aspie power

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Then perhaps maybe you need to change your methodology. Instead of giving up and being resigned to that fate maybe you should take a look at how successful Aspies on this message board overcame their problems and learn more effective methods than what you have been using up to now.

Kevin i am not saying that its easy to live with AS. I am finding things hard also. I have no friends in real life, no job also on incomesupport /dla. i am not tryng to compare myself to you i am just tryng to relate. I am only 24 though.

KevinLA aren't you doing exactly what you accuse everyone else of doing? You are using your AS as a crutch and an excuse for your bad behaviour. Bad KevinLA.

I can't resist.

My mother has a PHD and my father was a rocket scientist. I am no dummy. Also, being 36 means I have more experience than most people on this board with AS.

It is one thing to accept your AS and it is another thing to embrace it. There are too many people on this board embracing it and it is not doing them any good.

wow, psychotic episode aside, I'm really beginning to feel for everyone here with problems. I suppose I'm lucky, while I have several other comorbid illnesses, my AS isn't that bad, and I've learnt to overcome the mindblindness that I used to have. I apologise again for my rotten behavior unfortunatly violent mood swings and paranoid delusions are something that I occasionally get.

I am 36. The party is over for me.

Do NT's Have Compulsive Conversion Disorder?

Why is there a constant need to convert? I've noticed that some NT's have problems with being individuals so when someone else that doesn't fit in comes along, they get confused about the crowd they already converted to.

Do NT's have difficulties too? They sure do. What is the difference? There was never a person to diagnose them and stamp labels of dysfunction on them.

I'm saying this in retaliation to mean NT's that can't stand individualism and instead of admitting that they have problems with it, they put their problems on us by claiming it's all our fault when really we are being ourselves.

Do me a favor. If you want your children to fit in and have CCD, tell them honesty is not the best policy. Tell them that being yourself doesn't work.

Over at 36? I graduated with my Bachelors Degree three months shy of my 44th birthday. There is always a fresh start.

I apologize.

But what I was saying is just my personal experience. I have no physical difficulties. So for me, it's not a major issue.

You don't need to apologize. I should apologize. I shouldn't have said you can't debate someone my age. I actually edited that part out of my previous post. You can debate anyone regardless of age. I should have just mentioned the part of having more life experience.

Well, I am almost a decade older than you, and I'm no slouch either. But you have NO real hobbies? Isn't that pretty much a hallmark of AS?!?!? ALSO, physical disabilities and no job are NOT because of AS. HECK, AS IS a difference, and has some possible negatives and some possible positives. It is almost like tuning a car!

With a car you have firing order, spark gap, fuel mix, timing, gas, oxygen, temperature, other things. USUALLY, these are set kind of low. Things are supposed to be just so. The engine runs, and may cost little, but doesn't run well. If the seals, gaps, timing, etc... are just so, you can put a better fuel mix in with NO ILL EFFECTS, and things run better/faster! You could use the shaft, or exhaust, to drive a turbine to preheat the fuel and add air, and it will run even BETTER, but maybe not as long. Maybe you can try a new fuel mixture and have it run faster, but not as reliably.

AS is the same sort of thing. We are kind of tuned differently. Sometimes things break, cell die, etc... Sometimes things end up a bit worse, other times better. Parts of my brain DEFINITELY work better than those of many others I know. Others certainly don't work as well. Still, I am FAR from the invalid you seem to claim AS people are.

I think it's okay for people to embrace their AS. You can spend your life hating it and blaming it for your life being so sucky. Or you can understand it, learn to live with it, and help others learn to live with you. Why hate the world because you have processing errors?

Everyone has issues. It's how we deal with them that makes us truly unique. We must all learn to live with those issues in our own ways. Some of us do better than others, of course. But telling people to not embrace it is wrong. We should all embrace our differences and teach others to do the same. To do anything other is to advocate reverse intolerance.

AS is not a disease, illness, or disorder. It is a different way of thinking that is advantageous in some situations, disadvantageous in others. This is the stance that has been taken by every major reseacher into Asperger's Syndrome that I have ever heard of, from Dr. Hans Asperger himself down to today's Attwood and Baron-Cohen.
The post which demanded that we "NOT ACCEPT WHO YOU ARE" rather frightened me. I am who I am, and I can not change who I am. Do I sulk about it? Do I go to elaborate means to "fake" being something I'm not? No, I seek to find an environment which can make use of my special talents without the difficulties I do have being too much of an issue. I have done exceedingly well in school thus far, and have a promising career in science ahead of me. I also have very few friends. This is not really a big deal to me. I have been to a few parties, and I do not enjoy that form of social interaction. Sometimes I wish I had more friends, but I am happy and I do not need to rely on others to validate my existence. I guess what I am trying to say here is that while I struggle with social interaction, that doesn't necessarily have to be everyone's first priority in life and I would rather focus on things that I might actually be successful at.
I am not claiming that I am better than everyone else, or that Aspies in general are better than NTs. Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses, and society has a place where all of us can make meaningful contributions. We need teachers, and I would be a crappy teacher. But we also need engineers, and that's a job I could handle. Enforced conformity from either direction would be a death order for civilization; in order to maintain our vitality as a society we need to have a diversity of abilities, interests, and talents. Can you imagine a world consisting of nothing but computer programmers? How about a world filled only with auto mechanics, or only with university professors, or only musicians? Any such world would be unable to sustain itself.
Everyone has their own problems and struggles sometimes. I agree that, as we are a tiny minority living among the rest of the world, we need to accept the existing social order and learn to function with NTs rather than demanding that the rest of the world change to match what we want, but insisting that we must "become NT" or "learn how to act/think like NTs" is going a bit far. Such statements imply that Aspies are inherently inferior to NTs, and such an attitude is not a healthy way to go about dealing with whatever problems you are having. Find your niche, find whatever strategies work to get you through the day and functioning in society in general, but don't demand that I change who I am (which I am incapable of doing anyways) simply because I am different from other people.

The DSM-IV-TR calls it Asperger's disorder. However, my guess, based upon what I have seen in the literature, is that the DSM-V will change that to Asperger's syndrome.

^ Hmm...

What I've read is that the DSM-V will get rid of AS altogether and just consider it high-functioning autism.

That could be. I am basing what I wrote on the literature I have read in APA journals. I have access to a large online database through my college employer. The term "Asperger's syndrome" is used more frequently than "Asperger's disorder." I have not see the term "high-functioning autism" used all that much. However, a lot can change in a few years.

Last edited by nominalist on 11 Nov 2007, 10:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.