Why does everyone take Asperger's as a disease?

gerbi7 · 08-14-2006, 07:58 PM

If you have no knowledge whatsoever about autism, then stop reading the rest this thread.

Considering that one out of 166 children being born are supposed to have some form of autism, you should know a little about this.

If not, try reading "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime" by Mark Haddon, the recent time magazines article about autism, or this site that has my full approval: http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/aswhatisit.html

Also sorry for the length, but it seems neccesary to convey the extreme complexity of this topic.

I have Asperger's Syndrome.

Research centers, the media, and other rather uneducated people are really getting on my nerves, especially with how there's this preassumed thought that asperger's syndrome is something bad. If I was asked if I would want to be born without Asperger's, I would have to say no. I'm proud of having asperger's, but not of how I was treated as retarded until I got into highschool. I still had problems my freshman year, and I still have problems now. It just doesn't seem right to me, there's so much good about Asperger's Syndrome.

To put it short, people with Asperger's are much more intelegent than the neurally typical person, but suffer from lack of social skills. They can overcome their social inability though. Two years ago anyone that knew someone with Asperger's well would have been easily able to tell that I had Asperger's. Now, you wouldn't even know that I had some mental disorder.

One of the first benefits is easily noticed in a child's early years, in how they easily excel in math, science, and history.

Story time:
In third grade, we were learning to divide. The teacher said the usual things, and also said that division was like the opposite of multiplications. After a few examples (not including divisions like 15/1 with special cases), I was easily able to do division.

Then the teacher handed out these little sheets with ten division problems each. We each had a minute to try to solve as many as we could.

"Go!" and we were off.

Ten seconds later, I'm done, I look around, and to my surprise, people are STILL working. This was one of the real times when it struck me how much more able than other people. I don't remember what the average problem the rest of the class got to, but I do remember sitting there waiting for the rest of the class to finish. Back then fifty seconds was a long time to wait.

Second story:
I think was around fifth grade. Our teacher had a sheet of paper, and a pencil and told the class that she was going to do a magic trick. I immediately noted that the presence of paper meant an inability to work only with brainpower, which definetly would be possible if it was real magic.

The trick was to take three consecutive numbers (1,2,3, or 5,6,7, etc.), add them up, and then tell her the sum, and she could give you your three numbers.

Being young, I did not notice the obvoius method that this trick worked by. I sat in my seat tossing around ideas of how it could have been done. I looked at the neccesary conditions for it to work, and noticed that the three numbers were one number, one less than that number, and one more than that number, as if a value of one had been moved. Therefore, that meant that the sum was equal to three times the middle number. Bam, it clicks. I start to scream out how it was done, but the teacher quiets me after I give the entire thing away.

The rest of the class didn't get it even after I told them. It took some help from the teacher to give the concept to some little kiddies.

People with Asperger's tend to be picky about what is on their plates when they're eating. The rest of my family treats it like it's something wrong, but considering that I can clearly see parts of my plates where the dishwasher clearly did not do a good job, and I can easily point it out, I don't think it's something wrong. The common thing I hear is "It's not going to kill you. It's just a piece of dirt." Maybe if the dish has dirt on it, it wasn't properly sanitized too. If that piece of dirt covered up some bacteria from the dishwasher, and it fell off, it could very well have salmonela from those uncooked eggs from yesterday, couldn't it?

People with Asperger's are also just as willing to make friends, and can easily make friends with other people with it. I know about three other people with Asperger's, and we can easily get along. It's the rest of the world that discriminate, peer pressure that causes people in school to stay away from 'Retards', and commonly the neurally typical person's inability to control their thoughts and not go completely emotional. Admittedly, I sometimes had problems with anger, but they were always caused by the guidance staff and whatnot not letting me do something because they didn't think they could trust me. If anything you should trust someone with asperger's 100%, like you would trust a vulcan. I do remember one time when I had a fit because of something that happened and that the guidance people would not let me do something simple like get lunch.

People with Asperger's are completely oblivious to the entity known as "Peer Pressure". You can put me down all you want, but you can't affect how I feel about anything. Back when I was in elementary school, the thought never came to me that someone might put me down. as a consequence I never really understood insults. Also, if you have some kid that goes around doing stupid things, like asking random girls for AIM screennames, has absolutely no sense of what is something good to wear is, and is completely oblivious to the fact that they look weird, they probably have Asperger's.

People with Asperger's do not lie. The only times that I have lied would be when my mom is doing something horribly unfair, and lying would get her off my back. People with Asperger's realize the value of the truth, that lying destroys something very important.

If everyone lied, you wouldn't know if you could trust anyone.
If everyone cheated, lied, or stole, those that did not cheat, lie, or steal would eventually be at a lower spot than those that cheated, lied, or stole, and so would eventually have to cheat, lie, and steal. Eventually it will keep building up and get worse.
If everyone did not lie, cheat, or steal, you could trust anyone. You wouldn't need to lock your house when you leave. You wouldn't have to worry about being mugged walking down an alleyway in a city at night.
By not trying to be lazy and lie, cheat, or steal, the world would be without war or fighting.
The world would be heaven, wouldn't it?

People with Asperger's can make excellent use of peripheral vision. I remember from an old magazine I read that they said this. I also see daily instances of nuerally typical people not having the kind of capabilities I have with peripheral vision.
Also, I think that other people's vision do blur when objects are out of focus, but objects do not blur for me unless they're really close up. It happens with my vision that everything in my range of vision is not blurred, but will be a double copy if it is out of focus.

Even that I did not start out with the basic social capability of a neurally typical person, that ended up as being a plus. Because I did not have these capabilities, I had to look into the way that society in itself worked. I'd be happy to talk to you about that if wanted to. Combined with EEG Neuralfeedback, I was also able to gain some normal function emotions such as geninuine sadness. Unfortuately, that was not in time for my grandfather's death, which was pretty unemotional for me, even though he had been close to me.

Regardless of any of it is good or not, there still is the fact that there's a person in any individual with Asperger's. Regardless of how awkward the person is socially, there is a person there, and that person has an opinion. I do not want to lose my Asperger's.

To try to rid people of Asperger's is to me like something like nazism, something racist. Like saying that being black is a disease and trying to make everyone white. It just doesn't seem right.

Other stuff for discussion:
They think Albert Einstein and Newton might have had Asperger's:
http://rarediseases.about.com/cs/asp...e/a/041003.htm

The mercury in vacination cause for autism sounds horribly ridiculous to me. To me it seems like alot of parents that have no idea what really is going on in the kid's mind think that autism is a bad thing, and are blaming it on the nearest possible cause.

I looked on youtube and hit perfection with this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fouye8Y4bg

Which then I came to this awesome site:
http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/

and try to tell me the fish painting here isn't the most realistic painting you've ever seen.
http://www.autisticculture.com/index.php?page=art

But still discussion and opinions on the topic welcomed.

08-14-2006, 07:58 PM	#1
gerbi7 FFR Player Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: North of Attleboro, Massasasachusasetts Posts: 276	Why does everyone take Asperger's as a disease? If you have no knowledge whatsoever about autism, then stop reading the rest this thread. Considering that one out of 166 children being born are supposed to have some form of autism, you should know a little about this. If not, try reading "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime" by Mark Haddon, the recent time magazines article about autism, or this site that has my full approval: http://www.udel.edu/bkirby/asperger/aswhatisit.html Also sorry for the length, but it seems neccesary to convey the extreme complexity of this topic. I have Asperger's Syndrome. Research centers, the media, and other rather uneducated people are really getting on my nerves, especially with how there's this preassumed thought that asperger's syndrome is something bad. If I was asked if I would want to be born without Asperger's, I would have to say no. I'm proud of having asperger's, but not of how I was treated as retarded until I got into highschool. I still had problems my freshman year, and I still have problems now. It just doesn't seem right to me, there's so much good about Asperger's Syndrome. To put it short, people with Asperger's are much more intelegent than the neurally typical person, but suffer from lack of social skills. They can overcome their social inability though. Two years ago anyone that knew someone with Asperger's well would have been easily able to tell that I had Asperger's. Now, you wouldn't even know that I had some mental disorder. One of the first benefits is easily noticed in a child's early years, in how they easily excel in math, science, and history. Story time: In third grade, we were learning to divide. The teacher said the usual things, and also said that division was like the opposite of multiplications. After a few examples (not including divisions like 15/1 with special cases), I was easily able to do division. Then the teacher handed out these little sheets with ten division problems each. We each had a minute to try to solve as many as we could. "Go!" and we were off. Ten seconds later, I'm done, I look around, and to my surprise, people are STILL working. This was one of the real times when it struck me how much more able than other people. I don't remember what the average problem the rest of the class got to, but I do remember sitting there waiting for the rest of the class to finish. Back then fifty seconds was a long time to wait. Second story: I think was around fifth grade. Our teacher had a sheet of paper, and a pencil and told the class that she was going to do a magic trick. I immediately noted that the presence of paper meant an inability to work only with brainpower, which definetly would be possible if it was real magic. The trick was to take three consecutive numbers (1,2,3, or 5,6,7, etc.), add them up, and then tell her the sum, and she could give you your three numbers. Being young, I did not notice the obvoius method that this trick worked by. I sat in my seat tossing around ideas of how it could have been done. I looked at the neccesary conditions for it to work, and noticed that the three numbers were one number, one less than that number, and one more than that number, as if a value of one had been moved. Therefore, that meant that the sum was equal to three times the middle number. Bam, it clicks. I start to scream out how it was done, but the teacher quiets me after I give the entire thing away. The rest of the class didn't get it even after I told them. It took some help from the teacher to give the concept to some little kiddies. People with Asperger's tend to be picky about what is on their plates when they're eating. The rest of my family treats it like it's something wrong, but considering that I can clearly see parts of my plates where the dishwasher clearly did not do a good job, and I can easily point it out, I don't think it's something wrong. The common thing I hear is "It's not going to kill you. It's just a piece of dirt." Maybe if the dish has dirt on it, it wasn't properly sanitized too. If that piece of dirt covered up some bacteria from the dishwasher, and it fell off, it could very well have salmonela from those uncooked eggs from yesterday, couldn't it? People with Asperger's are also just as willing to make friends, and can easily make friends with other people with it. I know about three other people with Asperger's, and we can easily get along. It's the rest of the world that discriminate, peer pressure that causes people in school to stay away from 'Retards', and commonly the neurally typical person's inability to control their thoughts and not go completely emotional. Admittedly, I sometimes had problems with anger, but they were always caused by the guidance staff and whatnot not letting me do something because they didn't think they could trust me. If anything you should trust someone with asperger's 100%, like you would trust a vulcan. I do remember one time when I had a fit because of something that happened and that the guidance people would not let me do something simple like get lunch. People with Asperger's are completely oblivious to the entity known as "Peer Pressure". You can put me down all you want, but you can't affect how I feel about anything. Back when I was in elementary school, the thought never came to me that someone might put me down. as a consequence I never really understood insults. Also, if you have some kid that goes around doing stupid things, like asking random girls for AIM screennames, has absolutely no sense of what is something good to wear is, and is completely oblivious to the fact that they look weird, they probably have Asperger's. People with Asperger's do not lie. The only times that I have lied would be when my mom is doing something horribly unfair, and lying would get her off my back. People with Asperger's realize the value of the truth, that lying destroys something very important. If everyone lied, you wouldn't know if you could trust anyone. If everyone cheated, lied, or stole, those that did not cheat, lie, or steal would eventually be at a lower spot than those that cheated, lied, or stole, and so would eventually have to cheat, lie, and steal. Eventually it will keep building up and get worse. If everyone did not lie, cheat, or steal, you could trust anyone. You wouldn't need to lock your house when you leave. You wouldn't have to worry about being mugged walking down an alleyway in a city at night. By not trying to be lazy and lie, cheat, or steal, the world would be without war or fighting. The world would be heaven, wouldn't it? People with Asperger's can make excellent use of peripheral vision. I remember from an old magazine I read that they said this. I also see daily instances of nuerally typical people not having the kind of capabilities I have with peripheral vision. Also, I think that other people's vision do blur when objects are out of focus, but objects do not blur for me unless they're really close up. It happens with my vision that everything in my range of vision is not blurred, but will be a double copy if it is out of focus. Even that I did not start out with the basic social capability of a neurally typical person, that ended up as being a plus. Because I did not have these capabilities, I had to look into the way that society in itself worked. I'd be happy to talk to you about that if wanted to. Combined with EEG Neuralfeedback, I was also able to gain some normal function emotions such as geninuine sadness. Unfortuately, that was not in time for my grandfather's death, which was pretty unemotional for me, even though he had been close to me. Regardless of any of it is good or not, there still is the fact that there's a person in any individual with Asperger's. Regardless of how awkward the person is socially, there is a person there, and that person has an opinion. I do not want to lose my Asperger's. To try to rid people of Asperger's is to me like something like nazism, something racist. Like saying that being black is a disease and trying to make everyone white. It just doesn't seem right. Other stuff for discussion: They think Albert Einstein and Newton might have had Asperger's: http://rarediseases.about.com/cs/asp...e/a/041003.htm The mercury in vacination cause for autism sounds horribly ridiculous to me. To me it seems like alot of parents that have no idea what really is going on in the kid's mind think that autism is a bad thing, and are blaming it on the nearest possible cause. I looked on youtube and hit perfection with this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fouye8Y4bg Which then I came to this awesome site: http://www.aspiesforfreedom.com/ and try to tell me the fish painting here isn't the most realistic painting you've ever seen. http://www.autisticculture.com/index.php?page=art But still discussion and opinions on the topic welcomed. __________________ Squirrels are evil.

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