Guys, you need to stop blaming your aspergers

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Huh???? There is nothing in the AS diagnosis that refers to lower intellectual ability. Quite the opposite - in general people with AS have higher than average IQ, often blazingly higher than average. I have never had a problem with tests. You seem to have forgotten that AS is predominantly a COMMUNICATION problem. Our problems are that even though intellectually more than capable, due to social perceptions, we are assumed to be deficient by others.

Who is it that says AS sufferers have "low social skills", "no possibility of empathising with other human beings", may "never form a real relationship", "are unaware of the needs of others" etc etc??? All that, and more, is repeated ad nauseum by NT doctors and experts. And statements like these are merely the tip of the iceberg. What I'm getting at is that while our own beliefs do cause us trouble, the beliefs and judgements of more or less the whole of society ALSO cause us trouble. We can change our own beliefs, but if oppression is to be reduced in the world, a whole lot of NT's need to change their way of being too.

Oh, BTW where is this "real world" of which you speak? Do you really think the world of employment is more real than school? To anybody with an ounce of life in their soul, nothing is more un-real than contempory office culture. Plenty of sociopaths who failed their tests are doing very well at getting very rich from their conscience-free exploitation of others.

AS certainly can have impariments for some. HOWEVER, if they are told they CAN NOT help themselves either then that to me would seem to lead to depression. The idea that everything is to blame because of AS is learned helplessness. There is a difference between knowing that you have AS, recognizing what some of your limitations may be and THEN determining what might be ways to make accomodations so you can be successful and learned helplessness. But recognizing what you need to do regarding accomodations is not using AS as an excuse. If a person with sensory issues KNOWS that they should leave a party or a store because they are feeling overwhelmed than they are not blaming or using their sensory issues - they are just being practical.

This is something that is really important for parents to understand as there are some out there who have the mentality that they will not allow their kids to use their AS as an excuse and make requirements of them but not have realistic expectations or provide adequate supports. That really starts setting kids up to feel like they will fail at tasks and their thinking may develop into the pattern that the parents wanted to avoid.

ditto
47 here and never heard of until a year ago

there might be some way to get people to take to people with AS, but as far as I can see around here even the young people with all sorts of professional help aren't having much success at being Mr or Miss popular.

The NT's spot the weakness and exploit it, some may pretend to be a friend,but most are just trying to exploit the situation. If you ain't got something they want, they are nowhere around.

The newspaper article I read a year ago quoted trhe woman it was about as saying she never knew why she didn't fit in and one day dicovered she was a swan trying to fit in with ducks. All the ducks knew she wasn't want of them, but she had no clue she wasn't a duck and couldn't figure out why all the ducks stayed away from her.

having AS is like being the only black kid in town or the only white kid on an indian reservation. At best the other people might tolerate your existance amoung them, but if you moved away and tried keeping in touch, you would quickly see it was all one way

How many people on this board have had the experience of having had someone just explode in front of you? The rage is completely unexpected and you are totally unprepared. At the moment it happens, you stand there stupefied, unable to react. Or to have had others say things that are cutting and deeply hurtful. It is as if they are trying to get back at you except that you do not know what you have done. I have experienced such things so often that I have given up trying to overcome autism. No matter what I did, I always fell short; and when it came to group dynamics, I was always on the losing end.

Does anyone ever use autism as a crutch? What kind of crutch is it anyway? An excuse to live a life of forced poverty because you cannot get steady employment? Some of us could get work if we wanted to but shy away from doing so because we do not want to go through what we have been through before. It’s a bit like not wanting o be in an abusive relationship ever again.

There are members of the “care”/medical establishment who spread the view that autism can be “cured”. These are the people who make a living selling hope and there is no end to the people willing to pay to be lied to. The quacks look at HFAs and Aspies and see someone who simply has self-esteem or motivation issues. It is not uncommon for these people to conclude that you are/were too coddled and spoilt as a child. What is needed is to stiffen your backbone by developing those much needed social skills. Invariably, it fails and each failure binds the autistic ever more closer to the caregiver as he/she seeks to analyze and understand the failure. The therapy, its prescriptions and the low self-esteem becomes interlocking as the autistic spends week after week, year after year lapping up the meaningless play of words. Therapy at that point becomes a way to find meaning and escape in an otherwise painful life.

The more we learn about Aspergers Syndrome, the more we understand just how debilitating this condition can be. A software engineer finds himself out of a job following the implosion of the dot come bubble and since then floats from one termination to another. A college graduate finds his new work environment too much to cope with; office politics and frat boy bullying, the noise and lack of privacy, each little thing seems to conspire to bring him down. When he is finally terminated, with the benefit of hindsight, he is aware that he did or said things that he should not have. The problem is that he knows that he could not have done it any differently. The humiliation does not end when you leave the horrors of a difficult work environment. Standing at a Walmart and debating with yourself if you should buy that T-shirt or not drives home the point just how pathetic one’s life really is.

There are endless efforts to raise the self-esteem of Aspies. We are told that Einstein, Newton and Socrates had Aspergers. Don’t hold your breathe while I try to find the next great tectonic shift in man’s understanding of the world. It is sweet for people to want to make us feel good, but honestly, it does not solve anything.

So go ahead and tell me that I am using Aspergers as a crutch. People have said a lot worse than that to me. If it makes you feel any better, at least someone is better off.

great post zeno/ my thoughts almost exactly. no one can sit here and judge anyone about a mental condition and how they are supose to deal with it. AS isn't going to affect me, the same way it affects you. so what a fool, what a fool indeed this author is.

It's not really blaming, it's what it is. What we do and don't is because of AS.

People with AS aren't controlled by their AS. Seems like you've never heard of a little something called personal responsibility.

Sure I have. There wouldn't be these underlying issues involved otherwise.

Well if what we do and don't do is determined by our AS, then that doesn't seem to leave much room for personal responsibility to me.

th e[roblem with AS is, despite out best intentions to control/hid eit, that us aspies act aspie sometimes without realising it, because we are aspies.
i can sit here now in a quiet environemt, with my lights dimmed, my remote next to me, no kids screaming and yelling and say this easily, but wen im out there, i go aspie and dont realise it.
it is because we are aspie that we not necessarily cant control it, but dont realise we are acting aspie.
it isnt a choice to act or not act aspie sometimes we do it without realising it.
self awareness is a choice and we can be good at this, but not all the time. like a coulor blind person can see that the top light on a set of traffic lights is red, but he can learn to see red this way but when he sees red in another setting or context he cant see it, cause he is colour blind and we dont see things because we are aspie.

when you realise this, you do go a long way to controlling your undesirable aspie behaviour.

I like the color blind analogy and I have used it myself to explain this condition to others. Within the right context, all Aspies probably have no problems handling a social situation. It's when there are subtle shifts in how things are done or when the situation becomes too complex that the power of analysis fails. And the problem is that Aspies do not even know that they are doing anything wrong. Even something very basic like levels of disapproval and anger in the other party goes undetected. Consequently, the only times most people with Asperger ever figure out that something is wrong is when everything has fallen apart and out right confrontation is unavoidable. But like color blindness, other people cannot tell that you are different. Hence, they think that you are provoking them. After you have ding-donged within this circle long enough, you do become a little crippled. It's like walking into a brick wall everytime you try to go anywhere. Soon enough, you will figure that it is just best not to do anything.

Most Aspies would settle for a simple quiet life. 9-5, go to work. Come back and watch TV. The problem is that most of us cannot even get a routine job. It is not entirely about self awareness. If you cannot see it coming, you cannot do anything about it right?

Not to blame our Aspergers? Say WHAT? Even if that is PRECISELY why you have trouble focusing on things that aren't your interests, or you're too slow? Do you get diagnosed just so that you can go 'Huh. That's interesting'. And carry on the same way, with the same problems, when there may be help for you?

I will admit that I am not all that proud of my AS. I am just recently starting to come into realisation that its ok that I have it and that maybe its not such a bad thing, but for a long time, I totally didn't even know what it meant that I have it, and I wasn't proud to have a 'disability' or a syndrome, or any sort of medical problem of the sort. So I put it on the back burner. Oh yeah. I totally ignored it. I wasn't about to have some thing stop me from getting what I want in life, stop me from doing what I want, or accept that there's anything there keeping me from meeting people or making friends, or succeeding in college.

But the more I pushed against it, the more it pushed me back even harder. I tried to go through college classes the same way as everybody. I didn't want special treatment. I don't even like that word 'special'. If others could do it, so could I! I figured it is my damn responsibility and I'm here to succeed, not to fail. But I tried, and I tried, I worked so hard.... I tried to focus and I tried to not procrastinate, and I tried to go faster..... and it wasn't happening. And I was handing in the work not only late but ALSO incomplete. And I was embarrassed and I didn't want any students to see my lack of 'effort', as I know thats what everyone thought of me. Teachers probably did too.

I just tried to be normal. Tried to do the same amount of work and as well as everyone else. I did well in some areas like drawing, but with more intense areas like 3D modelling and other complex courses, I was really drowning trying to keep up. And my stress level was high too because of the social environment.

If you can't use a chemical imbalance or a neurological difference that you were legitimately DIAGNOSED WITH as an excuse, then what are you supposed to do with that diagnoses anyways?

Now I'm not talking about purposely using it as an excuse, manipulating people to make things easier than you require it to be, laughing maniakly (sp?) while you collect free money from the government to blow on lots of fun stuff, etc. I am talking about using it as a REASON, a good reasonable explanation for why you have the difficulties that YOU CAN'T HELP, and then using this information to find solutions that will work for you and your employer or teacher, etc. You should get the help you require from councellors or medication or what have you if you have serious emotional or mental problems that you can't control no matter how badly you want to do well.

That is where I stand right now. If you have gotten all the help you need already, or if you are not as debilitated with the syndrome as others are, and you are more emotionally balanced/stable, than how wonderful for you I'm sure. It's pretty easy to talk the talk to people about picking yourself off the floor and trying harder, being more serious, and not use an excuse. And yes, I agree with that too, absolutely 100%. You have to WANT something badly enough to get it. But also, to take care of what the real issue is first. If you can't be professional and independant without some councelling and help first, than you know what you must do. Success can be very hard to achieve for some Aspergers people, so, just do what you need to first, tackle it one step at a time, no matter how small the step, it still leads to success.

There is a difference between a reason and an excuse. I don't agree with people using whatever problem they may have as an *excuse* - but if they use it legitimately as a *reason* then I'm all for it.

I don't blame my AS for everything that goes wrong in my life. When I was younger(about seven or nine) I remember having to go see a speech therapist and I remember always being treated differently, i.e. being the only person who was able to stay after class to finish my tests. People would ask me: "Why are you so quiet?" I wouldn't know why Now I know why and it all seems so clear. I want to push myself harder in high school now. I've been asking my mom to put me in all college prep classes and I can't wait another second. I want to know what I'm capable of. Plus the students in the college prep classes I have now seem waaay more mature. I'm so curious about what there is to learn and what I have to offer to the world. Sure, I hate not knowing how to socialize properly but that's just one aspect of my life. I have a few friends at school and that is all I need. I can't wait and am scared of college. I'm happy to know that there is less bullying in college

well said - many therapists refuse to even acknowledge AS/HFA in regard to emotional or stress type pro blems.

I blame my Asperger's for making my post-high-school life more fun! The real world is more tolerant of Aspies than schools are.