Aspies For Freedom

Just need to get a rant off my chest, and find out whether anyone else has had to deal with this sort of attitude before....

I love my elder sister and she's one of those folks that'll always come thru for you when there's a crisis, but.............

According to her, there's no such thing as Aspergers, it's just a trendy label designed by psychologists. By accepting this diagnosis (from a Great Ormond St Neurologist and assorted Ed Psychs) I am condemning my daughter to having a stigma of "mental disorder" that will follow her around for the rest of her life.

All her Aspie quirks, are just "fussy behaviour", due to her "only child status" and my methods of parenting.

I also made the mistake of mentioning that I was going to get a wheelchair for her, cos she's hemiplegic and can't walk for long without tiring (her school said they thought this was a good idea too, cos she has trouble with this during school trips), and at 6 she's getting too big for a buggy.

The response, "Now you're trying to get her confined to a wheelchair....you're not thinking about her best interests".

My Sis makes me feel like I've got "Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy", and this is from a woman who's an agrophobic, hypochondriac with an O.C.D...Grrrrrrrrrr

Good grief, I got déjà vu reading this. Sometimes family are the hardest people to convince...

In my case, it was my mother.

If your daughter is like it because of being an only child, what about my five children? Most, if not all, of them are somewhere on the spectrum, although only one is formally diagnosed.

It isn't only parents, sadly. I have been in contact with far too many people in the medical profession over the years who also prefer the idea that females are hysterical creatures who never actually have disorders, but only imagine we have them for attention-seeking purposes!

I am sorry to hear that your sister has such an unreasonable attitude.  What it comes down to for me is not whether or not a label or description is valid, but whether or not it helps me parent my child better.  For us, my son's diagnosis has been a huge help.  We feel we now have the keys to understanding him, and he feels the same.  His school experience has been much more positive, etc.  So, when someone questions whether or not we have the right label, I simply say, "it doesn't really matter, since acting on the assumption we have the right label has improved things for all of us greatly."

I think my family was very tactfully wondering some of the same things your sister so vocally states, if it wasn't all just silly and a sterner approach could solve things.  Then on one outing with my sister my son had a total meltdown.  She fought us on accommodating him, but eventually did things our way.  But there was definitely a point where she realized, "oh my, he is NOT in control of this - this is not a tantrum, and it can't be solved the normal way."  She trusts my judgement a lot more now because she now understands it more.

What does B"H mean? I've been wondering for a while.

German shorthand for Bra if I recall correctly..

"Bustenhalter"

Ookay...but I fail to see how it relates to the rest of the comment...

He may not actually be saying that

Maybe not, but it still doesn't make any sense to me and that makes me feel kind of nervous..

I think one main culprit is that people think: Autism = Mental Illness = Disability = Stigma + Confinement. That shows through, as the person mentioned thought that someone using a wheelchair means they're being confined???

There is a blog post (I think on NTs are Weird) that mentioned how odd it is that people look at things like wheelchairs and crutches as negative, confining things, when in fact they allow a disabled person to have more freedom of movement.

Also, people who do not personally know much about things such as the Asperger and ADHD diagnoses are like to think that it's just a trend of kids who can't behave or socialize well enough getting diagnoses to "excuse" them from responsibilities.

There was an article I had to read and respond to before going into an AP class about kids whose parents fuss over them so much, don't let them have challenges to meet themselves, and who seek out diagnoses so their kid gets extra time (unfairly, the author presumes). While I'm sure there are those who abuse the system, and those who are wrongly diagnosed, it is no reason to discredit the real difficulties a person has.

Also, there are those who see it as a sign of a growing culture of perfection - something that indeed I do perceive to be developing. However, rather than criticize direction the ideas that people need to be perfect to be valued fully as they are rather than conforming needlessly to fit in, some people say, "No, those Aspergers people are just a bit quirky, they aren't truly disabled like THOSE people. No, Asperger isn't severe, so IT can't be a mental illness." Of course, by implication, they imply that the stigma associated with mental illness is appropriately applied to those who "have it more severe."

I think it's mostly misrepresentation combined with people not investigating things further than that article they read in Time Magazine. Most media pieces I've seen (at least in the States) that specifically mentions Aspergers talks about kids with extraordinary (or semi-extraordinary) abilities, that are supposed to "offset" their social difficulties.

Understandably, the person who has incredible rote memory makes a more interesting story than your everyday person, but one would think there's room for some balance, if the goal really is to enlighten readers about autistics.

Can we forget about Math and autism for once?  I know many autistic people (LFA and HFA alike) have an affinity or gift in numbers, but I think that JUST AS MANY do not.

Yes, there's all of us who have artistic and/or writing talents too and these are just as valid as maths talents.

Or business/engineering interests like my good self, lol. I fear that the full extent of AS's talents would be too numerous to list, hehe.

hope your head didn't get stuck in the door Ian!

JK

anyways

I think maybe just showing some film or stuff like that to your sister about AS would help.

My mom thinks most of my pantic attacks and social phobias is me faking, my stepfather thinks I'm a sociopath...<<

Meh.... <<

But why would anybody want to fake a panic attack or social phobia? It's ridiculous that they'd even entertain that idea for a moment but still, people often don't think rationally and logically.