Aspies For Freedom

B"H

I sometimes have difficulty finding where I am not the "functioning" scale.  I believe that it varies.  

It is a difficult thing to assess when many people on this Forum have it together in ways that I seemingly do not.

That is not self-pity.  Rather, it is an attempt to assess myself for the sake of greater self-knowledge.

B"H

When I was younger, there was a time in which eye contact was difficult for me.  In my late teens, I even went through a period of having to look up periodically.  It was noticeable.  I no longer have this difficulty.  I still may have to step out and re-enter a building periodically to "adjust."

Now, I don't know if this is Asperger or something else, nor am I big on the labels.  It is simply a difficulty.  And, at the same time, I call it a Gift because it is a learning experience.  I believe that if my children are to be Neuro-typical then I will want them to know something of what I experienced, the traumas...but also the good things that come with what I experience.  If my wife is to be NT then I will also want her to understand.  It is, in some sense, part of my heritage to have the young ones understand.

No, I will not try to make them become what I am.  "Look away from me when I'm talking to you, young man!"(-:  No, I will not try to change anyone. That would be as contrary to nature as if I were somehow forcibly changed.  I just simply want them to understand what the Old Man went through, and at the same time the good in what he experienced.  

My reason for bringing this all up is that the boundary between high functioning and "other" is sometimes permeable.  If you met me, you might think I'm NT.  And, perhaps I can function in the world as NT---for just so long.  However, at other times in my life things have been very different.  At times I might have seemed very low functioning, and almost frozen.  So, is there a thread for the third category, the one's who just don't seem to fit?

Perhaps someone with a better grasp of the subject can start one.  And, maybe I could convince my kids to join e^x as a way of connecting...

All the best,

Did I stop this thread?  Come on people!  More comments!!!!!!!!!

Thank you,

It's the Furball! bouncing and rolling around the threads! Oooh, furrr! I love it!
I'm high-functioning, but I'm here wishing I was lower-functioning with a way to communicate and just echolalia, but for now I'm not like that. I wish I was.
Any autism at all is good though. I'm just autistic enough to be autistic and not aspie.
I don't know if I'll hear any replies since this thread is hard to find again. (I'm blind so I use JAWS For Windows to read my screen and what I type.)
I'm so glad to be here. I'm and activist and advocate for you all: my people! My second family!
now bouncing out: boing boing boing!

This purports to be an "Autism" test for adults.  I am not sure how valid it is:

http://www.msnbc.com/modules/newsweek/au...efault.asp

All the best.

I got 31 which is the same as the last time, as I remember.  Seems to put me somewhere in between NT and Aspie.  A cousin?

B"H

As my birthday is coming up (Tomorrow!  May 1!), I have done a lot of soul-searching.  One of my biggest questions is how others see me.  I have NEVER obsessed about this too much in the past.  My lack of concern over this question was a trademark.  However, given that my construct of "Autism" has broken down, that my neat and tidy categories are no longer valid, for the first time ever I actually do wonder about the thoughts of others.  No, I have not become a conformist suddenly.  Rather, I am actually *CURIOUS* as to how people around me have viewed me, for reasons of discovery.

Like many of you, I do not understand non-verbal cues all that well.  Thus, people might have suspected me of being an "Aspie" for quite some time.  My parents suspected it in the nineties.  However, I went along with my life, blissfully unaware.  Yet, strangely enough, for the first time in my life I actually do care.  

The whole question of whether I am "Autistic" or not has led to some genuine soul searching.

I have some questions.  They are real questions:

1) Do I have the right to assume a label of "Autism" that others with a greater need might require?  Do I even have the right to an opinion on the whole question of a cure, one way or the other?  If I begin to claim this label, might it have an effect on their ability to claim certain services?

2) Have people suspected that I was on the Spectrum all along?  Was I the last to know?  I know that a friend of my mother's suspected.  She is some kind of therapist, expert, teacher---something like that. She ought to know...(-:

3) Is my condition evident in my writings?  Is there some way someone can tell from listening to me?  How evident is it in my behavior?

4) Are my peculiarities simply peculiar, or are they "stimming"?  These peculiarities are as such; motions combined with clicking sounds, rocking, getting up and walking about, moving my mouth with words coming out in the privacy of my room or during my walks at night, et al.  Are these things "stimming"?

5) Would my Autistic charge be better served with an NT attendant?  This is an honest question that I must grapple with.  We can rage about fairness, but I must consider his interests before mine.  I would be sad if this were the case, but it is one that I must consider.  You are free to give me a difficult answer to this question, provided that you at least sing "happy birthday"!

6)  I do not know a whole lot about "savantism."  Forgive my ignorance.  Yet, I had a childhood interest in Astronomy, Mathematics, Science, and other subjects that began at age six.  Is six young?  Again, this is not a boast.  It is a question.  My tendency is to believe that the label of "savantism" would not describe me.  However, I am not an expert on the matter.  Maybe my resistance to this concept has more to do with preconceived notions of what "savantism" means, stereotypical notions that are not real.  I cannot say.

7)  How does the diagnosis of "Asperger" change anything fundamental?  To be honest, I was diagnosed with Asperger and not Autism, by a doctor who seems to believe in a strong distinction between the two.  However, does either label change anything truly fundamental?  

8)  Is this whole movement in my life to uncover the truth about Autism genuine self-discovery?  Can it be used as a distraction?  An excuse?

9)  Is there a kind of covert NT movement against us?  Another forum participant has suggested some concepts along these lines that may seem outlandish.  However, I have often suspected that there is some unconscious, albeit perhaps not "telepathic," knowledge among NT's that I am somehow different, to be opposed or else to be laughed at.  Now, to be sure, I am not labeling all NT's as conspirators.  What I am suggesting is that we carry unconscious responses within us that can be activated by the right person.  We just "hate" some person, and we do not know why.  Have you ever wondered why you hate someone?  Perhaps there would be less hatred if people would simply ask why they hate.

10) Are there counselors out there who are not out to "fix" me?  It might be fun to fix a person as some kind of project.  However, I am a person, and a person is qualitatively different than a mechanism.  

These are not question that I expect to have answered.  You are free to answer them if you wish, or to discuss them if you must, but I am really verbalizing them in order to help myself.  I want self-knowledge, without self-obsession.  That is a difficult balance, but it is my birthday wish.

I will be 35 soon.  It is a good age.  I just wish that I had accomplished more in the past 34 years.  Maybe cracking the code of my life's true story will help me with the next 85 years until I reach the age of Moses, 120 years old (G-d willing).

All the best.

"Nope - I don't think neurotype makes a good teacher, it's the teaching that makes a good teacher. Given I don't know what sort of a teacher you are, all I can say is that you can't tell a good teacher by knowing which neurotype category they belong to."

ATM:  Yes.  That's a great answer.  I should stick with what I said in "So-called LFA's are created for a Holy Purpose."  That was wisdom revealed to me.  I should not seek to distract from that with a chattering "rational" mind.

Let me stick with that, and let the questions be answered there.

All the best, Zakkie.  Thanks for the birthday wishes.

Thank you!!!!

All the best.

I believe I mentioned this before, but my daughter has very pervasive learning disabilities.  For her, aliengirl, when she is frustrated with a task, she just stops being able to perform at all.  At school they have said she was "spacing out" but if you asked her, she would explain that she was thinking.  She seems to get stuck, and even if the class moves on to a new topic, she is unable to get started back again.  

For her, I would say it is a case of disorientation, which I read about in "The Gift of Dyslexia".  But I am not completely sure on that, and hope to find out more at her appointment in a couple of weeks!

Thank you aliengirl.  It is nice to see you too!

I see a lot of the issues you have described in my daughter.  

And earthmonkey, you described a lot of the same characteristics I see as well.  She actually has an auditory processing issue, I have been told.  She also has a visual processing issue.  

I am beginning to think more and more that a good part of the problems are related to overstimulation in the classroom.  I hope to explore that at her appointments in a couple of weeks.

I am still learning about this earthmonkey, but I will do my best.  For my daughter, she is unable to process the images and/or text on a page if there is "too much" in front of her.  She has a hard time with books that have photos and text.  She has a hard time with word problems that have charts or graphs.  It is as if all of the information becomes jumbled to her, and she cannot clearly understand what is in front of her.  

In reading with her, she is unable to recall the same sentence from the top of the page to the bottom.  Like a book for younger children, where on the page, it starts with "Ten Apples Up On Top" and ends with "Ten Apples Up On Top."  She would have as much of a hard time reading the words at the bottom of the page that she had at the beginning of the reading.  (She reads those words just fine, that is just the one book that came to mind.)

In her tests for learning disabilities earlier this year, they gave her a picture of, of all things, cavemen killing a wooly mammoth.  She had one half hour to write what she thought it was.  It was actually black and white and rather complicated.  She did understand what it was, but not well.  She wrote something that was completely illegible.  They had several people try to read it and no one could understand it.  I believe that the picture was so overstimulating to her, that she was overwhelmed and that prevented her from processing the words into the correct letters and printing them on the page.  

She has an incredibly difficult time with anything that is timed.  I am sure that was on her mind when she was trying to write the letters, and she apparently took quite some time staring at the picture.

I am not sure if this was disorientation like with dyslexia, or overstimulation, like with AS issues.  

Does that help?  Ask more questions and I will try to remember all they told me, and all that I have observed about my beautiful little girl.

I have to say, we have not tried it at home.  I just cover parts of the page.  We discussed them doing that at school as well.  I am not sure if they have tried the overlays there.  I will ask.

Once we were able to actually read what she was saying, she got the picture much better than I think most kids would have gotten it.  But the picture was so much for her to look at, the letters and words she printed were not recognizable as....really much of anything.  

I am so sorry that happened to you.  It is very difficult when you need support and get just the opposite.  I hope that we are providing some support to you here, and you know that I think the world of you!  (And I would say that a lot of other people here do as well!)

*Hugs*