About the existence or inexistence of Asperger Syndrome

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Thank you. Me too I don't know what we can do about it, ... if anything, apart from the dietary angle that is.

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Sora, I disagree. Militant anger has enabled the gay community to unite. Anger has served to enable their perseverance. Above all, anger enabled them to see how they were being discriminated against. Anger inspired clarity and courage to fight and fix their situation.

With the igniting of courage and inflaming of outrage [from having to tolerate inhumane treatment] --- came the commitment to demand equal and fair treatment.

We need to do the same.


@ouinon
You start a movement and then want to quit? Well, we shall see how this plays out.

Ouch!

What are the other AS/Autist groups and similarly "disabled" doing?
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Last edited by ouinon on 20 Mar 2009, 1:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The gay community rejected punishment for being different.
We have also been severely punished for being different.
Does it make sense to put up with this?

How much longer?

And that's probably why today people who want to be respectful are paranoid about accidentally discriminating against homosexuals.

Some people may like making other uncomfortable, but I don't. Neither do I want people to respond with a new anger stemming from that they are not comfortable with the difference.



But when only anger inspires the courage necessary to act, then prior to that anger the person was probably weak, ill and scared. By all accounts, they were devoid of courage previously. That's really... I can't imagine that. I judge that as ill.

I would not trust a person who is solely driven by anger about having been treated unfairly because whatever happened to them before that made them so angry also left a mark on them. But someone who was hurt and angry is a lot more likely to make unfair, dangerous and illogical decisions for the 'good'. They lack the inner peace and inner respect to everyone and everything that they'd need to help others respect them.

I just don't think you can give what you don't have.

Besides, the type of courage that comes from conviction does not demand anger to make a person strong, motivated and true to their principles. True courage is there, it doesn't need a catalyst.

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Last edited by alba on 21 Mar 2009, 6:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I agree with you to some extent. Resentment is dangerous, both to the resentful person and to those they come into contact with. It tends to produce narrow, driven, and because it is often "cold", unconscious, resentment, some of the most destructive and negative behaviour.

But anger need not be. Anger can be a healthy response; it increases breathing, and inspires action. Anger is an appropriate response in some situations. Anger can be what you feel when you suddenly have courage. Resentment is what one feels if believe at some fundamental level that there is nothing that one can do, that one is trapped/helpless, whereas anger may actually only be able to exist if feel able to act. Some people never feel angry, not because they are calm but because they are too afraid.

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No, I don't mean to say anybody is supposed to put up with suffering.

I just mean to say that it's beyond my understanding why people who due to maltreatment lash out in hurt and anger and then insult and injure others can pride themselves with thinking that their response of violence towards violence is right and that they can rightfully demand respect, comfort and equality although they're the same as those who maltreated them before.

It boils down to that they were hurt and now they will hurt others to make - what they think is - peace.

'I hit them because they hit me first.' That's never an excuse. Find a way to show them that hitting you, hating you, treating you as if you're below them is wrong by not hitting them in return, by not hating them in return, by not thinking they're below you in return.

I sincerely doubt that peace can be achieved by violence, equality from inequality or respect from paying others disrespect. That just keeps the spiral of hate growing. That's like what Einstein said:

It will never stop because there's no limit to violence and hate.

Some do really succeed though - I get to see a lot more who are successful in my real life environment than most people do though. A few people at my uni I have helped out on occasion, tbh I know a few of us really do have our cakes and eat them.

Tbh - I really do not suggest going down the lines of what gays have done. What we should do is wait for a genetic test for autism, whilst trying to ensure that we are all in positions of high social authority. Then we win.

As for the gay rights movement, I have seen first hand the damage it has done to some aspies - who as a result of their different treatment in life, bullying etc idenify so much with them that they end up thinking they are gay themselves.

There are ways and means of having fun at societies expense, if you are so inclined.

I don't want to elaborate at length here, but I can tell you that AS exists. I call AS a difference as I believe that it is a different wiring of the brain. I don't call it a disorder because I don't see myself as defective (as a disorder implies). My different autistic brain wiring makes me different than NTs. That is why I call it a difference. But AS does exist.

Caused by autistic traits? For some of us, not all of us. There isn't a person on earth who doesn't have some 'real life pragmatic problems", this is far too all-encompassing.



According to the Myers-Briggs poll, 90% of the votes are in the Introverted part. There are plenty of signs that a *significant* percentage of people who are diagnosed with AS or who have self-diagnosed as AS, do not actually have a neurological dysfunction. They can be awkward socially, introverted, prefer time with their interests than social gatherings, be out of touch with latest trend, but need not have any physical dysfunction at all. From your description you are clearly not in that group, Pandd. Which is absolutely fine, but I don't understand why you seem to refuse to acknowledge the very existence of this group.



It's got a bit confused as the initial "does AS exist" has become more "is it a physical disorder"! I think the set of traits do exist, but I agree with you that they are not a dysfunction, just a different function. The traits have bestowed too many gifts on me for me to think I am really disabled.

Last edited by ManErg on 20 Mar 2009, 2:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Yes, doubts are understandable. I have them myself. I must add that I don't think the problem is directly with the psychiatrist as he followed the diagnsotic criteria. I think the problem is that the criteria are far too subjective and vague. I actually do fit the DSM-IV criteria reasonably well, but you can stretch those criteria and get millions more in if you try!

The criteria have changed and will change again. I think those with your symptoms should be differentiated in some way from those with my interpretation of AS i.e. 'Geek Syndrome' not Autism.

My functioning is probably closer to NT than it is to extreme autistics. I belong in neither group, I am the proud (and only) member of my own club. Only one of me ever produced in all history! Label me dysfunctional AT YOUR PERIL!! !!

I was hoping you would say "It's society that needs to change, not us. It's society that is defective, not us." You've said that before.

Surely not everything the gays have done for better treatment has been in vain. Their demands have at least been articulated and considered. Autistic spectrumites are a long way from being in that position. First we have to stop feeling sorry for ourselves, as it seems the majority do. Second we need to realize we are being discriminated against. Third we need to articulate what we need. IMO we must effectuate positive requests and demands to abolish discrimination against us, rather than continue whining about it. Complaining about our situation doesn't create social change, unless we can kick it up a few notches and take effective action to meet our needs.

I'm not a thread starter; my courage and initiative lie elsewhere. But if I were to start a thread, it would be to ask WPers what they really need in order to have a better quality life.

Being in positions of high social authority isn't exactly what most of us would want nor do we have the capabilities required for that endeavor. But having friends in high places---eventually we will have to find them or be them.

I feel society is at fault for causing us to be swept to the side. Our needs are either being met with totally insensitive "cure" techniques or else our misery is deemed appropriate, unavoidable. As I believe Ouinon has been saying throughout this thread, most of our misery/dysfunction/illness is socially generated, environmentally created [and sometimes due to dietary mistakes]. We have special needs and we have to articulate what they are.

All we have to do is get a voice that will be heard and many of us have the possibility of seeing an improvement in the quality of our lives.

Oh don't get me at wrong here, morally it is a very flawed system. However strategically, we need a plan that works - enough of us sucking up to their game to an extent (I am not suggesting we pretend to be perfect NT's - far from it.). If we get this right, then we will actually have a lot of the social authority and power positions to make a change. I would not say these successful people I refer to exactly follow the social contract, what they do is selectively follow it.

True, but I really would not use the gays as a model. There are far better ones, for example Martin Luther King. Or perhaps look at what the Bahai or Humanists are trying to do.

Some of the things gay rights groups have done to advance their cause have been pretty disgusting, to be honest most gay people have some serious serious gripes about Stonewall.

We need to know who our group actually is and more importantly note that we are far from the only group of people who get swept aside. There are a lot of allies out there - personally if we go for the head on approach, I would suggest it is done as part of some wider disability rights movement.

Getting that voice is the difficulty.

I think that many of us on WP, despite the concept of AS to explain/excuse our failures, still blame ourselves for not doing better. That is the impression I get from many threads here, that people are far from feeling sorry for themselves, are in fact swamped with self-blame.

I think that I can see/understand how campaigning for changes in society, ( for instance in school, which was such a nightmare for so many of us, so totally the opposite of enabling ), on the basis that AS is a difference with as many positives and negatives as any other metabolic "type" in society, could seem like throwing away that protection/"excuse".
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Last edited by ouinon on 21 Mar 2009, 2:54 am, edited 1 time in total.

I was going to say that women, and blacks, and gays all managed to do it, ... but it occurred to me that women are still struggling with this issue of equal rights which recognise their particular needs without treating them as weaker in some way.

The women's rights movement actually only won the right for women to be treated the same as men. And so women still have difficulty getting maternity leave, time/freedom to breastfeed, etc. It's precisely because of their differences, like people with AS, that they are experiencing difficulties.

Of course women could just admit that they are inherently impaired, because of all these bodily functions, ( pregnancy and motherhood are very disabling in our society, inconvenient, awkward, and also surprisingly excluding; have you tried going down the average high street with a pushchair, let alone into any of the shops? ), and need special treatment.

But that's what they had for several thousand years, and it was a recipe for abuse/exploitation/powerlessness. Which is what we risk if we plead "impairment". Women ( in general ) have still not succeeded in changing society so that they have equal freedom/opportunities/rewards in our society while also having children.

I get the impression that society does not know how to provide equally for "equal but different". "To each according to their need" is actually very complicated.

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