Aspergirls
I love Rudy and respect her deeply. I *know* Rudy from online and she's awesome, genuine, funny, thoughtful and definitely a woman. The book is great. She has written it from her perspective so I think everyone needs to take that into account. It's not meant to be an expert tome on diagnostic criteria for women on the spectrum. I found the book "empowering" and don't take issue with that. Rudy makes some suggestions in the book that don't suit my life but have worked for her and I think she has no agenda to suggest what works for her will work for every woman on the spectrum.
My favourite part of the book was the part that read (paraphrasing) that "just because we want to line up our 64 colour box of crayons according to hue doesn't mean we don't want to use them". It was a giant lightbulb moment for me because I DID THAT and used to be very uncomfortable if my crayons were in the wrong order. Those metallic ones always pissed me off because even though they were the coolest crayons, they didn't really "fit" in anywhere so had to go at the end.
Rudy's website is at http://www.help4aspergers.com and Aspergirls is also on Facebook.
I buy all my books from bookdepository.com (free shipping anywhere in the world). I think I paid $19 for my copy of Aspergirls and bought two.
I'm actually reading it and it really makes so much sense. I think that book is helping understand why I have made some of my decisions in friendship and otherwise! I think it is a good basis book to discover how we girls with AS are different than boys with AS!
That sounds possible to me. I empathise very strongly with animals, much more so than humans. I sometimes feel things so acutely (like the pain of an animal in a puppy mill) that I have to shut down or meltdown.
Sensory overload certainly makes it harder for me to read people or know how to respond appropriately. I think there's more to it, but I suspect it has little to do with any nonsense like "missing social modules" and more to do with how autistic people process information.
This is interesting, because when my sensory issues are at their worst is when I get accused of being "selfish" and "lacking empathy" the most.
~Kate
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Ce e amorul? E un lung
Prilej pentru durere,
Caci mii de lacrimi nu-i ajung
Si tot mai multe cere.
--Mihai Eminescu
It was the first book I read after being diagnosed. As such it will always be special to me. I could identify with most of it. The parts I didn't I just read through and forgot about. But I was going to highlight the bits that applied to me and gave up on the idea because I would have ended up highlighting most of the book.
In fact, it was Rudy's website and specifically the list of female Asperger's traits that finally led me to pursue a diagnosis. When I read that list, so many pennies dropped. I feel as though I owe a lot of to her.
I bought it because I thought, after 14 years of being encouraged to be extra-passive (after all, all the experts know that ALL Aspies are stubborn and aggressive, right??) I thought some empowerment might be helpful for a change.
I was right. At least in my case. It really did a lot for my self-esteem. I felt like a person again, for the first time in a long time, like I didn't have to scratch and claw for my right to be (at least a little bit) myself, like that right was something I just HAD, as much as any NT woman. It was a really good feeling.
I was a little hurt and offended by the Ms. Simone's gently urging readers not to procreate, 'cause I like raising my kids and get really sick of being told that Aspies can't be good mothers. But-- I also understand that she's just trying to counteract all the pressure society puts on anyone with a vagina to adore and desire offspring, to say that it's OK to NOT want them too.
With world population set to top 7 billion any day now (and a long struggle with environmental guilt over the choice to have a third child) that seems to me to go without saying, but I guess that's not the case for everyone.
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"Alas, our dried voices when we whisper together are quiet and meaningless, as wind in dry grass, or rats' feet over broken glass in our dry cellar." --TS Eliot, "The Hollow Men"
That sounds possible to me. I empathise very strongly with animals, much more so than humans. I sometimes feel things so acutely (like the pain of an animal in a puppy mill) that I have to shut down or meltdown.
Also we have different motives than NTs. You can't empathise with someone with different motives, at least not unless you recognise the difference.
I love her book! I found it online after stumbling across her blog on Psychology Today's website and my parents (who have been doing rediculus amounts of research on AS since my diagnosis) were instantly willing to buy it seeing as there are so few books on females with Asperger's.
My mom is blind so I have been reading it aloud to her (though I finished it within a few days of receiving it) and we've both noticed a lot of little things that apply to me, things that I've never noticed, but have always been there.
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Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you've never been hurt and live like it's heaven on Earth. -Mark Twain
If life gives you lemons, make grape juice, sit back and watch the world wonder how you did it.
I want to check this book out.
I love your avatar by the way.