Life with Aspergers

Taking ownership of problems is something that is important in every relationship but it's especially important in a  relationship  where one or more partners have Autism Spectrum Disorders, including Asperger's syndrome. This is because partners with ASDs have low tolerances for specific things, such as certain smells, sounds, events or arrangements. At the same time, people with ASDs are often the loudest or most disturbing people in a room due to their stimming behaviours or misunderstanding of social "norms". In this post, aimed at all parts of the relationship (neurotypical, ASD, male and female) I want to provide a tips on ownership which may make the "road" less bumpy What is meant by "Ownership"? So often, arguments in relationships include the words;  "You made me do ...."   or "You made me feel....". It's not true though, unless your partner is a mad scientist with access to your brain, a magician, a hypno

Earlier this week in Sydney, our police fatally shot a woman who was wielding a knife . It later transpired that she had Asperger's syndrome. I didn't comment on it at the time as I was quite busy at work -- and I was also awaiting the backlash of comments to the effect that;  "the police could have shot her in the leg or tasered or tackled her rather than shooting to kill, therefore ALL police are bad" or  "all people with Asperger's syndrome can become knife wielding maniacs" To my surprise and delight, those responses weren't forthcoming.   Instead our media mainly discussed the difficulties that police face in situations like this and the problems that people with Asperger's syndrome have when it comes to understanding police direction. It was a very mature response from our media. I'm not going to go over things here because I didn't know Courtney, suffice to say that my heart goes out to  Courtney Topic's family .

This is a re-post of an article from September 2010 for "SOS Research Blog" which was on a site which no longer exists. The SOS project eventually became Special-Ism  which is a site maintained by a group of bloggers to provide insights into support for children with special needs. This post has been lightly edited from the original content. You can also download a free eBook (Volume 1 of my collected posts), from Google Books or directly in ePub , PDF or mobi Formats.  - Gavin Bollard January 2015. This post is part of the series titled “When One Door Closes, Another Door Opens,” where people reveal how their paths have changed since a child with special needs has entered their lives. ~Danette Schott (SOS Research Blog) We all have closed doors. I grew up being told by supportive grandparents that I’d be something special someday. They bandied around with ridiculous job titles such as “Prime Minister” even though I've never shown any interest in politics. G

Please note: Under the DSM V, the concept of Asperger’s syndrome no longer exists. It is now simply referred to as Autism. Throughout this post, I use the word "Asperger's" because it's more frequently associated with the word "mild" but my comments here apply equally to both Asperger’s syndrome and autism.  You see it all the time on web forums,  things are going smoothly until a parent somewhere pipes up with the phrase, "I have a son who is mildly Asperger's. ..." and from there on, the group dissolves into two factions. One is continuing to remain loyal to the original purpose of the group, providing support and advice while the other is offended and is either busily discussing the semantics of the word "mildly" or tearing strips off the poor person who used the turn of phrase. It's also a turn of phrase that some people on the spectrum use to refer to themselves although this is much less  common.  What is "mild Asp