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About me

Before 2006, I had no idea that a condition called Aspergers even existed but when my eldest son, then 6 was diagnosed with it I was suddenly thrown into the learning cycle. The more I learned about it, the more it seemed to apply to me rather than to my son.

Eventually, after some not-so-subtle hints from my son's teachers, we talked to a psychologist about the suspicion that I might be "aspie" and he confirmed our suspicions. This discovery triggered an ongoing review of my life in the light of this new data and I started this blog as a means of firstly reaching out to others with similar experiences and secondly exploring and promoting the positive side of Asperger's.

A couple of years later, my youngest son was diagnosed with high functioning autism. In my quest to find the difference between my two sons, I discovered that apart from a language delay, which can be overcome by speech therapy, they're clinically identical. It's something that has led psychologists to abandon the Aspergers label in favour of the all-encompassing "autism spectrum" one.

These days I write about autism but I've kept the title, "Life with Asperger's" because it more accurately describes a certain level of functionality within the autism spectrum and I feel that my experience and knowledge doesn't adequately cover the lower end of the spectrum.

About this Blog

The goal for this blog is to describe what it is like living with Asperger's Syndrome and to focus on the positive aspects of the condition rather than the negative. This blog is personal, non-medical, (reasonably) non-technical and not affiliated with any religious or other organisations. The overall aim of this blog is to increase the amount of first-hand knowledge about Asperger's syndrome and to encourage other to accept and embrace it within themselves and others.

Privacy Policy

Life With Aspergers (LWA) does not collect personal information for any purposes but is connected to services, such as Google Blogger, Facebook and Twitter which do. Information that you provide such as your name and email address is only used for authentication and where you have requested it, notifications of new posts or new comments. Under no circumstances will your data be passed on to other agencies.  You may unsubscribe from the LWA components of these services at any time.

Contacting me

I'm always happy to talk to people in similar situations or who have an interest in Aspergers and/or Autism.

You can contact me via my contact form

or directly by email using;
gavin dot bollard at gmail dot com.
(I've not provided a direct link to reduce spam but you should be able to work it out).

Popular posts from this blog

Why do Aspies Suddenly Back Off in Relationships (Part 2)

In part one, we looked at the role that Change Resistance plays in causing aspies to suddenly go "cold" in otherwise good relationships. This time, I want to look at self esteem and depression; Self Esteem The aspie relationship with themselves is tedious at best. People with Asperger's commonly suffer from low self esteem. As discussed in earlier posts, this low self esteem often results from years of emotional turmoil resulting from their poor social skills. Aspies are often their own worst enemy. They can over analyze situations and responses in an effort to capture lost nonverbal communication. This often causes them to invent problems and to imagine replies. Everything made up by aspies will tend to be tainted with their own self image. This is one of reasons that people with Asperger's will sometimes decide that they are not good enough for their partner and that they must let them go. Sometimes, the aspie will develop a notion of chivalry or self-sacrific...
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Aspie Myths - "He Won't Miss Me"

I apologise for the excessive "male-orientated" viewpoint in this post. I tried to keep it neutral but somehow, it just works better when explained from a male viewpoint. Here's a phrase that I've seen repeated throughout the comments on this blog on several occasions; "I know that he won't miss me when I'm gone because he's aspie" Today, we're going to (try to) bust that myth; Individuals I'll start off with a reminder that everyone is an individual. If all aspies were completely alike and predictible, they'd be a stereotype but they're not. Each is shaped by their background, their upbringing, their beliefs and their local customs. An aspie who grew up with loud abusive parents has a reasonable chance of becoming loud and abusive themselves because in some cases, that's all they know. That's how they think adults are supposed to behave. In other cases, aspies who grew up in those circumstances do a complete about-fa...
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Why Do Aspies Suddenly Back-Off in Relationships? (Part 1)

One of the most frequent questions I'm asked is why an aspie (or suspected aspie) suddenly goes "cold" and backs off on an otherwise good relationship. It's a difficult question and the answers would vary considerably from one person to another and would depend greatly on the circumstances. Nevertheless, I'll try to point out some possibilities. Negative Reasons I generally like to stay positive on this blog and assume that people are not necessarily "evil" but simply misguided. Unfortunately, I do have to acknowledge that there are some people out there who take advantage of others. I read a book a few years ago on "sociopaths in the workplace" and I was stunned by the figures. They suggested that sociopaths were so common that most workplaces (small business) had at least one or two. The fact is that there are lots of people out there who really feel very little for others and who are very manipulative. I'd like to say that aspies aren...
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