Using 'Asperger's' as a Shield

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I was diagnosed with Asperger's a few years ago. And right here, so as to spare you all from a lengthy and meandering preamble, I have my first qualm with the whole notion of Asperger's: there are diseases--illnesses--that a person can be said to have, without any equivocation, without any doubt on the matter. Things like cancer, diabetes, heart disease. Now, there are certainly psychological diagnoses that can be made with a great degree of certainty--the more 'present' and self-evident among them being things like bipolar disorder, clinical depression, schizophrenia, etc. Despite the fact that mental illness is an inherently more complicated thing to pronounce than physical illness, there is the fact that certain among them can without much argument, I think, be said to exist in a given person, than others. Once your ability to clearly define what is a disorder and what isn't--who may have it and who may not--is compromised, it seems to me you begin dealing in a great deal more speculation and guess-work than you would otherwise.

Asperger's, to me, is a very slippery slope when it comes to defining yourself and why you are the way you are. To what degree do you attribute your social inadequacies to this nebulous 'disorder' that you may or may not in fact have, and to what degree is it just attributable to weakness of self, to flaw of character? I have a tendency to believe that, as is so often the case, a thing like Asperger's comes along and the media sort of jumps on the bandwagon--suddenly you can't go anywhere without hearing about Autism--people even go so far as to claim great figures in history, like Einstein and Sir Isaac Newton, had Asperger's. To me, this is ridiculous. For one thing, people shouldn't feel they have to to co-op Albert Einstein as part of the Autistic spectrum to feel better about themselves. For another, it's just not true, and even if it were, what difference would that make? We should not seek to define ourselves by some disorder that has really only come to light in the past five or so years; I find it a little suspect to begin with, but beyond that, there is the fact that the real world simply does not care how or why you are socially awkward. To me, being told I have Asperger's has been virtually meaningless to my personal experience. If you happen to buy into it, and I'm still not sure I do, it doesn't change how the world deals with you. I think that it's over-diagnosed first, but second, it can actually do more harm than good, depending on how you process the information. It is not, in my mind, enviable, advantageous, interesting or even unique that a person has this syndrome. Now more than ever, mental illnesses of every stripe have been exposed and to a large degree, 'normalized' by the media and the culture.

I saw the trailer for that new film, "Adam", a romantic comedy about a guy with Asperger's, and it made me cringe. I think it's symptomatic of our media, and more of how we choose to define and present ourselves in the world today, that there should be a movie that attempts to in some way romanticize this terrible thing that causes so much struggle in all of our lives (those of us who are told we have it). Shortly, Asperger's to me is something you shouldn't be ashamed of, or compelled to ignore should it present real problems, but it is also certainly not something to be proud of. We are who we are, and what really matters is not the naming of a syndrome or the proliferation of literature on that syndrome, or the media exposure it garners, but rather how we each choose to deal with the world, knowing this information about ourselves.

To me personally, I continue to find knowing it to be of no use, and I continue to find the 'diagnosis' given me suspect to begin with. Because my problem has never been the naming of a disease, but rather how to effectively treat and cope with it, I have never put much stock into my diagnosis of having Asperger's Syndrome. Those who find greater success--both personal and professional--in their lives may have occasion to think of it differently; maybe a better position and a greater overall contentment in life affords this different view. But I am certainly bitter, and I've had many bitter disappointments, which in the long run cause me to be more skeptical. So, naturally, there's something about the very existence of this community that bothers me. I rarely come here, but being that I am here now, I thought I would get this off my chest--presenting it to those who might do well to think about it.

Anyway.

I understand the qualm about "Adam". When someone watches a movie about a character with Asperger's, they're going to immediately assume (if they're not already familiar with it) that all people with AS are this extreme. Some are higher functioning than others. I don't take things as literally as the Adam character does, but I do sometimes miss the context. There's a scene in Mozart and the Whale where Isabelle tells a girl on the street, "at least my boyfriend is a vegetarian!" and Donald says, "you have a boyfriend?" I'd have probably said the same thing without realizing she meant me. Not all AS people are as socially awkward to say things like Adam did about sexual arousal. At least Mozart and the Whale gave you some variety.

In regards to Asperger's as a shield, I understand your point. A person can use it to their advantage as an excuse for being obnoxious. Personally, I use it to my advantage to help people understand why I've been certain ways in the past and what they can expect in the future. That's sort of the point of a diagnosis. I can sit here and explain things with finesse, but I couldn't possibly verbalize any of it without several pauses to think. My entire life, from childhood to now, I've had social issues. You could flip to any page in Tony Attwood's book "The Complete Guide To Asperger's Syndrome" and find something I've done or experienced. As the poster above said, it's not an illness or a disease, it's a syndrome which is a collection of disorders. Why we have them, I don't know, but we do, and we have to do our best to cope with them.

I think if you're anticipating something in yourself and then saying, "oh yeah, I have Asperger's. sorry about that," then perhaps you're abusing it. If you do something weird, and then realize that you've done it, it ceases to be a cop-out.

How Asperger's is represented in the media and how people may interpret it for their own reasons have nothing to do with its reality. When something is "discovered," that doesn't mean that it didn't exist previously. It was barely a blip on the horizon when I was a child. Discovering Asperger's late in ife simply allowed me to understand better the traits that have always been part of me.

I tend to be wary about retrospective diagnoses of famous people, but if enough is known about their lives, and they clearly exhibit the characteristics that are required for a diagnosis, then it's reasonable to assume that they may have had Asperger's. Our understanding of Asperger's is at a very early stage right now, and all kinds of claims are going to be made that have nothing to do with the reality. But that doesn't bring the reality into question.

I don't see AS as any sort pf special thing that I must either be ashamed of or particularly proud of, but I do see it as a part of me. I don't like speculations about dead people possibly having AS.

ON the issue of whether it is an excuse for social differences, it isn't, but it is still an explanation. It isn't like formelry everyone with AS coped jsut fine or were deemed flawed characters. Many were just seen as weird, and what actually is the problem with being weird?

Btw, AS was described in 1944. That isn't like five years ago last time I checked.

I agree with OP on most, of not all points.

AS isn't something you diagnose as obviously there or obviously not there. ASDs fade into the typical gradually, and it's really a judgment call what's an ASD and what's a quirky typical person. For the most part, they draw the line at significant impairment; but of course significant impairment in childhood may not be after you have some time to grow up and learn how the world works. So you have a lot of adults with the same brain structure and learning style as kids diagnosed with ASDs, who cannot themselves be diagnosed because they no longer have any impairment. It's very fuzzy. Those ASD adults most certainly do belong in the autistic culture, in case anyone thinks I am trying to say "if you're not disabled, get out of here", incidentally; as do people in broader autism phenotype or subclinical categories.

As for me, knowing about my autism has been a great step forward. I credit it with being the thing that was most useful in my recovery from depression a few years ago. The thing with having problems in your life is that you can't really solve them until you define them; and for me, the definition of the problem was the mismatch between my cognitive style and what was expected of a typical person. (Note that I do not say autism is the problem. It is not.) Once I defined that, I started figuring out ways to make things match better--to use what I can do well (mostly writing and academic) to compensate for what I am not good at (just about everything else). I started finding lots of little solutions to things like sensory overload and organization/attention problems. I am still disabled, but this summer I had a mostly successful eight weeks at an internship because I had a lot of those little mismatches compensated for. One day I may no longer need any external help at all.

The problem to be solved isn't the autism itself. That's how autism is different. It's the same thing as a lot of other physical and mental disabilities: The problem isn't actually the diagnosis itself, but the fact that society isn't adjusted towards people with that diagnosis. There are gaps. Sometimes there are overlaps, where you can do things they expect nobody to be capable of (ex. why teach a math savant arithmetic?). The problem of autism isn't actually the problem of autism, but the problem of a non-autistic world that is made for non-autistic people. The things you get from that world--the education, the living arrangements, the work arrangements, the very environment--aren't made for autistics. So to solve the problem, you don't have to solve the autism somehow (hey, hands off my brain anyway!); you just have to adjust the world around you.

i do not use aspergers as a excuse to do things only to make people stop telling me can do a think only if want to bad enough and i am just lazy

i want a billion dollars and a 40 room house so since do not have the money to pay for the house and do not have the money to give my bank then the bank will not give my account the billion dollars and people will not give me the house just because i want it

if only can actually get hired for a job that does not make me work with people or need to write a lot of reports then can save the money to get a house of some kind one day and wanting needs ability to actually do

just not able to be what people say is qualified for the kinds of jobs i am able to do is what stops me from working

I don't tell people I have asperger's. It's not that I am embarrased by it or anything but I'd just like for them to think of me as a normal person. Maybe a bit eccentric or something like that. But since I don't think I have any obvious giveaway traits I don't feel the need to really mention it. I also try not to blame things on the syndrome. If I do something weird or say something weird then I will blame myself for it and try to act better next time. Even though it could be because I have asperger's in the end my behaviour is my own responsibility still. In some ways I wish I wasn't diagnosed at all. It wasn't really something I seeked out of my own will anyhow.
About the famous dead people having it..Many great people have been said to have been eccentric but you can't really equate that with having a clinical syndrome or their brain actually being different. They were probably just very driven and single-minded people. Except for Nikola Tesla, I think he really had it:D

i think the only way i've ever brought it up so far is as an explaination, not an excuse.. At least, i hope so. A couple nights ago i was being a little too focused on just the task i was doing and she said "you need to learn to multitask, girl" and i said "i can't multitask well because my brain doesn't function that way, i'm mildly autistic" and she said "excuses, excuses". So, i don't know if she really thought i was using it as an excuse or if she was sort of joking around I think it's okay to use a diagnosis as an explaination, though. I mean, if someone brings up something that you're not functioning normally at, i think it's reasonable to tell them that there is a cause and that you aren't doing it on purpose or just being a slack-off. I'm not saying that it's ok to just say "oh it's my AS" about everything and then not even try at all. But it wouldn't be a diagnosis at all if it wasn't causing some real difficulties, and getting people to be a little understanding is sometimes best.

It's fun being around the middle, because you know there's something seriously wrong with you.