I have aspergers

[L.A.P.]

All my life I lived with having ADHD but I always thought there was something else, and I spent so much time trying to figure out what, why, and how about my social problems. It took me five years to figure out why I was like this and I finally figured out a couple days ago is that it's because I have aspergers. It all suddenly makes so much sense now!

[Bitter Ashes]

That's the cool thing where you can memorise things and be like super-brain and stuff. Got a friend with it. Fucking ace the stuff that pours out of his mind. Wouldn't worry about it. Nature finds a balance. :)

[Property Is Robbery]

All my life I lived with having ADHD but I always thought there was something else, and I spent so much time trying to figure out what, why, and how about my social problems. It took me five years to figure out why I was like this and I finally figured out a couple days ago is that it's because I have aspergers. It all suddenly makes so much sense now!
Not to doubt your conclusion but how are you sure?

P.S. if you are sure then congrats for figuring out what must have been very puzzling.

[L.A.P.]

You get obsessively into things and learn every detail. Couple years ago it was music but mainly hip-hop and heavy metal. My biggest obsession has pretty much become political theory, philosophy, and politics in general. It's why I've spent so much time on this forum for the past 9 months. Still working on the social problems issue, making friends is literally beyond my comprehension.


Not to doubt your conclusion but how are you sure?

P.S. if you are sure then congrats for figuring out what must have been very puzzling.

It was in consideration for a little while but when I was at the dinner table with my family and there was a news report on some panic about the amount of kids with autism now, I said out of the bloom "I think I have aspergers" and my mom looked at me as if a lightbulb went off but was still doubtful. We asked my pediatrician and he said "Is it ridiculous? No, you very well could have aspergers." I read the characteristics to my friends and one said "that totally describes your life" and once I read the part that people with aspergers report a feeling of being detached from the world (a feeling that's been tormenting me for years) my other friend just interrupted and said "Dude... you have aspergers."

[Property Is Robbery]

It was in consideration for a little while but when I was at the dinner table with my family and there was a news report on some panic about the amount of kids with autism now, I said out of the bloom "I think I have aspergers" and my mom looked at me as if a lightbulb went off but was still doubtful. We asked my pediatrician and he said "Is it ridiculous? No, you very well could have aspergers." I read the characteristics to my friends and one said "that totally describes your life" and once I read the part that people with aspergers report a feeling of being detached from the world (a feeling that's been tormenting me for years) my other friend just interrupted and said "Dude... you have aspergers."

Well.. It's good that you know and it's good that its so mild that you didn't find out until you were 16 or 17. I have several family members and friends who have it and in most of them it is kind of noticeable.

Edit: btw it's "out of the blue" ;)

[CynicalIdealist]

Hey comrade. I too have asperger's, although in a pretty acute form. I'm rather low on the "asperger's spectrum."

[Zanthorus]

It was in consideration for a little while but when I was at the dinner table with my family and there was a news report on some panic about the amount of kids with autism now, I said out of the bloom "I think I have aspergers" and my mom looked at me as if a lightbulb went off but was still doubtful. We asked my pediatrician and he said "Is it ridiculous? No, you very well could have aspergers." I read the characteristics to my friends and one said "that totally describes your life" and once I read the part that people with aspergers report a feeling of being detached from the world (a feeling that's been tormenting me for years) my other friend just interrupted and said "Dude... you have aspergers."

So in essence, you don't actually know that you have aspergers - you think you do based on your own interpretation of your behaviour and what you believe to be the behaviour of someone with aspergers, but you still haven't been properly assessed and diagnosed. To be frank, I am very suspicious. I also have problems with social interaction and display behaviour in various intellectual pursuits that borders on obsessive-compulsive but I don't think this is the result of any mental disorder.

[Spawn of Stalin]

It's not the easiest thing in the world to diagnose, it's only officially existed since the 80s. Generally it's only worth bothering with if you have say, a small child with suspected Asperger's. Other than that it is only worth getting a diagnosis if it is really affecting your life, half the adults with Asperger's will probably never know they have it. I have not met the op so I cannot say if I think they have Asperger's or not, but from what they described, they certainly could have. Lot's of people have problems with social situations, but very few of them have Asperger's...actually one of the defining factors with forms of Autism is more how you behave when you are alone than when you are with people. Body language (or lack of) is also important. My advice would be to do some reading and learn more about it, if after that you really think you have it, there is a very good chance you do. But you only need to see a doctor and try for a formal diagnosis if it is a hindrance.

[Dr Mindbender]

I was ignorant of autism in general till about a year ago. All through my childhood i didnt perform to my full potential academically and always struggled to develop socially. I now suspect that i have it, and it wouldnt be a hindrance if it werent for my job.

I work in customer service and am expected to deal with people in a polite and 'seeming to be interested' manner.

Its a tall order for someone like me. Unfortunately customer service constitutes the only readilly available work around here so its somewhat of a vicious circle.

Getting diagnosed can be difficult especially if you are an adult and in my experience a wild goose chase. Twice I have contacted my GP, and twice i have recieved letters back from the health authorities saying that they do not have the resources to perform adult diagnosis.

[Rakhmetov]

All my life I lived with having ADHD but I always thought there was something else, and I spent so much time trying to figure out what, why, and how about my social problems. It took me five years to figure out why I was like this and I finally figured out a couple days ago is that it's because I have aspergers. It all suddenly makes so much sense now!

Do you have your own blow-up doll that you like to talk to and dress up and drink cofee with? Not making light of you infirmity just checking because I saw this documentary on National Geographic and well ...

[Spawn of Stalin]

Getting diagnosed can be difficult especially if you are an adult and in my experience a wild goose chase. Twice I have contacted my GP, and twice i have recieved letters back from the health authorities saying that they do not have the resources to perform adult diagnosis.
With all respect for GPs, they are absolutely useless when it comes to things like this. They may not be able to diagnose an adult with Asperger's easily, but they can treat the symptoms. My partner has cognitive behavioural therapy, she isn't autistic but she does have a pretty extreme form of social anxiety which can appear as a symptom of autism. I also tried CBT when I was maybe 16 or 17 but lacked the motivation to stick at it so I dropped out after a few sessions. This may be something worth looking into for someone in your position. Like I said, they may not want to diagnose you as an autistic, but if you go to your GP and ask specifically about getting help with the social problem you are experiencing, they have a duty to do something about it whether you are autistic or not.

[L.A.P.]

I also have problems with social interaction and display behaviour in various intellectual pursuits that borders on obsessive-compulsive but I don't think this is the result of any mental disorder.

My intellectual pursuits go beyond obsessive-compulsive and social interaction is literally beyond my comprehension, I don't know how people do it so easily.

[progressive_lefty]

I had very very bad social skills when I was growing up, all the way to high school. It wasn't until I moved cities for Uni that I started to learn how to interact and meet new people. It's really bizarre I never ever understood social interactions and had pretty bad social anxiety. I wouldn't have considered myself on the spectrum, but I was quite analytical, or maybe even extremely analytical. I'm soo glad I've changed!

[eyedrop]

My advice would be to do some reading and learn more about it, if after that you really think you have it, there is a very good chance you do.

I'll refer you to Medical Student Decease (http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?anno=2&hl=no&rurl=translate.google.no&sl=en&tl=no&u=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_students'_disease&usg=ALkJrhhvpKvVbHQ54qO5o4Rf1_BsjCXBbg) which I certainly is appliable here, and as a reason why self diagnosis is a bad habit.

[L.A.P.]

I'll refer you to Medical Student Decease (http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?anno=2&hl=no&rurl=translate.google.no&sl=en&tl=no&u=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_students'_disease&usg=ALkJrhhvpKvVbHQ54qO5o4Rf1_BsjCXBbg) which I certainly is appliable here, and as a reason why self diagnosis is a bad habit.

I did actually consider this for the longest time.

[∞]

I have lymbic (memory) ADD and borderline aspergers...so I may not remember something, but I probably won't care either.

[SacRedMan]

What is the asperger syndrome? :confused:

[Landsharks eat metal]

What is the asperger syndrome? :confused:
You know what autism is? It's a mild form of that. I have it. It involves having trouble knowing how to react around other people in social situations, being sensitive to certain things like loud noises or bright lights, saying repetitive things or doing repetitive actions like flapping hands sometimes, and obsessive interests in certain things.

This isn't a great definition, and not all of the symptoms are experienced by everyone with Asperger's.

[eyedrop]

You know what autism is? It's a mild form of that. I have it. It involves having trouble knowing how to react around other people in social situations, being sensitive to certain things like loud noises or bright lights, saying repetitive things or doing repetitive actions like flapping hands sometimes, and obsessive interests in certain things.

This isn't a great definition, and not all of the symptoms are experienced by everyone with Asperger's.

Aspergers is not a mild form of autism, it is a decease within the autism family.

I've worked with people completely nonfunctional from Aspergers.

[Landsharks eat metal]

Aspergers is not a mild form of autism, it is a decease within the autism family.

I've worked with people completely nonfunctional from Aspergers.
While we're correcting each other, I will say that it's very much debated whether or not it is technically a disease (and decease means to die... I hope it's not that either :))

EDIT: I don't mean to sound like a jerk, so please don't interpret me as being unkind.

[Spawn of Stalin]

I'll refer you to Medical Student Decease (http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?anno=2&hl=no&rurl=translate.google.no&sl=en&tl=no&u=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_students'_disease&usg=ALkJrhhvpKvVbHQ54qO5o4Rf1_BsjCXBbg) which I certainly is appliable here, and as a reason why self diagnosis is a bad habit.
It's a little different when you are talking about a mental health issue as opposed to a disease you can catch or a spontaneous illness such as cancer. Medical student's disease is irrelevant here, the OP is reporting what appear to be legitimate symptoms before they start to learn about it. Now, if the OP starts learning about it, and then develops new symptoms, you will have a point. But as it stands, the OP has spoken to family, and spoken to a medical professional, on top of that is experiencing symptoms associated with Asperger's. Reading up on A.S. to learn more about it and attempt to figure out if it is A.S. is a natural next step.

Also can I respectfully ask that you refer to it as something other than a disease? That is kind of a nasty word. And many people are very proud to be autistic. There are even organisations dedicated to autistic pride....not that I ever bothered to get involved in one, but I still think that is really cool.

[Quail]

My intellectual pursuits go beyond obsessive-compulsive and social interaction is literally beyond my comprehension, I don't know how people do it so easily.
Obsessive-compulsive is something completely different. You can be obsessed with something, but it's nothing like OCD.

[L.A.P.]

Just so everyone's clear I have a list of characteristics of people with aspergers.

"Lack of demonstrated empathy." I don't think I have a problem with empathy but I definitely have trouble demonstrating empathy unless it's overwhelming.

"Lack of social or emotional reciprocity and impaired nonverbal behaviors such as such as eye contact, facial expression, posture, gesture." I can't bear looking people in the eye and always keep a straight face, check.

"Unlike those with autism, people with AS are not usually withdrawn around others; they approach others, even if awkwardly. For example, a person with AS may engage in a one-sided, long-winded speech about a favorite topic, while misunderstanding or not recognizing the listener's feelings or reactions, such as a need for privacy or haste to leave." The thing is I am withdrawn around other unless I feel comfortable with them and I did tend to give long lectures about my interests but due to personal insight I learned this was antisocial. However, I still rant about things awkwardly with my mother. Check.

"speaking not at all to most people and excessively to specific people." Story of my life. Check.

"The cognitive ability of children with AS often allows them to articulate social norms in a laboratory context, where they may be able to show a theoretical understanding of other people's emotions; however, they typically have difficulty acting on this knowledge in fluid, real-life situations." Maybe I'm not fully understanding what this means but I have always been analyzing social scenarios and social interactions in order to figure out how to be more social but completely fail when it comes into practice. This is probably where my major interests in sociology and social sciences is rooted from. Check.

"Stereotyped and repetitive motor behaviors are a core part of the diagnosis of AS and other ASDs. They include hand movements such as flapping or twisting, and complex whole-body movements. These are typically repeated in longer bursts and look more voluntary or ritualistic than tics." My pediatrician thought that my repetitive galloping and pacing when I was younger was me handling my ADHD but this seems to be a better explanation. Check.

"Pursuit of specific and narrow areas of interest is one of the most striking features of AS." Check.

"Although these special interests may change from time to time and often dominate social interaction so much that the entire family may become immersed." Check.

"use of metaphor meaningful only to the speaker," Check.

"Children with AS may have an unusually sophisticated vocabulary at a young age and have been colloquially called "little professors", but have difficulty understanding figurative language and tend to use language literally. Children with AS appear to have particular weaknesses in areas of nonliteral language that include humor, irony, and teasing." I was known for having a great vocabulary at a young age. And it is also known among friends that I can't take a joke or humor or sarcasm although I can understand figurative language fine when it's through art but not in person.

"According to the Adult Asperger Assessment (AAA) diagnostic test, a lack of interest in fiction (written or drama) and the positive preference towards non-fiction is common among adults with the disorder, which might explain the lack of understanding regarding verbal symbolisms and nonliteral language." I love all forms of art except literature. I honestly can not stand to read novels so every book I own is on philosophy.

"People with AS report a feeling of being unwillingly detached from the world around them." Check, check, and check.

"The child’s extremely low tolerance for what they perceive to be ordinary and mundane tasks, such as typical homework assignments, can easily become frustrating." Check.

"most children with AS want to be social, but fail to socialize successfully, which can lead to later withdrawal and asocial behavior, especially in adolescence." This is what happened to me. Check.

[#FF0000]

So you self-diagnosed, basically?

[L.A.P.]

So you self-diagnosed, basically?

Yeah, the pediatrician said there's a good chance I was misdiagnosed all these years of having only ADHD but he's not going to do a full diagnosis now since it wouldn't matter at this point anyways.

[#FF0000]

Don't self-diagnose. You don't have it until a doctor says so officially.

[L.A.P.]

Don't self-diagnose. You don't have it until a doctor says so officially.

A full diagnosis costs money and the pediatrician suggested that me having aspergers is "not out there at all and very likely" and basically hinted that if I truly think I have aspergers then I probably do. He's a bit of a pragmatist, he doesn't feel the need to do full diagnosis because there's really nothing he can do about it.

[Dr Mindbender]

A full diagnosis costs money and the pediatrician suggested that me having aspergers is "not out there at all and very likely" and basically hinted that if I truly think I have aspergers then I probably do. He's a bit of a pragmatist, he doesn't feel the need to do full diagnosis because there's really nothing he can do about it.

wtf?!

Your doctor sounds like Dr Nick out of the simpsons (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqImkDgDwHU).

With all respect to your doctor he sounds like a quack and is talking out of his star. Undiagnosed autism is traumatic for the sufferer because you ar left to wonder that your inadequacies are entirely your fault and you are belittled by those around you, from employers to family members. A diagnosis would provide closure to the matter and margin to request leniency when dealing with the neurotypical community.


Don't self-diagnose. You don't have it until a doctor says so officially.
Ive been told by my doctor that i couldnt be diagnosed by him, it has to come from a psychiatrist or mental health specialist.

Unfortunately i've also been told that my local health authorities lack the qualifed persons to perform an adult diagnosis meaning I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place.

[L.A.P.]

He's talking out of his star. Undiagnosed autism is traumatic for the sufferer because you ar left to wonder that your inadequacies are entirely your fault and you are belittled by those around you, from employers to family members. A diagnosis would provide closure to the matter and margin to request leniency when dealing with the neurotypical community.

This is true, but for now I feel pretty comfortable and honestly relieved at this revelation. I really doubt that if I do get an official diagnosis that it will turn out "looks like you were completely wrong, you just have ADHD and absolutely no signs of aspergers". At this point, it's become more than apparent to me that I at least have a minor form of aspergers shared with my ADHD.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Just so everyone's clear I have a list of characteristics of people with aspergers.

"Lack of demonstrated empathy." I don't think I have a problem with empathy but I definitely have trouble demonstrating empathy unless it's overwhelming.

"Lack of social or emotional reciprocity and impaired nonverbal behaviors such as such as eye contact, facial expression, posture, gesture." I can't bear looking people in the eye and always keep a straight face, check.

"Unlike those with autism, people with AS are not usually withdrawn around others; they approach others, even if awkwardly. For example, a person with AS may engage in a one-sided, long-winded speech about a favorite topic, while misunderstanding or not recognizing the listener's feelings or reactions, such as a need for privacy or haste to leave." The thing is I am withdrawn around other unless I feel comfortable with them and I did tend to give long lectures about my interests but due to personal insight I learned this was antisocial. However, I still rant about things awkwardly with my mother. Check.

"speaking not at all to most people and excessively to specific people." Story of my life. Check.

"The cognitive ability of children with AS often allows them to articulate social norms in a laboratory context, where they may be able to show a theoretical understanding of other people's emotions; however, they typically have difficulty acting on this knowledge in fluid, real-life situations." Maybe I'm not fully understanding what this means but I have always been analyzing social scenarios and social interactions in order to figure out how to be more social but completely fail when it comes into practice. This is probably where my major interests in sociology and social sciences is rooted from. Check.

"Stereotyped and repetitive motor behaviors are a core part of the diagnosis of AS and other ASDs. They include hand movements such as flapping or twisting, and complex whole-body movements. These are typically repeated in longer bursts and look more voluntary or ritualistic than tics." My pediatrician thought that my repetitive galloping and pacing when I was younger was me handling my ADHD but this seems to be a better explanation. Check.

"Pursuit of specific and narrow areas of interest is one of the most striking features of AS." Check.

"Although these special interests may change from time to time and often dominate social interaction so much that the entire family may become immersed." Check.

"use of metaphor meaningful only to the speaker," Check.

"Children with AS may have an unusually sophisticated vocabulary at a young age and have been colloquially called "little professors", but have difficulty understanding figurative language and tend to use language literally. Children with AS appear to have particular weaknesses in areas of nonliteral language that include humor, irony, and teasing." I was known for having a great vocabulary at a young age. And it is also known among friends that I can't take a joke or humor or sarcasm although I can understand figurative language fine when it's through art but not in person.

"According to the Adult Asperger Assessment (AAA) diagnostic test, a lack of interest in fiction (written or drama) and the positive preference towards non-fiction is common among adults with the disorder, which might explain the lack of understanding regarding verbal symbolisms and nonliteral language." I love all forms of art except literature. I honestly can not stand to read novels so every book I own is on philosophy.

"People with AS report a feeling of being unwillingly detached from the world around them." Check, check, and check.

"The child’s extremely low tolerance for what they perceive to be ordinary and mundane tasks, such as typical homework assignments, can easily become frustrating." Check.

"most children with AS want to be social, but fail to socialize successfully, which can lead to later withdrawal and asocial behavior, especially in adolescence." This is what happened to me. Check.

Those diagnosis lists are generally stupid and enormously vague (down with the DSM-IV) and therefore professional opinion is preferable (unless you're unlucky and get some monster of a psychologist/whatever).

The point about "lack of empathy" is really a load of hogwash as well, generally assumed due to individuals with AS not being expressive about such indicating they lack it. In all my years of attending special AS-only school I have only twice met people who actually lacked any real sense of empathy, and they were basically sociopathic in addition to the AS.

[L.A.P.]

The point about "lack of empathy" is really a load of hogwash as well, generally assumed due to individuals with AS not being expressive about such indicating they lack it. In all my years of attending special AS-only school I have only twice met people who actually lacked any real sense of empathy, and they were basically sociopathic in addition to the AS.

It doesn't say "lack of empathy" it says "lack of demonstrated empathy" which is pretty much what you just said "not being expressive" which holds true.

[Spawn of Stalin]

Basically, xx1994xx, I have one question to clear this whole thing up.

Do you feel confident that you can live at least a fairly normal life with the symptoms you have?

No - Get a proper diagnosis, get help, you're young enough that you can make at least a bit of a difference by having treatment, whether it be social exercises, therapy, medication, whatever.
Yes - Given your symptoms there is a good chance you have AS but you can deal with that in your own way so it doesn't matter, like I said, a sizeable proportion of autistics don't even know they are autistic.

[L.A.P.]

Basically, xx1994xx, I have one question to clear this whole thing up.

Do you feel confident that you can live at least a fairly normal life with the symptoms you have?

Absolutely, I feel relieved now that I know this.

[Dr Mindbender]

Absolutely, I feel relieved now that I know this.

Take it from my experience, don't leave it until you acquire a job that your symptoms impede you from doing well.

:(

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Basically, xx1994xx, I have one question to clear this whole thing up.

Do you feel confident that you can live at least a fairly normal life with the symptoms you have?

No - Get a proper diagnosis, get help, you're young enough that you can make at least a bit of a difference by having treatment, whether it be social exercises, therapy, medication, whatever.
Yes - Given your symptoms there is a good chance you have AS but you can deal with that in your own way so it doesn't matter, like I said, a sizeable proportion of autistics don't even know they are autistic.

What is a normal life? Assuming the existence of some kind of norm here, are we? Social exercise, therapy, all mumbo jumbo, and the contrasting with some sort of "normal" life is in a way parallel to when people discuss various gender-stereotype behaviours and want you to "act your gender", or blame those who are poor for their situation and tell them to change themselves and they won't be poor any more. Yes, change, conform to the expectations of capitalist society, it is marvellous, is it not? Bend to the will of the corrupt world, it will do you good. Dozed up to your eyeballs on tranquillisers and anti-anxiety pills. Sell all dignity for acceptance and merger into the sickness.

Talk of "normal life" is vague and meaningless. Is simply having a job, any job, all that is necessary to have a normal life? Does one have to have a wife and children, too, or are those optional? Does one has to have a lot of friends and get drunk every weekend at the pub to be normal? Point being that the conditions of normalcy are so flexible and boundaries so unclear that it serves no real purpose being discussed. It's either vague or it is some absurd nonsense about statistical majority which itself really tells nothing more valuable...

Not to say that obstinacy for its own sake is any more worthwhile than heedless conforming to outside expectations, of course.

[L.A.P.]

Take it from my experience, don't leave it until you acquire a job that your symptoms impede you from doing well.

:(

I think I can handle myself.

[Spawn of Stalin]

What is a normal life? Assuming the existence of some kind of norm here, are we? Social exercise, therapy, all mumbo jumbo, and the contrasting with some sort of "normal" life is in a way parallel to when people discuss various gender-stereotype behaviours and want you to "act your gender", or blame those who are poor for their situation and tell them to change themselves and they won't be poor any more. Yes, change, conform to the expectations of capitalist society, it is marvellous, is it not? Bend to the will of the corrupt world, it will do you good. Dozed up to your eyeballs on tranquillisers and anti-anxiety pills. Sell all dignity for acceptance and merger into the sickness.

Talk of "normal life" is vague and meaningless. Is simply having a job, any job, all that is necessary to have a normal life? Does one have to have a wife and children, too, or are those optional? Does one has to have a lot of friends and get drunk every weekend at the pub to be normal? Point being that the conditions of normalcy are so flexible and boundaries so unclear that it serves no real purpose being discussed. It's either vague or it is some absurd nonsense about statistical majority which itself really tells nothing more valuable...

Not to say that obstinacy for its own sake is any more worthwhile than heedless conforming to outside expectations, of course.
What on Earth are you rambling about? Generally speaking everyone has to figure out a way to feed themselves, that usually involves being able to talk to people in job interviews. It has nothing to do with conforming, if somebody is happy with the fact that they are unable to communicate to the same standard as many other people, then that's absolutely fine too.

[∞]

Are you afraid of any shape, sound or color?

Do you make useless motions constantly?

Do you have extremely routine experiences everyday?

These are the most major signs of aspies...simply being introverted and abstract isn't enough.


By your diagnosis, nearly everyone on this forum is an aspie.

[eyedrop]

What Blackened said, being a nerd is not the same as being a aspie contrary to popular belief.

[L.A.P.]

Would all of you like me to tell you every personal detail of my life and how it relates to my apsergers and then send you a copy of my personal official diagnosis on paper? Just give me your addresses, because you know I want all of your seal of approvals to make sure I don't get fucking cross-examined on an internet forum.



Are you afraid of any shape, sound or color

I have never heard of this as a symptom of aspergers but no.


Do you make useless motions constantly?

Yes.


Do you have extremely routine experiences everyday?

Yes.


These are the most major signs of aspies...simply being introverted and abstract isn't enough.

Sorry if I didn't want to write my personal autobiography and didn't want to be too specific about my personal details.


By your diagnosis, nearly everyone on this forum is an aspie.

Well from what I've seen on the thread a lot of the people have some lack of social insight. I really hope none of you act like this in person when someone tells you something about themselves and then you start putting yourselves in a position of cross-examining and almost interrogating them. It comes off as arrogant, rude, and antisocial. I have aspergers, and it's not your place, Takayuki's, or anyone else's to determine whether I really do or not. My pediatrician whom I've had literally my whole life and my family which includes a neurologist, psychiatrist, psychologist, and special education teacher (who turned out to have actually suspected I had aspergers earlier in life but was afraid to tell my mom at risk of her getting offended) I'm pretty sure know me better than Blackened Marxist, Takayuki, or whoever the fuck is trying to play doctor. So I politely ask you to please fuck off, I'm not asking for your personal opinion on whether I have aspergers or not, I'm simply stating I do have aspergers. Fuck you.

[Comrade J]

^ I can't really speak for BM here, but it didn't seem to me like he meant his post to be offensive.

[#FF0000]

I have aspergers, and it's not your place, Takayuki's, or anyone else's to determine whether I really do or not. My pediatrician whom I've had literally my whole life and my family which includes a neurologist, psychiatrist, psychologist, and special education teacher (who turned out to have actually suspected I had aspergers earlier in life but was afraid to tell my mom at risk of her getting offended) I'm pretty sure know me better than Blackened Marxist, Takayuki, or whoever the fuck is trying to play doctor. So I politely ask you to please fuck off, I'm not asking for your personal opinion on whether I have aspergers or not, I'm simply stating I do have aspergers. Fuck you.

We're just saying you can't say you have asperger's. Only a doctor really can. We aren't trying to play doctor. We're just saying that you kind of are.
But, like you said, we don't know your situation well enough to say for sure and none of us are doctors. However, this is the internet, where everyone self-diagnoses as having asperger's. That's why people are sort of skeptical -- because everyone does what you're doing right now.

[Dr Mindbender]

The thing is, its all well and good saying you think you have aspergers but it means very little until a doctor officially diagnoses you. Take me for example. I work in customer service and i'm constantly getting in trouble with my boss for behaving in an unempathetic and robotic manner. I cant help it though because its my neurology but they are unsympathetic because i cant get a doctor to back up my case. You will find that the authorities will treat you as though you are neurotypical until a doctor says otherwise. That why i encourage all self diagnosed autistics and people with aspergers to see a doctor or a specialist for a diagnosis first.

[L.A.P.]

We're just saying you can't say you have asperger's. Only a doctor really can. We aren't trying to play doctor. We're just saying that you kind of are.
But, like you said, we don't know your situation well enough to say for sure and none of us are doctors. However, this is the internet, where everyone self-diagnoses as having asperger's. That's why people are sort of skeptical -- because everyone does what you're doing right now.

Self-diagnosing for aspergers is a common thing on the internet? That's something new I've learned.


The thing is, its all well and good saying you think you have aspergers but it means very little until a doctor officially diagnoses you. Take me for example. I work in customer service and i'm constantly getting in trouble with my boss for behaving in an unempathetic and robotic manner. I cant help it though because its my neurology but they are unsympathetic because i cant get a doctor to back up my case. You will find that the authorities will treat you as though you are neurotypical until a doctor says otherwise. That why i encourage all self diagnosed autistics and people with aspergers to see a doctor or a specialist for a diagnosis first.

Well I know that. Of course.

[Ele'ill]

Self-diagnosing for aspergers is a common thing on the internet? That's something new I've learned.

Not specifically aspergers but medical conditions in general. Some people self-diagnose and list all their symptoms and know their bodies really well but there are hundreds of disorders and illnesses that all have the same hundred symptoms regardless of how specific those symptoms may be. It really takes that next level of testing by a 'professional' doctor or specialist to determine what's up with 100% accuracy.

[Spawn of Stalin]

I have never heard of this as a symptom of aspergers but no.
Yeah it is, sometimes sound too which I've never had an issue with but light is a big one for me, both natural and synthetic light forms fuck me up, sunglasses are good. I think being sensitive to colours is less common but still definitely a sign. My art theory and history lecturer in college suspected I was synesthesic so she tested multiple times and my results were pretty consistent. She mentioned that synesthesia is more common amongst autistics than others, I said I had AS and she was like "oh, okay then", and stopped testing me so I figured that that basically meant she had verified her beliefs.


However, this is the internet, where everyone self-diagnoses as having asperger's. That's why people are sort of skeptical -- because everyone does what you're doing right now.
I sometimes lurk on a few AS and autistic forums and I've seen a few of these people who self-diagnose. Self-diagnosis doesn't really harm anyone if the issue we are diagnosing doesn't cause any problems e.g. it isn't a fatal illness, or it isn't going to lead to complications or cause difficulty later in life. The thing with autism is that it CAN cause difficulty later in life, it sounds like the OP is young so there are a number of situations which they will not have experienced which they may find themselves in trouble with. Which is why it's necessary to be 100% sure that either you do not have AS or that you might have it but you can deal with it.

There are certain political compass-style tests on the internet which can be used to get a better idea of whether you are an Aspie. But under NO circumstances should the results be taken as gospel, if the test tells you you have AS, you don't necessarily have AS, just like if the political compass says you are a Mahatma Gandhi, doesn't mean you are Mahatma Gandhi. That being said they are much less vague than the political compass and also have more questions which make a lot more sense. This is the one that people on AS forums seems to recommend the most. As a reference I will attach my results, I think I got about 190 out of 200, that's as somebody who was diagnosed as a child so if you score high you may well want to take further action through the doctors or school or whatever. But it is really up to you.

http://www.rdos.net/eng/Aspie-quiz.php

http://i51.tinypic.com/2nvuv46.png

[Ele'ill]

What's the link to the site? I don't have autism/aspergers but I'm curious to see what my results are.

[Spawn of Stalin]

Oh yeah sorry, it would probably make sense to post a link wouldn't it.

http://www.rdos.net/eng/Aspie-quiz.php

[Ele'ill]

http://www.rdos.net/eng/poly12c.php?p1=22&p2=19&p3=19&p4=46&p5=37&p6=42&p7=17&p8=7&p9=5&p10=6&p11=15&p12=3

[Obs]

I've got Asperger's and you really don't want to go around thinking you've got it unless you've had it checked. Also, speaking from experience, if you do end up being diagnosed, it's not something you ought to go around telling people. It almost always turns out poorly.

[L.A.P.]

How did I do guys?

Your Aspie score: 134 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 76 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie
http://www.rdos.net/eng/poly12c.php?p1=95&p2=75&p3=65&p4=61&p5=48&p6=78&p7=64&p8=57&p9=49&p10=66&p11=60&p12=65


I've got Asperger's and you really don't want to go around thinking you've got it unless you've had it checked. Also, speaking from experience, if you do end up being diagnosed, it's not something you ought to go around telling people. It almost always turns out poorly.

It's not like I'm going to wear a "proud to be autistic" shirt and join an autistic pride group, I'll be sure to get official diagnosis before I do that.

[Spawn of Stalin]

I've got Asperger's and you really don't want to go around thinking you've got it unless you've had it checked. Also, speaking from experience, if you do end up being diagnosed, it's not something you ought to go around telling people. It almost always turns out poorly.
Speak about your experiences comrade? All my close friends know, but other than that I have told maybe less than five people I wasn't really close with and I've never had any really bad reactions. I would say, tell people you are comfortable with telling.

[∞]

The first thing I mentioned is really important it is part of what makes it a form of autism.

[praxis1966]

If it means anything to anybody, there was a team on The Amazing Race and one of the guys had Asperger's. They damned near won the thing, too. I think the only place he really had AS related issues (near as I could tell) was when they were in India because of all the damned noise (which incidentally probably would have bugged the hell out of me too and I don't have AS; that's one noisy fucking country, lol). It seemed to me that he dealt with the interpersonal thing pretty well also; he was fucking funny as shit... forever cracking jokes.

[∞]

I scored a 127, but I still don't think I have aspergers...

[∞]

Would all of you like me to tell you every personal detail of my life and how it relates to my apsergers and then send you a copy of my personal official diagnosis on paper? Just give me your addresses, because you know I want all of your seal of approvals to make sure I don't get fucking cross-examined on an internet forum.




I have never heard of this as a symptom of aspergers but no.



Yes.



Yes.



Sorry if I didn't want to write my personal autobiography and didn't want to be too specific about my personal details.



Well from what I've seen on the thread a lot of the people have some lack of social insight. I really hope none of you act like this in person when someone tells you something about themselves and then you start putting yourselves in a position of cross-examining and almost interrogating them. It comes off as arrogant, rude, and antisocial. I have aspergers, and it's not your place, Takayuki's, or anyone else's to determine whether I really do or not. My pediatrician whom I've had literally my whole life and my family which includes a neurologist, psychiatrist, psychologist, and special education teacher (who turned out to have actually suspected I had aspergers earlier in life but was afraid to tell my mom at risk of her getting offended) I'm pretty sure know me better than Blackened Marxist, Takayuki, or whoever the fuck is trying to play doctor. So I politely ask you to please fuck off, I'm not asking for your personal opinion on whether I have aspergers or not, I'm simply stating I do have aspergers. Fuck you.

I'm not trying to play doctor, but what you stated was no exclusive evidence for aspergers. I'm not assuming you don't have it, I'm merely begging the question. All you really stated was you're socially awkward and esoteric, well, theres a personality type for that. (http://typelogic.com/intp.html) Its not like I'm going to grant your statement true "cuz you say so"...Many people falsely diagnose themselves, and I was doing everything in my power to make sure you aren't. I mean, my mother's a neurologist and I know 2 people with a severe case of aspergers, I know an aspie when I see one.

[Spawn of Stalin]

I don't really know what the "cut off" would be on a test like this, I think maybe 170+ for someone who answered as truthfully as possible would mean that they are displaying symptoms which are fairly likely caused by AS. Thing is people with ADHD, OCD, social anxiety and depressive disorders are also going to score high but may not have AS.

[Sasha]

Your Aspie score: 85 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 117 of 200
You seem to have both Aspie and neurotypical traits

http://www.rdos.net/eng/poly12c.php?p1=45&p2=45&p3=30&p4=51&p5=52&p6=63&p7=43&p8=27&p9=26&p10=21&p11=23&p12=52

[Quail]

I don't really know what the "cut off" would be on a test like this, I think maybe 170+ for someone who answered as truthfully as possible would mean that they are displaying symptoms which are fairly likely caused by AS. Thing is people with ADHD, OCD, social anxiety and depressive disorders are also going to score high but may not have AS.
I did the test but for some reason it wouldn't score me, but I have mild OCD and anxiety in social situations which would probably have skewed the results.

[Obs]

Speak about your experiences comrade? All my close friends know, but other than that I have told maybe less than five people I wasn't really close with and I've never had any really bad reactions. I would say, tell people you are comfortable with telling.

Basically people would get more reluctant talking to me and would start taking "cautions" that were unnecessary and patronising. No reason to elaborate.

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Basically people would get more reluctant talking to me and would start taking "cautions" that were unnecessary and patronising. No reason to elaborate.

There's also the ones that will tell you to just "suck it up" and that you're just making things up, even when one was diagnosed at a point where when told by ones mother and not knowing what it was, one thought it was a deadly disease.

[greenwarbler]

This thread is so much bullshit. And on this forum, too. I feel like I've been forced to attent a Unitarian-Universalist service, my fingers clentched in a fist, unbearably and mortifyingly despairing for those two hours that one has to sit through that.. ugh

[Landsharks eat metal]

This thread is so much bullshit. And on this forum, too. I feel like I've been forced to attent a Unitarian-Universalist service, my fingers clentched in a fist, unbearably and mortifyingly despairing for those two hours that one has to sit through that.. ugh
Do you want to expand on that...?

[greenwarbler]

oviabshe: well, I just like to point out the fact that, among others, homosexuality was listed in the DSMIII as a psychological disorder until 1973... also, that, for instance, in the 19th century there was a clinical disease (a mental illness) the symptoms of which include(d) "the desire of a slave to free him/herself form the dominion of his/her master"..

I feel that a community which is inherently oriented away from indoctrinated/sublimated/innocuous thinking should know better than to take such labels -- which psychological categories and "types" and the rest of it, ultimately are, or amount to -- you know, as a starting point: I just don't understand -- honestly/frankly -- how someone can honestly/frankly say to themselves (or to someone else around them): "ah, this kid takes an abiding interest in phsilosophy and political theory, and -- heaven forbid -- human social relations: he must have an illness."

That was me being frank for an instant: you will not see that often, but, it needed to be said, and there you have it.

I mean, if you want sex, go out and find a girlfriend -- in the olden days, we used to send such people to the monastaries, because -- back then -- we respected the rights of people to be different, and this sort of atomized, tyipified, discrete unit of a man was not an issue to be reckoned with, because things went alot more slowly, and because people had/ took time to think and do stuff -- now adays, it is much more "quick and painless" to attribute some hibbety-jibbetty illness to a kid who doesn't fit the "mold", and then pass that off as a solution -- that's brainwashing, and I think someone needs to tell the truth.

Have you ever read this story: Kh_OjcSAHxE?

I'm black, for instance: is that a disease? Is being a Native American, and having some cultural roots, or cultural identity -- likewise -- a disease? I think there is a line to be drawn somewhere, and these sort of post-neo-liberal feel-good "we can all get along" sort of fix-alls are well outside the limit.

[Landsharks eat metal]

greenwarbler: That's a good point, but I think that labels are fine if they are not being forced on anyone who is not in danger of harming others or themselves. xx1994xx is seeking a label for himself that may actually be a lot of help explaining his behavior (if he actually does have it.) My feeling is that people will end up getting a diagnosis somehow if they need it. There is a lot of misdiagnosis by people trying to shove everyone's behavior in a box and call it defective, but a competent mental health professional should diagnose based on whether the behaviors present problems in living (or, as DSM-IV says "The disturbance causes clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.") This is very subjective, but they can learn how to judge. DSM is still evolving, too, and the fate of Asperger's remains unsure. If it's a problem, though, I'm pretty sure there will end up being some sort of diagnosis for it.

(I'm aware some of this sounds a bit idealistic, but I'm still learning, as we all are, every day, in life.)

[greenwarbler]

does one "have" behavior, like one "has" a Pepsi?

[Landsharks eat metal]

I should have used the word "exhibit" rather than "have", but certain behaviors that I attribute to my Asperger's are really a part of me, so it is almost like I have them.

[greenwarbler]

there are many things I can say right now, but I will, for the moment, cast aside the cloak of irony -- again -- and speak frankly: have you ever considered the idea that the world you live in -- from a social point of view -- may not cater, by rote, to the creative drive and ambition that propels you through it (the world, existence, whatnot), an that perhaps -- I'm just thinking aloud here, if you'll allow me that liberty -- your motivations lie -- ultimately -- outside of the process of devolution involved in becoming a mindless slave to capitalism (just a thought, I mean)? Have you considered that idea, perhaps?

I think once we remove the mask of absolut-ivity from self-proclaimed "theories of the mind" (psychology), we begin to see their nature as irrevocably one entwined in the political sphere / arena; something to keep in mind, certainly anywhere and at any time, in any circumstance,.... does anyone in their right mind take Freud (or Lacan, even) seriously, nowadays?

[praxis1966]

No offense greenwarbler, but having sifted through your opaque, purple prose there are two things that are abundantly clear:

1) That you're very good at cataloging the missteps of psychology which are decades, and in some case centuries, old which have little to no bearing on the current state of the field. However integral Freud may have been 100 years ago, his theories aren't nearly as important as the simple fact that he kicked the first rock down the hill to start an avalanche. For its relevance to the current state of the science (or for the relevance of your other examples of its invalidity for that matter) you may as well have sighted the Ptolomaic model of the universe as evidence that modern physics is inherently flawed and therefore useless.

2) Where does your line of logic leave us in the treatment of, say, schizophrenia? Given that the disorder is a byproduct of biochemical processes which can produce dangerous behaviors, how exactly would your alternative, which seems to be to do nothing, be in any way helpful? Now I realize that not all psychological disorders are as extreme as schizophrenia, but the example I feel is valid.

The DSM-IV places emphasis, as Oviabshe rightly pointed out, on "significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning." While I think it's obvious that we all want, to put it crudely, a collectivist utopia of some sort, even given the advent of such a society certain biochemical impediments to social and occupational functioning will still exist. After all, people will still interact with one another and there will still be work to be done and I frankly don't see how communism can solve these impairments. Well, apart from the milder mood disorders which are quite obviously caused by the distresses of alienation, eg anxiety and clinical depression. While we're at it, what about the congenital disorders? Will Down syndrome suddenly disappear? What if it turns out that autism and Asperger's are due to some chromosomal aberration as well? What then? If cognitive behavioral therapy can help someone and they desire it of their own volition, exactly who are you to say they shouldn't engage in it? Now I know that psychology is still a developing science, but so are all sciences, and I for one fail to see why that's reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater... especially when I think we can all agree that the one thing that is needed, if nothing else, is more research.

[greenwarbler]

Ach, bullshit: you can paint as many coats of gold leaf on a barn, but ultimately, it will still be a barn; likewise, I don't think prevailing "social or occupational or other areas of functioning (?)" (maybe working at a grocery store check-out line with your boss constantly berrating you, and breathing down your neck) can be reduced to some general (psychological) schematism, because those are social relations, and they exist outside of my head -- this resembles the hum-drum (and boring) argument made by social researchers, viz. social deviancy, when really what they should be discussing, for instance, is how graffiti art by and large is the result of an inhibited libido and a resigned consciousness; that does not cross most pop-psychologists', middle class sociologists' and "therapists' " minds, because they've never experienced life from the other side of their house on the hill -- again, do everyday workers concern themselves with "social or occupational and other areas of functioning" -- no, because they are already repressed, and driven to a subterranean existence, and they can hardly concern themselves with such "areas of functioning" as whether they spend too much time reading philosophy books or chatting on political forums! Am I making myself clear?

-- if anything, you should be looking in the realm of economic and political conditions in which workers find themselves, and how those may be conducive to anything but healthy development of the human being.

I think your viewpoint is a product of the "systematizing" (that is, dehumanizing) world view, that places more emphasis on (after all, historically-rooted) categories than the conditions which, over and against the individual Mensch, give rise to deep-seeded conflicts between the individual and his social cosmos -- and then gloss over those conflicts with - again - the gold leaf of abstract theoretical categories, that have no bearing upon the living reality out of which -- and from which -- human social relations arise;

I will not respond to most of the rest of what you wrote, because there is no need to: I said what I think needed to be said.

[greenwarbler]

the only person who would refer to what I wrote above as "opaque and purple prose" (i would refer to what I wrote rather as bourgeois blue tragedy...,) is the person who has no argument, and lecherously must chip off the formal aspects of what was said (rather than the content) in order to bolster his own insubstantial and parietal blather.......

[Tim Finnegan]

Can I just point out, Greenwarbler, that if you actually find yourself writing in bolded, underlined italics, you might want to think about what, in my country, we call "calming the fuck down" and trying to write like an adult, rather than a child who's only just realised that those buttons exist.

[praxis1966]

You won't respond because you can't. You can spout all the pseudo-philosophical metaphysics you like, but you still can't answer this basic question: How exactly do you propose to deal with biochemically derived personality disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, et al? These disorders are completely internally produced due to some mechanical malfunction in various parts of the nervous system or another and can, in many circumstances, cause individuals to be dangerous to themselves and others. They have absolutely nothing to do with anything else and in many cases are hereditary.

Further, in the early days of psychology, when all manner of neuroses (including some basic and very mild mood disorders) would land you in something akin to a prison cell you very well could of called it a barn, but it doesn't work that way anymore.

[Landsharks eat metal]

Axis II personality disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, et al?
Sorry to nitpick, but I don't want anyone to be confused... aren't those Axis I Clinical Disorders as opposed to personality disorders such as borderline or antisocial?

[#FF0000]

i kind of sort of see what greenwarbler's trying to say, but I can't be sure because he's ranting.

Stop that.

[praxis1966]

Sorry to nitpick, but I don't want anyone to be confused... aren't those Axis I Clinical Disorders as opposed to personality disorders such as borderline or antisocial?

No. Axis I disorders are mood disorders... Clinical depression, PTSD, ADHD, generalized anxiety disorder, shit like that. EDIT: Which as I said earlier, a lot of those can be attributed to external stimuli, ie capitalist society.

[Landsharks eat metal]

No. Axis I disorders are mood disorders... Clinical depression, PTSD, ADHD, generalized anxiety disorder, shit like that.
I'm not sure if this is 100% accurate, but here is the DSM-IV online that my A.P. Psychology class looked at: http://www.behavenet.com/capsules/index.htm We memorized the 5 axes as I Clinical Disorders (including many different classifications of disorder, such as mood, anxiety, schizophrenia, dissociative, etc.) II Personality Disorders (borderline, antisocial, narcissistic, schizotypal etc.) III Medical conditions IV Environmental factors V Global Assessment of functioning. I could be wrong though.

[praxis1966]

I'm not sure if this is 100% accurate, but here is the DSM-IV online that my A.P. Psychology class looked at: http://www.behavenet.com/capsules/index.htm We memorized the 5 axes as I Clinical Disorders (including many different classifications of disorder, such as mood, anxiety, schizophrenia, dissociative, etc.) II Personality Disorders (borderline, antisocial, narcissistic, schizotypal etc.) III Medical conditions IV Environmental factors V Global Assessment of functioning. I could be wrong though.

Actually, you're right. I did have some of my classifications fucked up, but I think my initial point still stands in re biochemically derived disorders versus externally/socially derived disorders... PTSD, depression, anxiety, that sort of thing.

[greenwarbler]

Sometimes in life there are more questions than there are answers to those questions.. the point being, that wherever "systematization" rears its head an inhibits the freedom of the individual, there a problem arises. There is a reason I rarely speak frankly on this forum, an it is because of the hair-cropping, buzz-sawing, narcoleptic redundancy which finds place in the discourse here -- that which finds itself most lividly expressed, I think, in the story of Samson Agonista, who died "blind and eyeless in Gaza."


You won't respond because you can't Respond to what? Your quotations of the DSM? I might as well cite passages from King James -- or the back of the toilet paper roll...

[praxis1966]

Respond to what? Your quotations of the DSM? I might as well cite passages from King James

Bullshit. You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. The two aren't in any way comparable. And the question I asked, which you conveniently ignored again, wasn't a quotation from the DSM.

I said it once and I'll say it again, you won't provide a viable alternative because you can't.

[greenwarbler]

When we start to understand that deviancy is a relative phenomenon -- which I think I pointed out clearly and articulately in the above posts (can I make myself any more clear?, I ask?), then we start to see specifically such socially manufactured disorders as were invented in the last two decades as tools for the pacification of society, and for its development under the thumb of the current sphere of thinking -- I think, if this much is unclear, then the factor of relativity is that which needs clarifying:

I find that persons who are given the opportunity to learn, and to educate and to better themselves are, by and large, "spoiled" with the notion that this is a divinely granted right: no, this is not the case. If someone is given the right to learn, and to broaden their level of understanding, an to nurture the interior aspects of their being, and their intellectual and moral faculties, then this right should be grasped fully, and without recourse to vainglorious efforts to asphyxiate the individual in all sorts of taxonomic categories and formulae: that does him no good, namely, and draws him further and further from his own freedom, an the freedom of the collective of which he is part.

Certainly, the collective has more "right" over and against the individual than the indvidual does over the collective, and certainly there are limits to what could be considered moral behavior, but those limits should not be imposed to such an extent that the ability for an individual to progress in terms of his own betterment and advancement are severely impaired, curtailed (or even removed / taken from him).. that works against that which renders society useful to its own ends (that is, the liberation and nurturing of the social whole, not some or another part of the above).

[#FF0000]

what is greenwarbler even saying

[greenwarbler]

Now, if we see the system of psychology in its totality (which any functioning radical theory must perceive it from, if it is to work conducively, in relation to the historical ground out of which the methods of the discipline of psychology [or any other discipline] arose), then we will see that much of what we consider astute categorization of an ever-progressing field of social research, which fits the human mind as a glove fits the hand, is merely relative to the age out of which it arises -- ergo, the references to the example of homosexuality in the DSM III, and the older example of the slave condition: the master-slave nature inherent in "solid" social theories which are taken at face value, without inquiry into their roots, their place, their origins and the values they exude The fact is that, as in the practical social arena, a radical (oft-times violent) consciousness is needed to counter the subterfuge of middle-class, reified consciousness, so, too, this radical element is also introduced, likewise by necessity, into the typification of a bourgeois, all-too-bourgeois system of "systematizing" the thoughts of individual men. Without this leap, the hope for envisaging, and then ultimately ushering a new age, a new era (which is why we are after all here!) will fall to the wayside, in the face of a masochistic worldview that does nothing but prostrate itself before the totalitarian (and totalizing) world view of its own masters (who pull even the rug of ideas out from under the impoverished -- their last hope and vestige), and which ultimately amounts to a still birth (an abortion).

[#FF0000]

i think i kind of agree with you?

[praxis1966]

When we start to understand that deviancy is a relative phenomenon -- which I think I pointed out clearly and articulately in the above posts (can I make myself any more clear?, I ask?), then we start to see specifically such socially manufactured disorders as were invented in the last two decades as tools for the pacification of society, and for its development under the thumb of the current sphere of thinking -- I think, if this much is unclear, then the factor of relativity is that which needs clarifying:


In case you were wondering when exactly I was going to tell you to fuck off, this is it. These disorders that you claim were "invented" in the last two decades have been around for all of human existence and, in the case of biochemical imbalances, will always exist whether we give them labels or not. I have had the occasion to be closely personally acquainted with people who've been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizoid personality disorder... and in none of the cases did the people in question seek medication and therapy in order to be pacified. They sought medication and therapy simply so they could function.

Here is something that I can't stress enough: To suggest that hearing and seeing shit that isn't really there is somehow a social fabrication is not only ignorant but goddamned insulting. It is a direct result of a biochemical malfunction of some sort. Clearly, you've never known anyone with a serious mental illness.

But let's have it your way for a moment. Throw away the DSM. Throw away the entire field of psychology. Throw away capitalism and replace it with a communist utopia. How exactly does that keep schizophrenics from hallucinating?

[greenwarbler]

Figures: the kid (yes, kid) who is challenged a little in his beliefs responds with the usual built in levers and buttons, without considering the merits of the other side, and without considering the possibility that there may be more behind the curtain, after all!

When did I say "throw away the whole field of psychology"? I think that to view psychology (or any other field -- Benjamin wrote of Baroque German tragic theater, for instance, but it applies here as well -- in the lens of historical development is to abstract its categories into (by extrapolating them from their imminent groun) a theoretical continuum: an immensely radical step that any functioning theory which assumes to grasp hold of the whole of mankind must take, so as to remove the last veil or veneer of bourgeois mystification from that which is becoming -- from the ugly picture that lies beneath the mask of actually existing human social relations!

(ALthough it is entirely beside the point, and though I feel prompted to clarify my standing in regards to this: I think psychology a wonderful tool -- a wonderful aid -- in principle -- to help us understand "who we are & where we are going", etc., but we should not take its schematizations as absolute in any light! To do so would be to allow the Trojan Horse of bourgeois "Mind" into the home, into the city walls of progressive, radical & even revolutionary thought, and ultimately, to cater to the spider's web of "Universal Mind" [as if there were such a thing], which the DSM is just another representative of.)

[praxis1966]

Figures: the kid (yes, kid) who is challenged a little in his beliefs responds with the usual built in levers and buttons, without considering the merits of the other side, and without considering the possibility that there may be more behind the curtain, after all!

I'm not going to respond to yet another ad hominem attack (which by the way proves nothing) because I have no desire to follow Bre'r Rabbit into the briar patch, except to say that I'm 32. That hardly qualifies me as a "kid."


When did I say "throw away the whole field of psychology"? When you connected it to the bourgeois power structure and suggested that as such it should be demolished violently. For the record, I personally know someone who works in the field. She's a clinical social worker (read: therapist with a different degree kit) which contracts with the public schools system locally. The number of minorities of working class backgrounds vastly outnumbers those of white bourgeois background... So I fail to see how even this point holds.

(ALthough it is entirely beside the point, and though I feel prompted to clarify my standing in regards to this: I think psychology a wonderful tool -- a wonderful aid -- in principle -- to help us understand "who we are & where we are going", etc., but we should not take its schematizations as absolute in any light! To do so would be to allow the Trojan Horse of bourgeois "Mind" into the home, into the city walls of progressive, radical & even revolutionary thought, and ultimately, to cater to the spider's web of "Universal Mind" [as if there were such a thing], which the DSM is just another representative of.)


Now, I've stated repeatedly that I think that certain mood disorders can and will be eliminated by an elimination of capitalism. Further, I tacitly acknowledged that neither psychology nor the DSM were "absolute" when I mentioned that psychology was an evolving science. You're fencing with strawmen here and it ain't gonna fly. As an aside, the fact that you're now calling psychology a "wonderful tool" where once you railed against it looks like backpedaling and intellectual dishonesty of the highest order because you can't actually counter the substance of my arguments.

On the other hand, you still haven't explained to me how biochemically derived disorders have anything to do with bourgeois hegemony or are social fabrications. You can't because they aren't. This causes me to suspect that you know very little, if anything, about psychology in its modern form and are instead warping leftist theory into some bizarre form of psuedoscience akin to politicized Scientology.

[greenwarbler]

okay

[greenwarbler]

As an aside, the fact that you're now calling psychology a "wonderful tool" where once you railed against it looks like backpedaling and intellectual dishonesty of the highest order because you can't actually counter the substance of my arguments.this is absolute bullshit and a sign you haven't understood a word I've said, and that -- in fact -- you're content to simply regurgitate the same material you've been taught & brought up to spew forth. Nice. What is that saying? "Give a man a fish, and you fee him for a day -- teach a man to fish, and you've got a political crisis on your hands."

[greenwarbler]

Also, I find your disagreements moot, and trivial, ultimately -- another sign you've hardly understood what I've written: I on't think we disagree -- in principle --on what we're arguing about. I just think you're going to have to hold a healthier, more informed worldview in relation to this -- in general --, which does not clutch so dogmatically to the face-value-ness of the material (which is exactly the point I've been arguing about, and I think it is an immensely vital issue for any functioning radical theory [!] -- [the stem of "radical" being, of course, "root" -- as in "to get to the root" of something..] ) at hand.

I've also had psychologist friends (surprise, surprise) in the past, with whom I've laughed endlessly about the foolishnes of much of psychological "theory" (like Carl Rogers, for instance -- that schmuck).

[IndependentCitizen]

What is the asperger syndrome? :confused:
It's a form of autism, in which the person with it behaves in repetitive patterns, most of the time socially awkward..

[greenwarbler]

ah, Assburgers.

[greenwarbler]

0WGVW7byRCA

[El Chuncho]

http://www.rdos.net/eng/poly12c.php?p1=11&p2=3&p3=4&p4=39&p5=12&p6=7&p7=9&p8=1&p9=1&p10=2&p11=1&p12=2

[praxis1966]

this is absolute bullshit and a sign you haven't understood a word I've said, and that -- in fact -- you're content to simply regurgitate the same material you've been taught & brought up to spew forth. Nice. What is that saying? "Give a man a fish, and you fee him for a day -- teach a man to fish, and you've got a political crisis on your hands."

Fail. Taught? By whom? I'm not a mental health worker and I don't have any training to that end; when I speak it's coming from a place of conversations that I've had with professionals in the field, independent research I've done, and individuals I've known with various diagnoses.


Also, I find your disagreements moot, and trivial, ultimately

Oh really? So my concern over the treatment of schizophrenia, bipolar, Alzheimer's, vascular dementia, Down, and the whole gamut of biochemically and physiologically derived psychological ailments is moot and trivial? Rather, I think you'd like to characterize them as such because they don't fit into your Procrustean bed's world view. Further, I reiterate that anyone who has a loved one, or more so has themselves has been diagnosed with one of those ailments, would likely be highly insulted by your attitude.


-- another sign you've hardly understood what I've written: I on't think we disagree -- in principle --on what we're arguing about. I just think you're going to have to hold a healthier, more informed worldview in relation to this -- in general --, which does not clutch so dogmatically to the face-value-ness of the materialFirst of all, just because I disagree with you does not mean that my worldview is "unhealthy." Second of all, I think if you're actually honest about wanting more holistic, humane treatment models then at some point you're going to have to incorporate the entire scope of facts into your "theory"... Which near as I can tell isn't much more than unscientific, metaphysical ambiguity slathered in liberationist rhetoric.

For what it's worth, I do have my own very serious criticisms of the current state of psychology and the mental health field. However, I don't find yours particularly useful given that they appear to only apply to a tiny fraction of the field.

ah, Assburgers.

Now we get down to the heart of the matter... Turning the name of a mental health syndrome into a pejorative is the height of insensitivity. Here we have a thread in which the OP is genuinely seeking advice and consolation and you turn around and insult him in something reminiscent of the way vulgar reactionaries used to employ the word "Sped." Well done. And you say I'm the one with the unhealthy worldview...

[greenwarbler]

okay

[PhoenixAsh]

ah, Assburgers.

I sense a lot of passive agressiveness in your posts. Have you considered cognigtive behaviour therapy?

[Yazman]

Greenwarbler, you have posted a lot of spam in this topic. Any more one-liners and worthless posts like "assburgers" and its your ass on the line.

This post should be considered a warning to Greenwarbler.

[Aspiring Humanist]

Self diagnosing yourself with asbergers is probably something someone with asbergers would do but it's best to get an actual diagnosis before you resign yourself to it

[Kuppo Shakur]

Your Aspie score: 151 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 49 of 200
You are very likely an Aspie
Awww shit.

[greenwarbler]

Awww shit.

There are many Assburgers around Revdaft, it appears.

[greenwarbler]

I sense a lot of passive agressiveness in your posts. Have you considered cognigtive behaviour therapy?


Oh, it's not passive. Not a bit.

[Ele'ill]

There are many Assburgers around Revdaft, it appears.


Have an infraction.

[PhoenixAsh]

Oh, it's not passive. Not a bit.

So you are just being agressive? Do you often have feelings of agressiveness? Because I think we can use several approaches of analysing where that comes from...

*****

But lets pay like for like...because you are being an absolute asshole, and I say that in the kindest way possible. But because whatever your believes and ideas are on psychology and the schematics of DSM (of which you mentioned III (1980) and regrettably forgot we are now at the 6th revision of the DSM...DSM-IV-TR and that DSM-V is currently being composed and will be released somewhere in 2013) and ICD (#10...fyi...just in case you have a memory relaps about that....you are being offensive about somebodies perceived or real mental situation....in fact...you are being a bully.

That and with all the bullshit posts you made, and yes...I read them all. They are of such sub par argumentative standard and inflated linguistics...that I will not even warrant them with a reaction.

I think you are completely aware of the bullshit you are talking...and you are instead intentionally trolling this thread and this forum.

[greenwarbler]

Have an infraction.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2071/2377782949_048eb62a2d.jpg

[greenwarbler]

Because I think we can use several approaches of analysing where that comes from...

The limits of analysis overlie its intercourse with reality.

[Ele'ill]

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2071/2377782949_048eb62a2d.jpg

Consider this a verbal warning, we don't allow off-topic photo posts outside of chit-chat. I will however point out that we have a thread in the members area where you can contest an infraction with words, not photos. http://www.revleft.com/vb/unfair-infractions-thread-t125537/index.html

[bezdomni]

Welcome to the internet.

[PhoenixAsh]

The limits of analysis overlie its intercourse with reality.

well...I think I have already provided you with a very good diagnosis...I tink you will be hard pressed to find a model that disagrees with me. It was actually pretty easy. Symptoms were being totally obvious and you have an advanced case.

We have several cures....which size would you like?

[cop an Attitude]

So in essence, you don't actually know that you have aspergers - you think you do based on your own interpretation of your behaviour and what you believe to be the behaviour of someone with aspergers, but you still haven't been properly assessed and diagnosed. To be frank, I am very suspicious. I also have problems with social interaction and display behaviour in various intellectual pursuits that borders on obsessive-compulsive but I don't think this is the result of any mental disorder.

Very true point, I even doubt the validity of Aspergers in general. Many people that have a fringe personality go through this phase, I know I have. I mean, come on, everyone on this site thinks they see the strings behind our shallow yet complex society. Why do you have the eyes to see while so many seem blind and happy? Is it chemical, or situational. Are we born rebels or is it our experiences that have opened us up? Not to say all Aspies are revolutionary, but I can see comparisons to Aspies vs. OPs to a warped elitism. It's just a damn way of thinking, no need to slap a label on it and call them special (for better or worse). I'd say 1/4 of the population can make the same claims, just as theirs people that need structure, people that crave popularity and those who focus on their hobbies. If anything, the term limits those who have it, to having a disability, rather than just being kindred sprits. In the end, it marginalizes a state of mind.

Coming from someone who has thought about this for a while, it seems fictitious. Sorry for those of you who wave the banner of Aspie.

[greenwarbler]

Very true point, I even doubt the validity of Aspergers in general. Many people that have a fringe personality go through this phase, I know I have. I mean, come on, everyone on this site thinks they see the strings behind our shallow yet complex society. Why do you have the eyes to see while so many seem blind and happy? Is it chemical, or situational. Are we born rebels or is it our experiences that have opened us up? Not to say all Aspies are revolutionary, but I can see comparisons to Aspies vs. OPs to a warped elitism. It's just a damn way of thinking, no need to slap a label on it and call them special (for better or worse). I'd say 1/4 of the population can make the same claims, just as theirs people that need structure, people that crave popularity and those who focus on their hobbies. If anything the term limits those who have it to a disability, rather than just being kindred sprits.
In the end, it marginalizes a mind frame.

Coming from someone who has thought about this for a while, it seems fictitious. Sorry for those of you who wave the banner of Aspie.

Of course, the root of the term "radical" derives from the French "radix," meaning root.

[cop an Attitude]

Of course, the root of the term "radical" derives from the French "radix," meaning root.

:confused: In regards too...?

[greenwarbler]

too = also.

[greenwarbler]

I've always considered left and right to be directions.

[La Comédie Noire]

I think most mental conditions are quantitative not qualitative, some people are obviously autistic while others are not so much. For instance on that test there were a lot of questions that were just part of normal human experience like "do you hate to be interrupted while performing a task that interests you?"

Unless it greatly affects your life in a negative manner, like severe schizophrenia or low functioning autism there's no reason to think of it as a "disorder."

And yes there are definitely mental disorders.

[praxis1966]

I think most mental conditions are quantitative not qualitative, some people are obviously autistic while others are not so much. For instance on that test there were a lot of questions that were just part of normal human experience like "do you hate to be interrupted while performing a task that interests you?"

Right, well that's why the early respondents were on the money to point out that if at all possible, you should get official word by a qualified clinician.

[L.A.P.]

Right, well that's why the early respondents were on the money to point out that if at all possible, you should get official word by a qualified clinician.

This is of course valid but it has gotten to the point that I feel like it's more than just simple eccentricities and personality traits and trying to figure why I'm like this was almost tormenting. Aspergers has so far seemed like the most logical conclusion but it's not like I'm going to say I guaranteed have it without official diagnosis but it's just that I'm really sure I do. It's also been mentioned by another person when I was much younger and also kept hidden by another family member believing that I do until now. My family also has a history with this and related disorders.

[praxis1966]

This is of course valid but it has gotten to the point that I feel like it's more than just simple eccentricities and personality traits and trying to figure why I'm like this was almost tormenting. Aspergers has so far seemed like the most logical conclusion but it's not like I'm going to say I guaranteed have it without official diagnosis but it's just that I'm really sure I do. It's also been mentioned by another person when I was much younger and also kept hidden by another family member believing that I do until now. My family also has a history with this and related disorders.

Oh, I didn't mean to suggest that your concerns weren't valid. I think they very well may be. I'd been lurking around this topic from the moment it opened and it seems like you very well may have the issue; shit, the fact that after all this time you're still leaning that way speaks volumes. Not being an Aspie or knowing anyone personally who had it, though, I just didn't feel like I had very much constructive to contribute... until page 3 of course, lmao... and you saw how that turned out.

[cop an Attitude]

too = also.

touche'

[#FF0000]

:confused: In regards too...?

greenwarbler is incoherent

[cop an Attitude]

greenwarbler is incoherent

Thought I would give him credit for that, atleast :rolleyes:

[Yazman]

too = also.


I've always considered left and right to be directions.

Hey! You've been warned by me and infracted by another for trolling and spam in here already! I've already told you to fucking quit it! Keep doing this and your ass is banned.

User greenwarbler was infracted after this post.

[L.A.P.]

So I finally got my diagnosis, I officially have aspergers.

[Ostrinski]

I have been diagnosed with Aspergers for a few years now but have always been suspicious of it. What do comrades who are diagnosed with Aspergers think of it?

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

It always surprises me when I see someone on here say they have Asperger's. I honestly can never tell. To me, you guys are just really intellectual people and obviously Asperger's does not hinder that. For all of you who have Asperger's, I wish you the best.

[El Oso Rojo]

I was dignost with austism in 1996, when i was 6 years old.

[Landsharks eat metal]

I have been diagnosed with Aspergers for a few years now but have always been suspicious of it. What do comrades who are diagnosed with Aspergers think of it?
When I first got the diagnosis, it was a relief because I finally had a reason for why I was so weird, but now as I am growing older and trying to be more independent, I find that my parents and my therapist try to use it as an excuse to why I can't do things I want to (because I'm not mature enough or whatever), but I get instantaneously called out if I ever even try to use it to explain anything (because people can't seem to tell the difference between that and making excuses.)

[black magick hustla]

when i was a kid the docs said i was autistic/aspergers or whatever and that i should go to a special school. well i didnt go to a special ed school. im just fuckin weird, thats all. but its ok

[Nox]

I'm about 90% certain I have Aspergers, but I really couldn't care less and getting a diagnosis wouldn't change anything

[Nox]

It always surprises me when I see someone on here say they have Asperger's. I honestly can never tell. To me, you guys are just really intellectual people and obviously Asperger's does not hinder that. For all of you who have Asperger's, I wish you the best.

It's probably because the anonymity of the internet removes most of the social aspects that people with Aspergers have difficulties with.

[El Oso Rojo]

when i was a kid the docs said i was autistic/aspergers or whatever and that i should go to a special school. well i didnt go to a special ed school. im just fuckin weird, thats all. but its ok

Special Ed can be bad, I was prevented from doing certain subject like Foreign Language or attending regular classes that would of help me in college. I didn't leave Special Ed classrooms until my Senior of High school.

I proove them wrong with the mighty A's got in German.

[Left Leanings]

Concerning the points made about schizophrenia and related psychoses, being biochemical in origin, and requiring biochemical treatments, i.e., drug therapy.

There is no proven clinical evidence to demonstrate that halluncinations (a common feature in schizophrenia) are chemical in origin, nor that the application of anti-psychotic medications have any significant therapeutic impact.

Psychiatry is, in the popular imagination, a science, mainly because medically qualified go onto train in this area. Often it is the duffer's option. If you cannot make it as gynaecologist or urologist, but want to be a hospital consultant at all costs, never mind, cos psychiatry will take you. But many doctors will not touch it with a barge pole, and will far rather become a General Practitioner/Family Doctor, if psychiatry is their only remaining specialist option.

Psychiatry, I think, is pseudo-science. It is to medicine, what alchemy is to metallurgy. The fundamental criterion of a science is reliability. You have to be able to demonstrate the same results again and again in a test and re-test situation. Psychiatry cannot, and has not, ever been able to do this. I have been placed in a variety of different diagnostic categories by different psychiatrists at different times, reporting the same symptomatology.

Go to any qualified physician in any well-equipped hospital anywhere in the world, with a broken leg or diabetes, and if the appropriate tests are done, a firm diagnosis can be given, and a prognosis formulated.

Which comes onto the second criterion for a science, validity. Prognostic outcomes have to be not only reliable, but valid as well. Again, psychiatry cannot demonstrate this. Many people with so-called psychosis are prescribed medication, but the outcomes differe wildly. No reliable prognosis can be formed.

Contrast this to a broken leg or diabetes. Tests are done. Diagnosis given. Treatment applied. Prognosis is usually pretty accurate. This is shown again and again, in test and re-test situations.

There is no justification for applying chemical treatments to schizophrenia, in th absence of a provable chemical cause. There exists NO biological test to determine the presence of schizophrenia. It's like putting the cart before the horse.

If you cannot meet the two fundamental criteria of a science, then you do not have a science. You are left with what is at best, a pseudo-science.

The World Health Organization has conducted two major studies of peeps with schizophrenia type sypmtoms over several decades, in both developing and western countries. It found that peeps in developing countries were TWICE as likely to recover and be successfully reintegrated into their communities, than in the developed West.

Now how can this be, when many developing nations have precious little in the way of psychiatric infrastructure? Surely, we mental peeps in the West ought to recover more successfully. Well, it's because the poorer nations adopt primarily the only model of treatment available to them, the SOCIAL model. Peeps are less likely to be ostracized and shunned. Their reponsibiltities will be eased for a while. The other villagers may look after their kids for them, see they are fed, take on their workload etc. Over time, they come back to what they should be, and recover.

Compare the comparative dismal failure of the West, with its psychiatrists and drugs. In short, with its MEDICAL model of handling mental and emotional distress.

Most mental conditions are emotional, social, economic and interpersonal difficulties, that have been medicalized. The Rockefeller foundation funded a lot of psychiatric research. And guess what? By-products of the petroleum industry go into pharmaceutical products.

I think psychiatry is a tool of the bosses, and an instrument of oppression.

[Ele'ill]

http://theicarusproject.net/

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Special Ed can be bad, I was prevented from doing certain subject like Foreign Language or attending regular classes that would of help me in college. I didn't leave Special Ed classrooms until my Senior of High school.

I proove them wrong with the mighty A's got in German.

I went to special class for Asperger, and we were always offered to go into the main classes for courses not offered there (including languages). Because this was not offered on a personal basis - i.e. required to go into a main class with lots of people, I never did it.

[Left Leanings]

http://theicarusproject.net/

Another useful link: http://madpride.org.uk/index.php

There is also a very useful book 'Beyond Prozac: Healing Mental Distress', by Dr Terry Lynch, who has consistently and successfully treated mental health clients, without recourse to medication.

[arilando]

Would all of you like me to tell you every personal detail of my life and how it relates to my apsergers and then send you a copy of my personal official diagnosis on paper? Just give me your addresses, because you know I want all of your seal of approvals to make sure I don't get fucking cross-examined on an internet forum.




I have never heard of this as a symptom of aspergers but no.



Yes.



Yes.



Sorry if I didn't want to write my personal autobiography and didn't want to be too specific about my personal details.



Well from what I've seen on the thread a lot of the people have some lack of social insight. I really hope none of you act like this in person when someone tells you something about themselves and then you start putting yourselves in a position of cross-examining and almost interrogating them. It comes off as arrogant, rude, and antisocial. I have aspergers, and it's not your place, Takayuki's, or anyone else's to determine whether I really do or not. My pediatrician whom I've had literally my whole life and my family which includes a neurologist, psychiatrist, psychologist, and special education teacher (who turned out to have actually suspected I had aspergers earlier in life but was afraid to tell my mom at risk of her getting offended) I'm pretty sure know me better than Blackened Marxist, Takayuki, or whoever the fuck is trying to play doctor. So I politely ask you to please fuck off, I'm not asking for your personal opinion on whether I have aspergers or not, I'm simply stating I do have aspergers. Fuck you.
U mad brah?

[L.A.P.]

Yeah, the psychiatrist was actaully pretty cool too. She said I'm a really atypical case because I'm really self-analytical.




U mad brah?

I guess I was at the time, that post was about a year ago bro. Nice try though.

[Rusty Shackleford]

either i have some sort of illness or being caught up in the ritalin wave* of the 90s fucked me up.


sure im a weird fuck** on occasion but ive come to realize something. people have their 'things.' and if a deep interest in a 'thing,' or a way a person reacts to a 'thing' is somehow diagnosable as a abnormality then what it normal in general? by no means am i a psychologist or neuro*ist but it seems that in this case, if ones 'weirdness' is not extreme, than the personal knowledge of having such a disease may be like the whole 'ignorance is bliss' type deal.

i sometimes say the wrong things, i interject into conversations of people im next to on occasion(and its probably rude to do so, or im just a little awkward at it) but i dont know. im just rambling now.

*by which i mean being diagnosed with add/adhd as a child and prescribed various amphetamines


**not creepy, at least i highly doubt it :lol:

[dodger]

Some way back in time, historically but a short while. We had but one category of mental illness. It was termed LUNACY. The people afflicted were called LUNATIC or maybe MADMAN. Anytime now expecting a knock at the door. "You sir, are exhibiting acute symptoms of DODGERISM. In this modern age a liquid cosh will be enough to render me compliant. There being every hope of a cure, I might expect to be released in weeks.

I do wonder what is driving this mushrooming of mental illnesses and syndrome. Is it medical insurance the number of unregistered therapists? Everyone is going bananas? Pharmacutical conglomerates? If I find time I'll look at UN figures and US +UK stats. As Nan used to say "there's more out than in!" See if they have added any extra categories. Me, I am sound as a pound ! It's the others............


******************************************

[Buitraker]

Your Aspie score: 38 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 179 of 200
You are very likely neurotypical

http://i.imgur.com/kdbqp.png

[Paul Cockshott]

I think you should be hesitant about accepting a medicalisation of what would until recently just be considered a personality trait not a disorder.

[Left Leanings]

I think you should be hesitant about accepting a medicalisation of what would until recently just be considered a personality trait not a disorder.

Exactly.

'Personality Disorder' is a relatively new diagnostic category in psychiatry. It breaks down into sub-categories: antisocial PD, schizoid PD, narcicistic PD etc.

Supposedly there is no 'cure', and the only effective 'treatment' is psychological therapies (the so-called 'talking treatments').

But an old associate of mine was held in a secure hospital with PD, and anti-psychotic medications were administered.

When you look at people's background and history, it's often small wonder that they act and behave as they do. The problem lies not in their personalities as such. It's more that they may cause problems for the wider society aka the bosses society.

Who the hell has the right to say what is, and is not, a disordered personality anyway? And what is a so-called 'ordered personality', I wonder?

I think psychiatry is a pseudo-science, and a tool of the bosses, to deem awkward people who don't fit their mould 'defective', and cast them aside.

[Deicide]

I think psychiatry is a pseudo-science, and a tool of the bosses, to deem awkward people who don't fit their mould 'defective', and cast them aside.

Tell that to the guy who thinks Aliens have took his brain or to the guy that thinks his parents are putting poison into his food, or to the guy who thinks his parents are demons and he has to kill them.

[Left Leanings]

Tell that to the guy who thinks Aliens have took his brain or to the guy that thinks his parents are putting poison into his food, or to the guy who thinks his parents are demons and he has to kill them.

I am not denying the symptomatology is real enough. People can and do hallucinate, and suffer from delusions. But psychiatry maintains that there is a chemical cause to such problems. Yet it has no biological test to demonstrate this. So it's wrong in such circumstances, to apply a chemical 'cure'. And once that treatment is applied, there is no consistency in results either.

The symptoms you describe above, could be given different diagnostic labels by different psychiatrists. And the treatments applied would have widely differing results too.

The fundamental criterion of a science is reliability, showing the same results again and again, in a test and re-test situation. Psychiatry cannot do this in either diagnostics or prognostics, and therefore fails to meet the fundamental criterion for a science.

I am not saying people who are unwell should not be looked after. Nor that they shouldn't be detained if they pose a danger to themselves or others. But it's where you detain them, and how you treat them.

The recovery rate for the sort of symptoms you describe, is TWICE as high in the developing world, as in the West. Developing nations have little or no psychiatric infrastruture.

But if you want the recovery rate to go down and be as bad as the west's, I know how to do it. Build mental hospitals in those nations, bring them to the attention of a psychiatrist, and give them pills a plenty to swallow.

[Nox]

I think you should be hesitant about accepting a medicalisation of what would until recently just be considered a personality trait not a disorder.

This. Next thing you know they'll be saying that being introverted is a disorder. And then they'll be saying that anything that isn't considered 'normal' is a disorder.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

This. Next thing you know they'll be saying that being introverted is a disorder. And then they'll be saying that anything that isn't considered 'normal' is a disorder.
They do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoid_personality_disorder

[Nox]

They do: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoid_personality_disorder

Thanks, I've just discovered I have Schizoid personality disorder. Yay! :D

[PC LOAD LETTER]

Thanks, I've just discovered I have Schizoid personality disorder. Yay! :D
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypochondriasis

[Nox]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypochondriasis

So let me get this straight... Worrying about having an illness... is an illness? :confused:

[dodger]

Thanks, I've just discovered I have Schizoid personality disorder. Yay! :D

I am in two minds whether to issue you with an infraction, Nox.

Left Leanings, I have to say, think you are skating on thin ice with a blanket rejection of medications. From my limited experience the anti psychotic drugs just keep getting better. I would say tragedy was the consequence in all cases where meds were stopped. In a society going through terminal decline and as you point out it is not a perfect science, it is most important that people who are on meds keep taking them until as such time it is safe to come off in a controlled way.

The problem needs a lot of money thrown at it. Also many disciplines agency not least patients themselves. Might even throw a philosopher into the bear pit so we can get to the bottom of what is needed. What we all can do. This crowd "big society" are not up to the task.

[L.A.P.]

I don't know what you guys are on about? Why do so many people on this site have the impression that it's as if people who have aspergers and ADHD used to be considered normal or just shy but then had disorders attached to their names. Before a diagnosis for ADHD and asperegers were formulated, those people were just deemed "mentally retarded" (my uncle who is now a neurologist being an example). Of course I agree that there is overdiagnosis for ADHD and shit like that, but it's not like every awkward kid is diagnosed with aspergers. These psychiatrists make you go through rigorous evaluation just to make sure you aren't awkward or anxious, and I know the bourgeois psychiatric institution should always be looked at with distrust as it is an entity that enforces social conformity but saying every or most kids with autism is just 'a little quirky' doesn't help at all.

[Nox]

I don't know what you guys are on about? Why do so many people on this site have the impression that it's as if people who have aspergers and ADHD used to be considered normal or just shy but then had disorders attached to their names. Before a diagnosis for ADHD and asperegers were formulated, those people were just deemed "mentally retarded" (my uncle who is now a neurologist being an example). Of course I agree that there is overdiagnosis for ADHD and shit like that, but it's not like every awkward kid is diagnosed with aspergers. These psychiatrists make you go through rigorous evaluation just to make sure you aren't awkward or anxious, and I know the bourgeois psychiatric institution should always be looked at with distrust as it is an entity that enforces social conformity but saying every or most kids with autism is just 'a little quirky' doesn't help at all.

I'm not debating what it used to be, I'm just saying it's stupid labelling people with "disorders" just because they have personalities that don't conform with what society considers to be 'normal'.

[Kronsteen]

Ah yes. Those people who keep eye contact for full minutes while confidently telling you they have aspergers - which explains why they're so socially awkward and can't maintain eye contact.

Reminds me of the previous generation, who misspelled 'spelling mistake' as 'dyslexia', and wrote perfectly spelled articles on how admirable they were for overcoming this crippling disease.

[Left Leanings]

I am in two minds whether to issue you with an infraction, Nox.

Left Leanings, I have to say, think you are skating on thin ice with a blanket rejection of medications. From my limited experience the anti psychotic drugs just keep getting better. I would say tragedy was the consequence in all cases where meds were stopped. In a society going through terminal decline and as you point out it is not a perfect science, it is most important that people who are on meds keep taking them until as such time it is safe to come off in a controlled way.

The problem needs a lot of money thrown at it. Also many disciplines agency not least patients themselves. Might even throw a philosopher into the bear pit so we can get to the bottom of what is needed. What we all can do. This crowd "big society" are not up to the task.

The drugs are 'getting better', in that they have fewer sides effects. The typical anti-psychotics were horrendous (such as thioridazine, modecate, haloperidol etc). The new generation atypical anti-psychotics (Quetiapine, Olanzipine, Aripiprazole) have less severe side-effects. So they are easier to take and live with.

But they are still chemical cures applied to conditions with no proven chemical cause. And there is no consistency or reliability in their therapeutic use.

When patients are examined/diagnosed for the presence of 'mental illness', there are often changes that occur in their lives. They are given in many cases, the 'sick role'. Often they get time off work, are sent for psychological therapy (talking treatments), and will receive 'peer support' from other peeps who have been diagnosed with mental health problems. They come to see they are not alone in their distress. I would contend it is these 'social' approaches that assist in recovery, not the medications.

I refer you again, to my point about the developing nations. There is less incidence of serious mental health issues, cos they often live in a much more co-operative, close-knit and socially cohesive environment. Such is the nature of village life, especially in the rural areas. There is far less use of psychiatric treatments, and often, none at all. They have only the social model available to them - and it works. The recovery rate is twice as high.

One point I must address is this: you assert tragedy occurs in all cases where medications are stopped. This just simply is not true. Many peeps with 'severe and enduring mental illness' successfully come off medications, and live happily without then, and achieve a better functionality and quality of life, then when they were on the drugs. Peeps can suffer from hallucinations (hearing voices, seeing things), delusions and such like. Often through exploring their life experiences through talking treatments, and having time and space to themselves, and mixing with their peer group, they can live quite happily with these symptoms. Often they disappear after this approach entirely, where medications have failed.

Most peeps with severe mental health issues have been through trauma, or sustained difficulties, such as continued unemployment, harrassment cos of their sexuality, extreme poverty and deprivation etc, over a protracted period of time. The mind can go into a sort of emotional spasm, just as a muscle can go into a spasm. The reality is too difficult to face, so the mind 'protects' the individual from what has happened. This is what lies behind psychosis I believe, not chemical imbalances.

[Ostrinski]

Idk, anti-psychotics and anti-depressants saved my life. You people that would take them away from me disgust me.

[Ostrinski]

I'm reminded of the Matt Lauer Tom Cruise interview atm

[Left Leanings]

Idk, anti-psychotics and anti-depressants saved my life. You people that would take them away from me disgust me.

I wouldn't take them away from you. The choice as to whether you take them (unless you are a detained patient and forced to take them), is yours.

I took anti-psychotics and anti-depressants for years. My weight went up to 20 stones, they provoked the most dreadful anxiety in me, and I could not leave my parents house cos of this. My symptomatology continued.

When I withdrew from the psych meds, I lost a lot of weight, my unreasonable anxiety subsided, I got my own place, I got my life back. My symptoms persist from time to time, but I control them through self-management.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

Wellbutrin made me feel coked up 24/7 and cymbalta made me suicidal

Not that some people aren't helped by them, because they are. I took wellbutrin for all of two weeks because of the crazy side effects. Cymbalta for about a year then said "fuck this shit" and went through withdrawals for like a month

[Left Leanings]

Wellbutrin made me feel coked up 24/7 and cymbalta made me suicidal

Not that some people aren't helped by them, because they are. I took wellbutrin for all of two weeks because of the crazy side effects. Cymbalta for about a year then said "fuck this shit" and went through withdrawals for like a month

These are anti-depressant medications to treat 'depressive illness', or to give it the new term psychiatrists use for it, 'affective disorder'.

Anti-depressant medications were introduced in the late 1950s. The recovery rate for depression since then, has been 70 per cent. But American textbooks of psychiatry prior to the introduction of anti-depressants, clearly indicate that the spontaneous recovery rate for depression, was between 70 and 80 per cent. So the recovery rate has actually gone down since their introduction. Some wonder drugs, eh.

And what you report about side effects, and the suicidal feelings they induce in some patients, is spot on. One of my friends took Seroxat. She had the most dreadful time on it.

Also, when you say some people are helped by them, I think you have to take into account the changes that occur in people's lifes at the same time they are taking these drugs. I've referred to it above, but it's being given the sick role, time and space to themselves, having talking treatments. I believe it's these changes that make the difference really. But it's easy for peeps to think it's the drug that helps, and kind of disregard the significance and impact of the other changes. Especially when you have a pharmaceutical industry making billions out of them, and promoting their 'wonder drugs' left, right and centre.

[Os Cangaceiros]

LL, I don't think you can compare say, a broken leg, with the human brain. Researchers simply don't know much of anything about the brain, even to this day. Neuroscience is still a relatively young field. That's why there are few drugs to treat things like schizophrenia, and some of them were even discovered by accident (such as the most (in)famous, Thorazine.)

Research into neuroscience has come a long way, though, and it's not entirely true that researchers have absolutely no idea regarding the physical structure of the brain and it's relation to risk factors like schizophrenia, such as the formation of dendritic spines on the patient's brain. See for example: http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12269

I agree that psychiatry pretty much went insane itself with the obsessive pathologizing of every quirk known to mankind, but at the same time to ascribe mental illness to a purely anthropological explanation with absolutely no basis in chemical or neuroscience seems to be very foolish. There are many things we don't know in many areas of science...science in general, including science of the human brain, is a work in progress.

[Left Leanings]

LL, I don't think you can compare say, a broken leg, with the human brain. Researchers simply don't know much of anything about the brain, even to this day. Neuroscience is still a relatively young field. That's why there are few drugs to treat things like schizophrenia, and some of them were even discovered by accident (such as the most (in)famous, Thorazine.)

Research into neuroscience has come a long way, though, and it's not entirely true that researchers have absolutely no idea regarding the physical structure of the brain and it's relation to risk factors like schizophrenia, such as the formation of dendritic spines on the patient's brain. See for example: http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12269

I agree that psychiatry pretty much went insane itself with the obsessive pathologizing of every quirk known to mankind, but at the same time to ascribe mental illness to a purely anthropological explanation with absolutely no basis in chemical or neuroscience seems to be very foolish. There are many things we don't know in many areas of science...science in general, including science of the human brain, is a work in progress.

The drugs that were used to treat schizophrenia, were intitially used as a chemical cosh, to subdue and effect control, of people in the old asylums. There was no pretence of any sort of therapeutic application. They are still used that way to control some peeps in the prison population, even when they have no psychiatric diagnosis.

One mental nurse I used to know, told me that Thioridazine had been routinely used in elderly peeps on geriatric wards, to keep them quiet. The drugs got them confused, they couldn't feed themselves etc. When the culture changed, Thioridazine for this purpose was withdrawn on the ward. The elderly peeps became lively again, stopped dribbling and drooling, and were able to feed themselves.

One of the contentions (in British psychiatry at least), is that the chemical transmitter, dopamine, is responsible for hallucinations/delusion, common in schizophrenia and related psychoses. It's called the dopamine hypothesis. It was found that schizophrenic patients had an excess of dopamine in their brains, thus dopamine is linked to schizophrenia.

But subsequent research found, that cos anti-psychotics act as a dopamine blockade, the chemical transmitters overcompensate by firing more dopamine.

This was discovered cos anti-psychotic medications in schizophrenic patients, were withdrawn in the last few months of their lives. They were bed-ridden and in decline, and there was no point in continuing with the medication. Then when they did brain autopsies on the schizophrenics, and compared their brains to those of so-called 'normals', the dopamine levels were exactly the same.

So the dopamine hypothesis is now dead in the water. Cos the excess of dopamine is caused by the anti-psychotic blockade. If you have a headache, you take a painkiller. But you wouldn't say that the cause of a headache is the absence of a painkiller in your system.

I believe that anti-psychotics will one day be seen in the same light as lobotomy, insulin coma and focal sepsis - those wonderfully effective treatments and 'cures' given to us by the 'science' of psychiatry.

[OnlyCommunistYouKnow]

Well it's nice to know I'm not the only one here with aspergers.