Who else would have been pissed off?

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So I was talking to this aspie girl, and during the conversation she made a referance to her AS as 'brain damage.' This totally irritated me, since that comment implys that AS is a form of brain damage, which is a concept that I completly resent. I have AS and I can definitivly say that I am NOT brain damaged. I am a great person with a mind that I wouldn't trade for all the oil in the Middle-East, and I feel the same is true for all aspies.

I was seriously annoyed by this remark, and I wonder how many of you agree or disagree with me, because the presance of such a perception among the aspie community and the greater public at large is important and needs to be adressed, especially if it is a common one.

Not pissed. Maybe a little annoyed. I was a little annoyed when my ex said AS was a illness and I told him it was not and to read about it in book and it even says online and his response was, "That's what they want to think." He was so narrow minded and stupid. He can't be educated. I'm so glad I don't still have him.

From what I have heard, seen, and how I am, the difference between NT and AS is like the difference between INTEL and AMD. HISTORICALLY, the two chips have been similar and not 100% compatible(The basic sets are kept similar so most people don't notice, but they each have different enhancements, timings, methods, etc...), but EACH has it's own benefits. So is an AMD chip a damaged intel chip? Is an intel chip a damaged AMD chip? Why does SHE feel she is DAMAGED?

whichever microchip you have, if it comes through a gateway plant, it's bound to be electrostatically damaged.

It would annoy me, but mainly because her information is clearly incorrect. I would feel the urge to correct her error, and if she continued to hold her false belief, then I would get massively frustrated. But 'pissed off' is subtly different to simple annoyance. So I wouldn't be pissed off.

Maybe her AS is 'brain damage'. Every AS is unique, they say.



I agree on the one hand. On the other hand, she is entitled to consider her own issues in whatever light she sees them. It kind of reveals something about her self-image.

If you feel a need to respond to comments like that, it seems to me that there are a few hilarious snappy digs you could get in, next time she or someone else refers to their AS as "brain damage".

I think ukenkerl's analogy is pretty good, although I think a lot of folks who aren't deeply into computers (or work in IT) wouldn't get it.

We have different skill sets. That's about it.

Unfortunately the culture as a whole places a higher priority on the NT skill set (I suspect primarily because there are more of them).

If there were more people with the AS skill set, then NT would be considered the "syndrome".

So my skills are primarily intellectual / analytical as compared to the average person's skills being social. The analytical skill set is more useful, the social skill set is more practical.

The social skill set allows people to lie often and convincingly, which apparently is needed in order for people to "fit in" in the working world. But those skills are useless with regard to any kind of engineering discipline.

Analytical skills are the only skills of any significance with regard to engineering disciplines. But they're also completely useless with regard to keeping a job.

In and of itself this is evidence that there's something "damaged" about the way jobs work (as defined by the behavior of NTs). The way jobs are supposed to work is that people who are able to do the job are compensated for their skills -- but the fact that NTs are the prevailing mindset means that this is not the way jobs actually work... for the most part. There are a few rare exceptions. Orchestral musicians as an example are hired via blind auditions in which the judges listen to the performer from behind a blind and are given only a number to identify the musician (which rules out decisions made on the basis of gender, ethnicity, etc). It's an interesting bit of history that prior to instituting the blind audition, it was well known that women were just not good cellists. And so although they were allowed to audition, women were never hired to play cello for orchestras. The very first time they did the blind audition, they revealed the winners and in all four spots they were women. So in that one very specialized case, skill is the deciding factor. Usually skill is not the deciding factor. Usually skill is almost an afterthought. And there are still orchestras such as in Vienna where they actively choose to discriminate against women because they're overtly bigoted. http://www.osborne-conant.org/posts/blind.htm I don't think an autistic person would generally make those kinds of decisions, but rather would hire on the logical basis of skill.

And then there's the fact that most savants are also autistic.

To describe either as an "illness" is an oversimplified and short-sighted view.

I think they refer to this nowadays as a 'teachable moment'... It's (as far as we know) a genetic predisposition. 'sides, I get enough grief about being left-handed, the sinister gits...

The 'brain damage' thing is actually an oldskool belief of autism and as,back in the eighties/early nineties,
some hospitals refused to diagnose it if did not show brain damage in scans,and severity did not matter,am think a lot of the 'brain damage' useage probably comes from this,and those who still use it as a possible cause for autism.
am would recommend getting a brain scan and showing that girl the results-as long as there isnt any sort of damage-are able to shut her up with that,but she may just start saying do not have as instead.

If I heard that, I would be kind of irritated. AS is not a brain damage, it is a very real form of autism.

Yeah, I agree with you on that. I hate it when people are so ignorant, they have no idea what they're saying.

Brain damage may be a metaphor used by someone who has a disability which they understand but still are not able... because, such a person is self-aware of their inability to do something as if they once knew how, but then had an injury that paralyzed or blocked the skill, and are not able to learn or relearn how to do what it is they know they want to be able to do. A lost skill can be caused by injury to something other than the brain (such as an arm), and a brain that lacks wiring for a specific skill is not damaged. For example, how many champion athletes and master musicians wake up one day and decide to give up their greatest skill and are just as easily able to become as great in the other skill instead?

I can relate to the concept that those things which I understand but still can not do make me feel like my brain has missing connections between wanting to do them and telling my hands to do them.

Yep, my Mum came into my room ther other morning and said "we're going to the doctors to see about your illness" , that really annoyed me but she had just woken up at the time, still no excuse really

I doubt I would become annoyed, I seldom care what views others hold of me these days...but I might ask her what or "who" had made her feel that way about it.

I guess it would make me a bit sad to think that she chose to classify herself in this way.

Some people are ignorant because they choose to be, but some are ignorant because they have been surrounded by others far more ignorant.