How much of our problem is really the Autism?

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Yes, bullying is a choice, but ODD doesn't change it. ODD is not an illness, but only a classification for people that have a socially defiant personality, which includes most bullies. It's a classification made by psychiatrists.

here we go

http://laughingsquid.com/shark-attack-i ... very-year/

Shark Attack, Infographic Shows the Staggering Number of Sharks Killed by Humans Every Year

"Joe Chernov and Robin Richards have created an infographic that illustrates the staggering number of sharks killed by humans every year. According to the infographic, sharks killed 12 people last year, but humans kill that many sharks every four seconds, adding up to an estimated total of 100 million sharks annually. Many sharks are killed by “finning,” a process in which a shark’s fins are cut off to be sold for shark fin soup"

Yes I meant to add also that this was very well said, and Willard's posts really put things into a clearer perspective for me.

I knew from the time I was 7 that I had something wrong with my brain, but I didn't know what it was and no one else understood because I was gifted. I loved reading and used to read everything I could get my hands on, so I had read about all sorts of medical conditions and I was afraid I had a brain tumor. I don't remember exactly why I thought that but some of the symptoms matched up with what I was experiencing. I also though I could be having mild strokes or seizures, but I ruled that out because I thought surely someone else would have figured it out if that was the case. So I think a brain tumor was the only thing that made sense to me because it was something you could have for a long time without anyone else knowing. I never told anyone, not once, how I felt like there was something wrong with me because I thought they would laugh at me and dismiss it, and I couldn't really explain it anyway.

My teachers just thought I was a whiz at everything, and the school work itself truly was easy. I don't remember ever struggling to learn or understand anything, other than memorizing my times tables. But something else made it difficult to do things and I didn't really understand what it was so I couldn't explain it to anyone. I just felt like my brain didn't work exactly the way everyone else thought it did, and I felt pressured by all the expectations they put on me.

In the second grade I cried almost every day at school, because I wanted to go home. I was not being ostracized or bullied at that time. I may have been teased some but no different or worse than any other kids were being picked on. I was crying because I hated being in the gifted program, and I was afraid I had a brain tumor. It was my crying and high sensitivity to things that gradually made the other kids start picking on me more. I was not severely bullied, just picked on and taunted a lot. I always had friends, from kindergarten all the way up, so it's not like I was ever ostracized, but even my friends taunted me.

As I got older I jokingly called myself as an idiot savant because I thought that my intelligence had somehow diminished my mental capacity in some other way. I didn't know much about autism, other than seeing Rain Man. I saw some autistic traits in myself but I thought you had to be really low functioning to be autistic.

I read a lot about psychology and I got sent to see the school counselors a lot and that eventually led me to think I just had emotional and psychological problems. My father was physically abusive so the focus was always on that and I think that clouded the underlying problem. Looking back on the conflicts I had with him it always had to do with my autistic traits. He wanted me to be more friendly and social than I was. He wanted me to talk when I didn't have anything to say, or he got angry when I said things too bluntly.

When you cry very easily, and you are female, and you come from an abusive family it is very easy to just get labeled as having emotional problems and that's that. I did a lot of work on my own with self help books starting from the time I was 12. I wanted to understand my family dynamics so I wouldn't be locked into those patterns the rest of my life. But not one bit of the "emotional" or "psychological" counseling I got from other people ever helped me. I thought it was ridiculous and ineffectual and just downright laughable. I got more use out of my own self-study and analysis, just like I did with everything else I learned on my own.

If I hadn't been so autodidactic I don't think I would have adapted or survived because no one else ever knew what to do with me. So in short, my giftedness must have saved me but it also masked my underlying problems and caused me immense stress.

The chain of issues Willard described is about right for me, though I'm not sure in my case if the underlying problem is best described as sensory overload, or something else, or more of a combination of things (add in memory, attention, and coordination problems).

I think most of my problem is that people tell me I'm very "deep" but I don't know how to go about finding similar minded friends. It doesn't matter where I go. I can't get passed the superficial interactions and I get bored very easily. People like to tell me it's depression, but even when I'm not depressed I have trouble connecting because people just bore me and my mind wanders a lot. I don't know how to learn to appreciate people who just aren't very exciting to me. I can't make myself feel a certain way and faking interest is really really exhausting, probably due to the aspergers. I feel if I was lower functioning I wouldn't necessarily need that deeper connection or feel so alone. I wouldn't need validation from other people so much. Being on the verge of normal, intelligent, and with deep emotions, just sucks. You can't stop analyzing everything.

I have been told the same and what I noticed is that if I expressed a more positive attitude, it was the other people around me who benefitted from it, not me. It makes things more pleasant and easy for them, especially if they treat other people in ways that tend to garner negative responses. Sometimes there is fine line between urging someone to have a positive attitude and expecting them to be a doormat.

I actually never did the research... I remember only being scared by that book, I was very little when he had it.
I just asked my father and he said there are sharks in the region because of a specific ocurrence, it's hard to translate the explanation but it's something like "blue seas" (in my language) which has to do with currents and cold water temperature. There are not only shark but big fish and whales and all that sort.


Wow it definitely helps desmistify most common beliefs about sharks...
But my fear doesn't go away since just last year a shark killed a young lady here in Brazil. It was really horrible, someone filmed it and all news broadcasted it lots of times. One of the reasons I hate watching News.



Now I'm doing some research and it seems like the common type here is tiger shark and bull shark (curiosity: in portuguese bull shark is cara chata, which means like someone smacked their head from the top) In 2012 there were 118 attacks in Brazil. Considering the population it is very rare but still frightening. Anyone can be among those 118.

cara chata:

Last edited by linatet on 14 Feb 2014, 4:13 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Excellent link, it lead me to this one. I want a pair of these:



From: Shark Socks

And yes, we need to stop killing sharks please! Also shark finning, you can campaign against that here:

Shark Trust

Yes ODD definitely causes someone to bully. This boy I knew who I call Frankie was one and he had ODD. I also knew another boy in my special class when I was six and I wonder if he had it too. He was also a pathological liar and always got other kids into trouble including me, and he liked to hurt other kids and he would make excuses and lie about it. I was once walking back to class after recess and he ran up to me and pinched me on the neck and I told my teacher and his excuse was 'She was cussing." I wasn't even talking when he pinched me. Yes he was a bully and I think he had behavior issues so he was a bully because of it and I think it may have been ODD.

That describes me, too.

I do have pretty major sensory overload problems, as well. Combine the two, and the result is an incredibly asocial person. And yet I crave some kind of connection with other people. I wish there was a magic pill I could take to turn my brain and/or sensory receptors OFF at times.

Beautiful creatures but I think bull sharks can be little buggers for biting. If I remember correctly they have a bump and bit way of testing its food before feeding. I think bull sharks can also swim in fresh water as well as salt water unlike other sharks.

these things are true but remember more people die of bee stings or lightning strikes than sharks

and way more die of car accidents or die falling in showers - gonna stop washing? live in a bubble?

I think that people who grew up more socially aware and emotionally more sensitive are more susceptible to developing mood disorders and psych problems in response to life eggsperiences like bullying. I was verry merry berry socially out of touch growing up and emotionally less sensitive to the point of not having emotions in memories, so I think these autistic traits might have had protective effect against people being mean to me or trying to bully me, which I remember that some kids did, but they gave up quickly, because I was genuinely oblivious and had no response, so it was no fun for them.

Yes, they can! That's amazing. Here they found a bull shark in the capital city of Manaus, miles and miles and miles up the Amazon river!
[img][800:1000]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/Amazonrivermap.png[/img]
I imagine the situation... You are at a 2 million people city by the river in the middle of the continent and... a shark???
Imagine the bull shark swimming alongside piranhas and anacondas and plants by the Amazon river... Once people actually found one in Peru, 4000 km from the ocean base level!
Do you know how they do it?


fear most times is an irrational feeling, I can't help it when I feel so small in the sea...
But don't worry I don't live in a bubble. Beautiful coast + very hot summer = I love beaches! I just don't go too far away from the shore.

Dr. Tony Attwood said Aspies do not suffer from Aspergers they suffer from people. I do not think this is completely true but there is a large percentage of truth in that statement. My executive function and motor coordination issues would still be problematic without people.

I was not bullied by others solely because of my "traits". Being always the shortest male (5 foot 4 inches) is a legitimate important factor. Take some of the "I hate having Aspergers" posts, If there was the internet when was young I could have written many of the same things about my height. There is not a song with the lyrics saying "Aspies got no reason to live" now. There was one that said "short got no reason to live". It also contained these lyrics "They got little hands Little eyes They walk around Tellin' great big lies" http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/ ... 370048B6FA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_People It was a big hit, constantly on the radio. How did you think that made me feel? I was in college by then. It would have been an utter nightmare for many reasons if that song came out when I was younger.

Asperger traits probably further encouraged bullying and certainly affected my reaction to it making me act in a way that encouraged it to continue a lot of times and encouraged it to start in some cases. Going back to the song Randy Newman wrote it as a satirical anti prejudice song. He would later write "I'm Different "a pro difference anthem http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/randynew ... erent.html. But I took the "Short People" lyrics literally and suffered months of having that damm song destroy my mood.

I can't tell what percentage of my troubles are directly and indirectly related to peoples reaction to my Aspergers-Autism traits. I think it is a lot.

Willard - This is an interesting model. Thanks for sharing it.

I wonder though if the sensory overload leads to the processing impairment. Or, whether the processing impairment leads to the sensory overload. Or, whether these are two sides of the same coin.

In any event, it would be interesting to see how life would be different, if the autism suddenly vanished. Would the depression and anxiety magically lift away? Or, something else?