diagnosis and regression

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aside from feeling better, how many of you have noticed a regression in your overall quality of life post diagnosis?

maxine aston says:

“If someone can get better and recover from Asperger syndrome, then they never had it in the first place. Asperger syndrome is a life-long disorder. The individual can learn strategies, ways of adapting and coping with the situations that living and working with other people present him, but he cannot learn to do something he does not possess the capacity for. No amount of therapy can give him the ability to use insight and naturally empathize with people close to him.”

does anyone here REALLY believe we can't use insight and naturally empathize with people close to us???

Yes, I believe this. I believe we can learn to intellectualize our way around it, but that it truly will never come naturally. That's what "natural" is, something inherent to your genetic makeup.

There's your first problem. Maxine Aston is an incompetent quack.

I believe that I can use strategies that make my interactions more comfortable for those I interact with, but not particularly more comfortable for me. I can empathise with people, but it does not happen automatically.

This. ^ I think this is well said.

we know a standard problem for those on the spectrum is very high anxiety levels, depression and self esteem due to stress from misunderstanding social situations and the resulting lack of social support.

do you think if we took the average NT when their anxiety/depression/self esteem was bad (lets say after they had a mild car accident) that their empathy would be any different to the empathy level described above?

I'm sorry, I don't understand your question. To me, empathy is a reaction to the plight of others, filtered through our own perceptions. I do believe, regardless of what the external circumstances are (car accident/other reason for induced stress/anxiety) that yes, our empathy pathways, if present, are different than an NT's. I guess I'm confused as to how empathy is being tied to depression/anxiety/self-esteem.

Are you saying that our empathy pathways are impaired because we have to spend so much time "nursing" ourselves through depression/anxiety/self-esteem; that in essence we don't have the luxury of caring for others because we're in a constant state of mental crisis? If so, I still believe that regardless of what the external trappings are, our empathy is impaired (when compared with NTs) or else is just different and not well understood.

I think "autism" is very aptly named. We are auto unto ourselves in a way that normal NTs are not.

Maxine Aston 'invented' Cassandra Syndrome, right? That alone makes her ideas suspect.

The problem is that in one sense she is correct. You cannot change your fundamental neurology. But her statement generalizes this to imply that you cannot learn new behaviors within the scope of your neurology. This is demonstrably false. Even a neurologically atypical brain can forge new neural pathways and learn new behaviors.

Last edited by wavefreak58 on 29 Jun 2011, 10:45 am, edited 1 time in total.

well, think of it this way.. when you do some things which reduce stress, such as get exercise, hang with a friend, take some medication.. your anxiety drops, right? so you will now have higher levels of empathy around others. i mean you've noticed this yourself, right? you're a nicer person to be around when you feel better?

but how can this be!?!?! we're supposed to have no empathy!!



we're selfish because we haven't learned some social skills. auto is exactly right. but they can be learned.

Bold #1: Sadly, no. My anxiety never drops. Ever. Doesn't matter how much exercise I get, etc.

Bold #2: I just completely disagree with your second point. I have learned social skills, I have learned to "mask" so well that no one who just met me would guess I'm autistic. Interaction does not change the way my brain works or how I feel. I do not get any positive value from the things you mentioned. My brain just does not work that way.

understood. and i'm sorry to hear that. but your level of depression changes, right? not every day is a continuous monotone of turd. you have days when you are happy.

and those days are when you show more empathy. maybe the difference is 0.1% on bad days and 1% on good days. (while an NT has 100%). but you see the difference i'm describing, right?



i disagree with the masking BS. i think you have learned social skills and you should be proud of it. its just more work because you're stressed/depressed and low self esteem. but as your social skills get better and better those will go away too, and then you will have a different problem where the "experts" will say you never had aspergers and were misdiagnosed.

I think you and I just have different experiences with autism. We'll just have to agree to disagree. I have great self-esteem (seriously, I'm my own favorite person, other than my children), I just don't value the same things that other people do.

Because of my schedule/responsibilities, I can only get to the gym 3-4 times a week, but I supplement this with vigorous walks, etc. Even when I had a lighter load and was getting there 7 days a week, I didn't feel any different. This is just who I am. No, there is no 0.1% to 1.0% for me. Your theory may hold up for other people, but it does not hold for me. What you are describing is a biochemical interaction and nothing has helped me in that regard: not changing my lifestyle, not increasing my exercise, not forcing myself to do more interactive things, not changing my diet radically, not a hilarious litany of different medications, nothing. You know what has helped me, immeasurably? Recognizing and accepting who I am.

I'm sorry you disagree with the "masking BS" (I know you don't mean to be perjorative here). It's very obvious to me when I've put on the mask, it's also pretty clear to people who know me well and have observed me for a long time. The mask is social skills that I've learned, but I've learned them just to get along. I don't value them, and I still deeply wish the rest of the world were people like me so that I didn't have to spend so much energy on something so completely stupid.

Like I said {shrug}, I think we'll just have to agree to disagree. We're all individual people with not only our own experiences but our own perceptions of how those experiences have shaped us.

well thank you for the detailed and -- dare i say it -- empathetic post!

out of curiousity, do you show empathy for your children? or do you do like Joe, who is severely autistic -- when he saw a toddler crying in the supermarket, he went up and punched her to stop.

LINK TO ARTICLE: joe, the only boy in the world

if you don't treat your kids this way, why not?

I didn't mean to imply that empathy is completely lacking (and I'd suggest that Joe has some other issues wrong with him, other than lack of empathy - for example, why not absent himself from the situation instead of acting aggressively? And what kind of idiot caretaker exposes Joe to the outside world if he can't be counted on to conduct himself without hurting other people?), only that the pathway is different. I'm ... cautious with my children, careful to be real and yet nurturing (it's hard to describe) but then I'm also aided by 1) a biological imperative, and 2) the fact that they and I have developed our relationship together from the very beginning of their lives. I think those are vital distinctions.

i think you would give your life to protect your children. that goes far beyond empathy.

so we agree you have SOME empathy.

but doesn't that contradict what the autism professionals say?

i'd encourage you to think seriously in this direction. this is a new diagnosis and not well understood. but we have a big advantage over the experts -- we live it.

As luck would have it, I think seriously in *all* directions! And I don't live my life according to what an autism professional has to say. Why would I? I live my life according to my own choices and my perceptions. There is no reality for me except that that I can recognize and process.

I think you're being rigid in your understanding of what they're trying to get across re: empathy. I've recognized that what they consider "impairment" I'd consider "difference". To them it's impairment, they rely on that sense so very much for their day-to-day actions! For us, it's a difference because we never rely on it. Because they're NTs (and, presumably, scholars), they have to try to describe things empirically but with no actual way to understand. If you read literature written by autistics, you get a very different sense of what the NTs have tried to describe. Whatever. I live my life, I raise my children, I contribute to and work in society. But I also know who I am and I'm content with that. And I'm serious when I say that it makes a huge difference when you're given the opportunity to shape a relationship with someone else from the very beginning of their lives.

I understand what you're trying to resolve, but I just don't think like you.