Asperger's is a Gift

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hi welcome to WP

I'm glad you're happy now I am also happy for you for finding someone who understands you.

oz,

I was reading in the forum as a lurker looking desperatly to find the answers to my woes, my son is 7 and i always knew he was gifted and a little bit differnt and was always his biggest cheerleader and by his side then one day i ran into an article (just recently)describing AS and i got panicked becasue it sounded like my son I thought "no no no nothing is wrong with him this can't be true" i felt sad and depressed...even until a few minutes ago I would one minute feel glad that i know he has this and now i can better help him then sad and ask "why?" alot...then i read your post and I feel like a million bucks again. I went back to my old dreams of my son, i went back to my chest being puffed out again and proud, he may have AS but he is wonderful...how many kids you know, know thier division and multiplication facts in kindergarten and can apply them in real life situations! I am very proud and so thankful i read your email you gave me stregnth again when i really needed it, i am sitting here trying to type through my blurry eyes. Thank you for writing. You were just what i needed. And whoever you are you are great. I am proud of you too

Oz_Sputnik

Welcome to the Wrong Planet You seem to have a very interesting Life.

I know this is a couple of weeks late, but welcome to Wrong Planet! I'm sure you'll enjoy it here, and thankyou for sharing your story with us. You have obviously had a truly inspirational life so far, and it's nice to know that it is possible to treat anxiety disorders, as I've been suffering badly with health anxiety since I was 17 (I'm 19 now). So thankyou for that uplifting (and somewhat relieving for me ) post, and I hope you enjoy it here!

I am so sorry that I didn't say welcome. Welcome, Oz_Sputnik. I hope you stick around to give your perspective on all things autistic. I didn't mean to be rude when I asked why Americans believe so strongly in individualism. I have an issue with that ideology, but I appreciate your post because it does show that we can find ways to succeed. However, I also think it's important to acknowledge that we can't always overcome and succeed.

My partner has been homeless, and destitute a few times in his adult life. His parents are very wealthy. He gets nothing but criticism from them. They are still waiting for him to make something of himself in this world. They don't realize that his Aspie brain is not capable of functioning in the ways that they want him to function. In fact, his brain doesn't even function in the ways that HE would like it to function.

Asperger's CAN be a gift under the right circumstances. Or it can also be a sad story. It MATTERS whether we are judged by others as failures or not. My partner's parents hold a view of his mentality that is very sad, their view of him can be epitomized by the Pink Floyd song, "Wish You were Here"... They have been told by so called 'Experts" when he was institutionalized as a child, that he can overcome. They think his mind is sick, and that their constant criticism will somehow help him not to be autistic. What this treatment amounts to is that they don't place any value on his humanity and probably give more compassion and respect and economic support to their dogs.

Under the wrong circumstances, if other people's expectations are too high, or based on an ideology that is not suited to neurodiversity, then people with AS suffer, and we end up in a very real ghetto.

My son Alexander was diagnosed with AS at the age of eighteen. He is twenty now.
Before he was diagnosed, he tried to commit suicide three times ---- unbeknownst to his Dad and myself. I just found this out at a session with his therapist last week.
He had a failed relationship during High School which nearly did him in. He dropped out of HS when he was number one in his class.
He would eventually get his GED and is now on the Dean's List at a state college. He will graduate with a two year degree in July, 2006. He will then go on for two more years at a huge University here in town, where he will major in Science and Foreign Languages. ( He taught himself Japanese and Italian and he took three years of German in High School....) Foreign Languages are a lot of fun for him!
Throughout gradeschool and middle school, he was harrassed and ridiculed daily ---but he never told anyone at home. At school, he was put down for his knowledge and his sense of fairness and total honesty. He figured that logically, he should be able to figure out a solution for his problems at school and that he would be bothering us at home if he shared what was happening in his school life... After all, he is a very smart individual.... So he would come home day after day, year after year, with his straight A's and hand written comments from teachers that he got along well with others. I THOUGHT THAT HE LOVED SCHOOL-- BUT THE WHOLE TIME , HE WAS MISERABLE ! !! !! I'd ask him and his brothers everyday how their day went, what they did, etc. He would answer, but leave out the stuff about his peers calling him ugly, and belittling him....

He's gotten on with his life because of lots of support at home. He doesn't believe that he has AS. He doesn't want any special consideration or help at school.

Alex is the greatest son anyone has ever had! He's helpful and honest as the day is long. He's got a very dry sense of humor. Instead of consulting the internet or the dictionary, I just ask him my reference questions, because he reads non-fiction incessantly. Oh, he devours Science Fiction, also.
( I remember before he started Kindergarten, he could answer any question on the Paleolithic or Mesozoic Era....any dinosaur or flying reptile you needed to know about, or didn't need to know, he would ramble on about ad nauseum.....)

He's my Miracle Child. His brothers are successful and talented in their own rights....don't get me wrong.
Oz, when you posted about AS being a gift, I saw Alex's future in a whole new light.
I've never replied to anyone's posting, but I wanted to this time.
I have hope for my son, and I have much new-found knowledge to better help the Autism Spectrum Disorder kids at school now, also. THANK YOU Oz ! !! !! !! !! !!

Hello again everyone and thank you for the kind replies. Sorry I didn't respond sooner, I've been so busy the past couple of weeks launching a new website. Sooooooo...let me follow up on a couple more things for ya.

For all the success I've had, it was far from easy. I too had some major struggles, which I never really touched on in my opening post, but from further reading of this forum, I read others who are having struggles. My intentions are not of boasting that "if I can do it, you can do it"...but more of an establishment that I went through some incredibly tough times, and quite possibly my survival and growth can be an inspirtation. I'll break everythng up into age catagories leading to my mid 20's which is the time in my life I exploded out of gloom and despair.

Birth to Age 9 - My Content Early Years

I was born into a very wealthy family. It reads like a Danielle Steele novel of power, fame and fortune. Both my father and mother were semi famous in there own professions. We lived in a huge 300 acre estate, with a massive house, inground cement pool, horses and exotic cars. My parents were "Beautiful People", my Mom a singer, actress and TV personality and my Dad a WWII hero, mechanical engineer and race car driver. I was an "accident". My father never wanted children and had arranged for several backroom illegal abortions for my Mom in several previous pregnancies. I'll never know why, but for some reason, she fought to keep me. After I was born, my Mom retired from showbiz to raise me. I barely ever saw my Dad. He had very old fashioned beliefs that child raising was "woman's work", and he was gone most of the time around the world with his racing career. My Mom was not a natural mother. She struggled with being a parent. She was raised to be an entertainer, so she couldn't cook, hated house chores and other domestic duties. She never did master them, eventually hiring domestic help. However, when it came to me, she did give it her best shot. She was always there for me, called me her "little genius" and encouraged me to ignore the kids that teased/bullied me and delve further into whatever obsession I had at the time. She knew I was different and gifted, but always supported it instead of worry that I wasn't like other children. Like other "Plastic Beatiful People" that society seems to crank out, there was very little love between my parents. It was almost all image. They fought a lot, but my Mom did her best to buffer me from it...besides, I was in my own little world most of the time of plastic models, comic books and science kits. I was never really aware of how bad the fighting became, however after about a decade of being a mother, Mom soon longed to get back into showbiz and became very tired of motherhood. Overall...it was a very content, stable happy time for me.

Age 10 to 16 - My Personal Auschwitz

My ideallic little world was shattered when I was 10. My parents divorced after years of fighting. My mother moved to New York City...and completely vanished from my life. I would lose all contact with her until I found her years later in my mid 20's. My father remarried a woman that had two children of her own, and overnight I had a strange new woman as a mother...and two children in our house that were my "brothers and sisters". It was another plastic marriage, but this time, it wasn't based on beauty and publicity, but social desires. My father desired a woman to take care of his "weird son" he was left with after my Mom disappeared; and my stepmom, coming from a dirt poor background, desired the money, wealth and power for herself and two children my father could provide. There was only one monkey wrench in the gears of this arrangement...me. My stepmother absolutely HATED me. I completly upset her true dreams...snagging a man of wealth and security for HER family with no baggage. I remember once hearing my stepmom on the phone talking to one of her girlfiends, describing her new fortunes and social status. She tagged the conversation with "...but God I HATE that kid of his". Once again, my father deferred parenting to my stepmother alone..and boy it didn't take long for the abuse to begin; actually within a few months. As my stepmother noticed my father never paid attention to me, she soon began testing the limits of what she could do to me. First my models and comic books were taken away from me, but over the next few years, the abuse would become criminal. She tried to force me to behave and act like her kids. When that didn't work, she began to isolate me from the rest of the "family". "Laws of the Household" were envoked only for me. I wasn't allowed to enter the kitchen...EVER!...that was for the "normal" kids. I ate my meals alone at the kitchen table after the rest of the family ate...all the leftovers. If I didn't treat her children as superior and with complete respect, I got the living snot beat out of me...sometimes the justifications for my daily beatings were, "I didn't like the way you looked at my daughter". I so missed my real Mom and dreamed of her almost nightly. I cried myself to sleep on many occasions, wondering where she went and why she had left me to this evil woman.

By age 12, now with complete power to do anything she ever wanted to me with absolutely no hinderence from my father, my prison term began. We had a huge 7 car garage attached to the house. My stepmother put an old chair in the corner of the garage, and there is where I was moved to. The new law was that I had to sit in that chair, alone in the garage. I was not allowed a book, radio, television, friends, toys, homework...nothing. I just had to sit in that chair...day after day, week after week...eventually year after year. I was locked into the garage as soon as I came home from school or the first thing when I woke up on a weekend. I was allowed one glass of water a night and one bathroom break a night. If I went to the bathroom, I had to sit and leave the door open. It was very embarrasing, especially if there was company over where my stepmom got to proclaim to the guests to "ignore his crude habits...he's ret*d". My food was brought to me whenever. One time she brought it to me in a dog bowl and made me get down on all four and eat it like an animal. I was allowed ONE bath a month, one change of clothes a month, and forbidden to use any personal hygene such as deordorant or brushing my teeth. Even my bath had "laws". I was allowed to bath only in my brother or sisters dirty bathwater after they had finished a bath. Good water was forbidden to be used on such a worthless human being as this young child. I was not allowed to put my filthy clothes in the hamper. Instead, I had to wrap thme in newspaper, remove all the other diirty clothes, place my wrapped filth on the bottom, and then replace everybody elses clothes. My stepmom would spend thousands of my father's money every month on shopping sprees for herself and her kids. My "brother and sister" wore only the top named designer fashions...but occasionally we would stop at Salvation Army to pick up a pair of pants and shirt for a quarter for "The ret*d". If I ever traveled in a car with my stepmom, I had to ride in the back, and there were countless times she would go to a mall and leave me to freeze or bake in the back of the car while she went shopping for hours. I remember one time the four of us were out, and my stepmom pulled up to a curb serviced diner. As she surveyed my brothers and sisters for their orders, I asked if I could have a hamburger. She turned to me and asked me, "..and just HOW are you going to pay for this?" I didn't eat anything that outing, but got to watch them eat. I was so hungery the pain in my stomach just ached...such another vivid memory. School was another hell. Besides not socially fitting in with other kids, I was filthy, had terrible body odor and bad breath. The teasing was relentless. While my brother got to wear his hair in the longer, stylish fashion of those times, I got a crewcut every 6 week, my stepmom relishing the humiliation it created for me in school. My daily lunch was a cold hot dog sliced in half slapped between two pieces of white bread. Every day for years. I had to sit by myself at the school cafetaria, my stepsister, the same age and so the same school schedule, "reporting" to my stepmom that night if I didn't. I had to use the same lunchbag every day. If I did't fold it up and bring it home, I didn't get a lunch the next day. Just another source of teasing I received in school, I was the "the dirty bagman". The daily beatings became worse. My stepmom would open the garage at any given moment to see if she could catch me away from my chair. It really didn't matter, because she always found something to "discipline" me for anyway. My head was her favorite target. She used to slap me and hit my head so hard my ears would ring for hours afterwards. She took a swing at me once with a scissors in her hand and sliced my arm. By the time I was 15, even bigger fears arose. She came out in the garage once with one of my Dad's guns, his .357 Magnum...put it against my head and dared me to "try and viloate her Laws". I was told it wasn't a matter of IF I'm going to be killed...but when. I had quit crying over my hell and lonliness when I was about 13. Now, I was just numb to the terrible abuse.

I could easily go on for pages on all the unimaginable stuff that was done to me. My parents would be serving prison terms today if they were alive and had the child abuse laws on the books they currently have back then...but even back then, child abuse only happened to poor families...not ones as wealthy as ours. Those years were an absolute hell for me, but in hindsight, I believe it was my Asperger's that actually allowed me to survive. Sitting all those years isolated in that chair, I was able to disappear into my own little world, and become oblivious to the horrors around me. I couln't wait until I was old enough to leave.

Age 17 to 25 - My Confusion and Growth

My nightmare ended in January of 1971 when I was 16. My stepmother, even with all of the momey and status she had married into, had also had enough of my abusive father. She ran off with an electrician. I remember that day like it was yesterday. I came home from school, prepared to make my normal march to my chair in the garage, and the house was partially empty. Half of the furniture was gone...and I did something I was strictly forbidden to do...I walked through the rest of the house that was completely off limits to me, opened the door to my brother and sister's bedroom and took a peak. They were empty! I knew she was gone. I walked into the kitchen for the first time in 6 years, opened the refrigerator, poured myself the first glass of milk I had had in years, relished it's wonderful taste, and laughed. I had won! I outsurvived the evil b***h. I turned on the TV and sat on the couch. I moved back into the house that minute. Over the next several months, for the very first time in my life, I got to know my Dad. He had no choice. I was the only other person in the house, and I acted as a surrogate "wife" for him, doing his laundry, cleaning that mansion, cooking his meals. I turned 17 that spring, got a car and tried to resume my life sans evil, but I was very immature. I still had the emotional development of a young child, my teenage years being completely repressed by my stepmother. The divorce proceedings between my father and my stepmother dragged on all that year. A settlement was reached, and the finalization of the divorce before a judge was set for Oct. 12. The night before, at 6:11 pm, my father dropped dead in front of me from a heart attack. By 18 hours, my evil nemesis became executor and inheritor of my father's estate. He had never changed his will, and he never left me a penny. I left the only house I had known the night my Dad died, moving in with a friend from school's family. Overnight, I went from living in an incredble palatial estate to a middle class prefab house...and it was absolutely wonderful. They had a real family, filled with love. I've been on my own ever since. I barely graduated high school, worked odd jobs, searched for meaning into why I had been so hated. I tried college, I drifted more. I could barely keep a job for more than a few weeks, but I just kept going on...trying to make a meaning of life, trying to discover what was wrong with me.

It took me many, many more years of trial and error to find something I was good at in life...but I never quit. Until I discovered my talent for standup comedy, I suffered severe depression and crippling anxiety attacks. I was lonely, confused and both heartbroken and bitter at the loss of my childhood to idiot parents, but I kept moving, searching...and somewhere around age 25, I buried it all and began embracing the future. I have never looked back

I posted this story in here for one reason. I've learned from all the years of going to a shrink in my early 20's, that group discussion can be a wonderful revelation. For all of your troubles you may seem to have, there will be somebody else who makes your troubles in life a mere pin prick. If my story can make just ONE person suffering from Aspergers, either another Aspie of a parent of one, feel good and give them hope and inspiration, than my mission is...once again in life for me...another success. When I read posts in here that you can't find a girlfriend, job or vocation because you are an Aspie...then you won't. You've already made your mind up you can't. However, this is not unique. This mentality permeates throughout society...if you think it's hopeless...it becomes hopeless. If you think you can...you will.

Love your kids and learn to love yourself,

Oz

Ha...I just realized I had a folder filled with messages to me. Thanks to everyone who wrote them and now I shall begin to answer them. It may take a few days

Oz

Oz_Sputnik, I want to give my deepest condolences for the loss of your childhood. It's a terrible thing. No one should have the power to steal a childhood. I am so sorry to hear that you lost your childhood. What a terrible thing.

I am also a survivor. I lost my childhood to a wicked stepfather. I can never get those years back.

In terms of failure I never expected to fail in anything in life. Before being diagnosed with AS I was continually surprised when I failed at something I wanted to do. I know I have all the desire, the intelligence, and the committment necessary. Before I heard of Asperger's I came to the conclusion there was something "wrong" with my brain. I came to realize I had some issues related to brain functioning. Now because I have a diagnosis I know this is because my brain is wired differently, and small differences such as problems with fine motor skills cause difficulties, so that I am not always able to do what I want to do in the way that I want, and this has nothing to do with any moral failing or lack of belief on my part.

I have found, in my life, that acceptance is one hell of a nifty little trick. For me, acceptance of my limitations and life's inequities has a magic in it that I almost believe is spiritual. Acceptance brings happiness, and often takes me places I never dreamed I could go, and solves many problems, and actually advances my abilities. I'm working on acceptance, because I have found for myself that a constant striving based on the desire to do better just for the sake of accomplishing goals just leads to fatigue and a feeling of emptiness.

I am curious. What ESSENTIALLY would you say IS the gift of Asperger's?

Oz- read your latest post and feel inspired again you have a unique gift in inspiring people too. I love your words it was long but i couldn't stop reading. You should write a book.

You are inspiring those who have Aspergers and those like me who are NT who lost her childhood to parents that only cared about themselves and never put much effort into us kids. I am currently going to therapy for this issue alone and I sometimes have trouble why it all happened and have a hard time getting over it but after reading your story it felt like another stepping stone to my happiness.

Thank you

Oz i just read your story again, then re-read other parts and I felt like crying, I am so sorry that happened to you. I can't understand why anyone would treat another precious life like the way you were treated. What she did makes me angry! I want to smack the Sh*@ out of her even now. No child deserves to be cruel to. And i am so sorry it happened to you. So sorry.

Tell me did you ever find a family to belong to and share love with? I hope you did after all this.

Oz Sputnik

Fascinating stuff.

I agree with you that Aspieness is a gift, a good thing. But I was brought up in a family full of perfectionist-aspies - who felt sorry for all the other (not-aspie) people.

I find it very Yankee of you to post a rah-rah story, name drop and mention being famous. Personally being famous is something I'd dearly like to avoid. Within the communities I spend time in, I end up "famous" in that people I've never met talk about me (good and bad) and sometimes I even get cheered on by people I've never met. It's completely surreal. I also get stage fright really badly (every orifice tries to eject all it can from my body pre-performance) so have avoided doing anything that involves public performance. A long stint in Toastmasters being my main exception. I do feel Toastmasters is excellent social training.

I didn't find out I was aspie or what that means, ie basically a label for the collected attributes that make me different - until I was forty ie this year. But I like being different. I don't like being called normal, because that is boring and ordinary.

You have set quite the challenge being mysterious but at the same time giving us loads of details about your life. It is a pity that if we do figure out who you are, that you might have to return to lurking for a while or find another forum. This is the dark side of fame. Most Aussies are a little bit more forgiving of their famous people - they'll say to each other "look there's so and so" but they will leave the person alone. However for some, and the uber famous, they can't help it and the poor person will get mobbed.

I hope you collect your stories for a book at some time, they're too good to waste.

By the way, I think your father, as you have described him, displays some aspie and many perfectionist traits. I think the conflict between aspieness and trying to be perfect can be hell. And I love the irony that seeking perfection - is a bad thing, not something someone striving to be perfect - should be doing. Trying to improve yourself is one thing, but trying to be perfect is setting up for failure.

Oh and I read somewhere that Douglas Adams got banned from a fan forum because they got mad at him for impersonating or posting like "Douglas Adams". I can't remember if he used his real name or not.

There's a few famous people around the world coming out and declaring their aspieness. And there are a few people who have become famous for declaring and writing about their aspieness.

I am vaguely fascinated by the current culture's obssesion with fame and making fame a goal in itself. Why would anyone want it?

I think that Asperger's is a Gift if you choose to make it a gift. Some other people effectively choose to make it a curse.

For myself, I choose to make it a gift.

And how, exactly, do you make AS a gift? I am just curious because I have seen AS described as a gift before, yet no one ever says WHY they think it can be a gift.

OK...catch up time again while I have a few free minutes this Saturday morning. Lemme see if I can field some of these questions and statements.

And you too anandamide (by the way...great forum knick), have my deepest sympathies and compassion for a lost childhood. We are only children for such a short time, and that time SHOULD be filled with love, happiness, dreams and amazement of the world. As an adult, you should and will be held accountable for you actions, but children our so innocent. We can only move on when that innocence is shattered by irresponsible parenting; bring closure to what happened and build off of it to make you a better parent and person.

...snip



Personally, I think it is EVERY single characteristic that separates us from NT's and qualifies us as Aspies.

As I've previously stated, in my desire to find out what was wrong with me, I became consumed and completely obsessed with all facets of the psychology of human nature. I devoured books on psychology, religion and philosphy, and my library is now well over 600 books in these fields. As I applied my knowledge against humanity, it became very obvious to me that there is one basic tenant that appears throught the history of man, both past and present. That is the pursuit of happiness. So, I broke that into two catagories, humans that were happy and content in life, and those that were lost and miserable. Then I applied a "why" logic to each group. Happy people have accepted who and what they are in this world, unhappy people haven't. A happy fat person completely accepts they are fat, and it doesn't bother them. A miserable fat person struggles to be accepted by others. I searched for more revelations. A happy black man is proud of his identity. An unhappy black man can be angry and bitter because he is not accepted as a minority into the culture he may live in. My list grew...happy feminists/miserable feminists, happy poor people/miserable poor people, happy atheletes/miserable athletes, etc., etc., etc. Next, I researched the behaviors that evolved from the two groups. Happy people developed long term behaviors to sustain that happiness; self confidence, self esteem, disciplines, few risks. Unhappy people developed short term behaviors that sustained their misery; zero confidence, low self esteem, instant gratifications, high risks. After almost 5 years in my early 20's of this absolute obession and studying of the psychology of us humans, it became so obvious to me that happy people had fully embraced acceptance of their genetic crap toss of life, and unhappy people were on 24/7 pursuit of others accepting their come out roll. The final discovery was purely a mathematical one. The two groups are not evenly split. The happy ones are but a minority, the unhappy people are a huge majority, not just in the AS world...but in the world entirely.

Now, being a young person firmly entrenched in this unhappy human camp, I began to apply the methods and means to jump over to the other camp. Step one was both easy to recognize, but a bit difficult to change. I had to embrace my uniqueness. Every minute, every hour, every day. It took me about 6 months, but I slowly did. As I left my fellow unhappy peeps behind and relished my uniqueness on this planet, it was now easier to see how they behaved from a distant view instead of trying to identify behaviors from within the herd. They were followers. They bought fashion magazines, they dropped current hair styles and embraced the next, they went from one car model to the next, they read whatever was the current diet, spiritual revelation or hot literary author. New foods, restaurants, and menus were embraced. They proclaimed happiness to each other as they rushed, clawed, borrowed, stole and triumphed in their pursuit to be accpted. They moved with a herd mentality, instantly bolting to the other side of the corral, dropping whatever they had worked so hard to be accepted by, to once again pursue that acceptance with something new...however, and this was a startling discovery....they were seeking acceptance only within their own camp.

Once I was firmly entrenched in my new camp, it was easy to see how wonderful my "gifts" were. In a world where the majority of people are seeking some uniqueness and identity to be accepted...and where most of those pursuits were short term instant gratifications, here I had a purely genetic quality that made me very unique...and it was PERMANENT!

You will only learn what your true gifts are in life, whether you are an Aspie or NT, until you fully embrace and accept who and what you are in life. So anandamide, the question is not what do I feel are the gifts of Aspergers, but for you to discover what gifts you possess.

Oz

Oz-

Once againa great post i feel truley inspried again. You make me want to love myself and thats hard for me to do, thank you.