Life with Aspergers

Masking in terms of autism and Asperger's syndrome is a way of hiding your true self from others as a means of fitting in and avoiding harm. It can best be summed up as "pretending to be normal". In this post, I want to talk about some of the ways that we mask, why it is necessary sometimes and why ultimately you need to minimize masking in your life. How do we mask? It's often said that people with Asperger's syndrome are great actors because they spend so much of their lives pretending to be someone that they are not.  Masking is a very normal activity and everyone masks in some form or other. The teen who loves classical music but listens to rock in front of their school friends is masking their musical taste. The guy who eats all his vegetables at his girlfriends place but never at home is masking for her parents, so that they will like him more. We mask whenever we put on clothing that is not us, wear makeup that we don't like or put effort into making ou...

I was reading an article a few weeks back on the psychological reasons why some marriages last the distance when so many others fail.  It was a brilliant article and it suggested that there were two key traits that successful married couples display; 1. Both partners stay cool calm and collected during conversations 2. Both partners respond to their partner's bids for emotional connection I was thinking about how good this advice was for couples in Asperger's relationships when I suddenly realised that those traits need to operate on a wider scale than simply relationships. These are key traits that affect our interactions with everyone on a day-to-day basis.  Marriage Failures The statistics tell an alarming story on the increasing number of failing marriages. These days, we don't seem to have enough time to even listen to each other properly, let alone work on relationship building. In terms of global statistics, couples in Rome are most likely to stay to...

I've been reading and writing blogs on Asperger's syndrome since 2007. Over the years many of the blogs I was following have closed down and disappeared. Others have experienced a decline in posts until finally they fall silent.  Of course, I still have my feelers (RSS feed reader) out there and every now and then one of those blogs reactivates, though usually only for a lone post or two. The Post This happened earlier this week. The blog in question is from a neurotypical ( normal ) lady married to a man with Asperger's. The blog is mostly one-sided and often contains an angry rant. The relationship doesn't seem to be a happy one and clearly the author is not getting the respect that she needs from the relationship. To her credit, she has such high morals and is so devoted to her religion, that she won't leave, she simply struggles and endures (and complains). Her recent post was about how, as soon as they stopped marriage counselling, things went rig...

"Who did you play with at school today?" Mother asks to which the the answer is a mumbled, "Nobody..." It's one of the most common problems faced by children with Asperger's syndrome and their parents. Making friends is not easy - keeping friends is even harder. Back in November, I blogged about my own experience growing up and making friends but this time I want to offer some tips and advice for parents of children who are struggling with the whole friendship thing. Getting Help Recognizing Friends The idea of friend-making relies on a number of steps which are not necessarily instinctive in children with Asperger's syndrome. The first step of friendship is recognition, a step which contains two parts; facial recognition and name recognition. Usually the former comes naturally although some children have "face blindness" and some have recognition difficulties when others change their hairstyle or other aspects of appearance. There we...

When I was four, my parents got me a border collie cross something (Labrador, I think). It was an inspired decision. Spot became my "everywhere friend" and we had lots of adventures together. In fact, we became inseparable for the next eighteen years. In the course of those eighteen years, Spot was a comfort, a companion, a friend that I could talk to and a playmate. He acted for my protection against bullies and managed to chase off a few snakes too.  There is no doubt in my mind that my life was much better because of spot. My next article over at Special-ism all about pets, big and small. Perhaps your special needs child is asking for a pet and you're putting it off because you're not sure whether it would be a good idea? Did you know that there are service dogs for people with autism? Do you want to know what they do? Head over to Special-ism to have a read; From Fish to Dogs – Selecting a Therapeutic Pet http://special-ism.com/from-fish-to-dogs-th...

It’s taken me most of my adult life to really understand friendship. Even then, I don’t feel like I really understand more than the most basic of concepts. I'm sure it’s easy for other people but for me, the lines between friend, acquaintance, user and colleague are all very blurred and I often can’t tell one from the other.  In my early years, long before I understood what Asperger’s syndrome was, I used to think that my problems making friends were all down to my hearing loss. After all, I reasoned, If I couldn't hear people well enough to converse easily, then obviously my friend-making and friend-keeping skills would suffer.  This would have been a great theory if I hadn't lived next door to a very popular boy with a much worse hearing issue than I had. For the first ten years of my life, that boy next door was my only friend - except of course, for my dog. When he was on holidays, and that was quite often, I would simply play by myself.  I used to be a little jealous...

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...

I've just come back from a scout leader "training-conference" for special needs scouting and I'm inspired by their acceptance, preparedness and amazing teaching methods. I'll talk more about the conference itself in a later post but right now I want to talk specifically about why Scouting is such a good choice of activity for children with aspergers and the other higher functioning forms of autism. Most of what I cover here is also applicable to children with ADHD. Fallback Friends One of the main reasons for getting your children into after school activities is to help them establish "fallback friendships". This is particularly important for children who are isolated for various reasons or who have poor social skills. Unfortunately as parents of children with ASDs, we have to accept that there will be times when our child feels that their entire school hates them. This quite often results from a massive social blunder which travels from class to class ...

Note: I've changed the post titles in this series from a statement to a question because I think it will promote more discussion.   Continuing from the last post debunking some of the myths of bad parenting due to Aspergers.  The Anti-Social Parent   Since the majority of diagnosed aspies tend to be male, this is generally less of an issue because men in general are usually less social than women and because men are less often expected to attend social functions for schools etc.   Furthermore, I personally feel less than qualified to address this question because although I'm often quiet and reserved (and very uncomfortable at social gatherings), my social issues tend to affect me less than many of my fellow aspies.   As such, my comments here relate to "strained" attendance at functions, rather than the non-attendance which often applies. Children's schools, sports and other activities have a way of gathering parents together in various social ways....

I joined a newAspergers forum recently and decided to write an introduction - It's rare that I bother introducing myself in forums. Usually, I just jump right in and start asking/answering questions. Since I've not really done a proper introduction here, I figured it's probably a good topic for the next few posts. I grew up in Australia in the seventies when Aspergers wasn't really a well known condition. Fortunately, I also had a hearing problem, I lost most of my hearing in both ears as part of an out of control ear infection aged about two. I say "fortunately" here because it was my hearing loss which enabled me to cope almost invisibly with the, then mostly unknown, symptoms of Aspergers. If any photo screams out "Ear Infection", then I suppose it would be this one. Here, I'm on a tricycle with my older sister in our backyard. Strangely, my next door neighbour was the same age and also deaf, though his deafness was considerably worse tha...

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay This post is quite a long and rambling one... my apologies. I haven't been the most supportive husband of late due mainly to two separate incidents, both of which are worth blogging about. I'll cover one incident in this post and hopefully by the time I do my next post, I'll have my head around the second. Talk is Difficult If you read most articles which cover aspie diagnostic criteria, you'll find mention of the difficulties of smalltalk. You could be forgiven for thinking that this means that aspies are hopeless at discussing off-topic things like the weather (except for the surprisingly large number for whom this is a special interest). You might also assume that aspies would be fine when talking on the job or about their special interests. That a computer aspie like myself could talk to lots of people for hours about computers - so long as nobody mentions "the weather". Similarly, you could assume that discussions with ...

This topic was suggested in a recent comment and I figured it was something I haven't covered properly in the past - so here goes... Defining Social Anxiety Social Anxiety isn't something that only affects people with aspergers, it affects people with all kinds of mental conditions as well as those with physical issues, weight issues and other differences that mentally or physically distinguish them from the general populace. The distinction may not necessarily be a real one but could, and often does, only exist in the subject's mind. Social Anxiety is so great an issue, that it's considered to be the third largest psychological problem in the world today. Social anxiety isn't limited to difficulty meeting people in face to face conversation but also includes; Telephone Conversations Social Occasions Simply Going Outdoors in Public Places Being Watched Recording (video and photo Cameras, Microphones etc) Instant Messaging, Chats, Facebook and other Web 2.0 Systems...

It seems that aspie children are well aware of their differences from an early age and that at the very least, this has significant impact on their ability to make and retain lasting friendships. So far however, the long term negative impact has been minimal but during the teenage years, this will begin to change. When I first started at my new "secondary school", quite a large number of my primary school classmates came with me. Unfortunately, since my only friends by that stage were girls and since I was starting at a (then) all boys school, I started off with a lot of familiar names and faces but no friends. The Comedy Act My earliest forays with my classmates were in the form of comedy routines. I had no fear of acting stupid in front of others (aspie naievity) and I would be constantly harrased to perform my "invisible flea circus" act for others. I did this instead of conversation and I quickly earned a reputation for being weird. My new classmates had quickly...