Here we go again--Asperger's linked with violence

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Correction: An unidentified law enforcement official was quoted as saying Adam Lanza was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome. This was backed up by some of his mother's friends, but not by his mother. It has not been backed up by anyone else. A favourite media hook is to make something up and then attribute it to someone they can't name. Anyone who doesn't know this needs to pay attention to the media.

It's then easy to take this to a friend of a friend, ask if this might have been the case, and get a response of "Oh, yes I think that might be true," because it puts the responder in the limelight. The media are mostly corrupt, but they're mostly not stupid.

His brother says he was thought to have a personality disorder, which covers a whole range of things, but is still not a diagnosis by a trained professional.

The only thing he seems to have been diagnosed with is Sensory Processing Disorder - at the age of 6.

He also seems to have exhibited indications of OCD.

None of this reflects a diagnosis of anything, AS, SPD, the other SPD, OCD, or anything else as an adult.

Any speculation about what he might or might not have had is just that - speculation. I'm not trying to claim that he had SPD and not AS, because I don't know one way or the other and neither, as far as we know, does anyone else.

All we do know is that AS is not associated with predatory aggression.

All this does is go back to my main point - that it's important not to ostracise or bully, not just because it hurts the victim but because sometimes the victim cracks.

I've been noticing this too, and my fear is that eventually, Aspergers will be associated with violence and crime. It could start getting difficult for us to get a car or house loan or even allowed to move into an apartment complex just as much as it is for people who have an established criminal record. The powers that be will have to allow apartment management to ask questions they can't ask now due to HIPPA laws having to do with medical confidentiality. They will be allowed to ask if the applicant has any autism-spectrum disorders, with the admonition that anyone with such a disorder is prohibited from being allowed to rent an apartment just as they can turn away people with criminal records. I really would hate to see our disability associated with criminality or believed to have criminal tendencies. To me, what IS criminal is the way people are allowed to treat us AND get away with it, bullying, deliberate infliction of emotional distress, and other abuses. People need to realize that we were born with this, we didn't ask for it. I have observed how people have generally gotten meaner as the economy has soured, so I would not totally NOT expect this cannot happen. As it is, I feel like a pariah due to my disability, even among my own family, my mom and sisters, as dad (the only member of the family who accepted me) is no longer living. Members of the family put words in my mouth, and assume I am thinking something I am not because they say they have done "research" on Aspergers and "know" we do and think such things.

Another concern I have is if police know we have Aspergers, they will target us as a perp and try to use our disability against us to get what they know to be a false confession just to get a confession. Anymore, it will be dangerous to be known as having any autism-spectrum disorder if you want to be a free person. It won't matter if you have the best alibi in the world, and that you were many counties away from the crime for which you are being accused of committing. Prosecuting attorneys will say "we did it" because past mass shooters had Aspergers, and since we have Aspergers, "we did the crime." Never mind that we were out of state attending an activity where there are people who will speak in our behalf in a court of law. They will be considered to be "biased witnesses." I once had a client at a disability rights advocacy agency who served some time for allegedly committing sexual abuse on a child. She was about five counties away from the crime at the time of the crime, and with her step parents. She had a developmental disability of mild mental retardation but was profiled and taken advantage of by police who forced a false confession out of her. She gave it to them to get them off her back, but then they did not send her home like they promised, but put her in a jail cell where she was raped. Her step parents were considered to be "biased witnesses" and their testimony was refused by the prosecuting attorney-and judge.

As this society deteriorates, it is my fear that it will become like Nazi Germany in its fervor to "clear" itself of people who it considers to be a possible burden, like about anyone with any kind of disability.-especially targeting those of us with any kind of autism-spectrum disorder. If anti-discrimination laws will just be-FOR ONCE-enforced, we would not be having this problem. No one can force morality or ethics on anyone, and it seems like it is anything goes, and too many NTs think we exist so they can bully us and emotionally abuse us on the job (or elsewhere) without consequences-like my former boss who said right in front of staff that she considers people with Aspergers as losers. She had just dismissed a co-worker who had Aspergers before walking to the boardroom for the staff meeting. She knew I had Aspergers but she said it anyway, thinking I was too fearful of losing my job to do anything about it, and anyone who witnessed her comment would fear too much for their job if they were ever to act as my witness if I should ever file a complaint against the Kansas Human Rights Commission. This was a disability civil rights agency, mind you.

Right now I think the idea that Aspergers is a not a real condition , or an excuse for being lazy or a "social ret*d" or "loser" etc is a much much bigger problem then the idea that it exists and causes people to be violent. I am not saying that the aspie/HFA violence connection does not exist in some people minds or that it will not become a huge problem in the future.

a link between AS and violence only exists if rates of violence are higher then other demografic groups.not because there are a few violent aspies

You would think that's how people see it, and you're quite correct.

We only take up maybe 2%, if that, of the worlds populace, by those numbers alone I can guarantee that the numbers will always conclude that being "normal" makes a higher percentage to be linked to violence, especially given how people act and react to events, which is more often than not, violent.

Killers of this nature are a rarity in the world, if I had to guess, I'd say events like that only occur 1-2% of the time, given a 10 year span, probably not even that. Given that number, and the number of people on the spectrum in the world today, it would seem logical that only .01 to .05% even could be on the spectrum, people's logic in assuming that we're violent somehow is based not in fact, but rather bias and prejudice. Pretty sad really, especially when people like to advocate that society is more advanced than that. Hogwash.

As soon as this hit the news, an people began describing how Adam Lanza behaved around other people, people who know me started pointing their paws at me yelping "That's YOU, That's YOU!!""

The 21-year-old suffers from an extreme form of autism which prevents him from understanding how other people feel, and still believes he acted appropriately.

Despite his strange behaviour, his parents had no idea of the extent of his mental problems and had never heard of Asperger's syndrome, the same condition suffered by the narrator in the best selling novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

A prison source who knew Freer on remand said: "He cannot understand what he has done wrong. In his mind
someone has done something to harm him and he has acted appropriately

Oh Dear
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... nalds.html


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An example of why this British tabloid has such a bad reputation. So now we don't have a mild form but an "extreme" form of Autism. They do seem to think they can make money by going after us

Yeah this is too much of a coincidence, it's becoming all too obvious that our state of safety is being attacked by the major powers in the world. It seems like all you hear about anymore is how these criminals supposedly have AS. It's gotten ridiculous and it needs to stop. Next they're going to demand that we all take mandated tests, to which end is to find a reason to lock us up before we "do any damage". I told everyone this was a witch hunt, only now are people starting to see.

The "they" I was the Daily Mail tabloid, not any possible larger conspiracy. Tabloids make their money off of sensationalism.