Life with Aspergers

Following on from Part One , I'm giving a potted outline of my life with particular relvance to aspergers. Sadly, since I can't directly refer to aspergers in them, I'm leaving out many of my more exciting and creative adventures; such as the time I built a bomb (aged 11) and nearly wiped out myself and my neighbour, being hit by a motorbike and some interesting adventures with Sharks... I didn't drop those hints simply to whet your appetite. I wanted to point out that a child's life can be quite dangerous and an aspie's even more so. Often we take more reckless risks, are alone (and unsupervised). We also tend to be be resourceful enough to get ourselves into a lot of trouble. Moving My life changed aged about twelve when I changed schools and my parents moved house. I started secondary school with a bunch of boys from my previous school but by the end of the year, I'd lost all my friends - and my faith in humanity. The reasons for this are already do...

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...

Disclaimer: Since, after re-reading it, I felt that the stance I've taken in this post was a bit strong, I just want to make the point that I'm not blaming either party in a relationship but am simply presenting a one-sided argument to counter the many already strong and equally one-sided opposing arguments out there.   It's a pretty common thing, particularly on discussion boards of ex-wives of aspies, to see lack of empathy cited as a major issue. In fact, many such posts treat this lack of empathy as the primary cause of marital failure, totally ignoring other factors which lead to break-up. In this post, I'm going to ignore the traditional views in order to try to look at things from the other side.  The Scenario   It's been a difficult year for us so far. We thought that things were difficult last year when my son's middle-aged tutor unexpectedly drowned in her own pool in a "freak accident" on new year's day. Well, this year, it got worse...

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 ...

A Quick Recap   Thus far, we've looked at the effects of an Asperger's (or autism) diagnosis on parents (of younger children) and on the Aspies themselves . In this post I want to look at how other family members, colleagues, teachers and friends react.  Siblings   At young ages, there is little reaction from siblings towards the diagnosis and its effects. Any young sibling reaction tends to be directed towards the perceived "differences", not the label.  This begins to change as the affected child grows older and gets more "special treatment". Its common for mothers to "baby" their aspergers children and this can cause resentment with siblings.  If a diagnosis is revealed to a sibling at adulthood, the result is often denial and dismissal. This is similar, though often stronger than the similar reactions expressed by parents when their adult children receive a label.  Older siblings often consider the label an attempt to "get more attent...

In part one of this series, we looked at how parents react when their children are labelled. In part two, we look at how the person being labelled reacts and discuss the best times for disclosure.  The Age Differential Most people with Aspergers seem to be "born with a knowledge of their difference", though in truth this awareness develops over time, mostly during their primary school years. The age at which the label of Asperger's or autism is used to describe these differences seems to have significant impact upon the way in which they are received by the person with the label. Of course, there are other factors too, particularly the way in which others receive the news. The Very Young As you would expect, telling an "under 8" year old child that they have Asperger's Syndrome or autism is pretty similar to telling them that they are wearing a blue cardigan or that they were born in Australia. Their reaction is pretty minimal. Of course, the fact that...

The BBC has a really interesting test on its web site at the moment. It's all about whether or not people can spot fake smiles versus real ones. I figured that since it's part of the diagnostic criteria for aspergers that we have problems reading non-verbal cues, it would provide some insightful results. Real versus Fake Smile Test http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/humanbody/mind/surveys/smiles/index.shtml The test shows you 20 videos of people smiling either real or fake smiles. You can't replay the smiles until you've finished voting but you can spend as long as you like thinking about them before you choose your answer. I expected to do badly but in fact, I did really well. I got 19 out of 20 correct. You'll need a flash enabled browser/computer to do the test. My Secret (Don't read this until you've done the test yourself) At the end of the test, it asks you to indicate what clued you in. In my case it was not the smiles at all. It was other head movemen...