Callista wrote:
b9 wrote:
...
<rest of post snipped for brevity>
Are you aware of how absolutely offensive that is?
no. i admit that i was rather scathing in my appraisal, and i employed terminology that may have been insulting to some, but my post was not directed toward anyone in particular.
Callista wrote:
1. You seem to assume that those newly diagnosed are not really Asperger's
i do not dispute diagnoses. diagnoses are only able to be drawn by professionals. people who simply conclude they have AS from personal speculation have not been diagnosed.
Callista wrote:
[and presume] that Asperger's is actually very rare because that was what you were told when you were diagnosed. But you have not taken into account the possibility that the increased diagnosis of autism results not from a "fad" but from increasing awareness of something that existed long before we were aware of it
people were aware that i was very different from normal people because i did not acknowledge other people's existences in a communicative sense when i was a baby. anyone who was as distant from assimilation as i was would have been spotlit at any time in history. there was no necessity for a level of increased "awareness" of autistic symptomatology in order for me to have been considered very different, and therefore scrutinized medically when i was only a few months old.
the increase in "awareness" i believe is actually an increase in sensitivity that results in progressively milder grades of affectation being considered in an amplified way so that many people who are "mildly odd" but otherwise functional being ascribed a "condition".
i do not refute the condition that they are diagnosed with even if it is tantamount to the "smell of an oily rag" being responsible for the diagnosis of a stricken oil tanker.
Callista wrote:
in fact, autism is common and can be subtle, and often exists in people who score normally on IQ tests. Our picture of autism has been changing; that does not mean that the newer ideas must be false.
well if they redefined autism as simply a mild deviation from social normalcy, then i guess you are correct.
i learned how to talk to people purely in a rote manner. i am lucky that i have an average intelligence, and i have learned (in the same way that most people learn how to read a musical manuscript). there was no intuitive indoctrination into social life for me. i still play the social song like a beginner, but i have after all these years learned the formula to some degree.
Callista wrote:
2. You don't address the question of why people might want to identify with Asperger's, either in the sense of disability pride or in the form of AS supremacism. In our culture, disability is generally thought to be scary and something you should distance yourself from, and people with AS have been taught this.
i was not taught anything that i did not want to know. people are not allowed to murder me because they think i am inferior (which they do not think anyway), so i do not care what races through their self contained skulls. i can talk clearly and i am polite and so i experience no impediment from the people i deal with on a daily basis even though they may harbor thoughts that they would not like to be like me.
pride is something that i do not have, and since i do not have it, it can not be injured.
sad and sorry people who feel humiliated by how they are are people i do not identify with.
Callista wrote:
Is it really so surprising that people with AS might either reject the idea that AS is a disability and "really" makes them superior (AS supremacism) or else reject the idea that having a disability makes them inferior (disability pride)? We have to deal with that stigma somehow, though some ways are healthier than others.
i do not resort to feeling that i am superior in order to nullify thoughts of inferiority. i do not think i am inferior so i do not overcompensate by extolling my virtues.
Callista wrote:
3. You don't give a cohesive argument as to why you think self-diagnosis of AS is invalid; you seem to be saying, "It's invalid because it's self-diagnosis," which is a bit of a circular argument.
i do not think that all people who self diagnose are wrong. i just give no blind credentials to their assertions that they have AS. i then suspect they are incorrect when they exhibit behaviour that is uncharacteristic of AS (such as greasy and slick flirtatious behaviour)
Callista wrote:
Some of us aren't given access to professional diagnosis; others are trying to avoid the stigma of disability. Other than for those with factitious disorder, there is no reason to self-diagnose with something unless you feel that something is really wrong; the obsessive nature of autistics often means that we have as comprehensive a knowledge of autism as most professional specialists.
the process that was employed in my diagnosis was far more comprehensive than what is available on the internet. there are rules that prohibit key aspects of diagnosis from being published on the internet, otherwise everyone would be armed to the teeth with all they need to know in order to qualify for a disability pension.
as an example, in my case i had a cap on my head that shone laser beams into my eyes that tracked what i looked at when shown a short film. the rules and architecture of that form of investigation are not available on the internet.
there are other forms of investigation also that also are not allowed to be publicized.
i do not think that armchair diagnosticians who have only the internet as their resource of knowledge have all the required tools they need to make a comprehensive diagnosis.
Callista wrote:
And self-diagnosis is not by definition invalid.
i did not say that self diagnosis is self defeating by nature. i merely claimed that self diagnosis is not automatically credible.
Callista wrote:
Haven't you ever self-diagnosed a cold, and been correct?
a cold is vastly more simple to suspect one has than autism. autism is present from birth, and a cold is a change in the usual respiratory and mucosal function that one is used to, and it is evident because of it's contrast to the usual respiratory and mucosal functions that one lives with ordinarily. autism can not be diagnosed due to a sudden change in ordinary experiential procedures.
Callista wrote:
And this isn't limited to physical illnesses. Statistically, the most reliable test for depression is being asked, "Are you depressed?" The patient usually knows, and more reliably so than the doctor. When you can't get a doctor, you do the best you can with what you have. Some self-diagnosed people are wrong, but so are some professionals.
depression in a person is not often explicitly known by the sufferer. some people have chronic fatigue syndrome (for example) which is a physiological expression of an underlying depression. some people have no goals or hopes, but they do not identify themselves as depressed. sometimes a doctor can unearth the fact that a patient suffers from depression even though the patient merely states "i can not be bothered because i am too tired".
Callista wrote:
4. You have not taken into account that, like all people, you are biased by your own perspective.
Quote:
in the last ten years, i have gone from being an "interesting person" on AS sites who others were interested to listen to the thoughts of, to being a redundant artifact who is ignored by young people who have hijacked the syndrome and who have self diagnosed themselves as AS, and they then posit themselves as authorities as to what AS really is, even though they were never professionally diagnosed.
We all know that we are interesting people, unique and special, and that's because it's true. A human being is such a complex system that every one of them represents something unique that the universe will never see again. However, we also live in a world where there are a lot of people, and a hierarchical structure, and many people try to declare themselves as more special than others. With this established structure, it is commonly believed that some people really are more important than others, and that if you do not want to be inferior, you must declare yourself superior. This is especially problematic for those of us with disabilities, because the world declares us inferior by default. The reaction that many disabled people have is to find some sort of specialness for themselves--such as your being an interesting person, a unique individual with AS, autistic but smart enough to talk about autism.
i admit i was being petulant with respect to this part of my post.
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new research with heightened sensitivity makes the amount of people with autism who have normal intelligence far greater than i was told. i stand corrected.
24 Feb 2013, 4:03 am
