ASD: Anti-social disorder

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The Connecticut shooting being horrific and bad enough as it is, I was following the story on SKY NEWS over the weekend.

The presenter then said something along the lines of "it is being said he has Asperger Syndrome"...

And so my first instinct was to think oh, here we go again, this because I see so often now in news stories when bad things happen or when criminals get caught out, then Aspergers seems to be coming into the limelight.

So I can say very strongly this.

If I break the law and I know the law then it has absolutely nothing to do with my ASD. Absolutely not. Why? Because one of the plus sides of Asperger's is that you are aware of it.

It affects my behaviour, the way I act but it should never be used as an excuse for criminal action. Never. It makes me very angry.

Now on top of this I find a news article in the Express...

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/365190...ent-video-games

This is unforgiveable and I email the paper. So it is now an anti-social disorder?

What is the real implication here?

On one hand it suggests to me that no research has been done and that they clearly have no idea about ASD. On another, it is very very poor press in that it implies that sufferers (another term I do not care for) are all loners and potential assassins.

It has upset me a lot (as you might tell).

I think Asocial would describe most Autistic people, more so than Anti-Social.
(From the psychiatric meaning of antisocial that is.)

There is a huge difference between anti-social and avoidance, but most people don't realize this. I would guess that only a minority of ASDers are truly anti-social, probably many more are avoidant, and many are neither. Huge mistake for these ignorant journalists to lump aspergers and psychopathy together.

So the media is stupid, its Aspergers syndrome and anti-social personality disorder are not the same thing.

Thank you littlelily613.

I try not to go overboard but it has angered me a lot.

Sure I am a bit geeky and often misinterpret stuff, fact I sometimes am quite blunt that I know in my answers here which some might not care for.

I don't mean harm, it is just my way and I am apologising mostly when I get things wrong, it is the right thing to do.

I did just email their news desk asking them for an explanation.

It really is very poor journalism and to think that those loose words "anti-social" (or one, hyphenated for pedants LOL) how carefree, misleading and potentially damaging they are.

It suggests that those who know so little about the spectrum (where we all know ignorance is a deficiency) are people now to imagine that potentially we are likely to blow up schools or go on rampages due to our condition?

Watching violent video games would be a choice, not a pre-requisite of someone with autism.

It is difficult enough having to live in the world where many do not know or understand us almost like we are aliens without having unsubstantiated "tags" put upon us by the media at large.

Last edited by squonk on 17 Dec 2012, 1:48 am, edited 1 time in total.

It's ignorance, they don't even know for sure whether the person has it or not, it is just "said" by someone - which could be anyone spreading a rumour about anything. Shows the quality of their "reporting" if they are prepared to print such rumours.

The most watched television in my country made several reports about the shooting. And all of them mentioned that the shooter "suffered from Asperger's Syndrome".

I am starting to become really irritated. There is one really nice and decent guy working at that television and I am considering writing him a letter, just to tell him how this whole story looks through the eyes of the people they stigmatize. We may be different, but we are not monsters.

Of course, being different is very dangerous in this part of the world. People are entagled in a web of old prejudices, ignorance and superstitious fear. Changing this will require tremendous efforts and time, but someone has to do it sooner or later.

You should.

I have.

I will post the newspapers response too.

If there is one.

I really would've agreed that in some cases, being antisocial and having an ASD could be related but I just realized that there's a term called "asocial" which describes me and probably a lot of you. I guess it's the media's misuse of an already misused word. :/

Well, that's why we should make ourselves heard. It's easy to point a finger at someone when they don't respond.

If you know someone from the media that you can write or talk to - give it a try. Tell them what you think and feel. Only then will they be able to understand you better (even if only a little).

This is the new age of internet journalism. Quick to print, because it never actually is printed.

Expect to find many grade-school spelling mistakes within the articles.

I wonder if they could have avoided making this type of mistake in the days of the newspaper and 6 o'clock news slot. Journalism is just getting so sloppy. At least the public is less trusting of them now.

edit: To be fair 'antisocial' doesn't always mean anti-social personality disorder or anti-social behaviour. It's a very poor description of Asperger's though. In all the news stories I read/seen previous to this story journalists have given the basic 'communication issues' explanation. Interesting, that this time they haven't even tried to say it's a mild form of autism, like they used to. The articles are no more descriptive than a text message or Twitter post.

OK, I've done hating on the state of the digital news media now.

Oh okay, well no response from the Daily Express as yet.

Don't most on the spectrum want to socialise; but don't now how to?

Good point.

Q/ Are you possibly named after a beautiful Lionel Richie song or simply a wandering stranger?

This must have been written by some idiot. Being an ex-journalist myself (and a very well-known in the Czech showbiz), I see this article as an unpardonable demonstration of the journalistic amateurism. It should make sense to all of us journalists, that before one of us posts something, he/she should first find out relevant informations about the topic! This is how we prevent spreading BS all around the internet! EVERY journalist should work like that, it´s a basic etiquette. Another trouble with the media is, that the magazines take over informations one from another. We just copy some detail that fit to our article from another magazine, and rewrite it so it would look like we found it out by ourselves (of course, we must add the source of the rumour, therwise we could getin a big trouble). What I am trying to say right now is, that if some idiot is lazy enough to learn the difference between AS/ASD (Asperger syndrome) and ASPD (Antisocial personality disorder), and then he writes in his article that:

... then he should be fired from his job. We should thank him for this because now we all look like we are all potential killers and crazy people that should be put in the mental asylums in order to prevent similar massacres. It was just ONE GUY WITH AS, for God´s sake! It does NOT mean that we all are like that, too. Somebody should tell this to the American journalists who have helped spreading this BS.

This has scared the s**t out of me. I f*****g HATE having this f*****g sh***y Aspergers Sydrome s**t now because that means I'm a murderer. What if one day in 40 years time I become so resentful that I suddenly have a crazy urge to kill a whole group of innocent people? What if I have a fuse that is waiting to blow? It f*****g scares me because I thought I did not have that in me at all.

What if the government suddenly assume that everybody on the spectrum are murderers, and so decide to isolate us and put us in concentration camps where we are to be tortured for years? I'm sorry, that would be the worst thing that would ever happen to me. Either I will get undiagnosed and be classed as normal for the rest of my life, or I will kill myself.

And people say AS is a gift, when people are now accusing us of all being tarred with the same brush and will end up throwing us in horrible concentration camps in the future? I think AS is f*****g worse than anything in the whole world. I'd rather die than to be accused of being a murderer and having to be tortured in nasty horrible concentration camps for the rest of my life, all because I have this nasty disease called AS what I never asked for and that I am nowhere near a murderer.

I may get angry, but that does not mean I am capable of murder. I just hate AS so much. And I know why we are being accused of murderers - it's because everybody believes that we lack empathy and NTs don't. That is the biggest joke I have ever heard. TAKE LACK OF EMPATHY OFF THE AUTISM DIAGNOSTIC LIST NOW! IT IS NOT AN AUTISTIC TRAIT OK!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !!