http://life-with-aspergers.blogspot.com/
Anyone who stumbles here with an interest in aspergers rather then fuzzy wooly obsessions, will find the above site much more interesting and well written then any thing I can say about it . Not to say that I wont occasionally "wax philosophical" on the topic, as it is an important part of my life .
The specific topic that I googled,was co-morbids and there importance in AS . I was a bit disgusted how many adds for "aspergers cures" came up in the search . My personal opinion is the cure for aspergers is the same as the cure for being human.....death . That isn't to say that some of the more limiting co-morbids can not be made easier to deal with with some medications and cognitive therapy...(what I have found most helpful is avoiding alcohol and most social interactions and excepting that different IS OK as well as....75mg of Effexor, treatment for a low thyroid RET ) .
If people are genuinely concerned with helping aspies, they can begin by broadening their expectations of "acceptable" human experience, behavior,function and stop defining "optimal" as how "they/majority" experience/behave/function . Evidently, my belief is one that could fit the definition of "developmentally delayed" because I have believed it since I was about 5 . Yet here I remain, 40 years later, still believing that "different" does not equal "bad" .
One of these things doesn't look like the others"
seems to me to be propaganda designed by some very judgmental people trying to force children into putting everything into neat little boxes . That might be Ok when organizing your food cabinet so you can find the baked beans, but it doesn't work for human cognitive function. Here is something else to consider when looking into "curing aspergers" . How do you know that once you have changed the target behavior/belief, that you are not also going to lose what gives there life joy and meaning or any special "gifts" they may have .
A simple personal example is....suppose someone had made me better at socializing . I would have spent more time sitting around and chatting with friends about what a slut Paris Hilton is or how rude Jane was last Thursday . (yeah, I know, not all human interactions are so mundane but I have sat through more mindless chatter in my life then intellectually stimulating conversations ) . I don't think that is bad, talking about "nothing" with people you generally like . My point is that all those hours socializing would have robbed me of the hours of joy and satisfaction I get from reading and crafting and exploring the woods .
Obsessions go against the current social bias towards "balance" . Let me point out that "balance" is a current belief, probably invented by people with short attention spans...(judging by some of their inability for critacal thinking in general ...ohhh "snap" : ) It wasn't that long ago that humans seemed to be OK with being obsessed . The boy who was obsessed with "how things fly" became the expert in aerodynamics .
The women obsessed with plants healng properties became a witch(and was subsequently burned at the stack...uhm, guess it didn't always work out to well..but I degress) .
OK. I have to go cook dinner so I wont go through all the 8 criteria and the plethora of common co-morbids found in Aspergers to show how each negative has a positive side...(see how balanced my life is and how it gets in the way of my being more intellectually dedicated ? Some one with more "extreme" aspergers would forget to eat and delve deeper into the web of connections in human cognition and historical and social implications of it . That basically is my point . I'm glad that I can break away, it allows me to not have to rely on others to make sure that I am not going to starve to death and that is something that independence is something that I personally value in my life . But society needs those who do not break away . We need to nurture them because they have something valuable that should not be "cured"....at least with out their consent and desire and understanding of what they are sacrificing and in return for what
My husband has aspergers. It was only diagnosed a couple of months ago.
ReplyDeleteI also enjoy the life-with-aspergers blog. I think it's because of all the aspergers blogs I've come across, he is the most like my husband and it gives me hope that we can come to a more pleasant relationship :)