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alien91
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23 Dec 2013, 5:54 am

I can't help but notice that a lot of NTs are completely unaware of Aspergers syndrome or if they do know anything about it they know very little. I have even interacted with a bunch of people online who think aspergers is bogus and doesn't exist! Talk about ignorant... I wish more people were informed about aspergers and autism so there would be more mutual understanding .. But alas, people seem content to stay in the dark.



purplefeet
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23 Dec 2013, 6:05 am

Well I'd never heard of it 10 years ago and now both myself and my son are diagnosed so it is not necessarily always NT's who are ignorant. If you've never knowingly come across it you're not bound to know anything are you?


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CyclopsSummers
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23 Dec 2013, 6:36 am

This is as much a question for you, alien91, as it is for all WP posters reading this, but... how informed are you about other disorders and syndromes? Because speaking for myself, I only have the most tangential of knowledge on those disorders I know about, including disorders of people who are very close to me (for example intellectual disability, and borderline). Typically, it'll come up during conversations from time to time, and I like listening to the personal experiences of friends, acquaintances, and co-workers, but I never bothered to pick up literature on other disorders, and I therefore remain quite uninformed. I'm not proud of this, but at the same time I've never felt a need to do so... so far.

When I read the posts of other WP members who are very knowledgeable on a range of mental conditions, I'm impressed, and pleased to have them on board.

I don't think people who don't have any everyday dealings with autism, either in their personal or their professional life, have any kind of obligation to get informed on it. Soon as they encounter someone w/ autism, it's a different story.

I do agree that people who buy into the whole "it's fake, it doesn't exist, it's just maladjusted kids that need to be disciplined" stuff, are very, very ignorant.


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23 Dec 2013, 9:38 am

I didn't know about Asperger's until I was in my late 20's, and I heard of it accidentally. Then I forgot all about it until the fall of 2008.

Of course, I'm as far into the AS closet as can be, so I'm actually very glad NTs don't know what to look for and won't generally be able to tell what I have.

CyclopsSummers wrote:
This is as much a question for you, alien91, as it is for all WP posters reading this, but... how informed are you about other disorders and syndromes?

I was thinking the same thing. I know a bit about some disorders but there are far more I know next to nothing about. I certainly don't fault anyone else for not knowing.


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droppy
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23 Dec 2013, 10:40 am

I think it's difficult for people to know about stuff that they don't deal with often.
I myself only came to know about HFA and Asperger's when my mother started to suspect I had it when I was 13. Before that I used to think you could label as autistics only those with LFA and I would have never thought a socially awkward kid who had obsessions and meltdowns could be autistic; that's because LFA was the only type of autism I had known at the time.
I don't have much knowledge of mental disorders, except those closer to me due to my relatives or myself (autism, ADD/ADHD, anxiety, OCD, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, schizoid PD, dyslexia...).



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23 Dec 2013, 10:48 am

I never heard of it until I accidentally stumbled upon it two years ago and proceeded to turn white as a ghost reading my own autobiography. Before that I just assumed it was what computer nerds called themselves i.e. like my father and brother. Once I looked past the stereotypes I saw I was a textbook case, but I can excuse people's ignorance. Still, if they don't know they should shut their damn mouths! Even my mother is proving exceedingly difficult to demonstrate to that yes, I am 99.99% sure I have Aspergers and no, it is not a crippling mental illness.



dottsie
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23 Dec 2013, 11:23 am

I had never heard about it until my freshman year of high school, on TV Tropes. I read their article on it, and also a bunch of other ones I found through google, and thought I might now have a name for my collection of abnormal traits. I remember asking my mom when I was very little if she thought I was autistic, though. She said no, which surprises me now that I think about it, because a lot of her career was spent working with autistic children.

I really do wish that NTs were more informed about a lot of things, not just ASD. It upsets me when people say things like "I'm so OCD about this" as if it's just an adjective, and not a disorder that affects your life in a huge way. One of my NT friends legitimately thought it was just a term for extreme perfectionism. It amazes me how uninformed some people are; I don't hate them for it, though, it just makes me want to explain it to them so they'll understand.



alien91
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23 Dec 2013, 12:36 pm

CyclopsSummers wrote:
This is as much a question for you, alien91, as it is for all WP posters reading this, but... how informed are you about other disorders and syndromes? Because speaking for myself, I only have the most tangential of knowledge on those disorders I know about, including disorders of people who are very close to me (for example intellectual disability, and borderline). Typically, it'll come up during conversations from time to time, and I like listening to the personal experiences of friends, acquaintances, and co-workers, but I never bothered to pick up literature on other disorders, and I therefore remain quite uninformed. I'm not proud of this, but at the same time I've never felt a need to do so... so far.

When I read the posts of other WP members who are very knowledgeable on a range of mental conditions, I'm impressed, and pleased to have them on board.

I don't think people who don't have any everyday dealings with autism, either in their personal or their professional life, have any kind of obligation to get informed on it. Soon as they encounter someone w/ autism, it's a different story.

I do agree that people who buy into the whole "it's fake, it doesn't exist, it's just maladjusted kids that need to be disciplined" stuff, are very, very ignorant.
well you do bring up a very good point.. However I can honestly say there's a great deal that I'm unaware of but I am open minded and willing to learn. If I was to find out about a new condition that I had never heard of I would be interested and want to know more about it and not make blind assumptions. What troubles me most about the lack of awareness of aspergers/HFA is the fact that millions and millions of oeople have it and are falling through the cracks because of it. There are doubtless many more undiagnosed Aspies floating around out there who have no idea why they are struggling to make friends or keep a job and feel so alone. Awareness is the only thing that can help remedy these things.



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23 Dec 2013, 1:13 pm

The only thing here is that there's a big difference between just not knowing about something, and claiming it's not real.

NTs who say there's no such thing as Asperger's have gone beyond simple ignorance. You can say "I don't know much about that". Saying "It's all fake" is another thing entirely.


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droppy
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23 Dec 2013, 1:23 pm

GiantHockeyFan wrote:
it is not a crippling mental illness.

Speak for yourself, please :lol:
It can be for some and it can not be for others.
You are one of those for who is not a crippling disability, according to what you say in this post.
As I am now, I'm pretty much crippled. Y'know, when one can't get organized, forgets to do stuff, has a lot of troubles going to places alone and has to take a med to function they pretty much are f***ed up. But I am only 16, I hope that in 10 years I will get even better (after all I've got better in these last years) and be able to do more stuff.



Sethno
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23 Dec 2013, 1:38 pm

droppy wrote:
GiantHockeyFan wrote:
it is not a crippling mental illness.

Speak for yourself, please :lol:
It can be for some and it can not be for others.
You are one of those for who is not a crippling disability, according to what you say in this post.
As I am now, I'm pretty much crippled. Y'know, when one can't get organized, forgets to do stuff, has a lot of troubles going to places alone and has to take a med to function they pretty much are f***ed up. But I am only 16, I hope that in 10 years I will get even better (after all I've got better in these last years) and be able to do more stuff.


Autism isn't a mental illness. It's a neurological condition. Some people on the spectrum have serious problems with "executive functioning", which it sounds like you're dealing with.

You can communicate, and I suspect you can talk. This suggests that at least in some ways you're high functioning. High functioning autistics can grow, learn, and develope coping mechanisms affecting both their behaviours and even their thinking. From what you say this is already happening, so it likely will continue. You are not crippled. You are not mentally ill. You're neurologically impaired and are growing and learning.

View yourself as crippled and hopeless, and you could stay that way. You already seem to have grown beyond that, so my suggestion would be to forget viewing yourself as a cripple or as mentally ill. View yourself as inexperienced in life, which you are, and as having an impairment that means you have to try harder to function. That's not such a bad thing, because....Guess what? PLENTY of people on this board have been exactly where you are now.

You can do this.


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Your Aspie score: 100 of 200 / Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 101 of 200
You seem to have both Aspie and neurotypical traits

What would these results mean? Been told here I must be a "half pint".


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23 Dec 2013, 2:32 pm

I think what alien91 is saying is not that he wishes everyone knew about autism, but that those who do know more about it, at least enough so they wouldn't go around saying it's not real. I'm fascinated by mental disorders, though I will admit to not knowing much or anything about some of them. Even so, if someone told me they had a disorder, even one I'd never heard of, I would never tell them they were wrong or it wasn't real, that's the real problem.


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bumble
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23 Dec 2013, 2:42 pm

I had not heard of it until a few years ago (just before I joined this site). A support worker I had at the time thought I may have it. As other people were asking me if I had it at the same time I looked it up.



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23 Dec 2013, 3:15 pm

I think people who claim it's not real don't really understand what it is and have probably never known anyone with it. It's the same with ODD too. People think it's just about questioning authority and having you own ideas and opinions and not following the crowd of what everyone else thinks and some people think it's just a kid being a brat due to bad parenting so they created this label to be PC so parents won't feel bad about themselves. They think the same about ADHD too. They think it's just about a kid being hyper and not being able to sit still in class and can't stop fidgeting in their seats because the kid is expected to be an adult and isn't allowed recess and all and is expected to sit for long periods of time. So they think parents get the label to drug their kids so their jobs will be easier as a parent because they want the kid to be a mini adult.

I have even seen people say online how Bipolar isn't real. I don't really understand that condition or how it affects people but I know it's real and it's more than just mood swings and getting upset and then feeling better and then getting upset all of a sudden. I do know for a fact these people tend to be wishy washy because you never know when they will get upset and they may be nice and then all of a sudden they are screaming at you and being verbally abusive. That's the only thing I know about it and how different it is than just mood swings and having a bad day.

It's all being misinformed and not really understanding the condition.


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Kalika
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23 Dec 2013, 4:00 pm

My response to the topic - some years back, we had a woman at our church whose son was autistic, and while I don't know what his functioning level was, he wouldn't make eye contact, repeated random bits of conversations, and often walked around flapping his hands.

And I think a lot of times, NTs might associate anyone on the autism spectrum as functioning at that same level.



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23 Dec 2013, 4:01 pm

It doesn't bother me so much if people are uninformed, or misinformed, that's understandable. There are many disorders and diseases or other situations in general that I know nothing about as well. What is offensive is when they let you know they are not willing to BECOME informed, and they stubbornly hold on to their own misunderstandings and assumptions.