Autism Spectrum Disorders
 

So, funny story. A couple weeks ago my neurotic super pattern recognition abilities stumbled upon my absurd resemblance to the concept of "Asperger's," which imho is an unnecessary categorical distraction from High-Functioning Autism, but that's just my personal take on the subject. I'd taken a coincidental interest in savantism (aka the whole Rain Man thing), and realized that I must've skipped the class lecture day over this shit because I'd never heard of the Asperger's differentiation before. Thank lordy my natural interest in the human mind has made up for my awful higher education habits, or else who knows when (if ever) I would've found this out instead. Summary of the revelation: I managed to make sense of my life to date, and it's quite delightful. I liken it to tickling yourself... when your brain knows you're touching your body (no euphemism intended), you don't get the spaztastic fluttering sensation, but when it's someone else, you're liable to collapse on the floor in hysterics. Being aware of the differences in my neurological wiring makes picking out and overcoming irrational thought and behavioral tendencies MUCH easier. My newly begun quest to get a "professional" diagnosis has gone distastefully slow so far, courtesy of the fact most all resources/research/"management" are directed at early age case scenarios. But, I'm also just an impatient fucker, and sifting through all the stuff out there is a time-consuming process.

You guys are a bunch of weird fuckers, so I figure at least one of you fools is bound to be another autistic, or have had interactions with the like. Discuss, I say. Discuss!

Sure as hell explains your shitty rambling text walls.

He fucked you up, Aspie.

More like ass burgers.

Close the thread, we're all done here.

I don't think I have aspergers but I do think I'm a little weird. But a lot of you guys are very odd yourselves. There's also the factor that this a forum and we aren't talking to each other in person. So no matter how weird someone's posts are you can't diagnose them with autism. Everyone here just says weird shit for the hell of it, I'm sure of that too.

You would not believe how many people self-diagnose themselves with Asperger's.

This. My counsellor has suggested I have myself tested for Asperger's. My doctor says it costs hundreds of pounds. I couldn't care less about the label itself, but knowing for certain would open doors in understanding how to operate and accomodate for my brain.

I don't trust self diagnosis in the slightest. It's like horoscopes - you can easily twist your mind into applying these things to you and before you know it you got another person running around blaming all their problems on something that other people genuinely have to cope with.

Though to be fair, in my opinion, in the ideal circumstances it shouldn't even matter if someone's got a disorder of this nature. Two of my closest friends have been diagnosed with Aspergers and I wouldn't have known had they not told me, but I don't care either because however it's affected them they've found a way to cope. Obviously for medical purposes it should be accounted for, but I feel like punching someone who makes a big deal out of a disorder that doesn't actually bother the person who has it.

I also live with a guy who uses autism as an excuse to be a dick. I have issues with that.

Have never taken any of these actual tests for anything myself. Don't know how effective they are.

This. Seems like half the internet has self-diagnosed with Asperger's. And the other half have ADHD-I.

It's not real until you've been given the stamp of a professional.

I carefully considered the way my mind and body work, and self-diagnosed myself as being dead.

Are you saying I shouldn't trust this diagnosis?

Are you saying you're a zombie?

That would imply that ADHD isn't a made up disease in the first place.

It isn't a made up condition. It's just one that's overdiagnosed significantly, in many cases because people's family doctors think they're qualified to analyse it rather than referring to Psychiatrists.

I think "Asperger's" is just a conditioned aversion to reality. A withdrawal to the inner world... which is fine, but taken to an extreme. Fear of interaction. Not balancing the inner world with the outer.

And yes, "Ass Burgers" too.

Ah, I know the self-diagnosis thing is a bit taboo. There's certainly a significant margin of error at large, no doubt about it. But, my faith in my judgment isn't without cause; beyond the fact these are the same neurological workings I've been studying at the professional level at school, that I have an exceptionally meticulous memory of childhood and adolescent peculiarities that match up really, really precisely with the (oftentimes generically explained) core aspects of autism, and I have a multi-year history of wildly atypical and paradoxical drug reactions that are perfectly explained by the altered neurological foundation of autism... I'm tempted to favor my own opinion on the matter. Seriously, if it weren't a behaviorally diagnosed condition made by glorified parrots exposed to the same damn material I'm immersed in, I wouldn't be wasting anyone's time making claims that require a subjective interpretation. If a Mensa transcending IQ, behavioral pattern recognition super powers and an obsessive fixation on cognitive abnormalities aren't the right tools to make the call, then what the hell are? Professional practitioners are only trained by the findings of the professional researchers and philosophers on their subjects. I couldn't give a damn about excuses or accommodations; I've already proven that I can kick everyone's ass in my academic interests without even trying. The ability to better understand my own mind, however, is priceless. The ability to apply years of hardcore self-analysis towards advancing autism management is even more valuable than that.

Haters r gonna hate, cuz they don't understand. If anyone really wants, I can throw out a Great Fucking Wall of Inane Text about my reasoning behind all this hubbub. And you all know I'll do it too, because I'm an unstoppable belligerent hypomaniac with little he would rather do with his time.

I'll even throw out a second big ass wall of text about the correlations I've noted between the prototypical addict and autistic personalities, and why I feel there's subsequent reason to investigate genetic/epigenetic similarities between the two, as well as how different cognitive treatments between the two neurological states could complement niche scenarios where traditional management techniques prove ineffective.

AND OH YEAH, the only reason I didn't rant about how stupid the word "Asperger's" sounds is because throwing "High-Functioning Autism" seems like an even easier way to twist minds with unnecessary stigma. Personally, I much prefer the latter diagnostic category. The DSM-5 is going to combine "Asperger's" into an overall spectrum of Autism severity anyway, so imho it's a matter of personal preference at this point.

tl;dr

that's Autastic

I always forget that Majic is right around the corner.

We should have an Oddtour, just the two of us.

I got diagnosed as asburgers (not a self diagnostic) but the only affects I seem to have are slightly improved math skills, lack of some common sense, and practically no social skills. (typing on a computor is very different to talking to someone face to face

Meanwhile I have avoidant personality disorder and co-dependency disorder, diagnosed by an actual psychologist.

How cool is that shit.

same here!But I haven't been diagnosed...

And yet you're still awful at it.

The spectrum of disorders/syndromes/conditions/whatever-you-want-to-call-them that deal heavily with social interactions are really fun stuff... there's so many facets of the human personality that affect our interpersonal relationships you could spend an eternity or two just studying such scenarios. Granted, differential diagnoses make the area get kind of murky, but that's the fun part! You can just keep on learning more and more about the human mind on an indefinite level. No matter what behavioral patterns are shared, we all still develop on a unique individual basis, and there's always something new to learn from each person's experience.

What I find so fascinating about Autism in particular are the myriad of symptoms from a wonky range of shit, that all converge in a recognizable package. You have a high dependence on routine and ritual for emotional comfort, crazy intense pattern-based learning processes, social awkwardness (and subsequent isolation) from an excessively personal locus of self-concept, really weird hyper/hypo sensoral sensitivity, and a wicked awesome ability to super-learn every waking detail of irrationally picked interests with extreme ease. It pulls select attributes from most of the main diagnoses out there... anxiety disorders, ADHD, OCD, Bi/unipolarity, and (in my pseudo-humble opinion) Addiction. Of course, it's a legitimate critique that these are attributes shared by all people at some point or another; the difference is that the autistic personality more or less perpetually exhibits a simultaneous embodiment of all of such characteristics. Then you throw in the variability of linguistic/other communicative capacities, and you end up with a bajillion different versions of the exact same tendencies. Literally, when you read the posts in Autism online communities, there's a hilarious similarity of pacing, vocabulary choice, and attitude; from a personal standpoint, there's way more sense of personal deja vu than I've ever felt before, and all from wildly varying range of demographics.

Wings of Fire, it's always fun to hear what professional diagnosticians have to say about you, but remember that they can never know you as well as you know yourself. When I referred to them as parrots, I meant it as insultingly as possible; I much prefer the rehabilitation ability-continuum of observing people much moreso than the this-or-that medical model approach that's so regrettably pervasive in token psychiatry. Rehabilitation embraces an emphasis of treating people on an intensely individualistic basis, instead of just trying to lump characteristics together to form bullshit quantifiable population statistics. There's a definite over/misdiagnoses of Autism at large, courtesy of the overlapping similarities with a lot of differential diagnoses, and a pretty poor conception of the state of mind amongst those outside of the ASD realm of study (and even then, the predominance of effort to diagnose and treat children disregards what I consider to be the *really* cool part: studying how autistic individuals adapt to fill self-determined roles via their own unique talents). I'm actually quite curious to know how you feel about someone else labeling you as having an avoidant and co-dependent personality :)

I have a brother who has autism and I have a brother who has Aspergers. Very different things indeed. They both behave so differently

I think I have asbergers. I see a phychologist for Social Anxiety. I'm in the early stages of the process at the moment, but if it all fails, then they've said maybe I should be tested for it. It's difficult for me to understand whether I suck socially becuase of my anxiety when with other people or because my mind is just built to be shit at it :/...

Some of you saying that you have asburgers seem suprisingly good with words. I'm usaully lost for words.. so.. can someone explain the relation of language to asburgers? Coz I've always thought that someone with the condition would have trouble finding the right words when communicating..

EDIT: I'm poor at language but good with Maths and Science (and Art when I'm not depressed)
EDIT2: I can't be that bad at language since I got an A for it in GCSE.. I guess it's just making small talk with people..

are you guys serious? the chances that all of you have asperger's syndrom are very little. where does this temporary fashion come from? it sounds to me that you're looking for a cheap excuse for your social incompetences.
also there's no way an asperger listens to dubstep

I guess it became cool?

And I also doubt that any of you really have it. I've seen people who actually have the condition; on the internet too. Their sentences don't make any damn sense, even less than your lot's.

It's a spectrum. People range from being completely "normal" to "highly" autistic by way of every point in between.

I was diagnosed with Dependant Personality Disorder. Am I cool yet?