I have a friend who is very likely to have AS..

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Absolute_Zero
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15 Dec 2004, 12:01 pm

I don't know if this a question or a rant...I guess it's none of the above but feel free to comment on it.

I have a friend who I think is Aspie.
Where I am more creative/logic and have better common sense, he lacks it a bit and tends to offend people without knowing that he does it.
He can speak math as a second language and constantly rambles on about subjects when it is clear that other people are getting bored with what he is saying. He has difficulty reading what other people are talking about and is pissed off that he doesn't "fit in" with the general public. Relationships with girls are even weaker with him than they are with me.

He is under alot of stress from university (5th yr engineering) and his older brother (also a good friend of mine) died last spring from leukemia. I don't know if I should force him into a diagnosis or not given all the crap that has been flung at him in the past year. However, there is a problem and he knows it. I told him that I am trying to connect to other people with the same condition and it is helping immensly.

He always complained that he though he had ADD or ADHD so I think that maybe he wants a label for the same reason I did (To identify with other people who are the same). Even though he realized the Asperger criteria matched him more than anything else, he shares my thoughts on worrying about people viewing it as a mental disability. I think it would be easier for undiagnosed "AS" people to open up about it if it wasn't seen as a ret*d condition by society in general...



hale_bopp
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15 Dec 2004, 6:16 pm

I know a heap of people that definitley have it and don't know. I'm not going to tell them though, they might be happy with their lives and how things are going and it really isn't my business to go around diagnosing people.



Absolute_Zero
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16 Dec 2004, 9:18 pm

Do you know what? Alot of so called "professionals" have no business going around diagnosing anything either. I sat in front of 2 different doctors and gave them my own seminar of how I matched up with the symptoms and they were blown away by it. It just seemed like they were students who were listening to a teacher's speech.

My friend constantly talks about figuring out what is going on with him. Since he had major concerns about ADD and ADHD, I think he wants to have a starting point like I do. Right now his luck with relationships is pure garbage. My situation is bad too but his is worse and he knows it too.



AustinsDad
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17 Dec 2004, 11:59 am

Sounds like you're a pretty good friend for one thing.
Knowing that there is a name for the problems he has should be very comforting - it was to me. Didn't solve everything, but gave me a place to start.
Doesn't seem like official diagnosis is really necessary with AS; the symptoms are so obvious. But other related problems - such as the frustration and anger, along with life circumstances, can lead to some pretty bad habits and other problems. This website and many others are just loaded with info and ideas for coping and adjusting. Help him do the research or get him to seek some help. AS is a painful place to live; you can't really move out, but you can fix up the place and take a vacation once in a while.