Too AS for WP?

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I want to whop them upside the head most of the time. Of all the doctors I have worked with on a professional and personal basis, psychiatrists are WAY down on my list of respected professionals. In fact they are not on my list at all, if I were to consider professionals that help people in the healthcare profession.

Having said that, the MD who diagnosed me is a jewel. Been in his field for his entire career, and unfortunately for the people of Hawaii, he is retiring. There are two "professionals" that I've met who "get" AS, and he is one of them.

This is an area that needs help - immense help - professionals who can help adults with AS. We are invisible, partly due to the fact that all the NT parents of autistic children are raising such a ruckus that we are in the shadows. Plus for the most part we can function - so why raise the banner for us?

What's this thread about again? I'm afraid I got sidetracked.

lol - Starr started saying she was too AS for WP and you think you are not enough - lol

I actually think you and Starr are quite similar.

^^ And you fit where on the spectrum? Somewhere left of normal but inconclusive at this point? LOL

Actually it's too bad Starr's not here for this discussion.

I like the term spectrum because it allows a non-linear view of autism. I think some of us still have preconceived notions of what autism is, and it's hard for a lot of us, even those of us who've discovered we are on that autistic spectrum, to conceive of ourselves as having anything in common with what we learned autism was 30 years ago. Perhaps that's a difficulty that many people face, be it professionals or laypeople or even us.

So it's hard to judge where we are in relation to others - do we really have anything in common with x person or y person?

I think it's necessary to not look at autism spectrum disorders along a linear continuum, with LFA at one end and AS at the other. I believe that there are both great similarities as well as great differences between/amongst us all, and that trying to say that we are one diagnosis on the spectrum does not allow for the incredible diversity that exists.

given it is a spectrum, I don't think there ius any cut off point where you can say you do or don't have AS. You just have more or fewer traits and it impacts your life to a greater or lesser degree (IMHO)

Yes, I agree.

I feel like I move up and down the spectrum on an almost daily basis which seems odd to me.
Getting to know people here I get the feeling that most people are relatively stable at one point along it, although I might be wrong. Maybe they just stop posting for a while when they're feeling particularly AS?

Other people are "relatively stable along the spectrum", yes, I see that a lot of people here do seem that way. I am one of the unstable ones - volatile was a word used to describe me recently.

I feel like I go up and down the entire spectrum depending on what's going on. One minute I can be amazingly high-functioning, and then in one second I become mute and intensely aware of how low-functioning I can be. It's scary.

I think sometimes we strive to be neurotypical because it might be necessary in a certain situation and then something happens to throw us off guard and then it all falls apart. This happened to me at a friends house, I was doing well until her husband came home and it all fell apart. That was before I knew I was an Aspie, now I just don't stay out too long and I decline many risky social situations, its just too distressing to have to either hold oneself together for a long time without doing or saying anything they find odd or its hard just being yourself and finding that others think you are a bit eccentric or rude or too distant or over friendly.

Its just hard sometimes whatever you do or wherever you are. Even here I suppose too.

Cheers Starr. Any more drink left or should I wait until a decent time of day, before lunch is too early I have heard but I think it gives more time at the end of the day to rehydrate before bedtime, its only logical to do that or you wake up with a dry mouth in the morning.

Am I “Too AS for WP? Do I feel like this?”

Probably.

(It's pretty cool to read a lot of "thoughts" that though different in how they're composed, are closer to mine than that I thought would be possible. It's scary and joyful at the same time.)