Kiriana Kowsage featured in Psychology Today magazine

Post Reply New Topic

www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-20 ... 000002.xml

"Don't step on that—it's not a rug!" warns Kiriana Cowansage. It's a 9,000-piece puzzle of the astrological heavens, half completed, which she's putting together on the floor of her brightly colored studio apartment in Manhattan's West Village. Such perplexing contradictions are the hallmarks of Asperger's Syndrome (AS), with which Kiriana was diagnosed when she was 19."

She is an adult woman with Aspies. Her life story resembles mine at several points, except her Nazi infatuation and Nazi medical experiments on Jews. I'm not all that interested in Nazism. The article does not mention she had interests I have had such as computers, chess, D&D, quantum gravity, etc.

Like her I had some difficulty with sports, though I do play tennis.
I did have friends who were mostly geeky and into geeky interests like star trek and star wars. Like her I've never had a girlfriend though love doesn't make me feel scmaltzy.

Mark M
Sunday, December 31, 2006 8:17 PM
[email protected]
The Girl With a Boy's Brain

Good article, but we don't care for the reference, "Its sufferers ..."

-MrMark
www.wrongplanet.net

(Thanks Jonathan.)

I object to the term "magical domain of a child" in response to her having objects and activities that stimulate the mind.

This article is sounding a lot like my life...

Well, I don't like

Wonderful article. So many of the things she said could be direct quotes from my own experience. I'm actually a little envious that she got diagnosed when she did, since I floundered until I reached my forties.

Good article. It's inspiring to see someone with Asperger's excelling in science.

This article led me to seek out this site. Kiriana & I are very much alike (My Honours dissertation is about the Nazi medical experiments!)Although my skin is dark, we even resemble physically. I feel a kinship with animals-even plants! I've almost no sense of direction and become disoriented easily. Like her, I look curiously young for my age (42 but the most anyone ever gave me was 25). We both love to make portraits. This is the first time in my life I've ever 'met' someone even similar to myself. It would be interesting to meet her. This condition has had a tremendous impact on my life although I do not feel like a 'sufferer'; NT's I've encountered seem to spend more time suffering & in a 'state' than we do. always conflicted over their friendships, relationships & social lives. Not having a social life has spared me from a lot of misery. Plus; I can hang out alone for days on end without feeling lonely. Just lying around thinking can be great fun! It is New Year's Eve & I plan to sit & eat chicken noodle soup. YIPPEE! I bought a bouquet of fluffy yellow roses with ruffly edges. My fat lazy hairy black cat will have some soup too. Bye!

I read this article last week and even posted it to another forum. I'm particularly glad to see people paying attention to females with Asperger's since we get ignored by the professional types a lot.

Like some other people have said, that article could have been written about me, except for the interest in astronomy and never having had a boyfriend.

I am offended by the title- "A Girl with A Boy's Brain." Having AS does not mean that one has a boy's brain!

I found some similarities between my life and Kiriana's and some differences. Our interests have been different, but our diagnostic/educational history is similar. Like her I was incredibly shy in elementary school to the point that my teachers expressed concern every year. However, as the article mentioned, my written work was so good that I was never considered for special education. Then I went to college and became overwhelmed by the greater academic challenges and lecture style of learning. I was diagnosed with AS in college for the same reasons. I even go to a college very similar to Vassar- a small, selective liberal arts college that is another one of the Seven Sisters. I hope my post college life is just as successful. I wonder what Kiriana's major was.

I felt relief reading about how girls are better at hiding their AS than boys. I'm glad that AS girls are better able to imitate social situations. Although that might mean that girls suffer as children because they are overlooked for support services, I bet they suffer less as adults for the same reason. Employers may overlook the AS because women are better able to hide it and fit in. Maybe that means I will have an easier time getting and holding a job than the average Aspie since the average Aspie is male.

I also found the statement that girls with AS are less aggressive, but more anxious than boys with AS to be interesting. That certainly fits me. I am the complete opposite of aggressive, but I have suffered and continue to suffer greatly from anxiety.

20 to 25 per 10,000 children funny how this figure is totaly different to others, or why more boys have these syndromes than girls study in the chromosomes to a male....

/*
There are 24 chromosomes that make up the human genome. As a whole, the chromosomes contain all the 30,000 or so genes it takes to make a human. Each chromosome is a collection of DNA strands that regulate cellular functions. The Human Genome Project gave researchers a general map of where genes are located. But researchers are conducting separate projects to map each chromosome in detail.
*/

/*
Female chromosome complement: The large majority of females have a 46, XX chromosome complement (46 chromosomes including two X chromosomes). A minority of females have other chromosome constitutions such as 45,X (45 chromosomes including only one X chromosome) and 47,XXX (47 chromosomes including three X chromosomes).
*/

which is probably why more male's have it than females...

/*
All males have an X and a Y chromosome, and all women two X chromosomes. Occasionally an extra X chromosome is found a male who has Klinefelters syndrome (hence they have 2 X and one Y chromosome) and these men often have abnormal hormonal status as well as infertility.
*/

Females are social people so the probability of the dna that is damaged been in the one that is for social stuff is highly unlikely probably since I am not a scientist did come across somewhere else about female's and they social dna... plus it's easier for a female to be shy than a male, still a lot of sexist towards shy males… and they role in society..

"" I have suffered and continue to suffer greatly from anxiety "" I must be a special case then coz I suffer from extreme long term anxiety & I am not aggressive I just defend myself... love to know what they mean by " agressive "... sure that is labeling something that's got nothing to do with As...

Mnemosyne,

You are LUCKY! I lived all my life knowing NOTHING about this! I had a friend look at my 5 year old picture. She said my ears DID look like they were autistic, and my head did look like it might have been bigger than average. When I told my mother, that HAS worked with lot of kids, she said it was hard getting t-shirts that fit me and fit over my head. I ALSO had some emotional differences autism would have been explained by autism. Yet nobody even SUSPECTED autism, apparently. Granted I didn't fit everything, but isn't it an odd coincidence. It was too long ago for them to know about AS.

umbra,

Interesting you should say that! I am strong in some areas that FEMALES are supposed to be strong in, and poor in some areas that MALES are supposed to be good at. Turns out AS explains it! We all know how the social area(a female strength by the way) is adversly affected. The language area(female strength), and analytical(male strength) tend to take up the slack. Since most AS people have dumbed down their language, and have historically known no more languages than average, the female strength isn't as obvious. I think that is why they said male brain. It is actually more of a hybrid.

BTW my strengths/weeknesses have been echoed by many on here.

Steve

Only thing I got picked up on in school is primary school my dyslexia and 1 teacher in secondary school saying "Are you ok" and that's it... not until 20 I finally said something wrong with me and got into the GP and the system first team I saw where the crisis Team which where asking me if I hear voice's :/.... "Kill All, Kill ALL"

Was me who diagnosed myself with shyness and social anxiety 1 year and a half later I got the As...

This person writing the story the physiologist? Looks like she’s disconnected from the autism information, and only into books… -- Would like to know why a therapist free service is on the side that mean a therapist written this? can't be bothered to find out who "Carlin Flora" is...


http://www.findarticles.com/p/search?tb ... n+Flora%22 Don't know if that's her but can't be bothered to read all that lol... ""I think shes a Therapist from looking over the links ""