probably are to other people.
My son has Asperger’s. If he is comfortable with you he talks non-stop, if he doesn’t he wont say a word. He complains that he doesn’t have a girl friend, but he misses the social cues given out by the girls who are interested in him. He will talk his head off on all the subjects he’s interested in, but draws a blank when asked about the trips to the East Coast and what he did there. He is beginning to be more social but he can’t remeber who he talked to. He is 23, he still has problems with sensory overload, he hates change, he needs to be told what chores he has to do individualy, you can’t just tell him to clean the kitchen or his room or else he freezes and gets fustrated, then nothing gets done. I love my son but I wish he would give me hugs and kisses without me asking for them.
It’s hard on the parents to raise a child with Asperger’s. It is heart breaking to see him strugle with the simple things, like cooking and cleaning. He does well on some but not on others. I would love to see him succeed in life, but it’s an uphill battle. He is going to college taking 1 course at a time. So that is a good thing.
Instead of spreading misinformation, you could have just googled it. There’s a proposition to officially call people who are currently diagnosed with asperger’s autistic, instead. It’s not that the condition is being “discarded,” it’s a real disorder and it still will be. It’s merely that some psychologists have proposed calling that disorder “high-functioning autism” instead of “asperger’s syndrome.”
Wow I think I experience that with my wife, she will just be spouting unclear tasks she is asking me to do and I am just like I am like format your requests in a sequential and unambiguous nature.
Except, as Ive’ pointed out before, high functioning autism already exists and is a different disorder. They aren’t renaming it, they’re lumping it in with another disorder. Which, essentially, is the same thing as discarding the diagnosis.
It is what you let it be. I had it as a teenager, but I don’t base my identity on it, and I honestly believe you can make an effort to mature out of it. Aside from my relationship with my girlfriend, which seems to have happened purely by luck, I don’t have enough of a social life to even notice any differences between myself and anyone else.