I’ve had my problems with the rest of the human race. I generally like people, but as I get older I have more and more trouble relating to them. Maybe it’s just a part of the process of turning into an old fogie. But for a while there, I thought it was all because of Aspergers Syndrome. <\/p>\n
I first read about Aspergers maybe 5 or 6 years ago, and a lot of the characteristics of Aspie-people seemed to hit home with me. Supposedly, kids who like science and who get rabidly interested in something like trains and railroads often have Aspergers, especially if they maintain such obsessive interests into adulthood. I still like science but I can’t say that I’m currently obsessed with trains. Nonetheless, I did have a Lionel layout as a kid, and I was a fairly rabid railran photographer while in high school and college and even a decade or so beyond that (ah, innocent days, fun days they were). <\/p>\n
So then, after discovering Aspergers, it seemed as though I finally had my finger on what it is that sometimes makes me feel like a triangle peg in an elliptical hole. I must be an Aspie! I bought books, read articles, checked out the various Aspie web sites, and even went to a monthly Aspie support meeting for a while there. I was proud of my \u201cself-DX\u201d (self-diagnosis), which a whole lot of other people claiming to be Aspies base their claim on. <\/p>\n
But finally it dawned on me that whatever else is wrong with me, I’m not autistic, not even a \u201chigh functioning\u201d autistic. The group meetings helped me to see this. I tried to relate to the other people there by greeting them and wishing them well as we departed, and it occurred to me that I was the only one doing that. Almost a faux pas with that group. No, an actual faux pas, definitely out of line with them. Let’s say that they weren’t very emotionally reactive, not at all. I’m not exactly a warm and outgoing person in most circumstances, but I couldn’t go THAT far. No, whatever else my problems are, I’m not an Aspie.<\/p>\n
And yet, sometimes I sure act like one. It’s my way of reacting to stress and uncertainty. After I feel safe, I enjoy \u201cemoting\u201d with others, raising and lowering my voice for dramatic effect, smiling, even acting silly (up to a point . . . well, sometimes even beyond the point, like when I drank three margaritas and got sick because I was having a good time with a group). <\/p>\n
Unfortunately, I don’t have that many \u201csafe havens\u201d with other people, so I often switch over to a highly withdrawn state. It depends on the circumstances; it’s a \u201cdynamic\u201d thing, almost a split-personality thing like Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. Jim the Quasi-Aspie and Jim the Schmoozer \/ Raconteur. <\/p>\n
I just read an article<\/a> on the NY Times site about the new DSM 5 \u201cdiagnostic standard manual\u201d now being prepared by the American Psychological Association to replace the DSM 4, and how the APA proposes to tighten up standards on just who is autistic and who is not. Supposedly the APA is ditching the whole \u201cAspergers Syndrome\u201d diagnosis and merging everything into an \u201cautistic spectrum\u201d. And even that spectrum definition will now make it harder for those previously considered \u201cautistic and high functioning\u201d to be so diagnosed. I basically think this is a good thing, although I share the concerns being voiced by those who have been diagnosed with these \u201cperipheral autism\u201d options from DSM 4 (e.g., Aspergers and Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified), who could now have their funding and program support from government and private insurance sources cut off. <\/p>\n But there are a lot of people who, like myself, got interested in Aspergers as discontented adults and embraced it so as to claim, \u201cthis is what’s wrong with me, it’s not my fault after all\u201d. And then they (we) go to meetings and talk themselves up on videos and web sites, but often don’t make an appointment with a shrink. You can see the disdain caused by this amongst those who are under professional care; just take a surf among the many web sites and blogs and discussion boards about Aspergers and autism. The issue is whether people who are not professionally diagnosed as autistic should go around claiming that they have some sort of autism-related disorder (most often, Aspergers Syndrome), through \u201cself diagnosis\u201d. Here is a blog discussion<\/a> on this, and a discussion board thread<\/a>, and a video opinion<\/a>, as some examples. Sometimes the self-DX’ers find a friendly shrink who is willing to affirm their \u201cautism solution\u201d, given how loose the DSM 4 standards are anyway. So even those professionally diagnosed may be questionable.<\/p>\n I do agree that autism is a serious condition and it should not be exploited by those who have their social difficulties and discomforts but are otherwise getting by in life (as I am). It could well be that the APA is trying to keep the licensed therapists from handing out \u201cautism spectrum\u201d diagnoses like doctors used to hand out Valium, and that is mostly a good thing. BUT, then again \u2013 psychological conditions are NOT always \u201cdigital\u201d; it’s not like cancer or schizophrenia, whereby you have it or you don’t. Our minds and the psychological processes in our brains are very dynamic. We can be healthy and happy in some circumstances, and neurotic or otherwise unbalanced in others. We can swing back and forth in varying cycles; like a bad mood that passes in a few hours, or a bout of depression that can go on for weeks. There’s the DSM 4 (and soon, DSM 5), with it’s defined symptoms and diagnoses; and then there’s real life, and our real brains and genes, which switch back and forth into differing modes doing different things, depending on the past and current states of our environment. <\/p>\n I guess that I’m trying to say that autism should be more strictly defined in a static fashion, such that adequate attention and resources can find their way to those whose lives and possibilities are severely restricted by the constant dysfunctions in their minds. However, the whole notion of Aspergers (perhaps ‘the story of Aspergers’) should not be entirely discarded, given that it may help those people \u2013 and that may be a whole lot of those people, including myself \u2013 who find socializing difficult sometimes and need a mirror to see just how their own behaviors can make this worse (and thus find behaviors that make it better). There should still be room in a DSM for \u201cAspergers lite\u201d or \u201cAspergers dynamic\u201d, for \u201csituational Aspergers\u201d. Not so much as a diagnosis, not as a way to get government or insurance money, but more as a means for all of us to understand each other; and most importantly, understand our own selves better.<\/p>\n PS — the newspaper that got me going down the Aspergers track has finally set me free from it. There is an article on the NY Times web site about Aspergers overdiagnosis<\/a>, and also a personal story<\/a> of a young guy who was professionally diagnosed with Aspegers but later realized that he was just going thru a bad time. But still, I would venture to guess that the whole Aspergers mis-adventure helped this fellow to understand himself better. I believe that theory would also apply to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve had my problems with the rest of the human race. I generally like people, but as I get older I have more and more trouble relating to them. Maybe it’s just a part of the process of turning into an old fogie. But for a while there, I thought it was all because of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2554"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2554"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2590,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2554\/revisions\/2590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}