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DeepThought
Phoenix
Joined: Jun 25, 2004
Posts: 574
Location: A chair in the USA.
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 Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 11:21 am Post subject: |
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Me thinks it may be the troll...
Literally...
The troll pic may be slowing down the page.
Anyhow...
Part of the point of this site is for all of us to share experiences and interests, it doesn't really matter who is certain of their DX, or not. For me, I knew before my official DX. As soon as I read about HFA, I knew (I did not know about AS until later). There was no doubt.
adversarial,
I understand what you are saying and this is exactly the point I was trying to make earlier. Whether you are an Aspie, or not you relate to certain things that people who definitely are also experience, which means there are things that you do understand. There are also things that you don't understand (not possible without experiencing it), just as many Aspies experience, or have experienced things that I don't fully understand. That's fine and that's what this place is all about.
Many of us have no other social outlets, but we desire some sort of social interaction. Our attempts at such interaction usually have repeatedly ended miserably. This is a place where we should all be comfortable to be ourselves. Some may learn more about themselves from others here. Some may just like knowing that they are not alone.
There is always some sort of balance in everything. People who demonstrate exceptional abilities are also going to be balanced with more disability in other areas, whether they are aware of it, or not. It is a matter of balance and balance is critical in everything.
I require assisted living. For me, Asperger's is as much of a disability as it is an ability. This is hard for me to comprehend at times. I get stressed out trying to think about how I have to have help from others just to survive, but I can compose an entire CD's worth of material in the amount of time it takes to listen to one (when I feel like doing so). I have really poor math skills, but I can tell someone the total price of their groceries within a few cents after just seeing what is in the cart. To me, it makes no sense and the more I try to understand it, the harder it is to understand. So, any ability that I have is offset by an equal inability. I think that there are some things that just need to be accepted and even, dare I say, enjoyed. There is always a balance, sometimes we just don't see it.
I would not wish my difficulties on anyone. Just this morning I melted down. During the meltdown I came to the conclusion that there is no such thing as empathy. No one is able to totally understand how another person feels, NT, or not. I have told my mom that I wished she could just be inside of my body for a few minutes, long enough to experience what I experience. Some Aspies here can easilly relate to some of my experiences, others can't. It doesn't matter. Just because someone doesn't understand why I am unable to simply call someone in my family to say hi, or why I can't calm myself down, does not mean they are not Aspies themselves. Sometimes I get offended by these suggestions because I expect them to understand and at times it makes the people who make such suggestions seem very NT to me, because these are things that NTs say. That does not mean they are not Aspies, they just don't comprehend something that I have more difficulties with than them, because they have not experienced it. The best I can do is try to explain. The best they can do is try to understand, or at the very least respect my explanation. If they were to continue to offer me solutions and clearly were not listening to what I was trying to say, then I would be more inclined to get frustrated and think more seriously that they are in fact NTs. HOWEVER, Aspies can also be persistant and try to force their viewpoints on others. SO, there we have the problem! The people that may appear very NT-like to some Aspies, may in fact be showing some Aspie traits. That's why you just can't come to a place like this and post things that say you have counted 200 people that you are sure are Aspies and the rest are not. In reality, few of us here really know each other and non of us here are in any position to judge anyone that we do not know.
If someone only thinks they are an Aspie, then that is what they should say. No one here should PM anyone to interrogate them about why they think so. No one here should be keeping a record of how many people they suspect are Aspies, or not, because in reality, as I just said, they do not know. Besides, at the end of the stressful day, WHO THE HECK CARES?!
I had to post all of this because it takes way too long to load this page, so I tried to cover everything I could possibly want to add to this thread in one post.
_________________
The Rhymin' Red Rover, that's what they called me,
Too old for a sailin', too young for the sea;
Set sail for the sunset, to a land that is free,
I'm the Rhymin' Red Rover, and that's where I'll be. |
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DeepThought
Phoenix
Joined: Jun 25, 2004
Posts: 574
Location: A chair in the USA.
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| Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 11:22 am Post subject: |
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Ahhh, page 3... Please, no more troll pics. 
_________________
The Rhymin' Red Rover, that's what they called me,
Too old for a sailin', too young for the sea;
Set sail for the sunset, to a land that is free,
I'm the Rhymin' Red Rover, and that's where I'll be. |
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anbuend
Oak-Type Autie
Joined: Jul 06, 2004
Posts: 2933
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| Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 11:40 am Post subject: |
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The page was slowed down before the troll pic was on it.
_________________
"We may seem in the gutter from up there where you are but maybe you don't know we still see the same stars." -Donna Williams |
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DeepThought
Phoenix
Joined: Jun 25, 2004
Posts: 574
Location: A chair in the USA.
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| Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 11:41 am Post subject: |
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| anbuend wrote: | | The page was slowed down before the troll pic was on it. |
Oh well, there goes that theory...
_________________
The Rhymin' Red Rover, that's what they called me,
Too old for a sailin', too young for the sea;
Set sail for the sunset, to a land that is free,
I'm the Rhymin' Red Rover, and that's where I'll be. |
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Nicolai
Snowy Owl
Joined: Jul 24, 2005
Posts: 174
Location: Europe
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| Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 12:30 pm Post subject: |
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| DeepThought wrote: | | Oh well, there goes that theory... |
But my theory is still valid. 
There are two members on this page wit missing avatars:
Adverserial and Aspergers_Patrick.
Maybe the system is slowed down because there avatars canīt be loaded. The same effect when a webpage canīt be loaded because it doesnīt exist anymore.
I declare my theory valid until somebody proves the contrary.... |
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DeepThought
Phoenix
Joined: Jun 25, 2004
Posts: 574
Location: A chair in the USA.
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| Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 12:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Nicolai wrote: | | DeepThought wrote: | | Oh well, there goes that theory... |
But my theory is still valid.
There are two members on this page wit missing avatars:
Adverserial and Aspergers_Patrick.
Maybe the system is slowed down because there avatars canīt be loaded. The same effect when a webpage canīt be loaded because it doesnīt exist anymore.
I declare my theory valid until somebody proves the contrary.... |
I did notice that, but didn't think about it much. I support your theory.
_________________
The Rhymin' Red Rover, that's what they called me,
Too old for a sailin', too young for the sea;
Set sail for the sunset, to a land that is free,
I'm the Rhymin' Red Rover, and that's where I'll be. |
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NeantHumain
Phoenix
![]()
Joined: Jun 25, 2004
Posts: 3361
Location: St. Louis, Missouri
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| Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 1:28 pm Post subject: |
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| DeepThought wrote: | Me thinks it may be the troll...
Literally...
The troll pic may be slowing down the page. |
No, this isn't it because nothing loads for Page 2, not even the HTML. If it were the picture that was slowing it down, I would see the page beginning to load, but the picture would take time to load. I have a cable Internet connection, so pictures don't slow it down. This problem also happens on pages without pictures. |
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PaulB
Sea Gull
Joined: Jun 29, 2005
Posts: 217
Location: Chicago, IL, US
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| Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 2:11 pm Post subject: |
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I think that it's the gods of technology telling us to kill this thread.
_________________
My life is a dark room. One big dark room.
-Lydia Dietz, "Beetle Juice" |
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ghotistix
Phoenix
Joined: Feb 03, 2005
Posts: 1186
Location: Massachusetts
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| Posted: Mon Aug 01, 2005 7:43 pm Post subject: |
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The issue is with PHP fetching the data from the MySQL database. There's nothing wrong with the actual database (or with images) because posts can be viewed using the topic preview feature inside the IFRAME in the post reply page. For some reason, PHP occasionally fails to generate the normal topic display page.
[/geek] |
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Feather
Snowy Owl
Joined: May 24, 2005
Posts: 159
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| Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 10:21 am Post subject: |
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I'm down as Have Asperger's - Undiagnosed.
Undiagnosed, because I've never been properly assessed and have no wish to.
Have Asperger's, because several health professionals and doctors tried to refer me for assessment before I even knew what AS was - I heard the term from them, and my own research has backed up their unofficial diagnosess.
Having an official diagnosis, is in my view, irrelevant (to me). My only worry about it is that people on sites such as this will view me as a fraud, because I don't have the necessary note on my medical records. I would like to feel I can fit in here, because I have enough problems fitting in anywhere else.
I'm too old to have been diagnosed as a child (although due to my parents noticing my differences I was assessed for autism back when the criteria meant I could not be diagnosed as such (AS was not a diagnosis back then), and many of my quirks were noted by the person assessing me as not 'normal')
I don't need a carer, but I do need reminding to eat and to do household chores, and without assistance of any kind with chores I would probably eventually have to be dug out from under a pile of rubbish.
I enjoy socialising with people who accept me for who I am, but at the same time I fail to immediately understand about 30% - 50% of what is said to me (unless phrased in a very clear and direct manner) - some of the things I miss straight away I will interpret after a short delay, others will just leave me completely confused. Because of this I sometimes come across as a bit slow, unless talking about a subject in which I am knowledgeable, in which case my intelligence is apparent.
The point of this? I am a 34 year old woman with AS. But if you encountered me in shop, conducting a simple exchange of communication in order to buy some goods, you would probably not notice that I was in any way not NT. I know the range of things the shopkeeper is likely to say to me, so my conversational responses are timely. I will have a smile on my face as I communicate. You may barely notice that I walk a little strangely, but then I have arthritis so walk with a slight limp which disguises this fact. You may notice that I talk slowly and in a precise manner, but so do many people.
How can I be AS then? I can conduct myself like an NT in a shop for example. It's called 'coping skills'. All my life I have learned lessons about what to do in certain situations. What to say. Acceptable responses to certain comments (if the shopkeeper's mother has died, I know that the acceptable and expected response is to express sympathy, so I will do so; if he tells me he is feeling unwell I know that the appropriate response is to say that I hope he feels better soon etc). I will have prepared myself on the way to the shop in order that I am ready for the conversation.
This is all learned, throughout my 34 years of life. Some things that come naturally to NTs but not to those with AS, I have learned - by trial and error, by being told of my mistakes and taking advice on appropriate responses and behaviour, or by working them out logically. I did not do this easily! Every encounter with other people is fraught with potential for me to cause upset, embarrassment, anger, or to feel confused myself.
I agree that it would be perfectly possible for someone younger than me with AS who has not yet learned all the skills that I have learned, or someone whose AS is more severe than mine, or who has been afraid to put themselves into social situations thus not has not had as much opportunity as me to learn similar skills, to see me buying something in a shop and think I was NT, because of my coping skills.
Because you may have seen me conduct a perfectly normal social exchange in the local corner shop, if you saw me on the next day, curled into a ball in a large shopping centre, sobbing, flapping my hands but otherwise unable to move because the lights, noise, crowds, and stress of having to enter a large store to buy a pair of jeans has sent me into a complete meltdown, you probably wouldn't even associate me with the person who you'd thought was NT the previous day. You would in all probability think that I was autistic, possibly quite 'low-functioning', and may even assume that my boyfriend was a professional carer as you saw him attempting to lead me to a place of safety.
So what exactly constitutes acceptable 'AS' behaviour in a chatroom, enabling someone to diagnose or undiagnose from potentially thousands of miles away just by reading words on a screen? Are there unwritten codes of acceptable AS behaviour also? If there are, I'm stuffed.  |
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DeepThought
Phoenix
Joined: Jun 25, 2004
Posts: 574
Location: A chair in the USA.
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| Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 11:25 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | It's called 'coping skills'. |
I am 38 and I have learned lessons also, that have taught me how to deal with certain things, but I differ from you in this respect (although we do seem to have quite a few things in common). I have very little ability to cope. I am told by the few people who know me well that I have no coping skills at all, but I am able to cope with some things, although, I admit, not very well. I know what situations will be too stressful for me at certain times and I avoid them to the best of my ability. When I go out my companion is always with me and she will step in if she senses that I may be having a negative reation to something.
For you an official DX may not be necessary, for me it was a matter of survival. I went to doctors since I was 7 years old. My parents hid many of my problems from the doctors because one had already told them that I need to be sent away. A relative, who was a social worker, instructed my mom to commit me several times up until my DX, but she would not because she was afraid I would not survive. My doctor now says I narrowly escaped a diagnosis of childhood schizophrenia and being institutionalized for life. He also says I would not have survived an institution. I also had many people say I needed to be assessed and I had many people just cruely tell me and everyone who came around me that I am insane.
If you see me in a shop on a good day it is slightly different. My companion has told me that if someone has never met me before, it takes a short amount of time for them to realize that something is very different about me. The first thing that you may notice is that I avoid looking at you. If that isn't the first thing, then you may notice that I am constantly twitching in my face, squeezing my eyes shut, blinking rapidly, contorting my lips, or twitching my nose. You may notice my arm twitching, or me stretching my shirt. You may notice me trying to organize things, or line things up on shelves while my companion makes a purchase. You may notice that I try to avoid touching certain things, or if I do I am furiously wiping my hands afterwards. You may even hear me telling her about how screwed up something is, or how something was done wrong and how stupid the person who did it that way is. If you hear me talk you may notice that I echo myself a lot, or put words in the wrong places. You may notice that I just seem to stare at something for a long time and tune out everything around me. If you tried to talk to me, you may get one of several reactions, depending on my mood. I may go stand behind my companion and hide my face from you. I may look at your mouth when you say something and then turn to my companion to see her reaction to what was said, or try to get her to reply. I most likely will say nothing at all, or I will whisper my response to my companion and she will reply to you. I am told that when I walk I lean forward and my legs are very stiff. I thought this had passed as I got older, but apparently it didn't. I used to get teased because of how I walk in school. You may notice this as well, or you may notice that I sometimes walk on my toes, or stomp a lot when I walk. If I am having a bad day then you might see earplugs in my ears and I will stay very close to my companion. Before having a companion I got escorted out and barred from some places (including a muffler shop and a post office) because something happened that triggered a meltdown.
If you were to spend more time around me, say if you came by my mother's house while I was there you would probably see very little of me as I would retreat to another room. If I did remain around you for a while, it would be a very short while. My family observes me and when my actions start to seem like I have been around people too long I am led away to another room, or my companion suggests that we leave. If you start a topic that I have fully researched you may get me to speak, but I will basically begin quoting everything I have ever studied on that subject. It would not be long before you decided to leave if that happened. If you said something I could not comprehend, then my mind would go into hyper-focus mode and I would do nothing but try to figure out what you meant. I wouldn't ask you what you meant, but I might ask my companion what you meant. Either way, I would no longer be aware of any other topic being discussed. If you started trying to talk about something I wasn't interested in I would naturally try to shift focus back to something I was interested in (usually something that affects me), or I would leave the room. If I just didn't like something about you upon meeting you, then you would not have any visual, or verbal contact with me at all. If you tried to touch me, or hug me I would instinctively back away from you and if you did happen to touch me without me knowing it was going to happen I would jerk away from you very quickly and possible yell, or grunt, or simply blurt out "STOP!" If you persisted in trying to touch me when I did not want to be touched then you could get hurt.
If you tell me that someone has died you will get a response that may seem like I don't care and in reality I actually don't unless it has a direct affect on me. I may ask how it happened if you don't volunteer the information, but most likely I will try to change the subject, or say something like "oh well, or "bummer." I won't go to the funeral. I did not attend either of my grandfather's funerals, one grandmother's funeral, or another grandmother's wake. I attended that grandmother's funeral because my mom said she needed me to go with her (why she even wanted to go, I have no clue). I tried to get out of it, but ended up compromising: we sat in the very back and I left immediately after it was over. I hated every minute of it and thought it was just a bunch of BS. If you invite me to a wedding, I won't go there either. Never have.
I do not care who here has an official DX and who doesn't. What I care about is people who may try to say that there is no need for an official DX, when in fact, for some people there is a real need for one. Just because one person does not have a need for an official DX, does not mean they should make other people who do have a need for one, or even think they should get one feel belittled. As far as acceptable AS behavior on forums, or in a chatroom, everyone is different and I think the written rules define the limitations of what is acceptable. However, it is important to remember that no one should assume that everyone here should have, or does have the same coping skills, or other abilities, no matter how old they are. No one should be trying to make anyone with less coping skills (using this as an example) feel bad because of that. Where one is weak another may be strong.
Just because someone is undiagnosed, for whatever reason, does not mean they should be treated differently than those who are.
_________________
The Rhymin' Red Rover, that's what they called me,
Too old for a sailin', too young for the sea;
Set sail for the sunset, to a land that is free,
I'm the Rhymin' Red Rover, and that's where I'll be. |
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Neuroman
Phoenix
Joined: Jul 05, 2005
Posts: 1891
Location: 1134
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| Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 12:45 pm Post subject: |
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I want to know if deep thought is writing my biography : )
I am 46 and my therapist believes I have Aspergers. The health insurance company doesn't believe her and my psychiatrist doesn't care. Complicating the issue is the fact that I am more qualified than my therapist to render the diagnosis.
I have a PhD in psychology because I am very comfortable in a school setting and I wanted to figure out how to write conversation. My Bachelor's degree is in Writing Arts.
I have no friends other than people who take advantage of me. I avoid parties, even if they are family events. My family makes me intensely uncomfortable.
I am in the process of defending my job because I have made too many interpersonal errors, such as telling my boss I didn't care about her personal life, and telling a presenter to please be quiet and listen to my question (in front of my boss). I am likely to lose my job, but am trying to hold out until I can take my pension benefits with me.
I have never held any job longer than a couple of years without getting in trouble for something I said.
I collect (huge understatement, see my about me blog on this site), I have trouble with self-care, emoticons defeat me, I prefer to be alone, and when I get excited I hit my head. I used to rock, but not so much anymore.
I diagnosed myself with aspergers. I have believed that I was autistic since reading Dibs in Search of Self when I was about 10 years old. No one has agreed with me until now. We ruled out PTSD, reactive attachment disorder and a number of other diagnoses like OCD. I am in the process of writing a book about how all these symptoms are parts of various patterns which make up various diagnoses. For example, I could show you many similarities between Aspergers and Borderline Personality Disorder.
I think it is popular to have this diagnosis. In the time since I have begin exploring this diagnosis, the number of books on Aspergers has gone from about 30 to about 400 on amazon. It is frustrating because I think people think it makes them special. Fine, you're special. But everyone forgets the DSM requirement that the problem f---s up your life. I'm looking around my apartment and thinking of all the money I've lost and the jobs I can't get and I think my life is f---ed up. On the other hand, at least for the time being I am employed and make a lot of money.
Who be the judge? The government says I'm not impaired because I haven't been the subject of a hospital admission (at least not recently) and because no one knows I can't take care of myself. I say I'm woefully impaired. If I get tired and can't keep up this effort, then I will be on disability and I will have someone else taking care of me. I anticipate last maybe another 5 to 10 years. I'm already very tired and starting to slip. Finding this site was amazing and helpful and feels like I found home, especially the you know you're an aspie if... forum which always cheers me up. I don't care if NTs are here as long as they don't start imposing their rules.
You be the judge. Am I and my therapist wrong? (you might want to check my blog before replying)
_________________
Raised by Wolves
if you are going through hell, keep going.
Winston Churchill |
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anbuend
Oak-Type Autie
Joined: Jul 06, 2004
Posts: 2933
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| Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 1:25 pm Post subject: |
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| Feather wrote: | | So what exactly constitutes acceptable 'AS' behaviour in a chatroom, enabling someone to diagnose or undiagnose from potentially thousands of miles away just by reading words on a screen? Are there unwritten codes of acceptable AS behaviour also? If there are, I'm stuffed. |
I often wonder that too.
I more often hear the "You're not autistic!" stuff from non-autistic people, though, and usually right after I've disagreed with them on something, online.
But I think there's a lot of boundary-policing in general that can happen within the autistic community, and I'm not sure how useful it is.
_________________
"We may seem in the gutter from up there where you are but maybe you don't know we still see the same stars." -Donna Williams |
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anbuend
Oak-Type Autie
Joined: Jul 06, 2004
Posts: 2933
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| Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 1:44 pm Post subject: |
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| DeepThought wrote: | | Quote: | | It's called 'coping skills'. |
I am 38 and I have learned lessons also, that have taught me how to deal with certain things, but I differ from you in this respect (although we do seem to have quite a few things in common). I have very little ability to cope. I am told by the few people who know me well that I have no coping skills at all, but I am able to cope with some things, although, I admit, not very well. I know what situations will be too stressful for me at certain times and I avoid them to the best of my ability. When I go out my companion is always with me and she will step in if she senses that I may be having a negative reation to something. |
Count me in as another one who can't seem to pass no matter how much I learn. (Even if I know the exact nature of a situation and how a person-in-general is supposed to respond to it, it's very rare that I can actually do so. My processing speed can be too slow for that, or my body will not respond in a typical way. People know I'm different even if they don't know anything about autism (usually they'll then go to "intoxicated," "psychotic", or "intellectually disabled" as their assumptions, also sometimes cerebral palsy since I use a wheelchair, despite the fact that I don't look like I have CP).
But I also know people who can socially pass for NT, but that's pretty much all. Like they can pass, but they can't cook for themselves and/or they are incontinent, etc. They use up all their energy on passing. So generalizing coping abilities in terms of "passing skills" to other skills doesn't always work, and people in that position often find it much harder to get services than, for instance, I do. (Not that I've found it easy, but that the fact that I "look autistic" in many people's narrow idea of what "autistic" looks like, helps.) Even if everything about their skills they need services for are the same as the ones I need services for, the passing is counted against them.
I have developed a lot of what some people would call coping skills, but of necessity pretty much none of them have to do with acting NT or in doing things the NT way. If I tried to do that, I'd not only fail but have no energy left for anything important. Some of them are internal things that I can't describe easily but help me internally deal with situations better even if externally I'm doing things in the same way. Many of them depend on doing things much, much more slowly than most people do them. (Like taking days or weeks to hold a conversation that most people would hold in hours.) Etc.
But none of them leave me really able, the way society is currently structured, to do things the way other people call independent. (I have serious problems with the values underlying that whole idea, but I'm too tired to come up with the language for how things actually are.)
The most important thing I have developed is communication skills, particularly writing, so that even if I can do little else, I can direct how I want to live my life. That's the most important one to me.
_________________
"We may seem in the gutter from up there where you are but maybe you don't know we still see the same stars." -Donna Williams |
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DeepThought
Phoenix
Joined: Jun 25, 2004
Posts: 574
Location: A chair in the USA.
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| Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 1:55 pm Post subject: |
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Neuroman,
I just typed up a huge reply to your post that took at least a half hour. As I was editing it I somehow accidentally closed the window and lost it all.
GRRRRR!
_________________
The Rhymin' Red Rover, that's what they called me,
Too old for a sailin', too young for the sea;
Set sail for the sunset, to a land that is free,
I'm the Rhymin' Red Rover, and that's where I'll be. |
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