Help wanted: Favor

Post Reply New Topic

Hello!

Before I start, let me introduce myself. My name is Caitlin and i'm a junior at Marquette University. My younger brother who is 18, is autistic and has been diagnosed since the age of 2. It is absolutely amazing to me to see how far he has come and my family and I are now working together to help him to be an independent adult.

This brings me to the favor I have to ask. I work for my college magazine and have been asked to write a story on Autism Awareness in Milwaukee. I was wondering if any of you would be willing to share some of your experiences with me so that I could incorporate them into my story. Anyone can participate, even family members who have an autistic sibling or parents of an austic child. Even if you want to answer just a few questions, that's fine.

If you have a minute or two to help me out please answer the questions below--I would really appreciate it. Thank you!

God Bless,

Caitlin

1. What is your full name/age/hometown?

2. What is your diagnosis, and how old were you when you received it?

3. How was it that you first found out about your disorder?

4. What is the most challenging part of your disorder? Give examples if you can.

5. What is the most common misunderstanding people have of your disorder?

6. Was school difficult for you? why or why not?

7. What is it about you that makes you unique?

8. what is it that irritates you the most?

9. what sort of hobbies do you enjoy?

10. what is your happiest memory?

11. what was your scariest memory?

12. Are you comfortable talking about your disorder with others? why or why not?

13. Do you feel people know enough about autism as they should? why or why not?

ps

Even If you want to answer just one question, that would be great

You could also PM me if you don't want to post it here

Thanks guys,


Caitlin

1. Michael Thompson 48, Mesa, Az.
2. Diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome at 48.
3. This depends on what you mean by "found out". I've known that I've had a problem interacting with other people since my early 20's. But I didn't learn that there was such a thing as Asperger's until a couple of months ago. I was playing with my computer one day and I stumbled across an article on undiagnosed Autism in adults. The symptoms of Asperger's were strangely familiar, so I had myself screened for it.
4. The most challenging part of my disorder is my inability to feel empathy. This sounds like a small thing, but believe me it can screw you up in a hundred different ways. Without empathy, you can't make an emotional connection with other people. This makes it nearly impossible to make the jump from "acquaintance" to "friend". In my 30 years of being an adult, I've only had one friendship which lasted more than a year. And even that one ended badly.
5. I don't know this one. I've never been able to figure out what other people think, and they rarely tell me.
6. School was actually very easy for me. But I was one of the lucky ones. I was a modestly gifted high school athlete, so I ran on the track team in the spring and on the cross country team in the fall. Because I was fairly successful in these sports my teammates usually liked to be around me during the workouts. So as far as I was concerned I had lots of friends. In fact, if you had asked me how many friends I had in high school, I would have said 25 or 30, which is how many people were on the track team. The fact that I didn't know half of their names, and didn't see any of them outside of school made no difference. They met my limited definition of "friend" and that was good enough. This harks back to question #4. Without the ability to feel an emotional connection with other people, I had no idea that there was a difference between "acquaintance" and "friend" simply because I had never experienced it. This is pretty much how I experienced all my school years. Ironically, it was my own cluelessness about the nature of friendship which kept me happy.
7 - 11. I'll have to leave these for others to answer. Self - reflection isn't one of my strong points.
12. I'm not at all comfortable talking about my disorder with others. At least not in person. This might have to do with the fact that I've only had a name for it for a couple of months. But even so, I think I won't be talking about Asperger's Syndrome with just anyone I meet. Telling others strikes me a little like whining, and we already have enough of that in this country.
13. I think people do know enough about Autism already. There are many disorders and diseases and injuries and other kinds of setbacks that people go through. If we tried to learn about all of them in depth we wouldn't have enough time to tie our shoelaces in the mornings. There are just too many ways people can have difficulties in life. So I think that if someone doesn't have any personal need to learn about Autism, we who are on the spectrum shouldn't push them to learn about us. Instead of trying to get people to learn about every group that has a gripe about life, I would rather spend my time reminding people about what God has told us to do. Among others, the message of the Bible is to be kind to everyone, no matter what. If we practiced that, it really wouldn't matter what kind of disorder other people have. When we ran into someone we thought was different, we would treat them right anyway.

Thank you very much for taking the time to answer these!

I loved the last part about what you wrote. Indeed it is our duty to love one another as God loved us I think that's a great way to look at life.

I think you're first question is putting people off. Why do you need to know people's full names?

I agree about the names. PM me with your school email address. Then you'll get an answer. It's not that my identity is a secret. It's not. It's just that I'd rather not have it on here.

Yeah I figured people would be hesitant to put their full names down. Unfortunately since i'm writing this for my college magazine I need to be able to attribute the answers I receive to actual names...that way it doesn't sound like i'm making it all up on my own. haha. It's to make us practise for the real world I guess...

However, if you're willing to participate, I will gladly email you from my school address, that's no problem at all.

1.Sarah Davis/24/Edgefield SC

2. Asperger’s Syndrome when I was 16.

3. A relief to know there was a reason I was so vastly different, and yet at the same time a disappointment that, yes, there was in fact something wrong with me.

4. Just one? I don't know if I'm able to narrow down only one main challange as it is a plether of them that build up in a way that it effects my life.

The inability to interact with others and the overwhelming urge to find a cave and live in for the rest of my life is a big one. Plus the sensory issues.. such as not being able to tune out sounds most people can, driven mad by certain fabrics, only able to tolerate certain foods. Also the maturing more slowly emotionally and feeling as if I am way behind where I should be of someone of my age (I feel like prê teen)

Not all people with Aspergers have these issues, but I do.


5. Most people I have met have never even heard of Asperger's Syndrome really. I've noticed though a lot of folks seem to hear the word autism and think "Rain Man" or else assume we are worse off than we really are.

6. Yes. It wasn't much the academic work, although I did struggle with that, but dealing with my peers. It was especially bad in the elementary and middle school years. I was different and I stood out. Kids are bastards. It didn’t help I didn’t know how TO interact when I wanted either. Plus the having tweenty kids to only one teacher. I did much better on more...smaller settings.

7. My imagination and ways of thinking up things most people would have never even conisdred.

8. Rude and disrespectful people.

9. I collect nerf guns and I read a lot. I also role play and surf the web.

10. I never liked these kinds of questions. The ones that ask me to pick just one memory from a multitude of memories. Plus I have trouble recalling such. I suppose being able to go to an Atlanta Brave game rates up there though.

11. Again, I don’t have any one memory that really stands out as the scariest. I did get lost in a fake haunted house when I was thirteen though. I thought I was going to tumble down the stairs and break my neck.

12. Not really, and even more so with strangers. It isn’t something I go around proclaiming to every Dick and Jane I come across. (People like that need to be slapped.) It is a very personal matter and one often at times hard to discuss. It is not easy to admit that there is something wrong with you. Plus having to explain Asperger’s to people that often times have never even heard of such a disorder is hard.


13.Not really. A lot of folks only see the worse case scenarios of the condition, and think everyone behaves the same way. I think the reason why, is like HPV and poverty.... you don't really bother to find out about it until if effects your life directly.