Struggling with the concept of asperger itself

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I got the official diagnosis. I have a lot of strong symptoms considered peculiar of the syndrome but I find it difficult for me to define myself as an aspie . I'd rather say (to myself and to the others) that I have some habits and routines, that (for example) I often can't sleep at night, that I'm not very sociable and that I don't agree with most of the social conventions. That sometimes I go crazy for some topic or for some food and that I can become obsessed and eat the same food for more days in a row. And also that I don't like chaotic places and that I'm photosensitive. And people understand me very well, even if I don't explain the neurodiversity thing.

A lot of NT people do have some of these characteristics. A lot of people for example do develop peculiar abilities and knowledge about what they do for job. Or about their hobby.
I know a lot of NT people that literally have an encyclopedic knowledge about history, physics, computer, grammar, chemistry etc..
And a lot of people critic some social conventions and really hates a lot of things that people do for no reason. Most of people hate to talk about the weather!! . I personally believe that nearly every person have at least one or more autistic traits.
That's why I accept to be on the spectrum but my brain and my mind refuse to define myself an Aspie. I'd rather be a sum of various characteristics (including some of the AS ones) that saying I'm autistic without fitting perfectly in the definition and in the stereotype.

and...I have really strong characteristics.I'm a social inept. I don't watch people in the eyes and I have no interest in getting to know new people or friends, I'm very eccentric, I rock back and forth and I'm oversensitive to some sensory stimuli. But...
I don't know. I feel like I can express myself better explaining my characteristics instead of explaining what AS is. Above all because I'm not like any aspie I've ever meet. Everyone is different. And I don't have ALL the symptoms of the AS. For example I can nearly read in the minds of people and I understand very well also the smallest nuance of facial expression and intonation of the voice. And I easily understand sarcasm (not always, but the 70-80% of times). But I do have some other problems not related. If I say I'm autistic people instinctively assume I'm good in maths and that I have special abilities. While I don't have any strong talent and I find extremely difficult to even calculate the change when I buy a package of candies.....
I don't even know lot of things about one single topic. Just some facts, I'm not and encyclopedia.. I have discalculia and I'm shy (that's not necessarily an aspie thing)

So..in conclusion I consider the term Aspie somewhat meaningless and really vague and imprecise. I would like to have a word to explain what I am. But I hate to use the word "aspie" because I would spend more time explaining in what I'm different from the asperger stereotype, than to explain just my behaviour, without speaking about neurodiversity ....

uhm what do you think about that?
Can you see yourself as an Aspie? And when did you get the diagnosis?

(I have been diagnosed only one year ago and I still struggle with that label)

Lots of people live in denial, what you choose to accept doesn't change your neurology.

Autism is not just a set of social quirks, it is a Neurological Disorder, in which the brain has been gifted (or cursed, as one chooses to see it) with a larger number of neural sensory receptors than the typical human brain. Everything else that is Autism, High Functioning or otherwise, stems from that condition.

This is the condition through which you have been viewing the entire world since the day you were born. Because of that autistic brain, you've been wearing a set of goggles that sees everything differently than the people around you.

Their brains take in sensory data calmly, organizing each sensation automatically and categorizing it accordingly - this information is URGENT, that information IRRELEVANT, this other bit only slightly important, and so on, giving them a view of the world that is comprehensive and rational - the proverbial BIG PICTURE

The autistic brain is receiving a much larger volume of data, but still has to interpret it all and make some sense of it, so it is frantically analyzing thousands of DETAILS, searching out PATTERNS for more efficient organization - where they see a complete FOREST, we see lots and lots of individual TREES.

Whether you are aware of it or not - whether you have ever been aware of it - your brain is funneling a larger amount of data through it's processor every moment that you are awake, than normal people's brains have to deal with. It's working harder, juggling faster, trying to keep up and that is where the social skills issues begin to develop.

Eye contact is a sensory experience, and when the brain is already busy trying to sort and organize all the other sensory data flooding in - light, noise, smells, tastes, movement, voices, etc - well, all the intricacies of facial expressions and reading those tiny empathic cues just overwhelms the processor chip, so it's easier to look away and avoid that task.

So difficulties in social communication all domino outward from the central sensory processing issues. If you're not properly processing social signals, how do you know "people understand you very well"? How do you know you're reading them correctly? How would you know if they're snickering behind your back or rolling their eyes at each other when you leave the room because your social communication, which seems perfectly normal to you, is obviously stilted and awkward to them?

As far as understanding sarcasm, you do realize that the diagnostic criteria are written for diagnosing autism in CHILDREN, right? I would hope that by the time you reach your teen years you would have figured out the sarcasm thing, it's not rocket science, it's just confusing to autistic children whose ANALYTICAL thought processes tend to take statements at face value.

Point of all this being, that you've been wearing those autistic goggles every moment of your life - your entire perception of the world has been shaped by that view, whether you want to think of yourself as "Aspie" (personally, I prefer "aspergian" or just plain old "autistic") or not. That alternative view can't help but shape your personality on every level. Believe me, unless you've been grossly misdiagnosed, everybody around you knows you're "different" even if they never say it to your face. And chances are, you match a lot more of the diagnostic criteria than you think you do.

When I first read the phrase "may see lights or hear sounds others do not" in the DSM, I thought they were talking about hallucinations of some sort and of course, that didn't apply to me at all. Then a week or two later, I had an epiphany, in which I suddenly remembered multiple incidents throughout my life, when I had noticed tiny (but quite real) little sounds that the people around me couldn't seem to hear, even when I called their attention to it - one of them turned out to be an electronic whine supposedly above the range of the human ear, but I'd been hearing it all my life.

I understand that you may not like thinking of yourself as "disabled" and I certainly rankle when people refer to AS/HFA as a "mental illness," because a neurological glitch is not, in itself, an emotional or psychological imbalance. People don't think of Dyslexia as a "mental illness" and they shouldn't. As for me, I'm quite happy to wholeheartedly admit that I am who I am specifically because of my autism and it has affected every aspect of my life in one way or another. I spent decades being yelled at and abused for my differences, told that every difficulty I had in fitting in with the rest of the world was all my own fault and I could change if I really wanted to and would put the effort into it.

They were wrong. I couldn't change who I was, because WHO I was was filtered through my brain, which was hardwired to see things differently, experience things differently, and think differently than the people around me. After being verbally and psychologically abused for years by family, teachers and employers, finally having offical proof that your differences are not your fault, but an actual, diagnosable neurological condition is actually exciting - it's validating - it's FREEING, because finally you don't have to feel like a loser for just being who you are. THAT is true neurodiversity. Screw all those jerks - I'M AUTISTIC, and there's nothing wrong with that.

However - there is no simple way to explain it to others. AS is a complex set of handicaps and the only people with the patience to learn about it are other autistic people and sometimes their parents. Most people think "autistic" = "ret*d," others think it means "psychopath," all things being equal, I don't recommend discussing it with just anyone, not because there's anything shameful about it, just because it's frustrating to explain things like Selective Mutism to someone and have them insist, "Oh, you're just shy." No, no I'm not. Sometimes my brain's processor flatlines under the pressure of a sudden social interaction and I momentarily cannot speak - that is not shyness. But it makes me a poor salesperson.

In any case, define yourself however you like, but I can guarantee that eventually you're going to come to realize that whatever traits you may or may not think you have, you're still wearing those autistic goggles and no matter how hard you struggle to ignore them, you can't take them off, because they're INSIDE YOUR HEAD.

Willard, this explanation is great. Thank you. I am actually going to email your post to some people in my family.

You don't want to define yourself as having Aspergers, because you don't want to be seen in terms of stereotypes. OK, but what are the alternatives? Defining yourself as an NT with individual peculiarities? Trying to pass as NT?

It sounds like you are internalising the stigmas - that being "aspie" means to you the same as "being inadequate" rather than being neurologically different from NTs. How long have you had the diagnosis? Why did you seek it?

There's an adjustment process and an adjustment period to be gone through when we first realise the nature of our difference. For many of us finding out we were on the spectrum was relief mixed with grief. Maybe for you it is resentment and anger at this stage. Both sets of feelings are valid reactions. You will probably find the feelings change as you assimilate this new conception of your identity. You have the same strengths now that you had before diagnosis; it doesn't make you less of a person.

Holy Crap, Willard! What a great explanation! Thank you so much for taking the time. But I do -- being newly diagnosed myself -- have a comment to make that I've been bouncing around in my head --

What if many of the "quirks" associated with ASD -- mutism, poor eye contact, social awkwardness, problems with making friends, introversion -- are all the result of an extreme Anxiety Disorder? It seems to me fear would be the dominating force with all of these things. Besides my ASD dx, the doctor also diagnosed Social Anxiety Disorder and Panic Disorder. She said our first focus in treatment would be to get my anxiety under control. It would stand to reason that if I do that, a lot of this will resolve itself. And if it doesn't, what's the point of fixing the anxiety?

Feel free to shoot down my theory, but please be kind...

That's like saying "I dont think of myself as a person with a 'cold'. I think of myself as 'a person with a virus-induced post nasal drip, cough, sneeze, sore throat, running nose, and sneezes'."

That you prefer to tell people that you have the long laundry list of symptoms associated with a cold rather than just telling people you have "a cold" because, for some perverse reason, you prefer to waste time rattling off the list of sympotoms to just getting to the point.

It's OK if you don't want to regard yourself as an Aspie because some folk are uncomfortable with labels. You're right about the symptoms though, lots of NT's display some of the symptoms on the list but the thing about being an Aspie is that we have so many. The last time I went through the list I ticked off twenty or so then my girlfriend looked through and added five more!

Your symptoms could very well be from anxiety and panic disorder. If you manage to get your anxiety under control and it solves your issues than that would be fantastic. If you still have issues than you may need to look further into it. There have been a couple of threads where people have posted the DSM 5 criteria for having Autism. Here is a copy of the page manual that ASDogGeek had posted.
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt235436.html.

Much of the struggle with a label has to do with how others react to you. People have one set of reactions determined by how they perceive you and this can be altered (good or bad) by how they perceive you with a label.

Some of the struggle may be with how useful you feel the label is for you. If someone called you a "skhjdljhsdkjrt" you might feel insulted or pleased but most likely would feel confused as it conveys nothing meaningful.

If someone gave you a label of "short" it might explain why you always seem to have trouble getting things from the top shelf. It might also explain why you seem to need a ladder more often than most people. The odds are that even before you heard the label "short" you have a pretty good idea as to where you differed from others.

Neural sensing and processing is less obvious than height. We do get a hint at the chemistry of this when amphetamines produce a change for some people with certain types of neural differences.

The decision to call Aspegers "autism spectrum disorder" may help clarify terminology for those who have employment related to their supposed expertise. However, I would be more impressed with their expertise if they could explain these differences in chemical or biological terms. The classification of behaviors with labels may earn doctorates and other advanced degrees for those so engaged, but it doesn't seem to add much useful to those who are classified.

The reason the label doesn't often sit well is that it is an approximation rather than an answer. It is fuzzy because it presumes more than it can deliver. For example, a person may hiccup occasionally, another might have an extended difficulty with hiccups, another person might even have a hiccup condition that needs medication to manage. Being told you have a "hiccup disorder" is an interesting declaration, but does not provide anything really useful.

While educators, academicians, therapists, medical people, and even government people all debate and classify the effects of something they do not really understand, those who are in this situation make use of shared experiences to discover ways to cope in forums like this.

Those who label you may have a sincere desire to be of some help. However, the label itself seems less useful than the experiences of others who have walked this path.

Since a label is not that useful to you, it may be even less so to others. I would suggest that you not attempt to use the label since it is so imprecise and instead rely on situation specific declarations;

"Sorry, I do seem to go on and on"
"Sorry, I don't do well with loud noises"
"Sorry, I seem to be hypersensitive to touch"
etc.

As people begin to be aware of your specific idiosyncracies they can decide if they are revolting or charming and you can move forward without having to rely on educating people with terms that are not well defined to start with.

Thanks Williard!

Holy crap! Is the the root cause? Do you have any web page that concurs that?

It certainly sounds good - but I am not into the neurosciences.

Here are a couple links to get you started:

Intense World Theory
More Information - Intense World Theory Validated

It's interesting to note that I, as well as many other autistics, came up with this theory quite some time (over a decade in my case) before it was first proposed scientifically, as a way to explain the root cause of our problems.
Having it scientifically proposed & validated after all this time is nice, though.

Willard would you expand on why "larger number of neural sensory receptors" would result in particular autistic traits ?

Particularly, I was curious if you had a theory on the trait of "pre-occupation with order" / "perfection" / "completeness" ?

Thank you.

After all this time, perhaps I am finally getting it.

Willard wrote earlier that: “The autistic brain is receiving a much larger volume of data, but still has to interpret it all and make some sense of it, so it is frantically analyzing thousands of DETAILS, searching out PATTERNS for more efficient organization - where they see a complete FOREST, we see lots and lots of individual TREES”.

So, it would be difficult to capture, organize, manage, store and retrieve all of these details unless you are pre-occupied with order, perfection and completeness. Otherwise, you will live in complete chaos unable to make any sense of the world.

This also explains Willard’s other comment about the autistic brain “funneling a larger amount of data through its processor”. You need a more powerful processor to capture, organize, manage, store and retrieve this data. Otherwise, you’ll core dump (computing term – LOL).

This explains SO much for me. It also explains why I have so much difficulty in unstructured conversation. The information arrives in a non-logical (and oftentimes incomplete) order, making it difficult to effectively capture, organize, manage, store and then respond.

I also now realize why I was always fascinated with Computerized Records Management.

I remember in the aspie guide,dont remember where it was but it was two side by side images of neuro pathways or something (dont remember what they were called) and it looked like there was hundreds of pathways going to hundreds of places.it seems to me that would create an enourmous ammout of possibilities for diffrent type of people within the same "condition"

I used hundreds because i dont know the real number

I do see myself as aspie, but I understand you. The only people that know about my aspergers is my sister and mother. Not even my best friends know, or other family relatives. I don't want to tell anyone, but that's not being in denial but rather feeling that there is a discrepancy between what people think aspergers is and what I really am.
I don't see myself as autistic though. I don't know if you will understand but I think saying I am autistic would actually feel disrespectful to classical autistics that have really hard struggles as I am so functioning.

Linalet, I understand and respect your reasoning for not wanting to call yourself Autistc. But it would not be disrespectful to LFA Spectrumites if you did. And just because someone is LFA does not mean that there are not things that she can do a lot better than some who are HFA.