New Member. Aspergers a vulnerability, not a disorder

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Michael829
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30 Aug 2017, 2:35 am

nuway wrote:
I believe that it defines who I am.


I can't imagine being any other way, and still being myself.

I guess there are people who will bully whenever they perceive that they can get away with it. Lots of times people will start on me, and of course my first inclination is to try to be polite, to assume that there's nothing wrong. My politeness is always taken as weakness. But (nowadays) eventually i catch on to what's going on, and I answer them back. That causes anger, because they're thinking, "Hey, what happened to my pushover!".

Michael829


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30 Aug 2017, 2:39 am

The kind of people who interpret kindness, courtesy or dignity as weakness are often bullies. They think power is pushing other people around or putting them down. Real power is the ability to respect and earn the respect of others.



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30 Aug 2017, 1:13 pm

Michael829 wrote:
StamphSquiddyFan--

Well Aspergers' seems to have had a negative effect on my early life, and so I have to agree that it could be called a disorder for me then, in that regard. But i wonder if the Aspergers, by itself, under different external conditions, would have had a bad effect. Maybe not. All i know is that it evidently made more vulnerable, under conditions where vulnerability wasn't ok.

But I don't mean to sound negative about it. I emphasize that I have a good life now, content and no complaints. As for that earlier life, that was just the way this life was going to be. The fact that that I couldn't have done different means that there's nothing about it for me to be bothered about now.

Michael829


I don't find you negative at all. I am glad you are positive about Asperger's now. In my opinion, you don't have to refer to it as a disorder if you don't want to because you've already suffered enough, why make it sound more miserable now? :D


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raenur
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30 Aug 2017, 1:23 pm

I'd just drop in that I don't like to think of it as a disorder. For example you might say hypersensitivity to sound is a "problem" in our modern, noisy, overstimulated civilisation, but in other contexts in other times it would be an advantage.



Michael829
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30 Aug 2017, 2:23 pm

StampySquddyFan--

Aspergers isn't a problem for me now. Of course I still don't know how to deal with ordinary social situations, and I hate shopping because I have to deal with someone at the checkout. I trust that they understand that I don't talk because i don't know what to say. But I'm used to that, and I don't consider it a problem.

Living with my girlfriend, my avoidance of outside social interaction isn't a problem now.

But it certainly was when I was younger. Of course, since you're at the time of life when it matters the most, it's a good thing that you know what's going on, and can deal with it. I just emphasize that, in hindsight, it's clear that taking social chances is a much better idea than missing-out.

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30 Aug 2017, 2:29 pm

Michael829 wrote:
I don't find you negative at all. I am glad you are positive about Asperger's now. In my opinion, you don't have to refer to it as a disorder if you don't want to because you've already suffered enough, why make it sound more miserable now? :D


StampySquddyFan--

Aspergers isn't a problem for me now. Of course I still don't know how to deal with ordinary social situations, and I hate shopping because I have to deal with someone at the checkout. I trust that they understand that I don't talk because i don't know what to say. But I'm used to that, and I don't consider it a problem.

Living with my girlfriend, my avoidance of outside social interaction isn't a problem now.

But it certainly was when I was younger. Of course, since you're at the time of life when it matters the most, it's a good thing that you know what's going on, and can deal with it. I just emphasize that, in hindsight, it's clear that taking social chances is a much better idea than missing-out.

Michael829[/quote]

I like your view on Asperger's. I'm glad it doesn't cause problems for you anymore! :D

Thank you! I'm very glad I know what's going on as well. It helps me realize that this isn't my fault and things will get better someday, like they did for you. I'll try to take more social chances- I agree that it is much better than missing out. I'm lucky to have met some people with similar problems that understand me.

I look forward to reading more from you :D !

StampySquiddyFan


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30 Aug 2017, 3:36 pm

I would disagree that it is not a disorder. I am autistic and have know plenty of autistics and can tell you living a normal life is less of an option.



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30 Aug 2017, 3:41 pm

A spectrum is a line between two points - not a cookie cutter



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30 Aug 2017, 5:19 pm

Michael829 wrote:
I've just been reading from this forum, and decided to register.

I'm not diagnosed, but I seem to fully match the description of Asperger's.

Let me word-for-word rewrite my "bio" here:

Age: 72

Probably mostly due to Asperger's, I was completely vulnerable to bullying by parents and kids at school

That resulted in complete loss of my early life. I completely missed my youth.

But, if I could have survived childhood, then I wouldn't consider Asperger's a disorder at all, and I wouldn't want to be any other way.

So i call Asperger's a vulnerability, but not a disorder.

Michael829


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I prefer to call it both a disadvantage that comes with being part of a small minority and a disability. In a society that did not place so much value on small talk and nonverbal language, Aspies would do much better. On the other hand, I can't envision a society where the inability to multitask and adjust to change would anything but an impairment.

Call it a disability, call it a disadvantage it makes you vulnerable.

Bullying was thought of as normal part of growing up when I grew up a dozen or so years later than you. You were expected to fight back and if you could not or would not you were considered a weak person, a homosexual("queer", "homo","fa***t" etc) considered the worst insult one guy could say to another. Really if you were any type of different you were thought of as homosexual.

Totally opposite of today's "helicopter parents" parents did not drive you around to play dates and keep in contact with you via text all day long because the technology did not exist. You were expected to figure out what to play and suffer consequences if you erred.

It was inconceivable that a teacher or schools version of events would be questioned by a parent. If you said they got it wrong it was assumed you were lying and if you insisted on disputing their version of events you got a smack on the rear.

If you had a meltdown or a shutdown it was assumed the issue was you being defiant. If you failed courses you repeated the grade if you were unreachable they threw you out, it was perfectly legal, there was no special education to speak of. I was thrown out after 2nd grade.

There were advantages of the freedom kids had that they do not have today but that is a post for another time.

You are a survivor bruised and battered but still here to post. That is not true of many of our contemporaries. They were locked in the attic, thrown in the street or put away in an institution where they were subjected to all sorts of tortures and drug experiments. To still be here to tell the ugly tale shows your internal fortitude.


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30 Aug 2017, 6:39 pm

We are glad you are here :)



Michael829
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30 Aug 2017, 8:06 pm

ASPartOfMe--

You wrote:

{quote}
I prefer to call it both a disadvantage that comes with being part of a small minority and a disability. In a society that did not place so much value on small talk and nonverbal language, Aspies would do much better.
{unquote}

Yes, often it seems to me that I'd have done fine if it hadn't been for the bullying by parents and at school. It was easy for the bullying to have a disproportionate effect, because I was already overcautious, lacking social understanding or rapport, risk-averse, and maybe naturally (due to Asperger's) fearing intimacy. So I was really a sitting-duck.

{quote}
On the other hand, I can't envision a society where the inability to multitask and adjust to change would anything but an impairment.
{unquote}

Sure, and that could have brought difficulties, but not the thoroughly life-desctructive results that happened.

Call it a disability, call it a disadvantage it makes you vulnerable.

{quote}
Bullying was thought of as normal part of growing up when I grew up a dozen or so years later than you. You were expected to fight back and if you could not or would not you were considered a weak person
{unquote}

Quite so. It was all over the popular culture.

When I was a kid, there was a tv show called The Rifleman, with Chuck Connors. He used to always tall his son, "Son, don't start fights, but never run away from one." The tv and movie heroes always fought and won. Anyone who didn't, it seemed, must not count.

In fact, even more recently, look at the movie Back To The Future. Look how it glorifies violence. Its hero, Marty McFly always says, "No one calls me a chicken", and is always ready to fight even the strongest bully at the school, who is at least 4 times as strong as he is. That readiness to fight makes a girl even more infatuated with him. She doesn't even notice Marty's future father until the guy knocks out the school's strongest bully. Then she totally falls in love with him.

The message in these productions, and throughout the popular culture was, "You matter, and the girls will like you, only if you fight and win."

Now sure, obviously maybe there's some evolutionary adaptiveness for a girl to like a guy who fights and wins. But, contrary to those movies & tv shows, that's far from the whole story.


{quote}
It was inconceivable that a teacher or schools version of events would be questioned by a parent. If you said they got it wrong it was assumed you were lying and if you insisted on disputing their version of events you got a smack on the rear.
{unquote}

Sure, in Junior high, a teacher decided to keep after school everyone who didn't finish a class assignment quickly enough. That's surely against school policy, and a misuse of detention, but no one stood up to him or questioned his right to do so.

I once had a highschool English teacher assign detention when I didn't write down spelling-words that i already knew. When I eventually did write them down, her objection was that I didn't write them down in careful enough handwriting. I refused the detention, and my mother had to take time off work to come to the school, to prevent my expulsion.

Once another English teacher wrote some pronouns on the blackboard, and then took a dollar bill out of his wallet and, waving it around, said that he'd give a dollar to anyone if they could name a pronoun that wasn't in his list. (A dollar was worth a lot more then, around 1958).

He'd left out "Who". So I said, "Who". Instead of giving me the dollar right away, he waited till after class, because he felt like it it would weaken his status if the class saw him giving me the dollar.

Some days or weeks later, a kid tore up a book of mine, and that teacher refused to act on it, probably in retaliation.

You wrote:

{quote}
You are a survivor bruised and battered but still here to post. That is not true of many of our contemporaries. They were locked in the attic, thrown in the street or put away in an institution where they were subjected to all sorts of tortures and drug experiments. To still be here to tell the ugly tale shows your internal fortitude.
{unquote}

Certainly some people had worse things happen to them than I did. Losing my life wasn't so unique. But the way I lost it, due to bullying and life-killing shyness was almost unique.

But, at the time, I didn't survive it at all.

But now, later, I have a fine life.

Michael829


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Michael829
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30 Aug 2017, 8:33 pm

{quote}
You were expected to fight back and if you could not or would not you were considered a weak person, a homosexual("queer"
{unquote}

Now that you mention it, a highschool teacher once made that accusation when I reported an instance of battery against me in his class.

Battery by one adult on another, somewhere on the sidewalk, would be dealt with by the law. But a highschool or junior highschool student had no such protection.

I guess, in that incident, I should have quit going to that class, citing safety reasons, or asked that the city police department provide protection there.

Michael829


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