October 30, 2002
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I’ve been reading a lot about autism tonight. A really excellent resource is the FAQ for alt.support.autism.
But what I want to write about is the fact that I’m having a lot of trouble absorbing this stuff. Part of me wants to continue to ignore the fact that I’m broken.
I’m sitting here reading all this stuff and never quite connecting with most of it. There are some personal testimony type things where I could nod my head and say, “Yeah, that’s what I’m dealing with, too,” but then I get to the abstract part.
I’m usually much, much better with abstractions than concrete examples. The problem is that my brain might as well be a black hole as far as this set of abstractions are concerned. The categorizations and the relationship of one diagnosis to another, all this stuff just blurs together.
Maybe my basic goal is wrong. I want to be informed enough to be able to argue about this. I want to be able to advocate. But I can’t. Not yet. It’s too hard.
Comments (3)
“Part of me wants to continue to ignore the fact that I’m broken.”
It doesn’t seem you’re any better off now than before you got your DX. Is that why you wanted it–to prove to yourself that you’re broken? There are millions of people out there with problems worse than yours, but without your intelligence. Why are you using your intelligence and your new knowledge just to feel sorry for yourself?
Aspergers can have some advantages, but you seem to be identifying yourself more as autistic. Are you trying to be politically correct or making things seem worse than they are?
You can find ways to work around the disabilities, but first you may need to deal with what seems like chronic depression. That black pit will drag you down if you let it take you over. And the depression doesn’t necessarily have its source in the Aspergers.
Hmmm… broken. I don’t personally believe that. “It’s a feature… not a bug!”
Yup, I’m with anole on this one. I have p.t.s.d, d.i.d, dysthemia, and possibly borderline personality.
This doesn’t make me broken.
Asperger’s and Autism are similar but not the same. When you call yourself autistic when your diagnosis is Asperger’s, it’s like a cancer patient saying they have a brain tumor, when what they really have is a pre-cancerous mole.
You’re level of functioning is extremely high. I know this from personal experience. You are one of the least broken people I know.
Feith
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