Question for those on the spectrum...

[milivica]

...or anyone with good ideas/answers.

I sure have been thinking about lots lately, all at once, which would be my usual thinking style :o hmph.

I'm engulfed to very high levels of what I can only describe as an identity crisis. The best way I can describe it, is I'm like a dog that has lived with humans so long I no longer know how to be a dog.

I have been an aspie faking normal for so long (unbeknown to me truly, or I wouldn't have faked it), well anyhow, I almost feel like an 'it' again, like I did all my life till finding out I was on the spectrum. Although finding out I was on the spectrum was the most giant relief in too many ways to explain, and was not ever a burden in any way....all the decades of trying to force myself to be nt has left me in no where land so to speak.

Watching that video recently of Alfamb/silentmiaow on CNN, I felt really lost again like I did all the years I was honing my nt act. Not that the act ever feels right, you just hope your 'doing' what ever it is everyone else seems to be doing...and on a regular basis talking yourself out of the ideas that you are a transplant from another life form given human form, and when I return there everything hard will be easy cause I'll just be 'right' automatically. Again, remember my age, pre-aspergers terminology. You were 'crazy' or not crazy, there was no ADHD and so on. Note: I have never met a 'crazy' person that wasn't clearly very intelligent much more so than the general public.

Well anyhow, I'm off track here....I would LOVE to know if I 'left my son' and myself alone as we are, and didn't try to develop and progress nt things like communication style primarily, well then what becomes of all the Vincent's and silentmiaow's....how is it possible to 'accept' my child as is if doing so means I know he will have no independence, and most likely wind up in an asylum cause I'm betting he will be too violent for residential. Either way, he'll be drugged. And remember, he is going to be a good 7 feet when grown and black, sorry but that does count in America. I want to be loving and accepting of all types of people, and when I looked at the CNN video I had no problem feeling loving and accepting and proud of silentmiaow. And yes I would easily believe great words and works could come from her if I saw her on the street. BUT, what do lfa's and hfa's do, if left alone and unchanged, to support themselves and have lives of choice and independence? I can do that, with horrible anxiety and strain...Vince I doubt could without tons of intervention with me now and for years.

So I'm asking those on the spectrum that say 'no cure' and 'accept me like this' which is fine if you are happy as you are you shouldn't try to change, but what about being able to make independent choices in your life? How to get jobs, money to live, etc... all the things this world requires for you to live. How does and asd get around all the communication involved day to day, week to week, month to month, etc... to be able to be independent? It's fine to say respect me as I am, and all should be respected as are. But how do you live when you are unable to communicate and act 'normal' enough to gain employment. I get it that we are expected to understand nt's and when we don't we feel 'broken', and when nt's don't understand us we still feel 'broken'. But that is majority...and currently the vast majority of the world is nt.

OH - the reason I wrote this. Can anyone realistically envision a world of asd majority, and write your vision in a way that I can imagine what that world looks like, how it would function. If I could see a world like that, maybe I could just understand some things better that I hear some autistics say about not changing. Cause I want to change and develop, but in MANY areas, not just my 'social neurology'.

[MomOTwins]

OK, Mili, I'll just focus on your final question, having thought a lot about this when imagining what life will be like as my boys get older:

"Can anyone realistically envision a world of asd majority, and write your vision in a way that I can imagine what that world looks like, how it would function."

Well, I'm coming at it from a strange perspective, having worked with (and lived with) science and engineering geeks for most of my life. I remember Temple Grandin calling the Johnson Space Center a "sheltered workshop for autistics".

Remember we talk about the "continuum of autism" (the whole "spectrum" issue), but we often don't think of it realistically, only focusing on the individual and not on the whole. Imagine a rainbow - very bright bands of color that merge into each other, with lots of combinations of colors between each band. That is how I visualize the world we live in - made up of folks that you can place very easily into each bright color band (the outgoing Type A person who runs the corporation, the shy person who is not comfortable at parties) and folks who fit into the blending zones - with all of us somewhere on that "spectrum".

If we use that as our model for the personalities in our world, everyone is a member of the club - we are ALL diagnosed with some piece of the spectrum, whether it is incapacitating (severe agoraphobia, severe bipolar disorder) or just a thing that we have to consciously deal with occasionally (fear of public speaking, claustrophobia only in elevators).

How would this world function?

Well, I guess you can see it all around you any time, right? Sometimes it works well, sometimes it is totally screwed up. If more ASD folks were in positions of big-time power, I don't know what we'd see - maybe a lot more fixation on processes and less on getting a problem solved? Knowing my one boy, we'd have a LOT of disaster planning done, just in case a tsunami might hit Kansas, a volcano might erupt in Times Square, you never know! Knowing my other boy, we'd have a LOT of cooking classes for kids, so they could learn to make all their favorite foods without having to ask for help. We'd probably spend a lot of time in meetings trying to get everyone to agree with ME, since I know everything there is to know about everything (Hey, I don't deny my part in the rainbow!). That part of being a member of this club would be tough to deal with, but I think we already see a lot of this in the government anyway! Would the world be more or less violent? Probably not, conflict resolution skills are often not our best ability. Would we treat people with more respect, despite our differences? Maybe, but interpersonal skills sometimes need help, too.

The other thing that I'd like to imagine is charter schools (or magnet schools, whetever folks call them) focused on the stuff our kids love. We've got a few here in NY - the science- or engineering-focused high schools, schools that focus on theatre or the arts. Imagine an environmental science program that contains Vincent and all the other "weather-focused" kids in the area! What a hoot! What cool field trips! What a huge number of Nobel prize winners!

Does this make any sense? Have I gone totally off the deep end of the pool or can you see where I was going with my vision?

Kim

[Isabelle]

mili, you might find this interesting if you haven't read it already and if it is true/original these leo kanner's reports on his first patients.
it is very coincidental what kanner described of the behaviour and professions of their parents and grandparents, were they the first aspergers?
http://www.ama.org.br/kannereng910.htm

[tgrimes]

I don't know, mili, but I think you accept a person at the level they are today, but at the same time have expectations and hopes for them to grow and change for the better. They, after all, have the same goals for themselves. No one thinks "I hope my life is worse next year"
And that's the whole reason to work on things, whatever you define as a goal. Everyone does this at some level. Progress is the stuff of life, but however slow, and however long it takes, and redefining goals, still takes a backseat to the here and now and need for acceptance.

[Isabelle]

just give vince a chance the opportunity to develop his potential, he has you for as long as he need you, but see if you can get a tutor/mentor a good friend to guide him when he gets to me a teen.

[milivica]

Despite the length of my post, I don't think I asked what I meant to.

Grimey, you have been darn funny lately:
>>>>No one thinks "I hope my life is worse next year"

HA! Now that was good.