Aspergers in your country

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How is Aspergers, or any kind of "disorder" in general, seen in your country? Do you get enough help? Are the people open minded or do you get a lot of weird looks?

Though I live in the UK right now, I was born and lived in Germany. It's not the best country for AS. Far from the worst, I guess, but although you generally have to be very politically correct there, many people are very poorly informed about any kind of mental problems. Very few people know what AS is and most have wrong images in their heads from movies and books. The support could be better. In contrast to the UK, where most universities even seem to have some kind of special disabilities support, good luck finding someone in a school or university in Germany who even knows what Asperger's is.

Also there's little consideration for people like me. Even when somebody knows you have AS, you're generally expected to just pull yourself together and try your best to act normally.

A good thing for me was that many things are generally well planned and organised, so usually everyone is punctual and there's little change.

I am from India which was one of the richest countries long back and all its wealth was plundered by invaders
and now plundered by corrupt people

There is hardly any awareness about anything here.
The population is a major issue
Doctors cannot handle so many consultation in a hour
there is serpentine queue outside any clinic

Not even doctors are properly equipped
and many of them have made it a money laundering business

mental patients walk on the streets with torn clothes, dishevelled hair and
eating from garbage bins

As a lot of the members on here are, I am from the United States.

Although it may not be the best, awareness is improving. Even if it is Autism Speaks doing all the talking. Clearing stereotypes gets more and more difficult every year (I help the psychology department in my school), because people are just content knowing what everyone else does, which is the stereotypical Autistic person.

It's a little difficult to gain respect at first. If you don't end up hanging around douche bags it gets better.

In Norway you have a lot of rights. And you will most likely get help with absolutely everything, economically and practically. If there's not some fault occuring in the system, that is, which usually gets blown up with lots of critique, and lots of problems. But usually it's ok. I don't think there is much to complain about at all, really.

People here are generally accepting and kind, so it's ok. We have a good society in that sense. In most cases people are understanding and want to help. But there is also a lot of people who just don't care, and are not socially aware at all, and they can be much like goons. So mostly open-minded, sometimes weird looks. Outside the big cities I think something like Asperger's is hard for people to understand, so before you and people around you know what your struggles come from it is literally hopeless. Knowledge can be poor.

I am now living in Germany, and as the original poster said, there is little understanding for people with mental health issues. If you have them, hide them if you can, especially at work.

I arrived here as an adult, so I can't say what the quality of services for youngsters and children is.

Some months ago, there was a feature in "Spiegel online" (Der Spiegel is a weekly magazine, rather high level) on disabled students and the difficulties they face. The magazine has a comments section. I was dismayed at the number of responses they got that generally said: "Well, if they can't cope now at university without help, they shouldn't be studying, as they're never going to be able to do the job they're learning". You just have to function, point.

UK also.
London. Full of people. Know where the National Autistic Society HQ is. Kinda small building at Angel, Islington. Got really annoyed when they changed the colour of their logo.
Have a job. Have a home. Don't really care about anything else now.
Health somewhat failing. Still don't care. Isn't worth going near a doctor for.

The mundies know of us.
Can't bring it up though. Bringing it up implies using it "as an excuse"... as though we need them to excuse us. Silly mundies.

I live in the United States. Most people here in Indiana are unaware of AS. Unfortunately, some people here are conservative christians and aren't very bright. They believe that brain disorders are affictions caused by demons. "sigh" You have to be very careful who you tell about your AS.

I'm from the UK too (London). There's a few services near me run by the NAS. Ideally I'd like more.
Laws wise, there's the Equality Act and the Disability Discrimination Act, which are useful. The problem is most people don't know how to use them to argue their case, but they do exist at least.
Thankfully, most people aren't very religious here like some places in the States so that doesn't come into it. English politeness means people on the whole don't say anything (although plenty still do) but what they think in their heads is a different matter. Lots of people will have no problem making allowances for someone with autism in work, for example, but if someone was acting "strangely" out in public, on a bus or something, they probably wouldn't think "Oh that person's autistic." They'd think "Get me away from the crazy person, don't they know you don't talk on the tube?!" I think most people equate "autism" with "socially awkward" and that's it.

I'm from New Zealand and its not very good here for aspies

A prevailing warrior culture from earlier Polynesian society still exists
Polynesians could be said to be the opposite of aspie's.... prone to bullying. Polynesians love football, fighting and boxing.....

Mental health services are very lacking, and public perception of autisms is almost nil.

Its a bit of a cowboy society, we are probably like Texas but without the guns.

I live in a San Francisco type of suburb, which is full of students, artists and quite a few aspies, so I'm fairly lucky I guess. Plus Auckland is an immigrant city, so I meet Russians, Germans and Asian HFAutistics, though only infrequently.

Last night I was talking in a public hot pool with a very educated and intelligent Russian woman.
She seemed very aspie friendly and may be slightly on the spectrum.... and I got a date with her next week!

I'm from New Zealand and have spent some time in the US and the UK. I would agree that with Surfman about NZ - I got asked by a mental health services counsellor what agoraphobia was... the doctors and psychologists fobbed off ASD because I smiled. Public knowledge of autism is poor but depression is widely advertised, so there is some mental health awareness. The good thing is that there are funded health services. Strict employment laws mean that it's harder to be discriminated against at work.. People are generally more widely educated and more sensitive to different people because of the cultural diversity, but you do get the dickheads.

I don't know how you guys survive in the US to be honest. I worked there for a bit, and my social awkwardness was pointed out to me repeatedly. When I tried to explain, it was like I was saying yes I am strange, you can criticise me. I found it was acceptable to be a kid with ASD but not an adult. It's very dog eat dog, I didn't like it at all. The big and loud attitude really frazzled me too - talk about sensory overload. The more chilled out places like San Francisco and the south seemed to be better.

People in the UK are quite mild and polite. I don't know what the awareness level is, but I don't think people would dare point out that you're weird, not in a mean way anyway. Serious stuff has a light hearted humour added to it. I also noticed that being quiet and grumpy looking is acceptable here so I tend to stick out less. London is the busiest place I've ever been too, and while it is cool, it does get to me a bit. I prefer the quieter village lifestyle.

I am from Western Australia and things are getting better for us. For the most part services are aimed at children though, with early intervention a high priority.

I am pretty lucky because I worked at the time of getting my diagnosis so I could afford it. There are not many psychologists and psychiatrists that specialise in ASDs here. It is probably better over east. Tony Attwood is well known - he is in Queensland.

I am also lucky that there is an adult autism group that I can go to - it takes two hours to get there but it is worth it.

I'm a little shocked to hear about New Zealand - I always imagined that as a pretty tolerant place.

It is in many ways, but autism awareness is low so what people think about autism isn't really true. I used to think autism was for severely disable kids who went to special schools after primary school - autism still means low functioning for a lot of New Zealanders (I'm 23 and only just left the educational system).

Maybe we're just slow, but learning difficulties and mental illnesses maintain their more traditional meanings. There isn't a lot of fine distinction like the autism spectrum. Perhaps this makes people more tolerant because you have to really have something wrong with you to be seen as different. However, ASD is invisible most of the time. Often I appear relaxed but inside I am freaking out.

Sadly, there's almost zero awareness in the poorer areas. There seems to be a minimum level of education to be necessary before a cognitive distinction is made. My sister teaches kids in their first year of school in a poor area and their priorities are getting kids to learn English - they are largely Polynesian with no pre-school education, often abused and neglected. It's not all elves and hobbits.

Last edited by shyengineer on 07 Nov 2012, 9:35 am, edited 1 time in total.

It's pretty good here in Finnland, at least in the capital. I get treatment from a place that specializes in autism and as and there's asperger support groups every weekend

The clean green NZ is a marketing ploy for our food, we are primary producers of food... the food basket for the pacific

We have record suicide, depression, cancers, teen pregnancy, drug use, alcohol consumption, many health concerns due to excessive meat and diary.
But its not all bad.
Our SAS soldiers are some of the best, NZ employees are desirable on the world stage, and we have had many inventors due to farmer's do-it-yourself thinking.
Some say we flew a plane before the Wright brothers.

In NZ in one weekend I can drive from my house, over a mountain to a beach with hardly anyone on it, have some of the best fish and chips in the world for lunch, drive home and stop and get some of the best indian/japanese/chinse/thai food I've ever had for dinner and leave my door unlocked when I go to sleep. The next day I could take a ferry across one of the best natural habours in the world to an island the size of Singapore to drink wine at some of the best vineyards in the world, see a guy wearing a dress, buy some weird art, drive a scooter, take the ferry back to the city, eat unlimited fresh-caught seafood in a restaurant on top of a huge tower and watch the sun go down over the city.

I thought travelling would make me fall in love with another country, but instead it made me fall in love with my own again.