AussieBoy, this is for your Nanna.
Hi Robyn, Nothing like a first person account to throw light on a subject. We all come at this in different ways, due to what we ran into.
I only recently discovered Aspurger's, but have a life of dealing with socalled humans.
They have a very limited and mostly fixed range. I find them predictable.
Rjaye does point out the overriding truth of the matter, Daniel is made of Snips an Snails an Puppy Dog Tails. Little boy is the true Dx, long before seven can be figured ot he will be eight. They do seem to exist to collect dirt, yet the house never gets cleaner. They are such little angels, but only when they are sleeping.
Daniel has a great natural position, an older and younger brother. He will grow up more boy from practice. He will not be facing the world alone.
A note on AS. There is something, but with 10,000 here I am yet to find a matching pair. Even when several have one trait strongly, everything else about them does not match.
It has it's problems, as life in general does, but on the question of having seen both, would you rather be AS or NT, the vast majority chose AS. Even the ones who are unhappy with their lives think of AS as their main coping skill. It does play out well, here without the rest of the world, none of us live up to the Dx.
This is a seperate reality, but it is consistant. I have pity on the human race, I can understand what they feel, how they think, and see how things became as they are. The Dx says we do not have any of those skills.
We are, and I am strongly pro us. Our history is disturbing to me. Hans Aspurger did his work in the 1930s and 40s. Before even I was born. Science has changed in most fields since then, but in the psych field, some still cling to the past like it was carved in stone.
Aspurger did a study of Little Professers, the high functioning, they had a potential to make Wunderwaffen for the Master Race. All of the lower functioning went to the ovens. He was a Scientist working for the National Socialist State, and I think a card carrying member of the party.
He had an agenda. I am sure that many of the high functioning that lacked skills he was seeking were tested by him, then sent to the ovens. I do not have warm feelings for the man.
The next time we were discovered was twenty years later in England, based I am sure on documents captured after the war. Then we were seen as having the potential to build bigger and better Atomic Bombs to destroy the commies with. We were not useful, for anyone with half a brain knows that tens of bombs, we might go back to the stone age, a few more and some life might continue, and a few more leave nothing but a hot rock.
In America mental health was a market to develop for the drug companies. Childhood was seen as a treatable condition. Hundreds of drugs were developed and marketed. None of them are still being used. When I was at the University, 1960s, Psych Major was slang for a nut case. They did graduate with a degree that was not, and is not, a Science. The history of the field is ever changing psychobabble.
We were all called something else untill 1994, when we made "The Book". It was another ten years till a ne crop started using it, and due to the vast range I see here, AS is a dumping ground.
Now we get attention because it has been noticed that we are major players in the development of computers. Since Wired magazine labeled it, "The Geek Syndrome". IT is our leading occupation.
The main problem is we are defined by trained professionals. Few have more than a four year degree. It would be generous to say they have a slightly higher IQ, perhaps 110. Some of us do not test well, but there seems to be a grouping around 140, and another a hundred points higher.
We do read, and compare notes. Most people think in words, most have no inturnal images, and the small percentage that report doing so, state a black and white wire frame image, and fleeting. Most people dream in black and white.
We in general report thinking in images, in full color, with motion, and the ability to run it like a movie, to freeze frame, rewind, re run, and make changes. We dream in color. There is an aspie pause as we stop, convert images into words, words into speech, and like any translation, words must be picked to have not just the same meaning, but to be in current useage, we do read dictionaries for fun. Being over honest, the reply to a simple question could take days.
We see ourselves as normal people. We have a common reality. We are judged as a blind person with an IQ of 70 would judge normal humans, if they were the majority, and normal humans a medical and scientific problem. Any normal human trying to explain their views, such as sight, would be locked up and given drugs, have their eyes removed, till they were cured.
Given that there are millions of us, and within that group all of the usual spread of normal human problems, personalities, we are mostly human. We disagree on most human things, just like everyone else. We have the same other medical conditions.
We differ in information processing. Ours is a complex world, and newly discovered. The problem is only we can see it, and as one out of three hundred, the world tells us we are wrong, no matter what we say. It is not likely we will meet other aspies in real life. WP has changed that.
We are a threat. The worst kind. We call it the neo-Cortex because it is new, another layer over a brain that goes back to reptiles, or flat worms. It is a recent development, no hard facts on when, but the apes lack it. All humans without it were replaced. It started with a few, and ended a level of development.
Our image processing, our advanced skills, some geek becoming the worlds richest man in twenty years, touch very deep species extinction fears. People have very strong reactions to us. It has nothing to do with anything done or said, it has lead to legal actions, and when questioned they said they had no cause, just everything was wrong so they attacked. They have no history of violence.
Many of us report physical abuse from teachers, and constant mental abuse. I had it. Here are trained people, used to working with children, women, who seem to single one out, ridclue them before the other students, say insulting and demeaning things, speak in anger, and hit, slap, pull hair. Other than that they are fine teachers. Something more than our behavior set them off.
The world in general was worse, but I learned, and they dont. I still get the stranger who gets in my face and threatens me. I am sixty. I tell them, you are 1,042, and the rest are all very sorry. I meet agression with agression, and I have more field practice. They come on like the big bad wolf, and I think their hide would make a good rug. The usual is, when I show no fear, they start talking about their gang, I say good, you will need six to carry you, and they leave saying the police will come get me if anything happens to them.
They reacted out of one unknown fear, I give them a here and now fear, I have long arms, and say, "Another one with tough eyeballs" I stop them, bring them to their senses, the primal stuff is forgotten when they have to think of losing an eye now. I do not know any of them. They just keep showing up.
Take any child, speak to them in anger, tell them everything they say is wrong, make their life a constant punishment, come up behind them an slap them in the back of the head. If they show interest in anything, and seem to be enjoying it, take it away and punish them some more, never let them eat a meal in peace, and they will develop social avoidence.
Everything in the Dx is reacting to how they were treated. Pure us is very limited, I avoid eye contact because I can read minds. They may be smiling, but that is not what they are thinking. I am not a dog that pays constant attention to it's owner. I am not waiting for anyone to yell at me and become my Master. I own myself. By the time I was fifteen I was more than willing to educate people. A pool cue was my main educational tool.
I still have a hard time explaining the world. I am new on WP. I am a supporter of radical ideas like letting kids be kids, growing is a full time job, and if it is replaced with something else, some ill considered Curbie fix, they will never grow where they should have. We will have to deal with the world, and the best tool is a well developed self. Children who were sheltered, had good parents, report they started making eye contact at fifteen, developed social skills on their own, and developed their AS talents.
I fit in the world, I started working computers in 1963. I can also fix any machine. My superior skills overcame what those who liked me, or just put up with me, call my strange sense of humor. They do laugh at my jokes, a real laugh.
I see the brain as a flower bud, and after a long time it is starting to open. Our stronger and more developed senses are not the final result, only a glimmer of what will be. Few remember what a leap it was when Windows put icons on the screen, images instead of text. Now most of the world uses icons well.
One out of three hundred there is not much point to us being retrained to fit in, when the world is rapidly changing to our common point of view. We need to grow up to form our own identities, before learning how to deal with others. Self is all, without it, there is no center.
Only we can self identify. I have a whole new world I cannot explain. We must see what we are. No one else can, and we do have a record of bringing good things to the world. Like anyone else, living up to our potential is all we can do. We will always be aliens, no hiding that. I know I could learn to fit into Chinese culture better than the English speaking world, for they would see an alien.
I have learned a lot about my own childhood here. We are kind and concerned, but there is something in it for us. In a way we get to grow through that phase again. Most threads are page two in a week, Daniel and Jimmy are staying at the top of the page, look at the number of people who have viewed the threads. We do have a strong interest in real life. It is a fairy tale with a good Nanna and Mum. It beats my old memories, and blots them out.
We will help you because you help us. Hundreds of people know Daniel, he will grow up with a worldwide tribe. Our dear RedMage at 15 has a fan club of thousands. Post who knows something about this here and your social support network will respond with their best, from all points of view.
Some think we should adapt to the majority rules world, others are aspie seperatist. Some favor educating the world, others just want their money. I want to find out who we are from our point of view.
It is new, it is growing, and it is helping many. Alex, the Founder of WP, is a great person in world history.
08 Apr 2007, 9:30 pm
