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is this aspergers, and what prospects relationally?

dms1972

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Thanks as it seems there are degrees of the condition I am not sure were I would be, or even if it helps to know. I did and sometimes still do have a problem with figuring out peoples intentions occasionally, or knowing what people want. For instance if someone asks "can you help us?" I would be hesitant. It seems to me at times people just can't get to the point, or else they had nothing much to say to start with, or don't know what they want to ask.

There are times when it is not possible to 'help', and it's not defiance, or rebelliousness.
 
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hedrick

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I am not, at least officially, an Aspie. However I know several, through both church and work. The adults that I know are married. The kids are at too early a stage, but I'm guessing at least some of them will be.

The most seriously affected of the kids had problems figuring out what was going on with others, as you report. However he got treatment. As I understand it (not having had it myself), treatment is pretty much education and training. There's no drug that's going to make you understand how to work with other people. It really helped with him. In 8th grade Sunday School I had to have a high school kid pretty much permanently watching him, and several times I had to explain things to him, the other kids, or both. By the end of high school he interacted with others just fine. I'm pretty sure the condition didn't go away. He had just learned how to read people.

Even through the time when he was the most seriously affected he had at least one really close friendship.
 
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dms1972

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I don't know, since it is a syndrome, not an identity, I don't see any point in labeling myself - 'aspie' or anything else, if I am in fact a christian. I wonder if psychological labeling inhibits the grace and power of God in a persons life?

In christian marriage a man and woman ask for and receive the grace of God. This would surely be an incommensurable help to both and enable greater understanding, is my thinking.

I tend to think my main difficulty is with depression, and some dissociative aspects connected with that perhaps.
 
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hedrick

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My apologies. I used the term. I didn't intend any kind of major labeling. I used it as an abbreviation for person with Asperger's. Many of the participants here use it.

Labels can be useful, because it identifies a group of people for whom we know certain things that can help them. But that doesn't mean that everyone around you needs to think of you that way. There's no particular reason that others need to know, or even would be interested in knowing, unless you find it helpful.

I know people who have Asperger's because they identify themselves, or their parents do (though much of the time I've already guessed it). Those that I know don't go around talking about themselves as Aspies all the time. In both cases the adults mentioned in in the course of conversations about their kids having been identified. For one of them, I wouldn't have recognized the adult on my own. For the other it was helpful, because he has at times said things that I would have considered pretty rude. But knowing what I do about him, I realize he was just being honest, and that's perfectly OK.

Similarly, for most of the kids it really doesn't matter, and I doubt most people around them know or would care. For one it was really useful, because he needed to be treated specially. Not a problem. He was (and is) a really nice guy. But now and then he'd get inappropriate reactions from other kids who didn't know how to read him (or that he didn't read correctly). It worked really well to say "you noticed that X was about to get into a fist fight with you, right? Here's what you said, and why he interpreted it the way he did. Please do this instead." He was pretty good about accepting that kind of guidance.
 
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BryanMaloney

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People reading this don't know me obviously, but I wanted to ask a question.
Is it possible for someone with Aspergers to maintain a serious relationship, or even marriage?

Yup! Indeed, there's something remarkably attractive about an Aspie man to some women, I've discovered. It's the combination of cognitive brilliance plus great social awkwardness. If you acknowledge the awkwardness, you become "cute". Now, extending that to a long-term relationship is a bigger challenge. Probably explains why I've been divorced and remarried.
 
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BryanMaloney

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I don't know, since it is a syndrome, not an identity, I don't see any point in labeling myself - 'aspie' or anything else, if I am in fact a christian. I wonder if psychological labeling inhibits the grace and power of God in a persons life?

Are you a "man"? Are you an "American"? I'm both of those, and a Christian, and an aspie. I'm also a southpaw, a father, a nerd, and a baritone. Am I an inferior Christian because I also call myself a baritone?
 
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dms1972

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This is a real old thread. I don't really understand what you mean to be honest.

No I wouldn't if I had 'aspergers' - identify or define myself with a condition or syndrome, as its not my true self as a christian - faith in Christ is what defines me. The shorthand "aspie" is really not a good way to think, even in any condition. For instance with depression, its really in many cases a lowering of ones mental / emotional tone. There would be no point if I wanted to experience a substantial recovery calling myself a "depressive" - as it was not something I always had, and not something I will always be experiencing.
 
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BryanMaloney

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This is a real old thread. I don't really understand what you mean to be honest.

No I wouldn't if a had 'aspergers' - identify or define myself with a condition or syndrome, as its not my true self as a christian - faith in Christ is what defines me. The shorthand "aspie" is really not a good way to think, even in any condition. For instance with depression, its really in many cases a lowering of ones mental / emotional tone. There would be no point if I wanted to experience a substantial recovery calling myself a "depressive" - as it was not something I always had, and not something I will always be experiencing.

That's because you see me as a diseased thing and the wiring of my nervous system as a flaw--something to shame me. I ACTUALLY LIVE WITH IT! And I see it as no more than saying "I am a baritone." But I'm just an aspie, a broken, diseased thing, so my perspective doesn't matter, right? The perspective of someone who is not merely idly speculating FROM THE OUTSIDE is meaningless, right?
 
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dms1972

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Thanks for commenting on the thread I started, its an old one so I won't be replying much.

I didn't understand what you wrote that was all.

No baritone doesn't make anyone less of a christian or nor does aspergers syndrome. I don't see the connection in any case.

But you don't understand my difficulties either presumably being on the outside. Or how having it suggested I might be on this Autism - Aspergers Spectrum with no idea when that could be confirmed because so many people want checked out by mental health merely for feeling their clothing tags a bit scratchy, or not liking balloons bursting, or reading something someone described on the Internet.

So no I don't see people claiming to be Aspie as diseased.

Im a bit awkward socially, and have spoken to a qualified psychiatrist about it and they don't know for sure. I had a severe head impact from a fall when I was about ten years old, once from a loss of balance, and once from being pushed over someones back - the incident was when someone crouched behind me, and another pushed me unawares and I went over their back and the back of my head hit compacted ground first!


But I can't hang a label on it - does that make me a worse christian. ?
 
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BryanMaloney

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First, Asperger's (actually, Asperger's is an obsolete category, it's now "Autism Spectrum") is not a mental health issue AT ALL. It is 100% neurological. Anyone who tells you it is "mental health" has no understanding of it. That being said, mental health professionals can be very helpful at dealing with living in a non-Spectrum world, like they can be helpful to non-Spectrum people dealing with their own difficulties that aren't Spectrum-related. Now, currently, all diagnosis of Autism Spectrum are done on a behavioral basis, but that's because the behavior reflects the nervous system structure.

However, Autism Spectrum is not a mental illness. It's a neurological state. If it's extreme enough, then it can pose severe problems. If met with uncharitability and judgmentalism, it's the uncharitability and judgmentalism that actually cause the problems. As I've said many times over the years, I do not suffer from Asperger's syndrome. I suffer from how people treat me because my brain doesn't function like theirs.
 
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Hi, I'm an Aspie, and I'm married to one, and we're still married after over 30 years. We've had our ups and downs, and if we'd both understood the issues earlier we'd have trodden on each other's emotional toes less often, but we're together, and we're happy!
 
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...actually, Asperger's is an obsolete category, it's now "Autism Spectrum..."
In contemporary [read: DSM-V] terms, Asperger's remains a colloquialism for violet autism, that is, autism with no cognitive deficits. Kanner's (or classic autism) remains a colloquialism for red autism; autism with profound cognitive deficits. By definition, colloquialisms are not formal, but they are more descriptive/specific, like red and violet are more specific than "rainbow."

The DSM-V didn't eradicate these distinctions. It only consolidated them (to a single entry of diagnoses).

Dr. Lorna Wing* said:
...Yet while welcoming the growing acceptance that those with autism may have much to contribute to society, Wing worries that this may detract from the needs of those at the lower end of the spectrum. She says: "Youngsters with Asperger's syndrome are speaking up for themselves. Many see it as a difference not a disability, but that is a good and bad thing. For those with classic autism – like my Susie – it certainly is a disability."
*Dr. Wing was the one who proposed that it was a spectrum in the first place.
 
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BryanMaloney

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In contemporary [read: DSM-V] terms, Asperger's remains a colloquialism for violet autism, that is, autism with no cognitive deficits. Kanner's (or classic autism) remains a colloquialism for red autism; autism with profound cognitive deficits. By definition, colloquialisms are not formal, but they are more descriptive/specific, like red and violet are more specific than "rainbow."

The DSM-V didn't eradicate these distinctions. It only consolidated them (to a single entry of diagnoses).


*Dr. Wing was the one who proposed that it was a spectrum in the first place.

There is no such thing as "violet autism" except in the minds of la-la-la-la-la-loopy sorts who put as much stock in pop-psych crap as in real neuroscience. This "violet autism" does not exist. "Asperger's" DOES NOT EXIST as a "colloquialism" or anything else in the DSM-V. Point out where it is mentioned in the DSM-V. Likewise, "red autism" DOES NOT EXIST. It's another bit of made-up crap from people who have no actual experience as neuroscientists. I live in the real world, like most of us on the spectrum do. This "red" and "violet" crap is okay for lalalalalalalalalalalalloooooooopy sorts, of course.
 
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There is no such thing as "violet autism..."
This "violet autism" does not exist...
Likewise, "red autism" DOES NOT EXIST...
If that were true, then autism could not be considered a spectrum. (The colors, obviously, are being used as analogies.)

Even our perception of the rainbow is an anthropocentric interpretation due to the construction of our eyes, but it is a shared perception.
 
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