wefunction
Christian Soccer Mom
Joined: Jan 05, 2011
Age: 36
Posts: 2486
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 Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 7:55 am Post subject: |
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| ruveyn wrote: | How would one classify NT coin or stamp collectors. Are they not attached to physical objects?
I know an NT who loves his sports car more than his kids.
ruveyn |
It's faulty logic to presume that symptomatic behavior for Aspergers Syndrome could only be associated with Aspergers Syndrome. Aspergers Syndrome is defined by more than one symptomatic behavior and is often an unique mixture of several different behaviors that, together, can define a diagnosis for a patient. It is not unusual for any individual with or without any disorder to have an isolated behavior. If one claims that AS patients may have an attachment to objects, one is not automatically claiming that those without AS have no attachments to physical objects.
That said, collecting can be a compulsive behavior, not one of specific attachment. There are several disorders that may include compulsive behavior, including Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Not all Hoarders have AS, and yet they have an extreme difficulty with functioning without compulsively collecting objects.
There must also be a healthy consideration for collecting. An individual may not possess an unhealthy attachment to or an unhealthy need to acquire objects for their collection. It may simply be a hobby that, if a hurricane were to wash it away or financial struggles make it necessary to sell, the collector could let go of the objects. Often when such symptomatic behaviors are discussed for a disorder, they interfere with that individual's ability to function in life. There are plenty of collectors who experience no interference.
As far as your straw man example of the NT who loves sports cars more than his kids, it's quite possible that he may have a disorder. Or he may just be an as*hole with screwed up priorities who lacks parenting skills. Arguing based on this one guy can conclude nothing here. |
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anbuend
Oak-Type Autie
Joined: Jul 06, 2004
Age: 32
Posts: 5482
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| Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 10:38 am Post subject: |
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| wefunction wrote: | | ruveyn wrote: | How would one classify NT coin or stamp collectors. Are they not attached to physical objects?
I know an NT who loves his sports car more than his kids.
ruveyn |
It's faulty logic to presume that symptomatic behavior for Aspergers Syndrome could only be associated with Aspergers Syndrome. Aspergers Syndrome is defined by more than one symptomatic behavior and is often an unique mixture of several different behaviors that, together, can define a diagnosis for a patient. It is not unusual for any individual with or without any disorder to have an isolated behavior. If one claims that AS patients may have an attachment to objects, one is not automatically claiming that those without AS have no attachments to physical objects. |
Thank you for explaining that. I've been seeing a lot on this board, of people saying things like "That can't be an autistic thing, because people who aren't autistic can do it too!" and I haven't had a clue how to explain that things don't work like that.
_________________
"In my world it's a place of patterns and feel. In my world it's a haven for what is real. It's my world, nobody can steal it, but people like me, we live in the shadows." -Donna Williams |
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Verdandi
Miss Kitty Fantastico
Joined: Dec 08, 2010
Posts: 10197
Location: University of California Sunnydale (fictional location - Real location Olympia, WA)
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| Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 10:45 am Post subject: |
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| anbuend wrote: | | wefunction wrote: | | ruveyn wrote: | How would one classify NT coin or stamp collectors. Are they not attached to physical objects?
I know an NT who loves his sports car more than his kids.
ruveyn |
It's faulty logic to presume that symptomatic behavior for Aspergers Syndrome could only be associated with Aspergers Syndrome. Aspergers Syndrome is defined by more than one symptomatic behavior and is often an unique mixture of several different behaviors that, together, can define a diagnosis for a patient. It is not unusual for any individual with or without any disorder to have an isolated behavior. If one claims that AS patients may have an attachment to objects, one is not automatically claiming that those without AS have no attachments to physical objects. |
Thank you for explaining that. I've been seeing a lot on this board, of people saying things like "That can't be an autistic thing, because people who aren't autistic can do it too!" and I haven't had a clue how to explain that things don't work like that. |
I've started and stopped several replies to a few people over this particular topic. I mean, yes, most autistic behaviors can be found in neurotypicals, but by definition enough autistic behaviors (and autistic neurology) is not found in neurotypicals, and picking traits one at a time and saying "NTs do those too" has no meaning. |
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kfisherx
Phoenix
Joined: Nov 04, 2010
Age: 49
Posts: 1192
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| Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 11:48 am Post subject: |
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| wefunction wrote: | | ruveyn wrote: | How would one classify NT coin or stamp collectors. Are they not attached to physical objects?
I know an NT who loves his sports car more than his kids.
ruveyn |
It's faulty logic to presume that symptomatic behavior for Aspergers Syndrome could only be associated with Aspergers Syndrome. Aspergers Syndrome is defined by more than one symptomatic behavior and is often an unique mixture of several different behaviors that, together, can define a diagnosis for a patient. It is not unusual for any individual with or without any disorder to have an isolated behavior. If one claims that AS patients may have an attachment to objects, one is not automatically claiming that those without AS have no attachments to physical objects.
That said, collecting can be a compulsive behavior, not one of specific attachment. There are several disorders that may include compulsive behavior, including Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Not all Hoarders have AS, and yet they have an extreme difficulty with functioning without compulsively collecting objects.
There must also be a healthy consideration for collecting. An individual may not possess an unhealthy attachment to or an unhealthy need to acquire objects for their collection. It may simply be a hobby that, if a hurricane were to wash it away or financial struggles make it necessary to sell, the collector could let go of the objects. Often when such symptomatic behaviors are discussed for a disorder, they interfere with that individual's ability to function in life. There are plenty of collectors who experience no interference.
As far as your straw man example of the NT who loves sports cars more than his kids, it's quite possible that he may have a disorder. Or he may just be an as*hole with screwed up priorities who lacks parenting skills. Arguing based on this one guy can conclude nothing here. |
I <3 this reply.... |
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anbuend
Oak-Type Autie
Joined: Jul 06, 2004
Age: 32
Posts: 5482
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| Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 11:56 am Post subject: |
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| Verdandi wrote: | | I've started and stopped several replies to a few people over this particular topic. I mean, yes, most autistic behaviors can be found in neurotypicals, but by definition enough autistic behaviors (and autistic neurology) is not found in neurotypicals, and picking traits one at a time and saying "NTs do those too" has no meaning. |
Another element of this that I have had trouble describing, is the fact that sometimes even when two groups of people do the same thing on a superficial level, they're doing it for totally different reasons.
Like social awkwardness.
A person can be socially awkward because they are autistic in a nonautistic world, nonautistic among a large group of autistic people, an immigrant, a new kid in town, a person who doesn't speak the most common language in the region very well, naturally shy and socially anxious, interacting with someone they have a crush on, and probably dozens more reasons.
These things are not equivalent to each other just because the result is superficially the same. They're just not.
_________________
"In my world it's a place of patterns and feel. In my world it's a haven for what is real. It's my world, nobody can steal it, but people like me, we live in the shadows." -Donna Williams |
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Verdandi
Miss Kitty Fantastico
Joined: Dec 08, 2010
Posts: 10197
Location: University of California Sunnydale (fictional location - Real location Olympia, WA)
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| Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 12:11 pm Post subject: |
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| anbuend wrote: |
These things are not equivalent to each other just because the result is superficially the same. They're just not. |
Yes, I completely agree. NTs who wear sunglasses every day probably do not experience the same consequences I do when they do not wear their sunglasses, even if they are sensitive to light. Odds are too much light won't cause them pain and amplify their other senses into increased hypersensitivity or disrupt their ability to think or push them into overload. It just may be they like sunglasses. For one example. |
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XFilesGeek
Pretentiousness personified.
Joined: Jul 25, 2010
Posts: 1792
Location: The Oort Cloud
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| Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 12:27 pm Post subject: |
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| Verdandi wrote: | | anbuend wrote: |
These things are not equivalent to each other just because the result is superficially the same. They're just not. |
Yes, I completely agree. NTs who wear sunglasses every day probably do not experience the same consequences I do when they do not wear their sunglasses, even if they are sensitive to light. Odds are too much light won't cause them pain and amplify their other senses into increased hypersensitivity or disrupt their ability to think or push them into overload. It just may be they like sunglasses. For one example. |
Agreed.
I get annoyed when people say things like, "Everybody stims!"
Granted, many NTs will tap a pencil, or bounce their leg when nervous or excited, but few NTs I'm aware of need to pace back and forth in their living rooms for hours, or excuse themselves in the middle of the work day so they can go to the restroom and flap. Personally, I NEED to stim, or I'm overcome by distraction and irritability. I highly doubt NTs suffer the same and saying such just clouds the issue.
_________________
"If we fail to anticipate the unforeseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything that cannot be programmed, categorized or easily referenced." |
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XLCR
Snowy Owl
Joined: Mar 23, 2011
Age: 57
Posts: 130
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| Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 1:23 pm Post subject: |
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| I have boxes of old magazines and a batch of useless odds and ends I can't seem to part with. Since my father died I've been clearing most of his stuff out of the house, and it looks much better, now if I can summon the willpower to keep going and get rid of the stuff I've collected I'll be doing good. |
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kx250rider
Educated Musclehead
Joined: May 16, 2010
Posts: 1954
Location: Dallas, TX and Ventura County, CA
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| Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 1:42 pm Post subject: |
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Sounds normal (for us)... I am attached to material things for many reasons. Usually it's just a matter of "I've had that for such a long time", or it could be because it has sentimental value such as a gift from someone who is no longer living, or whatnot. It's a totally different attachment from the type of attachment to something you like to use more than something else. What I mean is, I am attached to my computer that I use now, but on the other hand, I would not feel sad if I replaced it with another one later. Right now, I don't want to, but I do get new ones every couple years and never feel the need to keep the old one (once I've backed up everything and confirmed, of course). The other kind of attachment is the kind I think you're talking about: I still have many things such as clothes and shoes from when I was a teen, and don't wear... But I was wearing them when my mother was alive, or when I met my first girlfriend, or things like that. And I have kept most all vehicles after getting new ones. Result = 5 garages full of vehicles... Still in perfect shape, insured and licensed, but I won't sell them. I still drive them once a week or so, but not for necessity. Just to "revisit".
Charles |
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daydreamer84
butterfly
Joined: Jul 09, 2009
Age: 28
Posts: 3303
Location: My own little world
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| Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 2:06 pm Post subject: |
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| anbuend wrote: | | wefunction wrote: | | ruveyn wrote: | How would one classify NT coin or stamp collectors. Are they not attached to physical objects?
I know an NT who loves his sports car more than his kids.
ruveyn |
It's faulty logic to presume that symptomatic behavior for Aspergers Syndrome could only be associated with Aspergers Syndrome. Aspergers Syndrome is defined by more than one symptomatic behavior and is often an unique mixture of several different behaviors that, together, can define a diagnosis for a patient. It is not unusual for any individual with or without any disorder to have an isolated behavior. If one claims that AS patients may have an attachment to objects, one is not automatically claiming that those without AS have no attachments to physical objects. |
Thank you for explaining that. I've been seeing a lot on this board, of people saying things like "That can't be an autistic thing, because people who aren't autistic can do it too!" and I haven't had a clue how to explain that things don't work like that. |
Autistic traits like the traits of many other mental/developmental disorders exist on a continuum (most likely...pysch's are seeing it more this way now). The continuum goes all the way from "you have some of these traits at a level where they are just part of your personality but don't disrupt your functioning very much" to "these symptoms severely interfere with every aspect of your functioning". For example everyone (except someone who has a severe very particular kind of brain injury/abnormality maybe) has a=some level of fear or anxiety. Some people are more fearful than other people. Still other people have VERY extreme fear about things that the average person doesn't worry about and this significantly interferes with their life...this person would have an anxiety disorder. They don't fall into discrete categories the way some psychical conditions do (i.e. he has diabetes, he doesn't). Our DSM classification system for mental/developmental problems is more categorical than dimensional (continuum like) but they are trying to make it more dimensional in DSM V. The categorical classification is good for organizing research findings and creating standards for treatment of mental disorders...but the conditions don't naturally fit this model...so an artificial cut-off point of severity is chosen to turn a continuum into a discrete entity/category. A presenter in my abnormal psych class (who works with children with Autism) said that no other disorder clearly fits the continuum model better than Autism. |
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FarqyTheIndolent
"Chilled Out Entertainer"
Joined: Nov 13, 2010
Posts: 2160
Location: United Kingdom
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| Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2011 2:33 pm Post subject: |
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I do still develop attachments to objects, but this is something that's eased somewhat as I've aged.
I'm told that, at around the age of 2 or 3, I was very attached to a box of foam letters, and liked to carry it around everywhere. My mother has said that I was fascinated with letters as a young child, and, after having learnt the alphabet, would spend a long time just sitting on the floor with my foam letters, matching the lower-case ones to their upper-case equivalents.
The foam letters were eventually replaced by magnetic letters, but there wasn't quite the same level of attachment there...
I also had very deep levels of attachment to my stuffed toys. In particular, there would always be one 'special toy' that I couldn't bear to part with, and whose safety I feared for. The main thing that was unusual about this particular quirk was the fact that I carried it on through later childhood and adolescence (indeed, I still have a 'special toy' today  ). It's no longer so much of an issue, though, in that I can leave the house without feeling compelled to take my 'special toy' with me.
There were also some quite stereotypically 'aspie' object attachments: a particular jumper, and my collections. Aside from those examples, though, I can't think of any other object attachments I had in childhood, or any others that have emerged in more recent times
I should also mention that I've never been one to have preoccupations with parts of objects. The closest I ever came to this was a fascination with burglar alarms that took place when I was 6/7, and this mainly involved asking for detours to be taken during drives so that we could drive through streets with a particularly high number of burglar alarms, or finding out how many burglar alarms were on particular local streets, which houses they were on, and what type of burglar alarm they were ('burglar alarm-spotting', if you like). |
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WarMachine
Butterfly
Joined: Mar 13, 2012
Age: 33
Posts: 12
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| Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2012 6:08 pm Post subject: |
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My objects that I am most attached to is my War Machine and Iron Man hot toys figures. They go everywhere with me including in bed yes I even sleep with them they are my babies. I have always had an abject I am attached to since birth I still have a star wars AT-AT that I have loved since I was only one and a half. But I love my War Machine more than anything he is me baby I even take him in the shower with me he stands on the side where I can keep an eye on him so I can see he is still there for me. When I am in bed I cuddle him and Iron Man sleeps beside me on my pillow and I snuggle him on my face. They are also stim objects I rub them on my face all the time I love the way they feel on my skin.  |
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Boxman108
"Oh...it's just a box."
Joined: Jan 03, 2012
Age: 21
Posts: 1394
Location: NH
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| Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2012 6:31 pm Post subject: |
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Used to have a stuffed Meowth, among other stuffed animals. Well, I guess I do still have them, but they're all trapped in my closet. I probably wouldn't have any trouble getting rid of them if I weren't so lazy. So this Meowth doll was my favorite, I guess you could say. Used to bring it with me on the bus to and from school, preferred to play with it over other toys I had. Not really sure when the attachment went away or if it was really any significant event rather than gradual. Might have been after getting one of the pets my family has had, which call for more attention and give more of a response.
Not sure if I could say I get attached in the same way to anything anymore. Of course, there are things I value, more so because they were expensive and I'd rather they not break and have to buy a new one, like my laptop or video games, etc. That seems to be normal for most everyone. I really try not to be too materialistic as I think it's a bit shallow to be that way.
I did once have a ring and necklace given to me by a girl I was in a long distance relationship with. Almost never wore them because I felt uncomfortable with them on, but I did keep them in their own designated space. Can't recall what I did with them exactly but I must have gotten rid of them somehow. We'd stopped talking and eventually I came to the realization that keeping them was holding me back and had me stuck with false hope.
_________________
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or
just walking dully along... |
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Jtuk
Phoenix
Joined: Jan 22, 2012
Posts: 732
Location: Wales, UK
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| Posted: Wed Mar 14, 2012 6:45 pm Post subject: |
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I still do that stuff, but I'm not to fussy about what I do it with. I tend to slowly build up piles of things that I have picked up, played with and dropped by my desk, then discarded. I'm not preoccupied with any single thing for any length of time.
Some of the things I still meddle with are headphone jacks (plugging and unplugging), tying string, tweezers, wire, batteries, coins, bottle caps, popped balloons, paper clips, any sort of switch, button, rubber bands (twisting or spiralling rather than stretching or flicking), pens..
As a child you only have access to so many objects, so this behaviour is going to stand out a lot more. So flicking your only toy cars wheel is going to get noticed, with age your preoccupations are likely to become more varied as access increases.
I can't really say that I even noticed when,and where I picked these things up, I was never preoccupied with the object, I was preoccupied with my mind, but meanwhile on planet earth my hands are doing some repetitive behaviour with a toy.
Jason |
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