Emotion Management - Info from Attwood conference

Post Reply New Topic

Quoting Bobcat:

How refreshing. Someone not ashamed to admit that they have an ordinary IQ. However, I'm not so sure I agree with you, at least, not by reading your post. I think everything you said was brilliantly stated.



Sometimes, quite often actually, I find myself wishing my nervous system were not so sensitive, but then I wonder, what price would I have to pay for it to be that way. What would I have to give up? I'm not willing to give up anything. It would be the mentality of "if you can't beat them join them" and I don't want to join them (society) to that degree. I want to take what I need from society and have the freedom to reject or decline what I don't need. The insensitivity of most people, or most of society and its institutions, toward others who do not think and feel and behave as they do is responsible for many of my problems, but ultimately, I am responsible for how I react to that type of insensitivity. I am very open to learning how to cope with misunderstanding and rejection and not to let it hurt me and/or de-rail me to the extent that it does. Building self-esteem is crucial, and it is never to late for that, but the earlier the better I would say. As I have said earlier, I don't have horror stories of being treated so badly by neuro-typical people that I have developed a hatred for them. I had good and loving parents and I had good teachers for the most part. I don't see a need or a reason to make it a me against them thing. But certainly, when looking at the situation metaphorically as if it were a battle of "us against them" would it be a fair fight if "they" had all the tools(weapons) and we had only our bare hands? Would we be able to survive without tools? I think that is what we need to develop in order to live better, healthier (less anxiety/depression/HBP/heart disease/digestive problems & so on) and more rewarding lives. Think independently, create your own tools (which most of us do) or accept the tools that others offer if they work for you. If you think you're doing a lousy job or you are too tired and stressed to cope without help, what kind of sense would it make to turn down good advice just because it came from someone who's brain was not like yours. That would be idiotic.

And we probably wouldn't be here on WrongPlanet discussing the implications of our brain wiring either. It took some of those NTs (at least that's what we assume they were) to notice that certain behavioral traits were linked and to describe the traits to the best of their understanding. The rest is an unfolding story that those with ASDs will increasingly influence.

Z

Very good point. Things can only get better in my humble opinion.

I don't believe in "us against them" (<---emotional )thinking but I do believe in critical thinking and questioning assumptions of people who have a different neurology. That happens to be one of my "tools" and I think it has served me well and I think it happens to be one of the most over looked and sometimes repressed aspie traits. I don't know if Socrates was an aspie(had a lot of traits IMO), but he did more for human development of this skill then anyone else I can think of.

This is what he taught me...

Don't let anyone define your sensory experiences based on their own.

Don't allow anyone to use emotion laden language to manipulate/shame you into excepting their beliefs about your neurology.

All the compassion in the world can not cure more ills then application of critical thinking.

Follow the money...when reading research and theory, find out who is funding the "project" and what they have to gain from you excepting their research findings and theories. The fact that they may personally benefit from it does NOT necessarily mean it is wrong but it is good information to have in making a final decision on their credibility.


The above also is applicable in almost all human relations...what does the individual gain, (psychological power over someone else, money, self esteem, reinforcement of a personal belief that helps them get through the day, sadistic pleasure).

Some humans with the best intentions to help others, can never the less, still do them the great harm.

Critical thinking and the use of logic are not innate skills any more then large muscles are innate. You may have a predisposition to them but only constant exercise of them will result in the highest level of mental fitness. In this area, most humans would be considered "mentally parapalgecly disabled".

The person who coined the term "devils advocate" was probably not a fan of critical thinking.

The importance of knowing someones neurological status (keeping in mind that it IS a spectrum), is to help us understand that the individual may be experiencing a very 'different reality then our own. The neurology should not be a value judgement but a starting place in understanding that persons perspective. Understanding how they experience reality is a crucial starting point in understanding how they reach the conclussions about life that they have. Perceptions of reality are not "the reality" , they are "a reality". Their importance is only important in the context of understanding that indivduals belief system.

The reason I think this is important in the context of "autism experts" is that many are mind blind to the experiences of autistics. In a desire to "dumb down" and simplify to accomidate the 5 second attention span of many people, they destort AS reality. Sound bites make great commercials and bad science. I was a psych major and this is not unique to AS but a problem of pop psychology that even to many psychiatrist fall victim to, (Few have the energy or skill to cook a 7 course meal when they can just pick up a Big Mac at McDonalds. ) When you are welding a hammer, everything looks like a nail...is important gestalt to understanding psychology.

Humans have been welding tools for a long time and should realize that the wrong tool for the job can not only be inefective but also damage the item you are trying to fix. When that "item" is the human mind, we are talking about some pretty high stakes.
When that mind is a childs...the stakes are even higher. Some of the individuals who are "practicing with a license in human brain repair" have such poor use of logic...I wouldn't trust them with a can opener. Would you hand over your computer to a monkey to fix ?

Point of these meanderings.....

Aspies are defined as "mind blind" because our reality is so different to those who make the deffinitions that they appear unable to see their own mind blindness. To keep it simple...would a fish ask a bird the best places to swim ? Only if the bird has gotten some pretty good information about this from some pretty smart fish. If the bird even starts to tell you about the joys of flying and how you can do it if you try a little harder...it's time to start looking for a smarter bird....or a fish.

I totally agree and what you say is true even within the Autism Spectrum. Probably the most difficult part of Autism being a spectrum or continuum, is that it presents with such a diversity of traits across the continuum. Unfortunately, some with ASDs fall into the trap of thinking that, "If you aren't like me then you don't have 'it.'" I've read many comments on WP (one or two aimed at me) that go something like "You can't have AS because you're too good at . . . "

ASDs are by their nature extremely complex (almost a family of neurologies), and even if you are "professionally" diagnosed with a form of ASD, you might have a very different "presentation" than the next person who is pro-DX'd with the same ASD. It's far too easy to not question personal assumptions about those at other points on the spectrum.

Recognizing that this difficulty is within the spectrum doesn't even begin to address the perhaps larger dilemma of NTs being capable of understanding the neurology those with ASDs.

That's why WrongPlanet is so helpful. Finding others on WP who seem to have similar neurology to me has been wonderful, because what they say about their experiences and ways of thinking has helped me to justify myself, and why I identified so strongly with the idea of Asperger's Syndrome from the moment it was described to me.

Z

I read the interview, I printed it out and read it several times. Things are much worse than I thought.

He is a China Expert, who has never been to China, does not speak Chinese, but read some books in English written by people who had met people who said they had been to China for a weekend.

Forget reeducation, there is not enough there to work with.

We are normal human and more. No one has written, How to repair normal humans.

Part of their mind blind is thinking that normal humans are not in need of massive repair. Not defining the starting point, they then wish to fix us.

A fair outsider view, say someone from planet Krex, would be the Neurotypical is the predominate mental illness on Earth. The healthy ones reject the mindless socialization exibited, lack of gaining knowledge, and favor private study.

Here our rejection of mental illness, as defined by socialization without meaning or content, and chosing ignorance of fact, and knowledge of the superficial, sports, movie stars, and general gossip, as worthwhile, in support of socialization without meaning, defines the problem.

Tony Attwood,

"As I was growing up I really benefited from friendship and found other people not only interesting, but I wanted to get to know all about them... When I met those with autism and Asperger's who couldn't do this I felt very sorry for them. that they were missing out on one of the key aspects of life."

Inventor,

"As I was growing up I really benefited from getting to Know Myself, and all of the factual knowledge that had been gained and recorded by people like myself. I found that most people had no interest in who they were, nor any factual basis to make any judgement. Besides that they were rude and dangerous in their defense of their lack of knowledge. I avoided them, and life was better.

While I am fully capable of interacting with most humans, I still find them blind to the concept of Self, a spark of Devine Fire, here to gather the Knowledge of the Ages, and am shocked by their lack of even basic knowledge of how mater and energy intereact to produce life and conciousness.

I feel very sorry for them, for they are a complete blank when it comes to the meaning of life, and waste the greatest gift of all chit chating about football and Paris Hilton's latest press release.

Here in The Universe, a presentation 15 billion years in the making, a dance of Physics, the art of the beauty of Science, they spend their time shaking hands with others in the audience, endlessly talking during the performance, and saying there is something wrong with those trying to watch the show and learn from it.

It is one thing for them to miss the point of life, but interfering with others trying to view the performance, with full and focused attention, is just plain rude. Their ignorance is no excuse.

Popular Culture is for those who lack the ability to understand Art and Science, just because there are more of the common herd, uneducated and insentive, does not mean that knowledge and taste can be replaced with ignorance and low brow views. Life is not Democratic, the majority does not rule.

My second complaint is Neurotypicals finds Autistic people boring. Anything not about them, or Paris Hilton's boobs, is boring to this type.

I have just spent a year on the Physics of the Optics of Color. Newton did work the field well, but there have been recent developments that open new paths. Newton's work is a good explanation for school children, but I have been developing the Science as adults would apply it in the current era.

I am sure this would bore Tony Attwood, and he would write me off as a Special Interest. Who knows what he would say about Newton? Perhaps I could quit adding to Science and my Patent collection through CBT and drugs?

History shows that few are able to add to the sum of human knowledge, and the majority mostly set it back to where they can understand it. Progress is not a view of the majority.

Asperger's Expert Tony Attwood has strongly expressed the view that we should be made to be just like everyone else. I consider that an insult.

It is not us against them, but them against us. Everyone has their view of the center of human perfection. To Tony it is watching the big game on TV with his many friends, for me it is reading the words Tesla wrote, honored to be exposed to rare thought.

I ignore people, there are six billion, it seems reasonable to me, my goals are solitary. I have not set myself up as the World's Expert on why Neurotypicals are wrong and should be forced to change. While I do see they have flaws, they are established in being that way, and change would be to what?

The first rule of medicine, "Do no harm."

The only ethical way I can change Neurotypicals is what I am doing, advancing Science. Providing a factual basis from which to make judgments, is what I can do. It does not harm, and will be there to help a few. My favorite writers have been dead for 100 to 2500 years, I still consider them my friends, who wrote for me.

I see a long term flow to human culture, where many like me have slowly built a body of knowledge to shed some light on reality. I also see some short term thinking, acting without knowledge, and often making things much worse.

I do not see Tony Attwood's views as accurate, or helpful to the cause of my type of human. I resent the labels of Autistic, Asperger's, and the resulting concept of ret*d, deranged, disorder, Syndrome, disease, mental illness, and being viewed as something to be fixed.

I have the normal problems of life, and this NT dog spreading slander about me.

He is about to learn that life is a two way street.

Tony Attwood has no Science, no truth, and is a fraud.

Ignoring the millions of adults, he forces his views on helpless children, and frightened parents, for money. He is not of us, nor does he like us, he is using us for the greater glory of Tony Attwood.

Like all advisors who put their self interest first, he should be fired, discredited, making room for someone who has a greater understanding of the needs of our whole population to become the world's expert on our personality type.

So if I like pop culture does that mean I'm not really autistic?

As I was growing up, I really benefited from friendship, too, and found people not only interesting, but I pretty much wanted to put their personalities under a microscope. I wanted to get to know all about them so so much.

As long as my social environment is stable and supportive, I can win friends and influence people, too. If I miss out on this social stuff, it's because other people aren't making room for me at the table, not because I'm autistic per se. A couple of hundred years ago I would have lived in a village or small town and known the same people my whole life, and my autism probably woudn't have shown. My leadership would have.

If Attwood is even halfway competent, maybe he will make things halfway better. But we really need to be participating in this stuff ourselves, don't we?

Liking popular culture, having friends, liking them, just shows you are not an elietist snob like that Inventor, who is a hermit and an old silverback.

Inventor is not totally exclusive, he would allow both Newton and Tesla in his cave.

It is my reply to the NT, lets exclude people not like us, view.

When it comes to the discussion of us, it should be by us, not Brother Attwood and the rest of the Holy DSM Church.

Helpful advice can be useful, but not when it is laden with judgemental words. The hardwiring of his brain shows in his writing. He wanrts to fix that he does not understand.

If I miss out on this social stuff, it's because other people arn't making room for me at the table.

A very good point that in a small group, our talents would come out, but in a large group, strangers use us for a social tool of their climb. Tony labels us doormats.

In my small group world I was called upon to fix machines others did not understand. I moved from the mechanical to the computer eras. I was highly valued by people with non working machines, and after Rainman, asked by strangers how to win the lottery.

That never happened before that movie. I was myself for fifty years, then a character in the public domain. What they got from the movie was ret*d with Savant skills, but ret*d.

Attwood and the DSM Church started making my life hell in 1994. My lifes work has been swept aside as people hear that they can steal from me and then tell everyone that I am just some crazy ret*d.

All of my Rights to Life, Liberty, and the persuit of happiness are now a syndrome that Attwood et al make money on, and I can no longer socialize for I have been marked a mental incompadant, by Attwood et al.

The more people hear from Attwood, the more at 61 I have to fight just to walk down the street.

Between Rainman and Attwood, my life is a struggle, and what little socializing I did, I no longer can.

When people learn of our inability to socialize, to them that means we will not make Police Reports, go to court, witness against them, so we are free and easy to steal from. Tony Attwood is not telling the best of NTs how to get along with us, but the worst, he is hanging a "Tard" sign on my back.

In a recent example I was having some artwork set up, and what should have been a one day job, dragged on an on, and the person said that as it was near Christmas I should make her a gift. I did, some emails to Corporate Headquarters and she got a whole new life.

Tony Attwood is telling people we fail at social interaction, and most take that as open season on us.

The American Indian Movement met this type of discrimination by sending a team of lawyers to check out every complaint.

What Tony is doing is the same as saying that Native Americans, and Native Austrailians, do not have souls and are not real people, just animals that look like people. It is only Hate Speach, Tony does not directly steal from us, get us attacked on the street, discredit us in public discourse,and private commerace, but the results are the same.

There are maybe 5,000,000 people who do suffer from this NT dogs slander. Time to shut him up.

Taxi for Attwood .......

You hit the nail firmly on the head, Krex

There is clearly something badly awry in the NT world and I sometimes wonder if they aren't projecting the problems onto all those that are 'not one of us'.

How can we ever take any NT advice on social skills and relationships seriously when they're so bad at it, but cover it up in a world based on 'white lies'?

clap clap clap clap

Yesssssss!! !!

Thanks

What get's me is that we caught both ways: if you say you have social difficulties, half the time they'll say "but everyone has social difficulties". The other half they'll say "OK, you need to learn to be like us because we have the social skills".

I said, MYSELF, here that I have taken MANY social skills courses, and DROPPED them because the "teacher" was some stupid, lonely, bitter, old DIVORCED woman! And they were NOT the same "teachers", and weren't even in the same city!

They just ended up that way. And I DON'T like a woman that I would CLEARLY hate as a wife telling me how it was her husbands fault, etc... I may not be a normal man(Since I have senses and the brain of an AS person), but I have a normal sex drive and the basic stuff that those women complain about seems to be in me as well. I can basically see them through their husbands eyes, and realize it is all BS! And MEN tend to have it HARDER!

We are defined by lack of social skills, "Treatment" CBT is all about social skills, then comes Cassandra Syndrome, which says we will never have social skills and in fact are toxic and harmful to anyone we associate with?

Imagine AA, Weightwatchers, saying, our customers are drunks and pigs.

This product is not being marketed to us, but to clueless parents, teachers who want drugged students, and the benefits flow to the Psychobabble set. ret*d Control.

"We can always blame the customer" is their motto.

This seems the reason nothing is done to help, or asked, of adults, adult outcome is ignored, for funding only goes up to college.

From 1994, the first group of child subjects should now be reaching adult years. A good study would be comparing them, with fourteen years of treatment, with others who had no treatment.

I think it would lead to a class action lawsuit.

There is little to compare it with, obese children get picked on and bullied too. Perhaps CBT can help them project a better image. No need to deal with their weight, that is only a side issue, and obese adults should be ignored, and have no say in childhood treatment?

Neither Autism or Obesity are mental health problems, they are the fault of the children. There is no qualification for setting up a Behavior Modification Clinic. If fat children would quit acting fat, it would make strangers happy. There are no obese adults.

One of the things I noticed in the interview was, it used to be thought to have something to do with the mothers, Tony said, "Mothers have nothing to do with children, it is all the child's fault." There was no citation following, so I imagine he made that up because mothers pay him to put blame on the children.

It is wild guessing on my part, but it seems families do have something to do with children.

So blame the child, use drugs and behavior modification to turn them into Zombies, tell the parents that nothing is their fault, they must do what they have to, and child abuse laws only apply to human children. Work the system till funding runs out, the parents no longer have a legal responsibility for their child, then drive them to a city far away, and while they are taking a restroom break, drive away.

This gets both the parents and the state off the hook. As an adult the person can find their own way to jail, a mental hospital, or shallow grave.

So I do see some conflicts, what is to be treated, or over treated, in children from 3 to 21, is to be ignored in adults.

With no studies of adult outcome, except Plank, Alex, et al, there is no comparison of treatment options, including none, with adult outcomes.

The only report on adult outcomes is the movie Rainman.

No one seems to expect any other outcome, hence making some bucks off of the children is a sharp move for people with the qualifications to be a college teacher of psychobabble.

Even with school letting out most here seem to be over 21. We are on our own for the rest of our lives and this will not change unless we change it.

There are about 5,000,000 of us.

Some of these really informative skills-and-traits threads could be made sticky or transferred to a reference library.

Seems a shame for some of them to slip away, but it makes reading through the past pages of this website very worthwhile.

I understood CBT much more after reading Tony's book The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome. A lot of people associate therapy with Ivar Lovaas cruel work he did in the past with Autistic children. So they think, perhaps, therapy means changing who they are against their will.