The Dino-Aspie Ex-Café (for Those 40+... or feeling creaky)

Post Reply New Topic

I was also disappointed soon after joining WP, though I experienced the situation a little differently. I find people on WP disappointingly normal.

As far as I can tell, much of the mutually harmful behaviour I see (whether on line or off) doesn't come from active malice, but from what I think of as delusions of competence with regard to communication. People too often imagine that they know what others mean, accept the most negative of the possible interpretations of others' behaviour as the only possible one, often without ever considering whether the first interpretation to pop into their minds might be wrong.

I expected that people on WP, with daily experience of miscommunication, would be so much more aware of possible errors, that the awareness would more than compensate for less social skill. But I find I could not distinguish aspies from NTs by their communication style here. I do understand that this might be my own blindness to a difference, rather than a lack of a difference, but I was still disappointed.

I still visit, because I found where many of the good people hang out, and I don't need to explain my little peculiarities as I would on an equivalent board frequented by the general population. That makes it more comfortable.

I had written a whole lot more but Gromit summed it up far better than I could.
Here's my little bit.

I certainly hope that I'm not one of the nasty people you are talking about (shallow I'll admit to ) .

There are those people on WP who are self-centered and some that are malicious. I have had run ins with some of them, and learned quickly that, this being the internet, I can chose whose responses I read and who I respond, too. And if a poster is mean and hurts someone thoughtlessly, I have learned to post my thoughts on their behaviour and then separate myself from them.

Also, many people with AS are extremely intelligent. That intelligence tends to carry with it a certain amount of arrogance, especially in the males. I see it first-hand amongst my oldest son's friends. They are all honors students and have been dx'ed with AS. The way they speak to each other makes my ears burn. They are blunt and if anyone not like them tried to interject in the conversation, they would be badly hurt by the words of these kids. Of course, it is also behaviour that can be tempered slightly. My children know that there is no excuse for purposely hurting another human being. That hasn't been the case for others. They have never had a reason to change the way they interact. You could point out that their social problems may be due to that very reason, but it is also difficult for some people with AS to analyze themselves to know that it would be a problem. Many of us older people have learned it, the younger ones have not.

Last edited by blessedmom on 01 Nov 2007, 2:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Oh, I hope she starts feeling better and you can avoid the hospital. I know that doctors don't agree, but if you can get Gatorade or Powerade, dilute it by half with water and let her have it. She may not hold it all down, but she will retain enough of the fluid to gain some benefit. Diluted it doesn't seem to cause problems and she will drink it. She probably won't drink Pedialyte or other electrolyte drinks. I've never met a child that will.

I have been fighting off the urge to tell a client (parent) to kiss my arse all day, due to a sick child. The little girl has been ill for 2 days, and refused to eat or drink yesterday, but they still found it necessary to take her out trick or treating in the cold last night. The parent then informed me today that she can't nap. What she doesn't know won't hurt her. Someone once told me that I should be proud of what I do because I offer a place for small children to have routine and care that they wouldn't receive at home. That used to make all of the maintenance (diapers, boogers) worth it. Not anymore and I have the adults to thank.

Thank you for the feedback, Gromit and Mom. I most definitely was not referring to anyone here. In fact, come to think of it, I wouldn't be able to even mention who I was referring to.

I would love to settle in to the point of just visiting with the Dino's, but since the whole concept of AS and its possible association to me is so new, I'm also spending a lot of time reading the general boards in an attempt to understand myself and others.

I will accept that I may be overly sensitive - but I still don't think I'm wrong *grin*. What is likely, however, is that the feeling that I portrayed earlier as the "overall" feeling is probably not true. I think I exaggerated that in an effort to express myself. It is probably only true of a minority but it hurts me so much that it obscures all the good and great stuff I've learnt and read here.

Please be patient while I try to understand it all. I'm swinging now between feeling completely at home on the one hand and wanting to run away on the other.

Hope the little one is better today, Reika.

And Mom, please tell me how you learnt to bite your tongue!

Oh no...there's more

I decided to stop drinking the diet soda that I thought might be poisening me and replace it with the "ever so healthful green tea"....only to find the following information linking tea to aluminum and flouride...It's a long article but if your a tea drinker,I think it's worth the effort...




http://bruha.com/pfpc/html/green_tea___.html


Dont see the revelance to tea?Check out the levels of flouride in tea....


http://bruha.com/pfpc/html/f-_in_food.html





Ona similiar note....

The DR just called and said the liver function seems normal and the only thing wrong with me is my throid levels...so she is increasing the dose of my synthroid(a tiy bit).....Do you think this decrease in thyroid could be due to my recent use of the perscription toothpaste with 1.1% Sodium Flouride?Hummm

Seems I get to pick between thousands of dollars in dental bills or my endocrine health...whats a girl to do?



And for those who have nbeen tested and "passed" the throid level checks.Most of them are not even accurate because they dont test for the independent levels of FreeT4,free T3......and may show a false "normal" inspite of having all the low thyroid symptoms.(They also keep changing the levels of what is "normal"...the endcronoligist have a much lower level for what is "normal" then the chart that DR's are using....They think the side-effects for being over medicated are more dangerious then under medicated(the symptoms of which are JUST confussion,depression,inability to concintrate,dry skin and hair,get cold easily,weight gain,fatigue,mood instability...etc,etc,etc)



I am going to start screaming soon,(as soon as I get my ear-plugs in...I hate loud noises)

It hasn't been a matter of learning how to bite my tongue. I have had to learn to speak up when necessary after years of being taught to speak only when spoken to and then only if it is in agreement with the other party. I have to get very angry or annoyed to say anything that could cause conflict.

Maybe we could meet halfway, I'll take some of your assertiveness and you can have part of my restraint.

You do know that you are going to drive yourself crazy soon, don't you?

For every positive there seems to be negative in the world of health and nutrition. The best you can do is take it all with a grain of salt (bad for your blood pressure ) and make good decisions. I'm not about to stop drinking my tea because of the flouride. If I read about what is in my water I wouldn't drink that, and if I told you about what is found in ALL cows milk, organic, pasteurized or otherwise, you wouldn't drink it. Your darned if you do and darned if you don't.

Just take it one step at a time, first no Benadryl, next, the thyroid med adjustment. Then make other changes if you feel it necessary.

Last edited by blessedmom on 01 Nov 2007, 3:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

About my reaction to WP when I first joined.....

I was so thrilled to find a communnity that I thought was "like me".I was constantly reading about sensitivities and life experiences that reflected my own experiences and I had never met any others with the same issues.This put me in a positiion to think(incorrectly)that all people with As were like me in "every way".....then I met some mean people,some conservatives and even some "born agains" and a few "republicans"....Talk about instant disillussionment.I was truely devastated for awhile.

I thought I was finally on "my planet" and realized not everyone on my planet thought the way I did....(and they weren't as perfect as me )


The only way I survived this trauma was by excepting that aspies were not my clones and cutting them the same "slack" I have always cut all the NT's I have incountered.AS is just one part of who we are.....we are also an accumulation of positive and negative life experiences,individual genetics unrelated to AS(including some that effect mental health issues)Many of these factors(the same ones that effect NT's)are actually exasterbated by the AS traits and the way other humans interact with us.

So.....Perhaps spending a life time of being called "stuipid,lazy,nerdy,sub-human"combined with our own fighting of self doubts about our self-worth....makes some of us over-compensate by finding fault with "NT's" and each other?

I have been called "self righteous" most of my life for finding fault with others.(but I do the same thing for myself,so I am an equal opportunity fault finder ).What many people dont realize is that I dont usually "hate" people for their "faults"...I just find them interesting as a "pattern" of behavior.Some cognitive work has helped me learn to understand what is behind these "human frailties and except them as just part of the "human condition"....most of the time,anyway.In other words...I have made it my life goal to learn to rationilize peoples "humaness"....It isn't easy.but I have been happier snice practicing this "habit".


ANy of that makes sense..of did I just come off as a big,self rightious know it all...as usualy?

When do you sound like a self-righteous know-it-all? I just thought you were a person who likes to learn everything she can about whatever she is interested in. HHMMMMMM....... I wonder what dx that might be a part of........

Yes, you all make sense. I've much to learn.

Shew Krex,

The endocrine system is very complex. Change one thing and another goes out. Its kind of like our planet's ecosystem. As Mom says, one step at a time...observe result, then next.

BlessedMom,

My assertiveness is only about 5 years old. It was born after I stopped drinking. Before that, I was very quiet and never spoke up for myself. Unfortunately, I still sometimes wait until it is too late, and then get angry in order to be heard. Ah - elusive balance

My step-grandfather:

Worked like a dog all his life - hard manual labor on a farm and at a dairy.

All his life he ate three eggs (cooked in bacon grease) and a big slab of bacon or ham for breakfast, with pancakes or toast with a big glob of refined-sugar enhanced jelly on 'em.

He ate a huge lunch, with processed cheese, salami, and wonderbread galore. He guzzled cocacola with it.

He ate a big supper of meat and potatos, with a rich dessert at Sunday dinner. Never really drank coffee, but he put away a beer with supper most nights.

He did drink like a fish, mostly beer, but some hard liquor, too, up until his end.

He smoked two stogies a day, later switching to chewing tobacco when his smoking got to be too hard on grandma's emphysema.

He played poker late into the night, and had a stash of Playboy magazines out in the shed until he moved in with his son when he was 88.

He went to the doctors' perhaps a half-dozen times in the 16 years I lived near him, and four of those visits were the result of a fall that broke a shoulder and a couple of ribs when he was in his 70s. One was to get a flu shot, which he roundly denounced as fraud but couldn't out manoeuver granny on. I'm not sure what the other one was for - I think it was a routine physical required when he got a job as a night watchman at 75.

My step grandfather died as the result of a fall off a roof, where he was re-shingling a leaky patch, at age 92 (I think it was).

If I were giving advice, it would be to worry less about food additives and more about having a happy outlook and keeping physically fit and busy, if I were to be giving advice....

Oh, but you do it with such natural charm that even I listen to it

We wuv our Nan!!

Except for the drinking and Playboys....I think he was living a pretty healthy life style.(didnt notice a mention of huge tea consumption)I think I will try that "diet"...I love bacon and eggs.It was my favorite part of the Atkins diet.

"course there are a few differences in our environment and the one our grandparents grew up in.They grew most of their own meat and food(didnt get it from China)or eat the same level of processed foods most of us do today.There were fewer chemicals in the soil,water,air then present to contaminate the foods they did eat that were processed.

I'm pretty sure my stress level(worrying about the chemicals in my environment)are not even close to the stress of those who survived the dust bowl and the great depression....(in which even toxins would have been a nice break from eating...nothing).Yet they survived(many)and managed to do so with out Prozac(though they did have some very interesting ingredients in the "nerve tonics" back in the day .


Who me,worry

This to shall pass....(just going through a little obsession right now.)Next week I will be obsessed with how to reconstruct fur coats into wall hangings and blankets...no worries.Gonna go buy me some bacon and not think about the nitrates in it(but dang it's expensive)

I've had trouble getting on and sending pm's (krex). Is it an aussie problem? THere is only some error message that comes up.

I have only read the last page. All I can say is that my mother is 95, strong and active, She attributes it to something within herself. She's right! It's her genetic makeup. All her family live to their 90's, have smooth skin and agile minds.

I, on the other hand, can barely crawl out of bed this morning. My mind is muddled and I feel sick. (Hi Hartzie!) I have been eating only fresh food since my return from V, and I have still put on weight! Genetics! (thanks dad for the brain thing!)

Do not ... do not ... buy the bacon! You know you will put on weight, Krex! Steady on!