Aspergers So What

Post Reply New Topic

Hello wrong planet my name is Dave and I have on two separate occasions been diagnosed with aspergers syndrome. During most of my early adult life I refused to believe it and then somewhere around 30 to 32 I accepted the diagnoses and wore it like the curse I thought it was. I became so overly concerned with the fact that I had been given this diagnoses that I began to withdraw from people and life as I thought I cursed to a life where I never have friends and never fit in. Yet I began to pray and threw the power of prayer I begin to realize that I am David nothing more nothing less and the words of aspergers I know longer cared about. If some shrink wants to call part of me aspergers fine but I am David just David. I know longer am held by the bondage of some dingoes that is for the most part meaningless because everything I have ever watched on aspies is all problem and no solution. But I can tell you for me the solution was clear I accepted me for me. I just another human trying to make it threw life just like anyone else on this planet. I have my set of difficulties so does anyone. But I love who I am today and this is all thanks to God. I am not ashamed or discouraged as I once was because I am ok with me. You see we can spend a life time analyzing this thing they call aspies or we can spend that same life time living. I for one am sick of living in the fear of a couple of words. I want to live my life while I am hear. I don't want to be reviver someday for my success with the tagline of look at what he did and he has aspergers. The best complement you can pay me is by letting me just be another face within the crowd. A man among men and person among people.
I hopes this helps put aspie into perspective and helps you understand that you are a human nothing more or less.

Very good post Dave - I totally agree with you

I would say though that religion/belief in God is also another form of social control imposed
on us from outside, just as the Asperger label is, but if you feel you get a lot out of it that's what matters

This is a very interesting article I found recently about Aspergers and rejection:-

http://www.hoge-essays.com/asperger.html

"Despite the rich and luxurious technological advancements we've made in the last century -- television, computers, spacecraft, computer software, video games, digital effects in movies, and wireless devices, not to mention treatments and cures for diseases and advances in theoretical knowledge -- an alarming degree of negative popular attention has been given to so-called 'nerds,' 'geeks,' and 'dorks' who pioneer these advancements and make life comfortable for their attackers, even if only for being slightly awkward in appearance or manner. The style of thinking of many of these bright individuals is formalized and intellectual, and there is even a label given to those who show patterns of social isolation and intense absorption in developing a skill: Asperger's Syndrome.

In this essay, I will suggest that Asperger's Syndrome can be caused by rejection alone, no matter who you are, and expound on some of the positive traits associated with it. There is no true mark of the person with Asperger's Syndrome. Whether or not someone 'has it' is entirely a matter of opinion, and throughout the essay, I will therefore say people diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome rather than people with Asperger's Syndrome to give respect to this important fact.

I, myself, have been told I have Asperger's Syndrome by two clinicians, though I have come to expressly disagree with them. As I will propose, being diagnosed say little about you other than that you may have been ostracized, even out of fear or jealousy. Later, I will offer a rationalization of the 'geek' stereotype. While I have rejected the label itself, I will still say 'we' to refer to the diagnosed and expect that no misunderstanding will take place. (I'm somewhat averse to being told I 'have' it.) ....."

I don not think aspergers is caused by anything. I think it is more like you get a group of guys together who all love talking about comics and video games they are labeled as geeks. But that is who they are I think even if they did not have other people to share their passion for video games and comics they would still love them not because they are geeks but that is who they are as people and that is what they like to do. See I think we need to move away from labels that seperate and make people feel apart from and just start to see people as people. I do not have aspergers I am david that is it. Screw the labels. I think the good for labels is when there is a behavior or something that almost outside of your control(kind of like mood swings in the manic depressive person) that need to be addressed because they are getting in the way of you fuctioning. Other than that there is no point. I think we like too much as a socitey to lable and divide. Americans especially do not seem to like differences and so we become hung up on psycho babble and labels so we can seperate and file people into their approite groups.

I can tell you from personal experice the issues I had and have with maiting relationships are my fault and not because I have aspergers sydrome but because I am a very selfish and self centered person. I take without return and I know these are the glaring ones but the more I learn about what I am doing wrong the more I want to take the oppsite action. Because this is my life and if it turns out good, bad, or indifferent it is my fault and not because I have aspergers but because I non perfect human. I am flawed. I want to do the best to fix what I can and I need Gods help to do it.
Now a side note when I talk about God I am not talking about a reglion for I never could do religon but I could do God as he reveiled himself to me. I not hear to preach or get into speritual matters I just stating how I have found this. You are free to do with it as you will.

Hey, Dave I'm glad you've gotten AS integrated into your view of yourself, in a neutral way. That's a big important step, right there.

I'm quite religious myself and I also find a good deal of help from prayer. It's a way of talking to someone who always listens, never judges you, and prefers blunt honesty to polite equivocation. The way I see it, God made me autistic, just like he makes people male and female, black and white, straight and gay, tall, short, strong, weak, African, Asian, introverted and extroverted, nerdy and trendy and everything else. Autism is part of human variation. Disability, in general, is part of human variation; and that makes it a normal part of the human experience. I don't see myself as apart from the rest of the human race, because while I have autism-related problems, other people have problems related to their own traits.

My particular religion is Christianity, but currently I am not going to church because of how I have had trouble finding a church where people really cared about others--not just the clean, polite others, but the dirty, poor, awkward, unpopular others too. I've met individual Christians who cared like that--in fact, more Christians than non-Christians--but I've yet to find a church where the official message is "Love each other" instead of "God loves us more." Sometimes it seems like a church has got the idea; but then there's a message on how gay people are sinning (really? Love is a sin now?) or talking about how people who aren't Christians are somehow inferior and to be pitied... I've just given up on church, lately, and decided to just follow God on my own. I feel very lonely this way, but what else am I supposed to do? I can't just stand there and implicitly support ostracism and sometimes outright bigotry, and I'm not exactly the sort of person who's capable of changing an entire church by myself.

When you're talking about how you blame yourself for your dating problems--It's good that you are aware that you're flawed and imperfect, and that learning to care about others more is a goal to work toward. But please remember that you are only responsible for what you know and understand: If you are accidentally hurting others, you need to fix the mistake, but you can't be blaming yourself constantly. Use your mistakes as you would a failed experiment: You gather the data, use it to plan your next experiment, and work toward success.

I think the implication is that a person with AS is more than just a blob of autism; they're a unique person.

Like, when I say, "I'm American," I'm not saying that I'm a stereotypical American and that everything I do and say and think is completely defined and predicted by my citizenship. I'm just saying that this is one particular aspect of myself.

That's the meaning I read into the "I do not have Aspergers" statement--not saying that you don't have the diagnosis, but saying that there is much more to you than the diagnosis. A better way to say it, without confusing people, would be to say, "I am not defined by Asperger's," or, "There is much more to me than just Asperger's."

AMEN DAVID!! I say the same thing. I do not like labels, nor being considered having Asperger's or anything. It does not impede me or anything. I am also human, as well. Labels suck!!
I am proud of you David!!

I definitely see Asperger's as an important part of who I am, and an explanation for why I do or think certain things. But it certainly doesn't define me entirely. I hate using my diagnosis as a crutch or an excuse (though sometimes I have no choice), and I don't confine myself to other aspies when it comes to socializing. In fact, most of my friends are either NT's or have a cognitive disability that's not related to autism, and I don't always relate to other aspies, though there are certainly cases where I do.

I'm all for beeing an individual, we all are the same like that (Ironic, isn't it?). I also think labeling yourself as a person first is important, dont let the religion-stamp, or aspergers-stamp, or any other label dictate who you are.

Like religion opens your eyes, so does realizing you have Aspergers. It's nice to find a community you can relate to. If its a website called wrongplanet, or if its a congregation, that doesn't matter as long as you feel you belong where you are.

When I found out at first that I had a personality type called INTJ, I loved how that made me see sides of myself I had never reflected upon before. The same with Aspergers, now I can read books about it and work on my problem areas with the help from people who have lived what I'm going through.

My biggest fear when telling my family about Aspergers, were that they might think I used it as an excuse. I told them that I am still me, and this label is not any excuse for previous behaviour. My hopes for the future is only that they will understand me better.

Amen brother.

Hi, David. Great post

Hmm, Interesting. Of course, I have quite a few other issues aside from dating/shyness. I do not think finding God (well, actually just going back to traditional church, my tour of the Fundementalists soured me on religion for YEARS, unfortunately, they make a lot of noise in the USA but that is another topic not relevan here) cures me of being Autistic, however. I am what I am. LOL
All humans are flawed, some more than others. Some in unique ways, we should all realize this and refrain from judging any others..

Sincerely,
Matthew