Our Own Individual Personal Philosophy of Autism
sartresue
Veteran
Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Age: 69
Gender: Female
Posts: 6,313
Location: The Castle of Shock and Awe-tism
Autful of wonder topic
I find something positive about my AS everyday. Today it revolves around sticking to my to-do list. Good to get things done!!
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Radiant Aspergian
Awe-Tistic Whirlwind
Phuture Phounder of the Philosophy Phactory
NOT a believer of Mystic Woo-Woo
Whatever I have (PDD-NOS would be the likely diagnosis, I suspect), it's something that intrinsically defines who I am and what I like, and I'm happy with that, and I hope others who are similar can be happy with that as well. The challenges that it presents involve holding myself back from being social even when want to be social, and otherwise avoiding self-advancement out of confusion and fear of the many things that I don't understand.
The Philosophy of Glider18:
Asperger's/autism is a difference that has the potential to give us many gifts if we accept them, nurture them, and utilize them. I choose to focus my attention on the positives that Asperger's has given to me and to pay less attention to its challenges. No one, NT or autistic, is given a perfect hand of cards in which to play the game of life. I will use my good cards, not my bad cards, to play this game. I do not want cured of my autism because autism to me is a difference, not a disease, not a defect, not a disorder. However, I respect the views of others in regard to autism because no two people are alike, and how I feel about my life may not be how others feel about their lives. My journey has just begun.
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Agree with you.
No one is given a perfect deck of cards with which to play the game of life so to speak.
Life - From the proverbial cradle to the grave...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_of_Life (board game - symbol of life)
My personal feeling is that some persons are born with what are called subtle neurological challenges/whatever: Asperger/Autism/ADHD, etc.
There are no cures.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/deve ... ities.html
http://www.associatedconditionsofcerebralpalsy.com/
and so on.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptation
http://askjan.org/media/adhd.html
http://askjan.org/
Persons can very gradually recognize/become aware of the symptoms often over many years.
http://www.hbo.com/movies/temple-grandin/index.html (autism)
My thinking is, autism is simply a label for a set of traits. It's useful because learning about autism can help us understand various different individuals. Even people who wouldn't qualify for a diagnosis but have some traits. And it's a way of sharing knowledge of what works and what doesn't for people with these traits, or for helping people with these traits.
It's not, though, a thing the way HIV is. It has both multiple causes (with different people having different combinations) and multiple appearances, all under one label because we've made that label.
And I see it as a set of related disabilities. I think sometimes, people can overcome an autistic disability, with a lot of work. Sometimes they can learn to accommodate it without fully overcoming it. And maybe sometimes neither is possible.
In one sense, autism is very real, it has a reality beyond being a social construct. The things people with autism can't do that most people can, those are real. (And I don't mean things like can't ride a bus, can't drive, but the deeper down disabilities behind them.)
In another sense, it's a social construct. It exists because we (humans) created it. It's not simply something we've discovered. It's something that is what it is because we define it that way. Maybe in the future we can move towards more discovering and describing it rather than defining it. (Or, do more discovering to move towards describing.)
Given this idea of autism, and what it is, I don't think it's wrong for me to see myself as in some sense autistic even if I don't fit the classic pattern. I'm somewhere in the realm of people with autistic traits, even if not in the realm of people who fit the official definition. I can use knowledge about autism to understand myself, and my life experiences, and the struggles I've had.
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not aspie, not NT, somewhere in between
Aspie Quiz: 110 Aspie, 103 Neurotypical.
Used to be more autistic than I am now.
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