Asperger's dating statistics

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Cognitive Psychology. I think, in some ways, it hurt me even more socially in grad school to be in Psychology because most of the people I was around understood social behavior (being psychology grad students, most of them in Social Psychology) and I was pretty clueless about it. My grad school years might have been better if I majored in something like Physics instead.

It's almost like you're rebelling against your profession.

In what way?

The CBT approach is similar to my approach. This is what you teach: cognitive psychology.

As far as I know, the "cognitive" approach would be to state "what happened in the past, is in the past. You have to think towards the future."

You are choosing, now, to let the past bother you. To let yourself regret the past.

Which is in opposition to the whole notion of Cognitive Psychology (as far as I know--as I'm not an expert on it).

I VISCERALLY feel that people should stop regretting the Past. The mistakes of the Past are inevitable; people learn from them. My mother can't "let go." She's living a good life now; but it wasn't a good life a long time ago. She can't "let go."

You had trouble getting girls in the Past. You probably learned, eventually, how to get a girl. I think it's a useless exercise to reflect upon your mistakes without knowing that they are learning experiences.

I am familiar with CBT. One of my therapists is big into it, and I have taught about it in various classes. It is one of those things that looks much easier to do on paper than in real life. You just have to change the way you think-not always so easy, though. I was teaching my undergraduate Cognitive Psychology class today about automatic processing-behaviors and such that many times occur without intention. You can't always prevent them from happening, like reading interfering with color naming in the Stroop Task-you can't look at a letter string and not read it if it makes a word which you recognize.

Unfortunately the same thing can occur with thoughts. We see it with stereotypes, where just seeing a person from a particular group will automatically trigger stereotypes associated with that group. The same can happen with thoughts about yourself. Aaron Beck mentions negative automatic thoughts in his theory of depression, and how they serve to keep a negative self schema in place. I am not overly familiar with his theory, but probably need to read on how he said to stop the negative automatic thoughts.

I was listening to a program on our college radio station a couple of weeks ago about PTSD. One of the researchers said that a symptom of PTSD is a distortion of time. Instead of experiencing a linear flow of time, people suffering from PTSD experience it in a more circular fashion. Instead of staying in the present, their thinking keeps returning to the past. I need to explore that more fully during therapy tomorrow. I know that one of the symptoms of Asperger's can be obsessing about past failures as well. I suppose if someone suffered from both, it could sure be a double whammy.

The CBT therapist I see said that I am in his top 10 patients of all time when it comes to ruminating about the past. I guess that is something that it isn't good to be above average in.

I know what you say about me staying in the present is correct, and I really try to do it. It is tough with these negative thoughts coming up much of the time. From what a couple of different therapists have told me, my dating history wasn't atypical once I described it to them. I can think of some friends I had who didn't seem to have any better success than I did, but some did also. From some reason, I had a bad habit of making friends with some guys who were incredibly good looking, so women would just thrown themselves at them. I guess that biased my view of what was kind of normal in college.

It doesn't help having a 12 year old daughter, because every song she listens to is about teenage romance-I want to scream sometimes "yeah, just go ahead and rub it in some more!" Her oppositional defiant disorder does wear me out from time to time also.

I did have the thought today that I can't go back and fix anything from the past, but I can make sure that I have the best relationship possible in the present. That is the kind of thinking I need to do more.

Have you had many Aspergians in your classes?

I've heard some professors speak about "managing" Aspergians.

Do you feel that you have to "manage" Aspergians because they speak out of turn in class, or have sensory difficulties in class?

I'm wondering: maybe you're on this Site to escape from being a professor; instead, perhaps you want to be a "person" within this Site, rather than a professor?

I have never had anyone in my classes self-identify as having Asperger's, and I can't remember ever getting a student accommodation letter about someone with Asperger's. I don't seem to have real unmanageable behavior in my classes, but I have heard some interesting stories from other professors in my department.

I have only known 1 person who shared with me that they had Asperger's. Unfortunately he moved away over the summer. I would have loved to have talked more to him about it.

I think I am here to learn more about my condition, the challenges that others face, and how they overcome with. I was only diagnosed with Asperger's 8 months ago or so, so that hasn't been a long time to process this and all of its implications. I have learned a lot, though. I am reading Tony Attwood's book "The complete guide to Asperger's" and it has been eye opening. I didn't realize how socially impaired I was until I started reading. I was always able to make a few friends whereever I was. In college and grad school I had quite a few friends who were females, so I wasn't completely repulsive to that half of the population. I can guess that at least 3 females found me attractive-my wife and 2 past girlfriends.

From what you wrote, it seems, while you might not have had "optimal" social skills, that you were within the range of "normal variation"-- especially for Academia. Have you ever had sensory difficulties? Or difficulty managing your affairs (also known as "executive dysfunction")?

Tony Attwood is an Aspergers prodigy--almost as if Aspergers is his "special interest."

You should also read Hans Asperger himself, and Lorna Wing. Temple Grandin is also useful.

I don't recall any sensory difficulties, although I don't handle a lot of conflict in our house very well. It gets me very stressed. I will have to think about about the executive functions. I do have concentration problems. Can't read a book or magazine for extended periods of time. I don't believe it is ADHD as I wasn't like this as a kid. I think it is probably some form of brain damage from all the alcohol and Marijuana I did.

Have you got tenure?

If so, I find that you're in a pretty good position vis-a-vis life. Despite your Asperger's, you've succeeded where many have failed. Frankly, eccentricity isn't as tolerated as it was in the past.

I have an NT friend (though he's somewhat schizoid and paranoid in his outlook) who will never obtain tenure because he's having trouble getting into a doctoral program. I don't understand why. He also won't "sell out" by doing lectures in symposia for free; he insists on getting paid! He exhibits similar stubborness in regard to publishing a paper. That's essential, these days, if one wants to get tenure.

Yes, I received tenure in 2006. I do realize that I have advanced beyond what many people are able to do in the professional sense, and am pretty well set for life, barring any major screwups on my part. People at work say that my social skills are good enough. I don't suffer from social anxiety where I can't get up and give a presentation at a conference or work, or teach class. I have learned enough of the political rules of academia to get by well enough. People in my department even label me as really intelligent, which is pretty good when it comes from others in academia with Ph.Ds.

My social impairment really showed up in Junior High. By high school it seemed to be getting better. I still wasn't overly popular but few are, and at least I wasn't being bullied anymore. I have always been able to make at least a few friends, and in college was able to get a bid to pledge a fraternity and survived the hazing that went with it.

I really do wish I could base my self assessment on what I have accomplished professionally and the social successes that I did have. I never really had it as a goal in life to do well professionally or to be set financially for life. I just didn't think about those things very much. Maybe that is why I don't value it to the degree I should. I was telling my wife the other day that the reason I got a Ph.D was because I was unable to do anything else at the time. I know that sounds strange, but once I hit high school everything clicked academically and I could just succeed in school with virtually no effort. I did nothing in college but drink, smoke pot, get in trouble, and graduated with a 3.3 GPA. It would have been higher had I not started out as a chemistry major instead. Up until the time I got my Master's degree I was so far into drinking and drugs that I wouldn't have been able to hold any regular job. That is the main reason I stayed in graduate school and kept getting degrees. Even today, I don't think I would function real well in a 8 to 5 sit in a cubical all day job. I guess I could make it work if I had to, but fortunately, I don't have to.

I realize that we all have strengths and weaknesses, and I have some really good strengths. The thing that bothers me is that the weakness I have/had (romance and social interactions) was the one area I really wanted to be good in, if for nothing else than to prove everyone who bullied me wrong, and to change the very negative self image I had of myself.

I hope someday to be able to repair my self image over all of this. It was actually pretty good for quite a few years after marriage. Back in 2011 I was teaching a Developmental Psychology class over the summer, and everything was going pretty well until we hit the chapter on adolescence. I don't even remember all of what the chapter said, but I do remember getting the impression that teenagers were screwing like a bunch of rabbits, and that really got me back to realizing how I didn't do very good in terms of romance or sex during my adolescence and even young adult years. I suppose in the end it was beneficial in that it got me back in therapy to finally work on some of the issues that I had buried for some time.

LOL....People who screw like rabbits--make babies like rabbits.

That's all one would have to say about that.

I'm glad you have a good perspective as to your accomplishments. I think you're 3/4's of the way towards the "recovery" which you desire.

At least you're not one of those who wallow within the "Ivory Tower."

Just got back from my therapy appointment. She does think that my obsessing over past relationships, or the lack thereof, is a PTSD reaction. I obsess over it because that is/was something that I felt no control over. Also, that due to the sexual abuse early in life, I was always looking for someway to validate that I was ok, because I felt damaged and somehow no ok. I can live with that. Guess I mostly validated it in other ways. I guess some people do value money and/or good retirement benefits. They might envy me for that

You worked for your doctorate. You played the academic game. You did well enough to get tenure. Tenure is not handed out randomly, or on a silver platter.

Don't begrudge yourself for getting retirement benefits. If somebody begrudges you, tell them to pound sand.

I certainly don't--though I didn't work as hard, nor did I have to play the "game" too much. I'm a civil service clerical worker, and will retire in a few years with a decent pension. I've been on my same job 34 years.

I did get a bachelor's in speech pathology/English. I graduated Magna cum laude. I didn't work my butt off most of the time. I had a few one-nighters--but that's it.

Just don't get a swell head, that's all!

Eh? Your chance could have been 99%. That doesn't mean it had to occur. There was a 1% chance that it wouldn't. Only at 100% would it necessarily occur.

Your trolling is cute.