Aspergers the syndrome of the year

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You miss my point. It's somewhat akin to hypoglycemia, or lactose intolerance of about 20 years ago. Multitudes of people suddenly claimed to have these ailments, and mainly because they'd read a newspaper or magazine article about them. Doesn't mean they didn't have 'em, but those have much more concrete diagnostic criteria than AS, and could easily be proved or disproved.

Again, do you think there's a sudden Asperger's "epidemic" that explains the huge growth in AS diagnosis, or is it more likely attributable to increased awareness and a sufficiently vague set of diagnostic criteria?

I would defininitely be under the third type. I am a verbally oriented type... my father is also a very verbal type- his interests are history and politics, which he has a pretty exhaustive knowledge of..
Aspies have an image of having maths and computer minds. this is not always the case.

I think I am a mixture of the last two.

I like the Gibran quotation. Back in the 70s and 80s, I had an elderly friend who actually knew him.

I made a mistake--my post was not written in response to yours, I meant it to be a response to Stitchimage, the originator of this thread. Of course, my post made no sense as a response to yours. Sorry for the mistake.

It seems to me that the real debate here is that if you are self-diagnosed then somehow you aren't as valid as someone who has been officially diagnosed. Ridiculous.

So, does that mean I can't self-diagnose my ex-husband as an as*hole because there isn't a doctor out there who will diagnose him for me?

Smart aleck comments aside. I went to the shrink for an offical after my son was diagnosed and (keep in mind this was the one that diagnosed my son) who told me that I should just appreciate my uniqueness and not try to label it. As if I am old enough to know better somehow.

Incidentally, I paid mega $$$$ to an allergist to have him tell me what I already suspected....I'm allergic to Indiana. Wow! Big surprise!

I'm 44 years old, and hadn't even heard of Aspergers until I was 38, but as soon as I did, my life suddenly made a whole hell of a lot of sense. I have, however, chosen to NOT have it officially diagnosed.

I'm somewhat successful in my job, comfortable in what I do, and my compensation. I have earned enough respect from my employers and coworkers that my "idiosyncrasies" are overlooked or tolerated. Believe me, both my employer and coworkers are well aware of them.

However, I've been on the wrong end of prejudice too many times in my life to risk opening up the possibility of losing my employment, freedom, etc. because of some official diagnosis. I'm pretty sure that I have AS, but I sure as hell am not going to tell my employers about it. Too many hear the word "Autistic" and immediately freak.

Frankly, I would hesitate to get a diagnosis for my children too (don't have any, yet, but hope to some day). What with all this talk of “curing” autism? I really do not believe there is a need for a “cure”. What I believe there is a need for is education, and understanding. I look at the world today, and the discoveries that have been made to get it to where it is, and almost invariably I see these advancements were made by someone who almost certainly was also “on the spectrum”. Eccentric is almost synonymic with Scientist.

I do not believe there is anything WRONG with me, or any Autistic for that matter. So, I will continue to forgo any official diagnosis that would be, as others have stated, damned near impossible to get anyhow, as I am an adult. On the other hand, I have found it extremely educational and refreshing to read forums such as these. I finally feel I fit someplace. I read something recently that struck a strong note with me.

“Being around other people isn't the cure for loneliness, it's the cause” -Daniel Kitson

Reading on these forums makes me feel not so alone anymore.

Good post, Fretion. I found myself in a similar situation as a middle aged male working in a profession. I learned only a few years ago that my strangeness, from finger-flapping as a child to my succession of bizzare interests, were best explained with a diagnosis of Asperger's. And like you, I cannot think of a single advantage to an official diagnosis, and can think of several possible disadvantages. I am not out to prove anything to the world, and certainly not out to claim a trendy diagnosis for some reason of twisted vanity. I did, however, like you, gain something from my self-diagnosis: a comforting sense that my abberations from the normal were not mine alone, that others shared a picture of the world similar to my own. Having Asperger's does not relieve me of the desire to escape the lonliness of my own mind, which seems to be a strong human trait. So my self-diagnosis has served me well, and what else in this regard really matters?

think dx only really helps those who need peace of mind or financial support from government

I do find myself wondering precisely what is meant by this, though - is it thinking in language, for instance, or auditory? I think in sounds. I remember music as readily as I remember speech, and I don't remember words but the sounds they make. Even when I read, I assign a voice to what I'm reading, and I don't remember the words, but the sound they make in my head. There was another thread on this last week, which did make me in some ways make me question Grandin's ideas about how autists think, but this seems somewhat more nuanced. I think there's an issue with somehow thinking this is an abnormality - it seems that NTs are equally as likely to think either visually, in language, or by some other method, so singling this out as an autistic thing may be a mistake, but I haven't read any of Grandin's work, I've just heard of it third-hand, I could be wrong. Ah, here is the original post, and my quote from within:

I wonder if there's a question of intensity in what Grandin's proposing? I find myself erring toward the idea that we are simply more prone to unconscious (and conscious) analysing and seeing sequences and patterns in things, and quite how we think is less about whether we are or are not autistic, it's just a normal human variation. But the visual thinkers analyse the visuals more than NTs, the linguistic ones analyse that more, patterns analyse that more, etc.

Jumping back to something far earlier:

I do wonder that. The impression I'd got was that a psychologist might do an initial, tentative diagnosis, but that an individual getting that tentative diagnosis would then be referred to a specialist who would give a more detailed assessment. If we go to our PCP and say "I think I have Asperger's," we bypass the initial psychologist, and so then have to join the queue for a specialist, who might take far longer. The therapist I'm seeing for my OCD really knows nothing about AS, and did try to run through the DSM-IV criteria with me, but I think without a detailed knowledge, they can be worse than nothing when dealing with adults. Yes, I'm spontaneously sharing about my dog, but I'm also not 4 anymore.

About verbal thinking: if I were at the base of a small mountain of rocks and wanted to climb to the top, I would work out a plan for proceeding as I stood at the bottom. But I would not have to enunciate each step of that plan in my mind by thinking in sentences. Is there anyone who would have to do that? Now I don't know if this is visual thinking or not, but it's not verbal thinking.

Regarding this, this probably isn't what you mean by that, but I think I've always been good in seeing paterns in things, in concepts, in how systems fit together in the world. The "big picture" so to speak. But I always hear with AS that you're supposed to be BAD at that, and only care about little details. It's the little details I have trouble with a lot of times-can't keep all these separate little things in my head at the same time.



I love this

With that spontaneous sharing-don't a lot of people with AS do that?

I sure never had an issue with that when I was little. My mom said I drove her nuts because I'd watch a half hour show (Mighty Mouse or whatever) and then spend exactly a half hour reciting EVERYTHING that had just happened on the show

I don't think anyone would work out the plan in complete sentences, but my train of thought would probably contain words. Something like this: "Hmm, where...?... *looks around* There! *looks more* Then that one!" That is, I would hear actual words in my head, rather than (for example) seeing an image of grabbing onto a rock.

Or if I'm thinking about what I'm going to do later, in my heads I hear the words "What am I doing next?... [name of place where I'm going] [what I'm doing there]." I don't picture myself going to that place ... well, I can if I try, and sometimes the word is accompanied by an image if the thing I'm thinking about is something concrete like that, but the words are always there.

Ooh! Me too! This is one of the reasons I think we focus too much (especially in the DSM) on open symptoms which, IMO, may be misleading, rather than the underlying reason for those symptoms. I've got a strong interest in politics and how people think. Individuals are very difficult to predict, but a mass of people can be pretty simple to predict, the analysis can at times be quite simple. That would be considered "big picture" thinking, but I think that's a misunderstanding. Sure, it's conceiving of something on a large scale, but the analysis still remains mired in rather pedantic details, small sequences, changing small inputs and hypothesising (or, if you're lucky, actually seeing) the changes that occur. I suspect it's the same sort of analysis and fascination in small detail going on, just conceived of in a different way (and I still turned my toy cars upside-down and spun the wheels round and around when I was a kid).

*Bows*

From the DSM-IV:

So that's "C", right there. Where I think the waters get muddied is that if you've got an obsessive interest, you'll go on and on about it to anyone who's listening - that's also normal for aspies. It's general lack of sharing regardless of special interests to watch for. Clearly, since it's in there, it's fairly common, but you also only need to have 2 of the 4 above criteria to be an aspie (and, like I said, I think we focus too much on symptoms and not the underlying cause, I'm sure there are aspies who wouldn't get 2, although they may be rare). But you can see how those criteria can be confusing. I recently read Attwood's guide for parents and professionals, and it was really interesting how he had to spend a lot of time detailing what D even means (in essense, it causes one-sided conversations, a lack of understanding of the normal back-and-forth of normal social interactions), but then he even goes as far as saying he doesn't think the DSM-IV are a particularly good set of diagnostic criteria.
FWIW, I'm very clearly someone who meets A and B (and remember for B, you can still develop those relationships, you might just do so a little late), and C and D were no problem for me.

Last edited by mmaestro on 08 Nov 2007, 2:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Hmm. Interesting. I guess this confirms I'm some kind of mutant freak who thinks is some kind of blend of styles. I think in words, but also mixed in with concepts, and sometimes pictures. In the situations you're describing I'd be using more of a combination of pictures and concepts-what I'm going to do at the place I'm going to, and mental map of how to get there, but I'm also talking to myself in words about what I'm going to do.

I wonder how much research there is on all this? It's rather interesting. I suspect that you guys are right about these different styles being used by both people on the ASD and off.

I do all these styles.

I perceive the world as math or music. Things look like math or feel like music.

When I repair a book, I assess it verbally, "Okay, this needs it's binding reattached, it's hinges and spine and corners reinforced and a page tipped in."

After I assess what a book needs, I map the repair sequence visually, visualizing the steps I need to take and the order I need to take them.

ChelseaOcean, I would use some words as you describe. But if I were to suppress using the words, I would not be at a loss as to how to proceed.