Never thought of it like this...

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I was discussing with my mother today the idea of how much ASD has affected me over the years. I told her that I didn't see the big deal, in that I've never felt different or weird. She said that of course I felt "normal" because that's all I knew. That part I already knew, but then she added

"It's like asking someone who was born with no arms what it's like to be armless. They don't know any different, so they say it seems normal to them. and that to have arms would be weird."

That statement -- while probably obvious to all of you -- really struck a chord with me. Just because my AS traits don't seem odd to me doesn't mean that I don't have a problem -- just that I'm used to the problem. I'm really going to have to think about that.

In high school I told every principal, several teachers and my parents that - they laughed. I drove to school every day, yet the meeting was about my 'disability'...

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I don't see it as problem or disability. Just a difference.
Other people might see it as a 'problem' because society likes us to all conform and all learn the same way.

Our minds function inversly and in reverse to the NT world. But I count that as a difference rather than a problem.

I can't for the life of me, understand social cues or facial expressions. But I can work and do just about anything. Except keep a girl friend. I'm resigned to that fact I need someone more like myself rather than an NT. I just can't find her.

Otherwise, I have no real complaints about my life at all. I have my challanges, but I've lived in this body long enough that I know what it needs and how to handle my challanges.

I was very "classically autistic" until I acquired speech. For some reason, I became more "Aspie" afterwards.

It's not, by any means, perfect--but it's a more coherent diagnostic scene for Spectrumites these days as compared to the past.

I, and many people like me were diagnosed with "minimal brain dysfunction"--or just "brain-damaged." before the 1980s. They just didn't know what to make of it--but they had to create a label, somehow. One should read the books published at that time; they're very illustrative of the quandary the diagnosticians were under during those days.

It affected me greatly in the past; not so much now. I'm insightful now--less ashamed. I don't believe in letting my symptoms deter me--though I do let it deter me at times.

Like others have stated, its essential to acquire coping mechanisms--just like those who must drive with their feet when they are born without hands. It's about neuroplasticity. really.

"It's like asking someone who was born with no arms what it's like to be armless. They don't know any different, so they say it seems normal to them. and that to have arms would be weird."

I can absolutely see how this idea makes sense, but I disagree with it. If I walk into a crowded room, I am the only one there who knows I have an ASD, and people will make the entirely reasonable assumption that I will behave in a neuro-typical way. For a short while I will be able to keep up the pretence of being neuro-typical, but it doesn't take long before people begin to realise that there is something different about me, and the situation sometimes starts to become a little awkward.

But if an armless person walks into a room, the difference is immediately obvious, and if there is to be any awkwardness, then it will be right from the start, and will probably lessen as people gradually realise that the person with no arms is otherwise just the same as everybody else. People will know straightaway what allowances to make for the armlessness,

ASD is not always immediately obvious, and people do not know immediately what allowances they need to make (if any).

I sometimes compare ASD to deafness. It is invisible, and it can sometimes lead to the individual not noticing certain clues about what is happening around them. But there the similarity ends.