What is your relation to autism/aspergers?

[midnightbirdgirl]

I'm sorry, every site I went to listed aspergers in the same "catagory" as autism. I know that aspergers isn't the "same" as autism, but both are in the "same" catagory as of early 2005. Out of thousands, not ONE website said that aspergers was in another category. Every website put autism and aspergers in the same category. I will not debate this further.

AS is a PERVASIVE DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDER or PDD just like Autism. Some people are High Function Autism or PDD/NOS which often comes under the heading of AS. Go to the Barb Kirby Asperger's OASIS site it
may help sort it out for you a bit.

MBG

 

[Zacharias]

AS is a PERVASIVE DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDER or PDD just like Autism. Some people are High Function Autism or PDD/NOS which often comes under the heading of AS. Go to the Barb Kirby Asperger's OASIS site it
may help sort it out for you a bit.

MBG

Sometimes PDD is called the "Autism Spectrum Disorder".

 

[midnightbirdgirl]

Sometimes PDD is called the "Autism Spectrum Disorder".

True, that is why we mom's say our kids are "on the spectrum"
MBG

 

[hippie4jesus]

My brother has Asperger's. He is 47.

 

[ace85]

I have aspergers, and I'm deeply depressed about it.

 

[midnightbirdgirl]

I have aspergers, and I'm deeply depressed about it.

Ace why are you depressed about it. Are you taking any meds?

MBG

 

[ace85]

I'm depressed because more than anything in the world, I want to be normal. I'm sick of struggling just to make friends and keep relationships going, and I'm tired of being laughed at and abused by others for being different. I hate being alone, but because of my disease I don't have a choice. I'm tired of being weird, strange, different, disabled, special, I just want to be like everybody else and that's not gonna happen. Looking at the future it's even worse. I've been told that most autistics and aspies can't do normal things like hold down a job or get married or have kids. Some can't even live on their own. I wonder why did God make me this way, and will I ever have a chance to be normal? I'm not suicidal, but sometimes I think I would be better off dead.

And no, I'm not taking any meds. I can't take mind-altering drugs because it's against the FAA rules (I'm a private pilot and I don't want to quit flying) and when I took meds when I was a kid it had a lot of bad side effects. Meds can't take away the disease, so why bother?

 

[midnightbirdgirl]

I'm depressed because more than anything in the world, I want to be normal. I'm sick of struggling just to make friends and keep relationships going, and I'm tired of being laughed at and abused by others for being different. I hate being alone, but because of my disease I don't have a choice. I'm tired of being weird, strange, different, disabled, special, I just want to be like everybody else and that's not gonna happen. Looking at the future it's even worse. I've been told that most autistics and aspies can't do normal things like hold down a job or get married or have kids. Some can't even live on their own. I wonder why did God make me this way, and will I ever have a chance to be normal? I'm not suicidal, but sometimes I think I would be better off dead.

And no, I'm not taking any meds. I can't take mind-altering drugs because it's against the FAA rules (I'm a private pilot and I don't want to quit flying) and when I took meds when I was a kid it had a lot of bad side effects. Meds can't take away the disease, so why bother?

Ace, I am not an advovate of meds. Right now my son is not on any. He was only on them when his depression was bad.
But anyway, your a pilot. That is awsome. My husband would love his licence but his vision is too poor.
Can I send you some resources, I have?
It is sooo not true that you cannot have a great future. I know my Dad is AS and he has always been very sucsessful. And he has lots of friends (was not always that way but it can happen).
I believe I too may be undiagnosed AS. I feel I am somewhere on the spectrum.
Just so you know you are not alone and are not doomed here is a list of famous aspies:

Historical famous people


Jane Austen, 1775-1817, English novelist, author of Pride and Prejudice


Ludwig van Beethoven, 1770-1827, German/Viennese composer


Alexander Graham Bell, 1847-1922, Scottish/Canadian/American inventor of the telephone

Anton Bruckner, 1824-1896, Austrian composer


Henry Cavendish, 1731-1810, English/French scientist, discovered the composition of air and water

Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886, US poet


Thomas Edison, 1847-1931, US inventor


Albert Einstein, 1879-1955, German/American theoretical physicist


Henry Ford, 1863-1947, US industrialist


Oliver Heaviside, 1850-1925, English physicist


Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826, US politician


Carl Jung, 1875-1961, Swiss psychoanalyst

Franz Kafka, 1883-1924, Czech writer


Wassily Kandinsky, 1866-1944, Russian/French painter


H P Lovecraft, 1890-1937, US writer


Gustav Mahler, 1860-1911, Czech/Austrian composer


Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 1756-1791, Austrian composer


Isaac Newton, 1642-1727, English mathematician and physicist


Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900, German philosopher

Bertrand Russell, 1872-1970, British logician


George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950, Irish playwright, writer of Pygmalion, critic and Socialist


Richard Strauss, 1864-1949, German composer


Nikola Tesla, 1856-1943, Serbian/American scientist, engineer, inventor of electric motors


Henry Thoreau, 1817-1862, US writer


Alan Turing, 1912-1954, English mathematician, computer scientist and cryptographer


Mark Twain, 1835-1910, US humorist


Vincent Van Gogh, 1853-1890, Dutch painter


Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1889-1951, Viennese/English logician and philosopher


Historical people prominent in the late twentieth century (died after 1975)


Isaac Asimov, 1920-1992, Russian/US writer on science and of science fiction


Hans Asperger, 1906-1980, Austrian paediatric doctor after whom Asperger's Syndrom is named


John Denver, 1943-1997, US musician


Glenn Gould, 1932-1982, Canadian pianist


Jim Henson, 1936-1990, creator of the Muppets, US puppeteer, writer, producer, director, composer


Alfred Hitchcock, 1899-1980, English/American film director


Howard Hughes, 1905-1976, US billionaire


Andy Kaufman, 1949-1984, US comedian, subject of the film Man on the Moon


L S Lowry, 1887-1976, English painter of "matchstick men"


Charles Schulz, 1922-2000, US cartoonist and creator of Peanuts and Charlie Brown


Andy Warhol, 1928-1987, US artist


Contemporary famous people


Woody Allen, 1935-, US comedian, actor, writer, director, producer, jazz clarinettist
Dan Aykroyd 1952-, actor, director



Bob Dylan, 1941-, US singer-songwriter

Bobby Fischer, 1943-, US chess champion

Bill Gates, 1955-, US global monopolist

Al Gore, 1948-, former US Vice President and presidential candidate


David Helfgott, 1947-, Australian pianist, subject of the film Shine


Garrison Keillor, 1942-, US writer, humorist and host of Prairie Home Companion


Kevin Mitnick, 1963-, US "hacker"


John Nash, 1928-, US mathematician (portrayed by Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind)


Craig Nichols, 1977-, Lead singer of the Australian band The Vines

Keith Olbermann, 1959-, US sportscaster


Michael Palin, 1943-, English comedian and presenter


Oliver Sacks, 1933-, UK/US neurologist, author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat


James Taylor, 1948-, US singer/songwriter

Thom Yorke, 1968-, Lead singer in the band Radiohead

Neil Young, 1945-, Canadian singer, song writer, musician​

Be Blessed,
MBG

 

[Multi-Elis]

Goodness, I dissagree with the diagnosisess above. Beetoven for example was simply deaf, and that is why he couldn't comunicate and was so lonely!

Any way, that isn't the point. The point is that ace, you do hold a job down, and you can be independant, and you are smart. I do wish I could educate sociaty, because I think the minute they understand aspergers syndrom, sociaty always behaves better. I mean, once you find out that a person staring at you in a funny way is blind, then you will do your best to get around the handicap without making it seem like a burden, right? I think it will be the same for sociaty when they realize that being an aspie is like seeing everybody with sunglasses on. Am I right? Well, I found that making myself understood, while wearing sunglasses, is the same effort I need to make myself understood correctly by aspies. (Had/have 5 such friends.)
One other thing sociaty needs to understand is that there are a lot of aspies who want relationships with people. (I started a whole thread on this because it was so anoying me, hearing all the scientific people happily afirming in a general way that "autistic people not only have a hard time making friendships, but they don't even want them" when in fact I have experienced the opposite to be true with my "high functioning" friends. Correct me if I am wrong)

It isn't as hopeless as it sounds, though I agree with you it is very painful. Out of my five friends, I knew 2 who because of a loving comunity had a fine social life.

Maybe you could educate the people around you so that they would know how to deal with you in a more natural way. That is what one of my friends did to me, and it really helped me with some of my other friends who were too embarassed to admit anything. It was so helpfull--I mean in one camp everybody was having problems with one of those friends except for me, because I was already educated!!

 

[BohemianChris]

I'm curious where you got that list from.

 

[VeronicasImage]

my 9 year old grandson was diagnosed autistic

 

[Snoofles]

the man i love has a son who's autistic. he's such a blessing! he's such a precious boy!i drove a special needs school bus, and the majority of children i drove were autistic. i absolutely adore each one of these children so much. i loved listening to them talk, sing, or do whatever it is they would do each day. one boy loved to talk about skunks for a while. then it turned to the weather. two of the boys were friends, and they would play everyday on the bus together. it was cute to listen to one of my Mom's cousins was autistic as well. i never had the opportunity to meet him though.

 

[midnightbirdgirl]

I'm curious where you got that list from.

I had it in notebook I will have to look it up gain. I will let you know.
MBG

 

[midnightbirdgirl]

Goodness, I dissagree with the diagnosisess above. Beetoven for example was simply deaf, and that is why he couldn't comunicate and was so lonely!

Obviously since AS was not even a DX untill the 1940's most of the historical figures have to go on what we know wbout them.
If you read Beetoven's bio, you can plainly see there was more than his lack of hearing that was going on there
Making a Clinical DX after the fact is not easy, and yes many of these examples are educated guesses. Since there is no blood test even today for PDD we still only have clinical DX's to go on with the only exception being fragile X disorder.
Be Blessed,
MBG

 

[Crazy Liz]

I have two friends with teenage children who have Asperger's syndrome, and a young adult friend with AS.

 

[kayd1966]

I'm depressed because more than anything in the world, I want to be normal. I'm sick of struggling just to make friends and keep relationships going, and I'm tired of being laughed at and abused by others for being different. I hate being alone, but because of my disease I don't have a choice. I'm tired of being weird, strange, different, disabled, special, I just want to be like everybody else and that's not gonna happen. Looking at the future it's even worse. I've been told that most autistics and aspies can't do normal things like hold down a job or get married or have kids. Some can't even live on their own. I wonder why did God make me this way, and will I ever have a chance to be normal? I'm not suicidal, but sometimes I think I would be better off dead.

And no, I'm not taking any meds. I can't take mind-altering drugs because it's against the FAA rules (I'm a private pilot and I don't want to quit flying) and when I took meds when I was a kid it had a lot of bad side effects. Meds can't take away the disease, so why bother?

Ace85...no one can tell you what you can and cannot accomplish, you are a pilot aren't you?

My husband is on the spectrum, he is very committed, has friends, he also has two Bachelor of Science degrees, one in Biology, & one in chemistry, he has a masters in chemistry and a PhD in Chemical Engineering. He is married with two beautiful children. He used to believe he couldn't do anything either but one day when he was 25 years old, he decided to go to school and see what he could do. He went back and finished high school then contunued on through university. He now has a job that he supports all of us with a company as Techincal Director for Western Canada.

Please don't sell yourself short...I'm sure you have many things going for you...just from reading what you wrote... I see a young man who is a pilot, computer literate, great grammer and writing skills. God made you in HIS image...I truely believe that...just like HE made my husband and my son. And me (I don't have autism but I am Severe Combined ADHD). We are all perfectly made in HIS sight.

I am praying for you.

(I was only allowed to vote once but I have a son and a husband with ASD)

 

[momofonly]

My son is 10 and he has Aspergers. He was diagnosed at the age of 6. I fear most that he is an only child and we do not have social interaction during the summer. But he is a happy...Christ loving..young man!

 

[Sabertooth]

I have an almost 18yo son with a mental age of about 6-10yrs
and an 11yo daughter at a mental age of 12mos.

My son moved into a adult family home about six weeks ago. But the couple who run it are committed Christians.

Sabertooth

 

[JesseBassett]

I have high-functioning Aspergers-Autism

 

[Ritz]

My 14 year old son is Autistic but also suffered a traumatic brain injury so is listed as TBI/Autism.