Aspergers syndrome is a disability plain and simple

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The Autistic mind is a broken mind that is out of balance.

Fits of rage even it they are kept internal.
OCD.
Unable to form relationships or friendships or maintain them.
The world is a changing place being a slave to routine is a disaster in the modern world.

Being an Aspie myself I really like the people I interacted with on this board.

They are honest and helpful.

The world is full of two face lying and nasty people and we are not equipped to function in it.

If the world was full of people with Autism to some degree being a NT would be a disability.

I don't intend my post to be negative it anyway just a dose of reality.

The positive thing is it is possible to work around this disability to a large extent and this board is a great help and has helped me.

Posts that try to imply that Autism in any form is evolution are misguided to say the least in my opinion.

Also we should stop calling regular people NTs as it seems to upset some of them and that is the last thing we want to be doing as an online group.

Asperger's is caused by damage to the white matter of the brain resulting from either genetics or an unknown cause. So yes, it's Acquired Brain Injury by another name.

Allergies, birth trauma, toxic metals, and Vitamin D deficiency have been proposed as mechanisms causing an inflamed brain. I tend to prefer the first one, but it's really up for debate at this point. The point is something causes ABI -- which is Asperger's.

But what about special gifts? How can it be brain damage if it comes with special gifts?

Read this article: "Concussion turns man into a musical genius"
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... ed-40.html

So brain injury, while it is usually catastrophically bad, can sometimes cause savant skills. Asperger's/ASD is really no different than being injured in a car accident.

I do disagree with the idea of not calling people NT's. What's the alternative? Why are they offended? Being thin-skinned can also be the symptom of a mental disorder.

Yes it does have gifts like a logical mind and we can debate this subject without trying to just win for the sake of wining we are looking for the truth.

NTs or whatever we call them just dig it and never listen to another point of view.

You have a good point about the NT thing.

A very high percentage of people with Aspergers do not work or do not get into the kind of job they want.

Do the gifts make up for not fitting in? my opinion in my case NO.

All a matter of perspective.

Disabled, or differently abled? I don't mean that in some cheesy advertisement way meant to have severely disabled people accept their place in the world. I meant it much more literally, in typical AS fashion, as there are certainly traits to AS that make many of us natural scientists, mathematicians, engineers, designers, artists, writers etc etc and we do contribute some serious value to the world around us.

Sure, there are some drawbacks.. but there are some obvious pros to balance the cons, as well. So it's hard to just accept your statement that, "the Autistic mind is a broken mind that is out of balance." For every con there's a pro that we can use to our advantage in some aspect or another. And as for anger/depression/rage/ocd or any other trait that can be a hinderance, there are many different treatment options to find an internal balance & harmony in order to be at peace and live in the present moment a lot happier and more productively than if we let these things run our minds and lives. Learn some of them, try them out, find whatever works for you and just roll with it.

This line really stuck out to me: "Unable to form relationships or friendships or maintain them." I call BS because I have quite a few friends, and some I've had over half my life. Sure, there are only a few that I'm really close with and bother to maintain by seeing with some sort of regularity - and I'm ok with that, but I still have made many friends in my life regardless of your perception that AS types are unable to form or maintain friendships. IF you've been unsuccessful at making and keeping a friend, ever in your life, to date.. then change what you're doing and try again. Do as you've always done and get what you've always got.. the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results. Learn & try something new to you and you'll get something different for it.

I don't believe it is accurate to say that ABI and ASD are the same thing.

Arguments based on this equation are unsound.

Goldfish you make some good points.

I only put things together last April.

Fast-forward to now and I am half way through my formal assessment.

The person doing the assessment noticed my lack of eye contact straight away.

I am in no doubt I will get the formal diagnosis at the end of this month.

Being 99.99999 percent sure I have it and being close to having an official piece of paper saying so has me numb.

My assessor is meant to be a big expert on the subject going back years.

I guess part of me was really wishing I was wrong about this.

What's the replacement? Here are some suggestions:

normal people
people without a disability
non-Asperger's people

...I think you can begin to see why NT is the best bet.

Ok you have a point.

I only realized my own AS 5 months or so ago. I'm working on getting an official diagnosis, which I'm certain will be confirmed. I'm looking forward to it, though, as then it will shut my older brother up who's calling it a bunch of self diagnosis BS because I don't have a Doctorate. It's particularly frustrating because the longer he denies that our mother's entire side of the family is afflicted, the longer it'll be until my 8yo nephew starts getting some help. IMO, he's discounting anything I've learned & experienced because he's afraid of accepting his own AS traits because he has it stuck in his mind that if he admits to any neurological.. anomalies, that it will negatively impact his career. Newsflash: Knowing is soooo much better, and knowing allows you to learn and sort things out, find a better balance, and then work even better in your chosen career. He'll learn all of this in time, I'm confident of it. It's just annoying that he's taking this attitude towards it in the moment.. but I know the only reason he's taking this attitude towards it is all caused by his own traits. Vicious frustrating circle.. but whatever, in time it'll be broken & he'll learn. It'll start with my official diagnosis that he'll apparently then accept as real because someone with a different education (vs. my lifelong experiences that apparently count for squat to him lol, black and white rigid logic mind of his..) will have put their seal of approval on what I already know. But whatever, if that's what it takes to get him to start learning to help his son, so be it, I'm more than ok with that.

The other thing I'm looking forward to, I'm not gonna lie, is a ~$9K/year income tax write off for life regardless of how financially successful I may become in the future. $2-4.5K/year in "free," money is a pretty good thing to look forward to, IMO.

I suppose in a small way I'm also looking forward to it just to prove that I'm correct, not as an in your face thing to my brother/others, but just to validate my own reading/research/assessment etc. Anyone who's truly an expert in AS would be able to tell my diagnosis just from talking to me on the phone, never mind an in person meeting and intensive observation, as there's just no possible way to fake the prosody of my Aspie voice.

It all just is what it is & denying it or not accepting it isn't going to change it one bit, so the more I learn about myself the better I get to learn how to control and manage and utilize myself, my strengths & weaknesses etc. Figuring all of this out has been like solving the most valuable puzzle I ever solve in my entire life, as now that I can put it all together I can finally work with it & move forward, be more productive, be happier, achieve goals I've set for myself and work towards bigger ones. So many positive reasons to figuring it all out, getting a diagnosis, learning what works and doesn't for you in terms of treatment options to balance yourself out and allow for a better quality of life.

Knowing what I know now, and continue to learn, there's no way I'd want to have continued on being oblivious to my AS vs. finding out, as then I'd very likely just be stuck in the same bunch of cyclical traps of AS related failures and setbacks, leading to frustrations and unhappiness & not knowing WHY I can't seem to manage to get my life together and do the things I can dream and think. That would be far, far, worse than knowing or having an official diagnosis and learning what to do about everything. So stop fearing what you don't know & start learning more and more and more, then the fears can subside and you can use what you've learned to better yourself bit by bit, day by day.

I hate to rain on your parade, but you may never get the validation you need from your brother, no matter how many Dx'es you get from professionals. There may always be an argument as to the psychiatrist's inherent bias to diagnose, the accuracy of such diagnostic criteria, the amount of weight put on a questionnaire, or who knows what, simply because your brother does not want to face what you want him to face. And in all fairness, why does he have to accept any diagnosis if he has made peace with who he is? Perhaps it could help his child, but perhaps he's figured out how to compensate and will teach those skills to his kid who may turn out OK regardless. I'm sorry, but I don't think it is right to try to impose your own beliefs onto someone else like this, especially if they're functioning well and seemingly doing OK. To whose benefit is it truly serving?

Not everyone needs to follow the exact same path to get to the same place. You know?

I don't need or want his validation as my own acceptance and happiness is not codependent on him validating what I know to be real in the least bit.

I don't even really care if he accepts the traits he has in himself, as in the grand scheme of life he's been higher functioning than I am and has managed to have a pretty solid career and income, marriage/kid/mortgage etc - however, he's also recently gone through a divorce and his new relationship isn't perfect, and I think he could do better and feel better in life if he dealt with his own symptoms in whatever ways work for him. But it's not about him in the least bit, it's about his son, my nephew, who's MUCH more AS than even I am, and I now know the value of knowing and dealing with it vs. not & I want him to have the best possible chances at life, so the sooner he's helped, the better things will be for him. Figuring this out at 30 years old, I know that had I known since I was 8 years old and had specific help and was taught certain things I'd have had an easier happier time of things. That's why I care. He hasn't figured out s**t all because he's still oblivious to, or un-accepting of, his own AS. He's obviously learned to naturally cope with certain things whether he realizes it or not, but because he doesn't know what he doesn't know, he can't properly and appropriately help his son - which is evident in the discipline he gives him for his behaviours vs. learning why he behaves that way and then doing something about it via treatment, education, practice etc instead of just getting mad at him and grounding him or giving him a time out or taking away a special interest etc. I WISH I could force my beliefs on him, for the benefit of my nephew, but I know that I can't so I'm being very patient and letting others in the family learn things and figure things out and start treating themselves so that then he can see the differences in them and come around to the idea. But if as he's stated to my mother, that he'll be more apt to believe and accept any of it if an independent evaluator with a doctorate provides me with an official diagnosis, if that's what his black & white AS brain needs to see/hear, then so be it - I'll go through the process first and send him a copy. It's not about me and my feelings about it, nor his acceptance or approval, but 100% completely about his son who's even worse off than I am in terms of being a little further along the spectrum in his behaviours - and thanks to my extremely good long term memory, I remember an awful lot of awful things about my childhood that he can be be prevented from experiencing by learning to deal with these things a lot earlier in life. Knowing what I know now, I know the little guy will live a MUCH better life once my brother accepts and deals with it all.

What's also particularly frustrating is that his stepson is diagnosed AS & his gf and him don't think my nephew is AS because he's not the same as his stepbrother.. well no s**t, they have different traits & degrees of them, as every single AS person's profile is unique, with some traits being polar opposite to one another. If things cool down a bit in time and he still hasn't come around to learning any of this, my alternate plan is to persuade him to read this book first in order to better comprehend his stepson & have a better family life with all of them. I don't really care how it happens, as the means will justify the end - and that end being my nephew having a better childhood & life than I did or that he will otherwise have if things are just left to their natural course as they were for us.

Agreed. I have ASD and ABI. Both are completely different and both have caused different issues.

and



Does not compute. Either it is a disability in a relative or an absolute sense, you can't have it both ways.



Why? I know by now they are going to hate me whether I try to be nice or mean, cool or nerdy, myself or someone else. They are going to mistreat and abuse me every chance they get. Why the hell should I care what upsets them?

I feel the same.





How about RP? It wouldn't be offensive. But insecure people will always get upset whatever they are called.