Do not feel upset if diagnosed with Asperger's

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alcohol cures EVERYTHING.

but in all seriousness im more indifferent about serious paraniod disorders, and depersonalization disorders

It sounds kind of like escapism to me, not wanting to deal with the reality that you do in fact have AS... focusing on being someone else instead of yourself, instead of trying to make the world work for you the way you are. But you were a kid; you really can't be blamed, especially not with the extremely negative perception the world has of disability.

AS is an atypical brain function. It does not change, anymore than it can be cured. Whatever challenges and obstacles it presents will be with you all your life. Coping mechanisms can be learned, but the disability is never going to go away.




Thus there can never be an absolute 'norm', therefore there are no 'normal people'. Everybody's got issues. This is not news.



An atypical brain function is organic, it is not a mental disease. It is a mental handicap caused by a physical disability.


Thanks, Juan, for your inspirational and supportive words. While many come here to vent and complain about the particular difficulties that AS causes, to people we know can understand because they deal with the same issues (which is what WP is for - that's why its called a support group), I think most of us realize that we're not the only people in the world with problems.

On the other hand, the biggest obstacles with which we struggle are not the things that we can or can't do - though those are often significant - its the way our inability to read signals and communicate them causes others to treat us that is the most emotionally debilitating over the course of a lifetime, and inspirational speeches will not change that.

"Just keep trying and everything will work out" sounds good on paper. Tell me that when you're fifty and the society you live in has trodden on you, rejected you, used you for their own benefit and then left you behind to fend for yourself. Tell me that when you do everything you're supposed to do by the book and some bully decides to prevent you from accomplishing a goal that will allow you to work for a living just because you stim a bit, or don't always look him in the eye. You can try all you want - you can even DO exactly what the world demands and still be blocked from succeeding because of the way AS causes others to perceive and react to you.

When there's no reason to get up in the morning because there are a strictly limited number of things one can do constructively and none of those options are open to us, then tell us unicorns and rainbows will make everything all right. After we've appealed to our state representatives and congressmen for help and they try to placate us with platitudes and turn their backs, how exactly does "just keep trying" serve us then?

I've been told all my life that I could do whatever anyone else could do if I 'just tried', and you know what? It was B**LS**T then and its B**LS**T now. If 'just trying' would solve my problem, then I wouldn't actually have a handicap, would I?

That's a lovely way of describing it Juan. Thank you

Your intent seems pretty correct, but I think the way you're saying it is a little off. AS does change, because people themselves change. Just like a neurotypical child does not have the same brain function as a neurotypical adult, an autistic child does not have the same brain function as an autistic adult. In some cases, that can mean that an adult with autistic brain patterns, who was impaired as a child, might not be impaired as an adult. Given good education (perhaps even good self-education; many of us are good at teaching ourselves) and a decent environment, autistic children will reach their potential, increasing in skill and knowledge as they grow. That's the cause for the "lost diagnosis", in many cases. People with all sorts of brain disorders lose their diagnosis that way. People with mild dyslexia learn to read at an average level; people with low IQs can become self-supporting and completely independent and no longer be diagnosable as mentally ret*d.

This doesn't mean that your brain loses its autistic configuration. But the idea that autistic adults are going to be just like they were as children (and, for that matter, be the same decades later as they are now), is a myth often spread by autism "charities" who like to raise money with fear-and-pity publicity. Autistic people do grow up and change and learn, and they become, as any human being does, gradually more and more capable as they learn to do things. You can't even predict a child's adult functioning, because our development itself is often so atypical that we may be simultaneously behind and ahead of others our age, or start behind and eventually surpass our peers' abilities; or plateau for years before finally "getting it"; or even learn the traditional milestones completely out of order. But we do grow and learn; and I'm really getting quite sick of the supposed charities putting out the myth that we don't.

My mom's told me I could do anything but I don't believe it. If anyone could do anything, then we (all people and us) all can be scientists or vets or doctors or mathematicians, etc. So I have no idesa what she meant by "anything."

some of us do not want our chemistries changed

It's good.
If you don't want to be changed.
Then stay the same.
Be what you want to be.
That will be great!!

I'm sure that there are people whose lives are decent, and they're not upset about having AS. People who see it as a part of themselves and they like themselves, and they like their own talents.

However, the way I see it, being upset about having AS is better than being upset about being yourself. As I child, I would constantly wish to be other people. I would then spend great amounts of time pondering this concept; if it was me in there body, then eventually I wouldn't actually be them, but just be me, because I'd still act like me and think like me. If I were actually them, I wouldn't be them, they would still be them, because it would still be them in their body, and no me. I suppose my overall wish was just not to have AS. But since I didn't know I had it, I simply wished not to be myself. I find it a bit easier to conceptualize, that while it may be part of me, it's more than that. It's not me inherently being bad or wrong or anything, but having a disorder and disability that, while it is part of me, is also in some ways an entity of it's own.

I'm very unsure that I'm putting this correctly, but I'm not totally sure how I should put it.. I'm pretty tired now, though, so I'm not thinking too well. Long day.