Life with Aspergers

It's been a busy year for me on several fronts; At home, we've moved into our new house and it's taken quite a bit of work to make it "home". I've been able to observe my kids accepting their new environment and in some cases, I've seen frustrations emerge as either meltdowns or destructive behaviour. They have improved though. I'm not sure how much of that improvement is due to their self-control and how much is due to changes in our parenting methods. At work, I've mostly been busy on the second year of a six-month project (that's right, it's behind schedule) but I've been slowly making the journey from "super-tech" to project manager without training. I'm just learning from my mistakes (of which there is no shortage). I've also learned a lot about time management and this year is particularly special because it's the first year that I've maintained a corporate calendar for the entire year - normally they st

I've been asked on a few occasions to do a post on dreams and dreaming, so this is it. It's not an area I'm particularly familiar with because I've never really considered that dreaming may be different for aspies. I guess that any responses to this post will help us to find out. Remembering Dreams Some time ago, I did an unstructured and impromptu survey to find out whether aspies tend to remember or forget their dreams. I got a total of 52 responses which were allocated as follows; I Don't think that I Dream 1% [ 1 ] I Usually Remember my Dreams 44% [ 23 ] I know I've had a Dream but lose the details when I wake up 28% [ 15 ] I Can Remember my Dream for about 2 hours after Waking - then it disappears 25% [ 13] I've always had fairly vivid dreams and surprisingly, I've remembered quite a few of them. My childhood dreams are still clear as crystal, it's my adult dreams that I don't remember as well. Night Terrors and Nightmares As

I'd like to draw your attention to this (currently untitled) article which is on one of the blogs I read; The article can be found here http://inlovewithaspergers.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-husband-has-this-phrase-he-uses-to.html Living and loving Asperger's Man I'm not quite sure if there's a problem with that site but at the moment as it's not accepting comments (I'm sure there would be plenty otherwise). I guess that's one of the main reasons I'm referring to the article here. It's crying out for comments. My Thoughts... These articles really move me. They're one of the main reasons behind the "emotionless" or "empathy-less" aspie myth. A quick "aside"... I know that aspergers isn't gender specific and that despite the significantly higher incidence of diagnosed male aspies compared to female, the number isn't to be trusted. Aspergers presents quite differently in females compared to males and although it

It's funny but you read quite a bit on the internet and in books about how " aspies cannot lie ". As discussed in a previous post, that's simply not true. People on the spectrum can tell lies - it's just that lies don't come naturally to us. We tend to be truthful, even when the truth hurts - and we assume that others will be truthful to us. We automatically assume that people are telling us the truth without question. That's one of the reasons we seem so naive. It's also the reason that "is it really?" becomes something of a catchphrase for many people on the spectrum. When you read about "brutal truths" and relationships, the books always seem to use the example question, "does this dress make me look fat?". This is very misleading because most people do know how to "lie" for this question - If that was the level at which brutal truth operated, we could all live quite happily with it. Photo by Taylor Smith

The main crisis of faith I had when diagnosed with aspergers related to my own sense of individuality. Sure, I was happy to be part of a group of like-minded individuals but I was concerened that many of my "unique traits" were no longer unique. I'd accepted myself as someone who wasn't good a things like social, sports and general "blokey" things on the basis that I was unique. I was an individual who could be at times funny, weird, intellectual and astonishing but now I'd found a group of people who were bad at the same sorts of things as I but who excelled in the same quirkyness as me. It had stopped being "me" and became a question of genetics. I no longer felt special. Differences amongst Aspies I've taken comfort over the years since then in the fact that we are in fact, not all alike. We each have our own sets of traits and we each have our own personalities. It has taken a long time for me to re-accept myself and to see those