Is WP attracting too many of the wrong people

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Something I've noticed and something someone else told me that contributed to their perception of me as autistic is a tendency to make an analogy and then explain the analogy in explicit terms. I don't know how many do it, but I know I do.

Also, I believe that 80% of autistic children failed the theory of mind tests that established theory of mind deficits as the "core deficit in autism."

I have theory of mind issues, and that becomes more obvious every day. They're not as severe as they used to be, but they do come up.

Yikes- That is pretty scary. I don't have my own children yet (am still looking for Mr Right) but I work as a baby-sitter and mother's helper on a part time basis. One of the reasons I postponed getting my diagnosis is I was afraid that if I had the AS label on my medical records is that I would be deemed as "unfit" to care or assist in caring for children. I couldn't manage a large classroom on my own but do great as an aide (sadly these aide positions don't pay enough though).

I have seen some highly social NT moms ignoring their kids for their own "selfish reasons" or showing no "empathy" when their child was hurt. When I worked in day care, there was this one NT teacher who came to work every day with 4 inch nails and stilettos when taking care of 2 year olds. She almost never got down on the floor with the little ones and belittled them on a regular basis.

Just because an Aspie parent has difficulty dealing with the social nuances in the work world does not make them any less fit to parent than an NT. I'm glad the CPS saw how much you love your child and how well you take care of him or her.

Last edited by AllieKat on 04 May 2011, 7:42 pm, edited 4 times in total.

Our kind are just naturally hawt.

What I meant to say was, I totally disagreed with the OP but was thinking that maybe we had gone too far with feeding the troll even after I pointed out that WP designed was for anyone who has an interest in AS or other neurological differences regardless of their Dx status.

Last edited by AllieKat on 04 May 2011, 7:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well it attracted you so maybe.

Agreed. I’ve thought about this a lot, though, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the “Theory of Mind” is really a difficulty in thinking abstractly on a “what if” level. Of course, a child who hasn’t had many experiences yet would not be able to look back on their experiences and think what would happen in a specific situation, but that is precisely how Theory of Mind is tested. When it comes to understanding how someone thinks/feels in a real-life situation, I find that I often can figure it out but only in retrospect and only in a very limited, algorithm-like manner. I can go through logical scenarios I have memorized from the various books I’ve read and shows I’ve watched, as well as information other people have told me, to logically infer what might be happening in the present. But although I can perhaps comprehend what is happening, I find that it is nearly impossible for me to act appropriately based on this knowledge. Thus, I can write a story with continuity where I can ascribe different mental states to my characters and how these characters have interacted based on these mental states, but I cannot translate such information well into appropriate action on my part. I think that this has to do with the fact that there is too much going on for my brain to handle in a dynamic social situation and I cannot switch focus from myself to others so quickly with everything else that goes on around me. I also have mental palilalia/echolalia, so my mind can get stuck on one sound without being able to move on, which obviously means that it cannot think about something as logically complex as mental states of other people.

Another thing that may indicate to someone a “lack of a Theory of Mind” is not realizing how people might emotionally react to something one says. I think this is more due to a discrepancy between NT emotional responses and autistic emotional responses. NTs know how someone else would react to what is being said/done because they all react to things somewhat similarly. NTs don’t have a “Theory of Mind” to me, either, because they don’t know that telling me things in a vague manner or not telling me up-front what they're thinking will make me angry and upset.


I can understand where he’s coming from, though, as I have gone through that phase of trying to undiagnose people myself based on the criteria of AS as I know it. The difficult part about AS is that nothing about it is uncertain. What you have done here is perhaps taking the part that perhaps established some certainty for swbluto (Theory of Mind being a determinant of AS) and then said that it’s not entirely a determinant.

I still wanna know how I could be "The Wrong Kind of Person" for this forum when I joined and "The Right Kind of Person" now. Where is our OP? Off trolling another forum, perhaps?

~Kate

I don't think it's attracting too many people who self diagnose, most of them probably decide not to post here after seeing all the topics such as this one. At least, myself being someone who probably doesn't have AS, I felt a bit intimidated and didn't want to post until I saw that most people didn't agree with the OP.

Nobody can prove they were diagnosed anyway. Anyone could easily claim to be officially diagnosed over the internet, while really only being self diagnosed. This make the idea that the only people here have to be officially diagnosed completely pointless.

I do not have autism but hope I am welcome because I have 2 kids on the spectrum. They are diagnosed. I have a husband who is most likely AS but he took 5 years to consider it. I need suport and ideas. I have Depression and Anxiety myself so am not NT anyway.

If by that you mean, "I don't think I'm on the spectrum but scared s**tless that I am because a lot of evidence is pointing in that direction and that the psychiatrist is going to confirm that in 3 months", you're right.

Why scared of being on the spectrum? If you are on the spectrum, you were always on the spectrum.

I mean, I can relate. My first reaction was instant denial that lasted for a good three years.

The thought first crept into my mind about 3 years ago when I seemed to always seem to piss people off for reasons I didn't understand and never seemed like I could figure out and I jokingly thought "Maybe it's HFA." when I was really thinking I just "haven't met the right people who understand *me*.". But, it's only went seriously into the vogue when another correspondent claimed I interpreted things literally, my language was unusually pedantic for what I felt was "beyond my ability to control", and I did tend to have 'obsessional' type of thinking (I was studying vocabulary 4 hours a day, actually, for about 2 years and I took great joy in reading data tables for pleasure and noticing numerical patterns.) and a lot started to add up. And now, after conversing with others on here, it seems like it could be a real possibility and that scares me a lot because 1) if it was the case that I was a "social dweeb" and simply didn't have enough social experience, then I should be able to practice to become more socially 'mature' so then it would just be a matter of practicing to improve my behavior (Within the limits of my personality). However, if it's due to fundamental neurological diffferences as would be the case with being on the autism spectrum, then there's a "social ceiling" I'll probably never realistically be able to rise above and my employment and social outcomes would be forever negatively impacted by that, regardless of "practice" or "will power" and that scares me because then it's "outside of my control".

Of course, in that event of being diagnosed, I can try to optimize my economic outcomes as apparently many highly intelligent aspies are actually employed in profitable careers, and the social outcomes might follow suit, so it's not necessarily catastrophic. But, still, looking at the article that you linked about the "lost aspies" seemed to paint a picture that seemed I like I might be following and that scares me (What, never having a "successful" relationship because it's outside of my control(I read on another board that some NT girl in a marriage refused to have sex with his aspie husband presumably due to his 'aspie'-inspired un-sexiness.)? NOOOOO!! !!). I'm thinking if it's the case that if one is AS, then a better relational strategy might be finding someone who has similar "AS levels" and then hopefully they'd be more understanding / "on the same wavelength" and then reproduction would be avoided. Of course, there might be 'understanding NTs' out there, but the percentage of "unsuccessful relationships" seems frighteningly high among aspies paired with "pure NTs".

If it's the case that I'm fairly NT and I just have insufficient verbal memory, then optimize the job accordingly and relationships shouldn't be "too badly" impacted by that. Not exactly the ideal outcome, but better than otherwise.

If it's the case that I'm going schizophrenic which I should positively know within a few years, then damn, oh well. The gig is up, lol (And I already have a contingency plan formulated.).

If everything checks out fine, then practice, practice, practice!

Last edited by swbluto on 04 May 2011, 10:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I was self diagnosed for a long time and undiagnosed for 25 years.

I can relate to everything you wrote and share your concerns. I commend you for your open and honest discussion.

Not to complicate your dilemma, let me point out that there may be some overlap between the Autistic and Schizophrenic spectrums:

http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/43/19/20.2.full

The article refers to schizotypal as the mildest Schizophrenia Spectrum illness which confused me because I thought that the mildest was schizoid personality disorder.

My self diagnostics have led me to believe that I have an underlying autistic disorder with a developed schizoid disorder, as consequence of abuse brought on by the former, as a manifestation of damage and as an attempt to cope.

Last edited by Dinosaw on 05 May 2011, 12:18 am, edited 1 time in total.

Don't worry, I won't. She works at where I don't go and see the doctor for my son and I don't remember what she looks like anyway.

Yes you are right, kids do get taken when they shouldn't. It happened to my sister in law and to a co worker's daughter.

In my sister in law's case, she had room mates and they were doing drugs but she was too afraid to kick them out fearing what would happen. The CPS got involved and the roomies got kicked out for it and the kids got taken because they did drugs even though my sister in law wasn't doing them.

To my former co worker when I lived in Montana. There was an accident with her grand kids when her daughter was younger. She was about to give her baby a bath but she didn't realize how hot the water was and she was busy with her son so she got distracted I suppose so she didn't feel the water again to make sure it was not too hot or too cold. So she put her daughter in the bath tub and she burned her skin because the water was too hot. She got charged with child abuse and her kids got taken. She never got them back and one of them was adopted but my sister in law got hers back.

But yet when my ex aspie mate was four years old, he burned his wrist in the kitchen when his mother told him to not touch something because it was hot. He did anyway and got burned. It left a scar around his wrist so it looked like he had on a bracelet. He sure was still with his mother.

So even kids get taken for horrific accidents while some don't always get taken.

It is possible the mother may have burned her daughter on purpose and lied about it and the mother believes her daughter is innocent. There is always more to the story when we hear these things and of course friends and families will defend their loved ones and believe they are innocent. I do believe the mother should have checked the water before filling it up and maybe she did have it just right and her son may have turned the faucet and she didn't know it because she had her back turned. That is also a possibility that may have happened. You never know what young children can do. I used to unbuckle my son's car seat when he was a baby and what if we got in a car wreck one day and my brother was hurt he had to go to the hospital and the injuries could have been prevented if the car seat was strapped in? So they took both of us away because of the incident all because I unbuckled it and my mother was driving when it happened so how was she supposed to know it happened? Kids do get taken for no reason because of accidents and social services are just too ignorant. They don't always take kids away either when they should have.

I had the baby and they asked us a bunch of questions and my in laws told them of my disabilities when they asked if there are any health problems or any disabilities. Even my husband said the same and I think I also mentioned how nervous I was to be a mother because of my anxiety and I have a history of depression and what if I can't handle his crying and get him to stop. That could be it. Plus they asked if I'd be comfortable if someone stopped by to see how things are going but I didn't know it be the CPS so I said okay. Then I forgot all about it when I came home and things were going well. I had surprised myself. But they closed the case after one of them stopped by. Nothing was found they should be concerned about.