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maelorin at 11:14pm on 01/04/2004
maelorin at 11:14pm on 01/04/2004well now,
on monday i went out to autism sa and let a couple of people pick through my brain. today i got their report on their experience. it's in black and white. i live with asperger syndrome.
now comes the real fun. explaining it to people who need to know.
essentially asperger syndrome is a developmental disorder that 'is manifest by the presence of qualitative impairments in social interaction and communication, which are not the result of an intellectual disability, or impaired language development [combined with] restricted and repetitive patterns of interests, activites or behaviours, and there are often significant dificulties witht he processing of sensory information.' {quoting the autism sa diagnostic assessment summary}
see. i really am wierd. at least a little ;)
on monday i went out to autism sa and let a couple of people pick through my brain. today i got their report on their experience. it's in black and white. i live with asperger syndrome.
now comes the real fun. explaining it to people who need to know.
essentially asperger syndrome is a developmental disorder that 'is manifest by the presence of qualitative impairments in social interaction and communication, which are not the result of an intellectual disability, or impaired language development [combined with] restricted and repetitive patterns of interests, activites or behaviours, and there are often significant dificulties witht he processing of sensory information.' {quoting the autism sa diagnostic assessment summary}
see. i really am wierd. at least a little ;)
nostalgic
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the past 12 months have been very long, and tortuous. since the suspicion was first raised, i've lost my masters/phd, been divorced, given up on trying to get into the legal profession, been shafted by our social security system (twice), been passed over by the army (!?) and a few other government agencies, and missed out on a plethora of other job opportunities.
i've had to wait more than eight months to get an authoritative diagnosis. in the meantime i couldn't mention aspergers to employers, and the law faculty weren't interested in 'guesses' - i needed 'a real diagnosis'. which consisted of a chat with two therapists - a psych and a speech pathologist.
now i'm training to be a high school teacher.
and don't my disclosure take people by surprise! :evil grin:
"but you're so normal!"
'thanks. can i quote you? on a t-shirt? or my resume?'
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*shrug*
oh well, at least its not life-threatening... it isnt is it...
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asperger syndrome is part of the autism spectrum, and i've lived with it all my life. i've only known about it for the past year - since lorelei and i separated permanently.
my senses are wired up differently to most people's - i have sensory sensitivities, and i cannot physically process as much sensory input as most people. if i am looking at something intently, i am physically deaf, and vice versa.
and if that wasn't enough, i am not as aware of emotions as most people (i can go for months without changing facial expression 'coz i forget to smile, and so on.). i have problems reading body language and other cues to other people's emotions, etc - so i miss a lot of social cues. consequently, i can easily misunderstand, or even ignore, important social signals (such as 'shut up you're boring the fuck out of me').
for me to notice something, i have to think about looking for it and concentrate on being aware of it ... and i have to learn most social skills the way you'd learn maths (and sometimes with the same degree of success ;)
the links in my original post should give you some assistance if this lot didn't make sense either. 8D
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;)
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Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
(Doubleday, 2002)
the central character, 15yo christopher, expresses the literal-logical thinking, sensory sensitivity, need for routine, and difficulties understanding other people, and special interest/s that generally form the common features of aspergers.
for me it was like reading a more extreme version of my own teen years.
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interesting.