Adults with Aspergers Seem 'Normal' to Me

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For me, the accommodations are quite attractive. I would be given more time for exams, which are very time-intensive exercises. I would also be able to have a note-taker for class, which would be a godsend as I cannot write/type and listen at the same time. But, in order to qualify for these, I have to admit to having a condition that many people conflate with a disease. I'm essentially required to get a diagnosis from a psychiatrist, psychologist, or a social worker trained in autism disorders. I would be ok with going to the social worker, but I would have a problem with needing a doctor's excuse.

I get that the idea is that if anyone could get the accommodations it would defeat their purpose, but I think that idea is flawed. If the goal of a school is to facilitate learning, then it should be open to accommodating all reasonable student needs, whether they have been medically defined or not. Someone who gets extra nervous when they take a test ought to be given an extra few minutes on a test, not because of any medical reason, but because that's the fair thing to do. Put another way, from the school's perspective, it would be embarrassing if its tests failed to accurately assess the knowledge of its students. So giving a person who gets nervous more time than someone who does not in fact is more fair, and more accurate. Too bad we have these reptilian-brained ideas about fairness, which views any difference of outward treatment with suspicion.

Don't take this the wrong way here, I am just generalizing from a personal experience, but psychopaths can seem really nice and like a normal person and then turn out the way you didn't imagine once you get to know them. A relative of mine met a man at work who seemed really nice, he asked her out for a meal at a nearby pub, and was very pleasent to her and we all liked him, and he even came across as very helpful. But when he got involved with my relative, he turned out to be a control-freak, a woman-beater, a paedophile, and got my relative into over £5,000 debt. He took her 10-year-old daughter and had sex with her - and he got away with it. That's the problem with these sorts of people, though - they only act really sweet in first impressions in order to get involved with a person and treat them like s**t (especially if it's a gullible person). This is very wrong indeed, which is why you got to be careful with who you're getting in with.

Some of us Aspies, on the other hand, act normal in order to fit into society because we don't want to be excluded or ridiculed, which is not wrong at all.
So it's like some mild Aspies can seem like an NT, then when you get to know them you notice some quirks and some odd ways.

This is why I only have a very small circle of friends. Making friends is very limited for me. I either get involved with bad people who end up bullying me because of my quirks, or I find nice people who look past my quirks and just be my friend, which is what I want.

It also depends on the self-awareness. I've got a lot of self-awareness to the extent of NTs, which is why I always get so confused when people keep staring at me in public, because I can behave normal and put on an NT front and wear things that make me blend in with the rest and I know what is generally acceptable and what isn't, so this is why I write endless threads asking why I get it.

Speaking from experience here, my problems go quite beyond laziness, identity, etc. I tok several attempts to get registered to WrongPlanet. Why? Those visual puzzles ( I am quite good at word puzzles. ironically) just drive me crazy. I do not seem to be able to remember them. It is part of a sensory issue.
It amazes me how many people on here seem to ignore decades of research proving these disorders are biological. We have been there, and Done That as the T-shirt says.
In NO WAY are my difficulties the result of identity confusion, laziness or personality disorder ( though I believed they were when I was in my twenties. Lots of wasted time trying approaches for that).

Sincerely,
Matthew

i can order over the phone, but i have problems answering the door (and the phone if someone calls - i panic).

Where I'm at, you'd get those accommodations at exams rather easily. If you have severe stress during an exam, and can "prove it" by getting a statement from your doctor, you'll get extended time. I don't think a formal diagnosis of any sort is needed just for those "basic" accommodations, but you do have to involve a doctor or therapist so they know you're not trying to "cheat". If you need a laptop due to dyslexia, you'll get it. I get my own room with better (sadly not great, but at least it helps somewhat) lighting conditions, extended time, and a black mat on my desk if the table is white. If there's ever a spoken examination, I'll qualify for getting a written one instead. I'm allowed to not say anything during project presentations, and just take care of the PowerPoint presentation or something like that instead. I tend to do more than my share in projects anyway, since I usually demand to do my part alone. So if I do the theoretical part, I do *all* the theory. Oh, and people even get extended time for pollen allergies. In December.

Accommodations outside of exams are more difficult to get, but any significant disability (including mood disorders, AD(H)D, ASDs, physical impairment, etc, etc) will make you qualify for at least counseling and a study assistant (usually just extra private classes with a third-year or higher student). I've only asked for the first, since having people explain things to me usually doesn't help. I need to figure stuff out on my own. I've never heard of anyone getting a note taking assistant, but you're allowed to record classes, as far as I understand. Most professors use a document camera instead of the whiteboard anyway, and scan the notes after class so students can download them. The ones who don't are still required to publish extensive notes, so they just increase their own workload by writing everything twice. And lose popularity if their published notes aren't as good as the whiteboard ones...

I'm satisfied with the accommodations in my university at least. I belong to the group who at one point just "tried harder" (which usually means to pretend one's problems aren't there, instead of overcoming them - I was diagnosed for bipolar disorder, but waited several years with seeking an AS diagnosis), and the results were numerous stays at the psych ward, postponed exams almost every term, and in the end spending almost six years on a three-year Bachelor of Arts. In addition, that degree is a combination of classes from two different programs, so in reality, I am a Bachelor of Nothing. It qualifies for interesting conversation (to the frustration of every small-talker I meet), but not a job other than teaching or further studies that will only qualify me for academia, and barely that due to lack of specialization. The vocational counselors at the social security office took a look at my resume, planned on telling me to become a teacher, took a look at my diagnosis and told me to get a new degree. I very much agreed. I deeply regret I didn't accept my *disability* earlier, as it would've spared me a lot of time, energy and lost opportunities. Our current society makes that disability worse, by emphasizing social ability, stress handling and so on more than it ever did (a prime example of the latter is having everyone work in the same, big hall instead of separate offices). I'm sure the increase of diagnoses isn't only caused by awareness, but also by ASDs being more noticeable due to changes in our society. That doesn't mean it's not a disability, since 1) the problems would be there in another society too, they'd just be somewhat more manageable (I'd probably have less sensory problems if I lived before phosphorescent light was invented, but I'd still hate being outside on a sunny day), and 2) disability is measured against the demands of current society. Being formally disabled has opened doors to a career through social security financing a new degree, it has given me the accommodations and support I need to get through the degree (hopefully) without spending six years on it, and it has given me and those around me an explanation for why I am like I am.

The discussion about eating, or not, is very interesting.

I have a cousin, not autistic, who forgets to eat. It first became an issue when she left home to go to uni and ended up in hospital after fainting repeatedly. After that her parents visited regularly to stock her fridge and phoned to remind her to eat. She's now in her late forties. A few years ago her husband was away on business for a month and before he left he cooked and froze food for her, and phoned every day to remind her to eat. He had also left written instructions telling her how to defrost and cook the food.

This is someone who has to be reminded to eat and how prepare food, and she is also someone with a very successful career with a huge multinational company who last year bought a house for about £1.5 million, cash.

Why does she forget to eat?

That is very interesting.

No, not my vision, my visual processing: i.e., the ability to make sense out of what I was seeing.
I do wear glasses, and I was wearing them at the time. I was seeing everything, but I couldn't integrate what I was seeing into a whole scene that made sense.

Painkillers don't do anything, especially not in the half hour in between getting off the bus and seeing my first student.

It's not the job that overloads my senses, it's the bus ride there, particularly if it coincides with a lot of children being on the bus.
Walking to work makes things a lot better.

I do try to avoid overload, but sometimes it just isn't possible. If I don't work, I don't eat.
If I don't go to the shops to buy food, I don't eat, because noone is going to do it for me.

@ League Girl (can't quote on iPad)

My cousin doesn't feel hunger and unlike others who've posted here and most people I know, she doesn't get shaky or have headaches to remind her that she's not eaten for ages. Also, she's always busy with other things so although she knows intellectually she needs to eat, food is way down her list of priorities to the extent that she just overlooks it.

I am similar in that if I am busy I forget to eat and don't feel hungry. I can get to the end of a busy day and realise that I've not eaten all day but I don't feel hungry. My son, who has AS, very rarely says he is hungry so it can be easy to forget to feed him too. I make sure we eat regularly, but if our schedule is disrupted we both forget.

My mom says I was never hungry but I do feel when I am starving and then I say I am hungry and I have always loved sweets and preferred them and desserts. As a kid I would never ask for food she said but yet when she make us food and call us down to eat, I would eat, same as when I see my brothers eat, I would eat so it was never a problem for my mother that I was "never hungry." Now as an adult it becomes a problem because it never comes to my head to eat and when it does, it's a chore to remember and to do it. But I never let myself get so hungry I get sick because when I starve I will eat. Occasionally I will feel sick to my stomach due to lack of food for weeks despite the fact I do eat every day. I am not sure if this is autism related or just one of my quirks. My mother says it's just who I am. I always thought hunger meant starving and I thought that was hunger. Then at age 23 I learned from my husband that is not hunger, that is beyond hunger and I realized "What does hunger feel like? I don't think I have ever felt it."

My mother has tried showing me cues for when I am hungry but I keep thinking in my head "How do I know for sure that is a sign of hunger than a sign of something else like lack of sleep or stress. I don't want to over eat."


I know a solution to that is eat on schedule but I forget and it's a chore to follow. It was a lot easier eating when I was pregnant but I failed to eat every two hours and I still had a healthy baby and I was free from health problems. But I was very dehydrated and I lost weight during my pregnancy despite the fact I had gained weight.

I don't forget to eat for days at a time but sometimes I get really into doing something and don't realize that I haven't eaten or drank all day until I start feeling sick and dizzy from it.

I was weird about lunch (never dinner! breakfast was too often sweet cereal of some child brand or something). I would eat sandwiches if they were cut into quarters, but I always left the crust. I hated that. I also despised peanutbutter because the sticking to the roof of my mouth. Anything that did that could cause me to panic. It also seems I have hypersensitivity in areas of my mouth. Also, I hated mayonaise. It actively gagged me, no matter how hard I tried to please my mother. I truly died not want to hurt her feelings, but.. I could not eat these blasted things. And she would give me the same thing over & over, and over to were I would become intolerant of that food item.
I also hated pizza when I was a kid. Now how sick is that? One of the greatest food ever made! I love it now.
I tolerate more foods these days, but I cannot eat a lot of them anymore because of my Crohn's. Damn! I got to where eating was a real source of pleasure. And it got taken away from me.
Irony sucks!

Sincerely,
Matthew

I've also have had vision overload problems my entire life. I do wear glasses, but that has nothing to do with it. Several days ago I was walking across a parking lot toward the entrance of a store. It was noon time and the bright sun was directly overhead. When I got about 20 feet from the entrance, suddenly my vision just went white. It felt like I was staring directly into the sun. I just keep on walking and when I got to the door, my vision corrected and I could see just fine.

That was a little unusual for me, but not the first time it has happened. Sometimes I just get blind spots in front of my eyes. So I can't see objects right in front of me. All I can do is close my eyes, and rest them until my vision gets back to normal. Fortunately it doesn't happen very often, and when it does, doesn't last very long.

And who decides if what I have is a significant disability? A checklist in the DSM.
Don't get me wrong. I don't believe that doctors are bad people or misguided or anything. They are caught up in this push to medicalize everything in society. I just don't like that I either have to suffer, or admit that I have what many many people feel is a disease. I'm of course going to do what I need to do get accommodations, it just troubles me. I've found this to be true of many things in life.



It's not a note-taking assistant, the school pays another student in your section $15 to send a copy of their notes to the accessability office, who give it a quick look, and send it to you. You don't know who the note-taker is. One of my professors has difficulty putting hyperlinks in emails, so published notes are out of the question. It's law school, so everyone has a laptop anyway. My current method is to just sit and listen in class, but recording is a hassle bc you have to ask permission, and not all profs give it. (in an era of youtube and selective editing, I can see why).

-

Same here. In my case it meant taking mediocre results instead of excelling. I got my degree ok, and had a decent enough job for 5 years, but I wanted a bigger challenge. So now Im in law school, and I can't overcome on my own anymore. I can't even get mediocre results. So I'm seeing a counselor for the first time a week from monday, once finals are over. I'm going to request an ASD evaluation. I think if I can just deal with the depression and anxiety, I can cope with the AS well enough.



bingo



Agree 100%. My only point is that any inequality could be argued as a disability. I can't run long distances, if I lived in a society which required running a lot, such as a hunter-gatherer society, would I be disabled? You could certainly argue that. But that just proves my point- disability is normative. I don't like that my departure from social norms is given a medical context, and is in fact referred to as a disease by many people.



Also agree that I believe that I can indeed excel given the proper tools and accommodations. I don't like that in order for my school to help me, they need a medical reason, rather than simply an educational one.

No, but if the seizures are chronic, that is an indication of epilepsy.

Last edited by Max000 on 27 Apr 2012, 9:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

No, but if the seizures are chronic, that is an indication epilepsy.