The 'Asperger industry', and political correctness

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The best cure is acceptance. I don't wish to be "fixed", because I'm not broken. I think that society needs to be cured from living in the Dark Ages, when it comes to people who are on the Spectrum. I'm glad that I wasn't put through ABA. I'm glad that I wasn't tuned into a brainwashed robot. I was taught to do the right things, for the right reasons, by my parents. I think that society needs to be cured from the damage that Hitler did. That's what I think. If Hitler wasn't around, I bet that there wouldn't be ABA and prenatal testing for disabilities.

How about people with NTism? To me, they have highly specific needs too (when it comes to training in social skills with aspies) that are not being addressed.

I've been finding ways to provide for my needs by ending my obsession over pleasing the NT world. They are not my god. I live to do what is right and I do not permit and/or tolerate the majority to determine my standards. That's why I love what David Crockett said:
"Be always sure you are right then Go, ahead." Unfortunately, when those of us who live by such guidelines get labeled as being opinionated and stubborn (to say it mildly).

Would those people study it if they never earned any money for doing so? Also, realize that those who study it and differ with their opinion are not the ones to get their opinions out into the public as much because they do not have the same amount of money as those who do succeed in getting more material published.

I'm just curious and hope you don't mind my asking your age. How old are you? I'm guessing you're not a youngster. You've obviously a thinker.

It appears to me that Autism Speaks, (Who seem to be dominating the mainstream debate) are intent on wiping ASD's of the face of the planet, so I don't think your main premise is valid. As for my 'Pain', well, I'm man enough to bear it cheefully. (Although most it comes from the way NT's treat me). To repeat what's someone's already said -I AIN'T BROKE & DON'T NEED FIXING!

I see a need to self define, many quote what the medical types say, but they are not us. Many of us say they are way wrong. It may just be that what works for a clinical report, does not work for living with the condition. You have AS, now go away.

I am a recent discover, I thought it was just me. Now I see a we. I have learned a lot on WP, a mix of condition, failings, adaptations, and a lot of talk about NTs. Like the clinical that can define but not identify or help, I am having the same problem with NT. Is this supposed to be obvious?

I do not understand them, my basic problem, and there are no studies that I could learn about them. I could find more work on Baboons, their habits and social order.

I feel two gaps, one, I do not have a degree in Aspie. I might buy some of it, but there is a lot more than a Dx, it is a world. It is not a bad one, NTs suffer in life also. We do have good points, but I learn this most important thing from reading on WP.

Problem two is a lack of information on NTs. Yes, I am dense, I do not get it, I do not read them well, and they freak on me. When I do business on the Internet, the problems vanish. When I live in another culture, another language, the problems vanish.

In person, or by phone, I get a very bad reaction. This narrows the range of the problem.

I seem to interview well over the Internet. The verbal and mental mesh well. I have been told my voice sounds like a recording generated by a computer. What I find strange is people I do not know, have never met, spoken to, or seen, who I am having nothing to do with, have strange reactions to my presence, even at a distance. I give off vibes.

Some are like a moth and a flame, they circle, drawing closer. I perceive fear, hate, and attraction.

I think I am an ordinary looking person, but the reactions are like I was a Werewolf wearing an Armani, asking directions to the reference section. They cannot place me, and think they should chase me, kill me, call 911, and they have no idea why.

Dogs come up to me on the street and introduce themselves, wild animals in the forest just look at me and go back to eating, but humans are strange.

The AS-NT differance is marked. Mentally we are the same by text. In non-English speaking lands I have no problem. It does seem limited to personal contact with my own culture.

I would like to learn more about being AS, as a person, some NT Anthropology, might help, but the reaction from strangers is baffling. My presence alone, and worse when I speak.

From the way they act there is some mental connection, that causes them great discomfort and fear, so they feel like attacking, but I am larger. I have had Libriains menence me with book in hand. Circle me as I sat reading, and could not break free. Sometimes I get up, walk up to them, and ask where the restrooms are, then thank them. I see a near heart attack happening.

I do not see AS as something that can be cured by me changing my behavior. I am a well educated soft spoken, well dressed, sixty year old man.

The world is a perfect place over the Internet. I have no social conflicts.

Does anyone else notice that "in person" is everything?

I agree that people with AS need to do more to educate the general public. No one has a greater interest.

I guess what bothers me about this is that this approach says: AS people have an undesirable disorder so we should "fix" ourselves....
as others have said, there is not a lot of self esteem to be gained from having the fundamental self-view that you are broken.

Another thing is the decision to make a commitment to erase systemising from social interactions and use only empathising. The question i ask, is, why should we take this extreme measure when NTs themselves use systemising often in their social interactions. When an NT is intolerant of differences, which often they are, they switch off their "empathising" and go into "systemising". Also, when NTs use duplicitious behaviours they are also using their "systemising" to plot their way through everything.

It is silly to suggest that AS people are these cold systemisers and NTs are like playful, benevolent, empathising, enlightened beings which we can be just like as long as we switch our systemising off.

It is silly because they, themselves use systemising.

Last edited by zen_mistress on 26 Oct 2007, 9:38 am, edited 2 times in total.

Has anyone read JC's "i cured myself blog?". It's written like a computer manual, uses computer analogies and is highly structured and systematic... need I say more?

No, you still can't "unlearn" Asperger's That hasn't changed since the last time we got these posts.

And I'm a bit scared of these "Autism Speaks" things.

I *LIKE* who I am. What I'd like is assistance with social things, etc. There's no help for those who are adults.

I'm sorry, but please don't tell me how I feel about "the pain of social isolation or loneliness". There is no one that understands how I feel more than myself, and to say that I suffer from social isolation or loneliness is absurd. I do not SUFFER it, it simply does NOT BOTHER me in any way at all. If you think everyone who has social isolation or loneliness must be suffering it, then you must be narrowminded. I enjoy being alone, and there is nothing I can see rationally that might benefit me from society because society is irrational. I operate mutually exclusively from society, and do not wish to be "cured" if it means losing the talents I'm best at through Aspergers. This is what I hate most about NTs. Instead of trying to understand and accept us for who we are, they think we need to be more like them. Ignorance only begets more ignorance.

I read it ; I thought it was thought-provoking because it was a different idea . Debatable. Taking the currently available , to some, cognitive therapies to their logical extreme , aspie style!!

Something I noticed immediately was the frequent references to "noisy", "crashing" "huge software system taking over " .. etc, and have to say I totally identify with that experience. I have described it myself as a "jabbering" going on my brain, like people arguing and theorising incessantly in my head, like a noise , unrelenting hammering noise of thought going on up there.
And which completely stops when I stop eating gluten!! The peace and calm and relief when I stop eating bread is amazing!! The "jabbering" stops. But the insights/systematised thinking goes on!! Just more calmly , without the "Hitler speaks at Rally" style urgency!!

I noticed that the systematised presentation and approach made me uneasy because it reminded me of the "processes" taught , and the language used to teach them , of a "personal development programme" that I got involved with called, at the time, The Life Training Programme, now More to Life, and which I think actually aggravated my autistic systematising tendencies , or perhaps only made me more aware of them (!?!?) , because a large part of its approach consisted of "enabling" one to "hear" what they called "mindtalk" in order to better control it .
The theory was that once learn to hear ones "mindtalk" can examine it to see if a repeated thought is false, true, or "don't know" (for example any statement with "always" in is probably false ; eg: I always put people off with talk about my interests"! !, and there are many others by definition false or not knowable.) and having done this actively reject the false , and take on a new "truer" belief in its stead.

This approach occupied me for several years. When I say "occupied" I mean like Big Brother!! It was like having the thought police take up residence in my own head. I won't go into the wider, and even more disruptive/destructive consequences of the programme on me, suffice it to say that I think they should be careful not to "enrol" people who are on the autistic spectrum. Because I took their system literally .

But the similarity that makes me most uneasy is this idea of re-programming ones head, and to do it in the search for some pre-ASD person, who "took the wrong path". I find this idea very scary these days after my experience of this group. And how it held me in thrall . Constantly "examining" my thoughts to see how was doing in improving my mental habits, constantly falling short.
It encouraged a terribly seductive belief in recovering a lost self, an essential self. Whereas I think one of the most extraordinary and exciting ideas I gain thru accepting the limitations, aswell as the equally strange freedoms, of ASD and the way in which it caused me to construct myself , is the awareness that the whole notion of "personality" is bizarre, and perhaps refers to nothing real at all.

But possibly some of the most "painful" symptoms are not actually ASD ,( nor comorbities as already mentioned, nor the "isolation" in NT world,) BUT the result of a possibly related intolerance of/chemical sensitivity to certain foods , especially the opiate-similar proteins in wheat and dairy.
Perhaps for those with ASD whose genes ALSO predispose to a failure to digest certain molecules leads the opiate-similar actions of the proteins to have a particularly catastrophic effect on the system; sensory overload, driven behaviours, meltdowns that afflict some. I think this because I have significantly reduced or eliminated these over and over again by cutting out gluten

I agree with Monty that much more needs to be known about it. Research! On the other hand there is no harm in trying out various approaches , and indeed theorising in a systematising way about poss causes , now ! ! Don't want to become a sacred cow!!

But I think it is an ancient and noble kind of humanity, just in greater trouble in modern noisy mobile speedy crowded world ( there may have been more place for the slower socialiser, the "spaced out" animal genius!! etc etc in the past ) and under pressure from increasingly stressful ( richer in "opiate-similar" foods ; more and more dairy , and wheat engineered with more and more gluten in it)diets!!

Last edited by ouinon on 26 Oct 2007, 10:44 am, edited 17 times in total.

I agree with this.

I've been fighting to be allowed to be myself since long before AS was being diagnosed. AS itself is not causing me any pain. I am quite content with my obsessions and relative social isolation.

When I'm forced to be part of an NT social environment, such as a workplace, it becomes painful. The discomfort is the result of being treated like I'm inferior, having my abilities underestimated, being mocked, humiliated, ostracized, insulted. But this is the result of intolerance and lack of understanding, not AS.

lol, my thoughts EXACTLY. Has anyone figured out the timing of these things? Show up, post about how we can "unlearn" it, take matters into our own hands once every few months or so? rarely responds, lol.... gah, for some reason, I get a headache every time I see one of these posts...

Even on the site, so he describes something that ANYONE can relate to in some degree, very vaguely, no specifics. Heck, I don't even think he ever had it, but I'm skeptical when there's very little preceding to explain what it was like for someone, especially when they are telling me I can "unlearn" it.

Last edited by nobodyzdream on 26 Oct 2007, 3:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yeah, my thoughts too. I guess those of us who have seen this again and again need to keep warning the newer people who haven't seen him do this. I wonder what his problem is that he keeps doing this? Does it fulfill some kind of need to be bullying? I can't understand it. Like I said last time, the entire premise is screwed up and backwarsd. Probably easier to find the last thread than retype out why.

He's not completely off-base though. Since my diagnosis, my father ($) just gets call after call from all sorts of people saying they can help; and I read their letters and half of them are bogus (I caught one neurologist using fake words once). This has gotten a little bit out of hand.