Aspergers in Adults - A place to chat

[Sibbie]

Hi all!

My stepdad & little brother are our quirky aspie gents in our family. My Mum works in early intervention for kids that have disabilities and of course that includes ASD kids & behavioral problems etc etc. She has a HUGE amount of resources, I will grill her for a list of things today - websites, books etc that might be of use for everyone. The ASPIA site is great for people that are NT with an ASD partner.

asperger women association I found this via google, not sure if this will help... I didn't get a chance to look through it properly. (hope I am ok posting that link, I can't find it selling anything so I guess its ok?)

Professor - props for posting man, it's not a fun ride - but knowledge is good! The more you know, the better you will be able to understand yourself

[~Trish~]

Sibbie - I'm so glad you have joined in! It would be great if you could share some resources . Thanks for posting that link, I'm having a bit of a read through it as I get a spare minute or two. I had a "Wow, that was me!" moment when I read this:

According to Dr. Tony Attwood, a leading expert on Asperger Syndrome, Aspie boys often appear like "little professors" who are expert in one subject. However, Aspie girls are more like "little philosophers." They may wonder if all people see the same color as blue, for instance, or analyze the meaning of the word "mind."

I have always been a "philosopher" and have wondered if people see colours the same way I do haha! I also analyse words, I had one recently, but can't think of what it was atm (I have shocking short-term memory issues ). I always get looked at sideways if I wonder these things out loud LOL!

[Yeddi]

They say everyone has some AS or ASD traits, so one or two of these things in isolation does not make someone AS, for instance I would consider myself a little philosopher but don't have social or voice issues. In order to qualify as AS you would need to meet at least 1 in each category of the following criteria:

1. Social impairment (extreme egocentricity) (at least two of the following):
- difficulties interacting with peers
- indifference to peer contacts
- difficulties interpreting social cues
- socially and emotionally inappropriate behaviour

2. Narrow interests (at least one of the following):
- exclusion of other activities
- repetitive behaviour
- more rote than meaning

3. Compulsive need for introducing routines and interests (at least one of the following):
-which affect the individual's every aspect of everyday life
- which affect others

4. Speech and language peculiarities (at least three of the following):
- delayed speech development
- superficially perfect expressive language
- formal pedantic language
- odd prosody, peculiar voice characteristics (like being monotone)
- impairment of comprehension including misinterpreting of literal/implied meanings (like not getting sarcasm)

5. Non-verbal communication problems (at least one of the following)
- limited use of gestures
- clumsy/gauche body language
- limited facial expression
- inappropriate facial expression
- peculiar, stiff gaze

6. Motor clumsiness:
- poor performance in neurodevelopmental test.

[~Trish~]

Absolutely Yeddi, I'm sure lots of people are the same. I only pointed out one thing, but there are LOADS of things that I read and can tick off or could have ticked off once upon a time. I still don't think I have AS, just traits that seem to have been handed down from my dad who is a textbook Aspy (as is my bro). My sister has much stronger traits than me and her two children are showing extremely strong traits, especially her DS.

I'm finding it quite enlightening to understand it all. When I look back at myself as a child I can see my traits were much stronger. I struggled so much as a child and as a teenager with things that I can now see as Aspy things. It's actually quite healing for me to learn about it, it helps me deal with and understand the person I used to be . I have always over-analysed my past and run it over and over in my head wondering how I could have done better, wishing I'd done things differently, etc. Finding out that it is just the way my brain works has helped free myself from all of that.

Gosh, I hope I haven't sold myself as having AS in this thread! I am just on a journey of discovery and wanted somewhere to discuss it with others. I'm hoping it will help also with my relationship with my own dad who couldn't handle his role as a husband and father so he left when I was 3. I hardly saw him or heard from him until my mid 20's when he moved closer. Over the last year or two he has started to visit me regularly and I am struggling with this for various reasons. I'm hoping talking about it will help.

[Yeddi]

Oh no, you did say you thought you only had traits. I'm blunt, and forget to add some padding sometimes. No, I was just putting that out there so that people who may not have looked into it much don't see one trait that sounds like them and then suddenly self-diagnose themselves with AS, IYKWIM. I've had a friend's husband do it before regarding their son and he wasn't AS at all, he just didn't like sport and his dad saw that as a restricted interest. It became pretty offensive when this guy would go on about how he knew what it was like to live with someone with ASD. It's not easy to get an ASD diagnosis, and there is a lot of things that goes with it, and I guess I selfishly don't want it belittled when I have an AS husband and autistic child, that it's not just putting up with little nuances, it can be really exhausting and takes lots of work.

Does that even make sense, I'm really tired, perhaps I should go have a nap...

[~Trish~]

I can only imagine how frustrated that must make you feel Yeddi. It is such hard work and I have a lot of admiration for you . My brother is 41 and when he was a child people weren't really diagnosed with Autism (maybe they were, but it wasn't common). My poor mum had a little toddler who constantly threw HUGE tantrums - he'd repeatedly hit his head on the floor or would hold his breath until he passed out. I guess these would be called meltdowns now, but at the time when she took him to the Dr, she was told he was "just a naughty boy" . He had speech delay, learning difficulties due to being taught at school with "normal kids" (as in, not catering to his own learning needs) and huge social issues. Without knowing what his issue was, but knowing something wasn't right, my Mum worked tirelessly with him over the years (with no help or understanding from our dad). She would do classroom help just to be there and help him along. She did a brilliant job with what she knew how. There was no support or help for her, she just went ahead and did it by herself. I have so much respect and admiration for her

[Professor]

I believe that everybody everywhere sits somewhere on the autism spectrum, ranging from your charming sociopaths through to low-functioning autism and savants. I would imagine that, if properly tested, the distibution curve of that spectrum would be similar to the distribution of IQ, imho.

I hope I don't offend anyone with this, it is just a personal theory. I am not saying in any way that those with aspergers are sociopaths, in fact quite the opposite. I believe that the personality disorders that result in autism or AS can, in a different mix, lead others to present as highly charming and be skilfully manipulative of their fellow man.

[meow]

I believe that everybody everywhere sits somewhere on the autism spectrum, ranging from your charming sociopaths through to low-functioning autism and savants. I would imagine that, if properly tested, the distibution curve of that spectrum would be similar to the distribution of IQ, imho.

I completely agree. We are going through this with my son at the moment and I think he'll be borderline so I'm not sure if he'll get an ASD diagnosis but he clearly has many ASD traits that can be helped with ASD therapies and teaching strategies so I'll use those resources regardless of the outcome of his diagnosis.

Similarly, my H and his family all clearly have Aspergers traits (one brother diagnosed) so I think understanding Aspergers helps me understand them, even if they are not extreme enough for a diagnosis.

As a training teacher I'm feeling like this leads into a better understanding of the varying learning styles and everyone will learn differently due to their position on the spectrum. I wish tghis concept taught to teachers- could make school so much better rather than the cookie cutter system we have.

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

Oooh, reading about it a bit more - yes, I can see why people would think I have Aspies, I think I do too! Also I can see why my sister thinks my dad has it, along with his mother and sister. Oddly enough, I don't think DS does. Well, not to the extreme DH and I do. (Past year 1, he refuses to do new things unless he knows he can do them perfectly: including writing, using a tricycle, lego... he gets a lot of praise for trying and I refuse to accept that he "can't" do something.)

I am toying going to see my GP to see if I can get a diagnosis - labels help me a lot. And then I can work on appearing "normal" (one of my least favourite words outside of statistics). I taught myself empathy/body language by treating it as a separate language and learning set responses and reactions. But it is something I have to remember to "turn on" so to speak, something I also need to remember to be bothered about. But I do get sarcasm - saying the opposite of what you mean while pretending you mean it, only a slight betrayal in voice tone to indicate otherwise. So much fun - it's actually lying as best you can. And it's not classed as being "naughty" but instead "humour". Love it to bits.

[~Trish~]

TFB - It's so fascinating when you read things and go "That's me!". Have you done any of the online Aspy tests?