The greatest Asperger's web page ever

Post Reply New Topic

http://www.rogernmeyer.com/Hubert_Cross ... y_2002.htm

I laughed. I cried. I read it again. One of the funniest, saddest things I've ever read.

thank you, Poke, for that link. it made me cry also.

sometimes when I read certain things about this stuff I get really angry and this one made me angry. Initially it was a relief to find out what was going on with me but I'm almost a the point of wanting it to stop and to not know anymore, this 'mindblindness' hits home, almost overwhelming.

The bit I don't get about this can be summed up in the poop episode. So he got a beating for pooping on his sisters floor, he says in his narrative:

"It never crossed my mind to think that others were going to feel bad when they found my poop on the floor. If she had EXPLAINED to me that people have feelings, and that they have likes and dislikes, and that they dislike finding poop on the floor, and that they dislike having to pick it up, I would not only had never done it again, but she would had made me a precious gift that I was DESPERATELY needing; she would had given me a little push toward understanding the world of humans"

What would it take for him to have known that? Would it be required for his sister to have first pooped on his bedroom floor first?
Or perhaps it wouldn't have bothered him.

I believe he is meaning exactly what he is saying. He would have wanted his sister to tell him the following:


He isn't speaking in code, he literally means exactly what he is saying. He just want's people to explain why they do things rather then assuming that he knows and skipping directly to the consequences.

I guess the bit that's bothering me is that I would assume that he wouldn't like someone else pooping on his own floor, so would understand why she got upset.
But maybe he never considered it?

Actually thinking on it I crapped my own pants at school when I was five because I didn't know where the toilet was or how to ask or something and I remember my Mum being annoyed as a result (I guess she had to come to school) and me not really understanding it too well. Five is pretty young.

Anyway I found that site a depressing read, but also some very good info. I really hope my son never ends up feeling so desperate

The writer was saying that he had never considered what the situation would be like from his sister's perspective because he didn't know his sister had a perspective. He wasn't aware that his sister had a conscious thought process which included likes and dislikes. He knows that he wouldn't like poop on his own floor, but he didn't think that his sister would share that same sentiment and thus also be annoyed by the poop. The problem he had was that he wasn't aware his sister had feelings, likes, or dislikes. He wasn't aware that she experienced the same emotions he did. So what he wanted was for his sister to tell him that:

1. she has emotions and feelings (I.E. she has a conscious thought process)
2. those emotions make her not like poop on her floor
3. He shouldn't poop on her floor again.

I also went through and read this page and to be honest, most of it seems like melodramatic whining. I hate to sound cruel but he makes things much worse then they need to be and then blames it all on asperger's syndrome and says it is ruining his life. That would be like me opening all my doors and windows in the winter and then blaming my high heating bill on the furnace. The furnace isn't the problem, it is my own stupidity for leaving all the doors and windows open. He is putting his foot in his mouth, then shooting himself in the foot and blaming it on the gun.

For example, he talks about face blindness as though it is some horrible disease which destroys your ability to have meaningful relationships. I have that same condition and I wouldn't even consider it a problem. The fact that I have holes in some of my socks are a bigger issue for me. When I meet somebody for the first time I introduce myself and we go from there. The next time I meet them, the conversation goes like this:

Other person: Hello
Me: Hello, nice to meet you. My name is Trevor
Other person: We have met before
Me: O, I'm sorry. I'm face blind so I can't recognize faces.
Other person: Wait, you can't recognize people?
Me: Yeah, I can't even recognize my own brother. But I will learn your voice eventually. So if I introduce myself to you about a dozen more times don't be surprised.
Other person: Um, ok.

And problem solved. Really it isn't that hard. In fact it usually creates a bit of humor when I introduce myself to people who I have known for years. It is hardly a relationship crushing, social killing, disorder. This guy is complaining about a lot of stuff that isn't really a problem so long as you are honest about what you can't do, and apologize for any inconvenience.

Interesting link, thanks for posting it.

Thanks for that explanation Tracker I get it now.

I think your approach to your face blindness is very pragamatic. It's often the unspoken that causes problems.

Whoa, the stuff on that site is really heavy. Is Asperger's Syndrome really that bad?
Cause my life isn't all that depressing. I'm having second thoughts about self-diagnosing myself as a mild aspie...
So how do you people feel, is what he says true?

I'm also particularly baffled by these two quotes

What, seriously? Aspergers totally can never make friends?



Honestly, guys?

no no no to the second quote (directly above). have a child with that woman and then watch it grow up in hell and then try to get the courts to side with you, she'd have to be a knife-wielding psychopath carving her name in blood on her child's back for the court to let the father have custody... do NOT make this mistake, aspie men, prostitutes are a far more sane choice than this.

*reads first few replies at being saddened*
*reads the intro he typed*

im going to sleep now, will read this later when i wont get messed up by it probably...

Kewpna: no he is wrong about that stuff among many other things. M

Honestly I saw that page ten years ago and the only interest it has to me is that he resembles my brother in some ways.

I don't see what's so great about it. All he has done is take a popular theory of autism and discuss how his life fits it. Which is the same thing the vast majority of autobiographical writing by autistic people seems to do. And doing that is fraught with problems that are too many and complex for me to have words for. I was actually asked to volunteer with a researcher because I have the opposite tendency, I don't force-fit people's lives to popular theories.

People who do fit the theories (or say or think they do) are always said to be more legitimately autistic than people who don't. The earliest autistic autobiographies contained a lot more psychoanalysis-related material than nowadays because those theories were more prominent. Even those who rejected those theories showed clear influence by them. As time went on the theories changed and so did the aspects of our lives that autistic people were willing to talk about. This is incredibly destructive.

People need to hear the whole of our experiences. Not just the parts that match the theories with perhaps a small smattering of things that don't. And autistic people do tend to emphasize the parts that fit the theories and deemphasize the parts that don't. This leads researchers and other professionals to believe we are actually all or mostly like that! Then those who are more different and those who are more honest run the risk of being told we aren't autistic. Or aren't as autistic. Which creates more pressure to conform since many services depend on being recognized as autistic. And then it's a vicious cycle. And it really does work like this or else the attributes emphasized and ignored magically change with the theories.

It also creates a really bad situation for any autistic person who is nonverbal orotherwise unable to communicate their inner life. Why? Because people always assume if all the autistics who can communicate about it endorse a theory then well those who can't must be even more intensely whatever the theory claims about us. So with the example of mindblindness, people really do assume based on accounts like this that the reason autistic people who can't use words, can't use words, is because they are more mindblind than those who talk. And that is flat out not true.

I also think the reason many autistics who can't or couldn't for ages talk or type about their experiences, tend to be the most adamantly against the stereotypes, is both what I just said, and also because usually we are so obviously autistic looking that nobody will doubt us even if we reveal nonstereotypical traits.

At any rate the practice of force fitting oneself to theories causes a huge bunch of unpleasant consequences and sometimes acts as a substitute for introspection. So I don't see anything wonderful about pages like this. (And yes I know there are usually at least a few people who fit any stereotype. But really this is too widespread and too much changing with the times to mostly be real insight.)

anbuend, interesting, thought-provoking post.

Might I suggest that the various theories surrounding AS--mindblindness, theory of mind, etc.--are only broadly known because, while ultimately inadequate (few human ideas aren't) they do gesture towards an underlying truth.

When I was about 8 I went down the street to the store with another kid on the block. He stuck a couple Hostess fruit pies in his jacket and told me to do the same. I wanted a friend and had no understanding of how the store would feel about it so of course I stuck a couple in my jacket as well. We of course got caught.

They called my dad and he told them he would pick me up in a hour. I didn't understand why it would take him an hour to get there from down the street. Eventually he came and did whatever he did with them and took me home. The garage door was open when we drove up. Every single thing that I owned that I kept in the garage including my bike was gone. He said "someone must have helped themselves to my stuff". That was probably one of the most important lessons in my life. I never have any problem understanding the feelings of others if I take their stuff. So I don't.

Should she have pooped in his room? Probably not, but she failed to get her point across. Explaining her feelings about it would have been a lot better. Making him clean it up would have probably gone a long way as well.

What a very clever Dad in the post above. The typical parental response would be anger and/or a whack.