Asperger syndrome, lonlieness and understanding

I was speaking to someone today about difference and perception of people and how people behave.

We have the ‘norms v. the ‘not-so-norms.’

This is an interesting concept,  ‘Difference’.

The word ‘neurotypicals’ is a word I also dislike intensely.

What is ‘A typical person?

I, personally,  am not typical we do know this.

I also knew this as a young child.

I was reminded every day, words screamed at me - ‘stop shouting’ ‘stop running’ ‘stop talking so much.’  ‘WOULD YOU BE QUIET’  ‘WOULD YOU BE STILL.’

 I could not and I still cannot and yes, I do know why, NOW!

Decades I have spent trying to be what others considered ‘normal’ and join the conformed world of ‘neurotypicals.’

Difference made me very depressed and trying to be something I could never be also made me very depressed and very anxious indeed.

I tried.

I failed.

I lived a life of misery – decades of it, because of the effort and the abandonment of my effort as well, the more I failed the more I withdrew.

My difference wasn’t the difference others thought it to be.

I was not a mental head case, which has stuck and there isn’t much I can do about this, although I wish I could try  but that is way beyond my powers.  I doubt I would succeed because it does suit people to believe this.

I have asperger syndrome.

It is interesting to note that this syndrome has now been merged back in with the term Autism, when once it was separate and that according to the mental health experts in the USA.

I believe this is so to make it possible to drug people if they are not conforming and so the weightier label of Autism is a one-stop shop for the ‘stop that’ pill.

So in all the years I tried hard to be like everyone else, I failed.

In all the years I was something defined by medicine, I was defined by many others as something entirely different and I doubt I will make any headway in redefining it back to either a norm or indeed to what it should be as is now known, Asperger Syndrome.

By someone else I have been redefined as Autistic and there is nothing I can do, even though there is a vast swathe of people stating that psychiatrist re-definition is the wrong one, as Asperger syndrome is not actually Autism.

Its Asperger syndrome.

Lets look again at how hard I tried to belong and join a world I didn’t understand due to Asperger syndrome.

Let us look at how people who are termed ‘neurotypical’ are trying to help autistic children, mainly and asperger symdrome children to join the world and integrate and be  part of the world.

They, the neurotypicals, have started ‘Assistance dogs for Autism’, in this country that costs 47k a year to train a dog up for one person alone.

They also have associations and groups and parenting groups and problem solving groups and facebook pages and all for the aim of improving the lives of those with autism etc.

Their main way of doing this is through teaching children how to behave, in effect the ‘normal’ way.  How to relate, the normal way.  A simple way of saying this is the ‘dummies guide’ to The 100 best tips to be ‘normal.’

 This is all done ‘at’ the child, ‘to’ the child and ‘for’ the child.

What is Asperger Syndrome?

It is in a nutshell a difference in ways of communication that are different to the vast majority of the population, and the vast majority have decided that we, are actually defective because we do not relate, er ‘normally.’

The ‘normals’ are attempting to bend, teach, train and bend again the ways, which are normal for the minority to the ways that are considered normal for the majority and foist these ways on the minority.

Communication my friend is between one group of people and another group of people and its called communicating.  It’s a process and is also pro-active and shared, its not active for one and passive for another.

Asperger Syndrome people tend to be a lonely bunch simply because they are in effect, different and communicate differently.

What normal people (they consider themselves normal) do not realize that whilst they spend most of their energies working hard and hell bent to bend, asperger people to be what they cannot be, ‘normal,’ they spend little or no time at all learning or bending themselves, to related as in relate with knowledge and in an active way to the other.

 The aspie is working hard to be ‘normal,’ as from the age now of about three it will be noted that they are not normal so the mind bending begins early so too does the notion within that child of ‘difference.’  The child cannot help but understand this concept, for they now have a dog beside them with a coat on emblazed with an emblem for the condition of Autism and also  Assistive Dog for the person who is hanging on to it!

Can it not be a two way process, all this hard work for the asperger person, all this learning, bending and learning again?

Why can the ‘normals’ or ‘neurotypicals’ not join the minority groups?

Can they not meet in the middle and attempt that social dialogue with a large degree of acceptance of difference rather than changing everything there is about a lonely asperger child or adult.

Can they actually attempt ‘friendship’ with an asperger child or adult and attempt to understand the difference rather than changing it outright and from conception to ‘forever amen?’

Why not?

No one said that asperger people are not as interesting, if not in many ways more interesting!

No one said that asperger people do not want friendships, they very much do

No one actually said they cannot be a good friend, cannot relate because they can and do, but they do it differently.

Why do the neurotypicals not try to retrain themselves to be less majority and more minority, in thinking?  The two can meet somewhere in the middle and less of Difference is noted.

Aspies like normals, do like to withdraw into their own quietness and peacefulness.

No one is denying that for the neurotypicals, like most humans we all need to know when to release another to their own space and peace.

But I see all this enlightenment to ‘change’ and in understanding, very much one sided.

Like everything that is health or personality related, we see now a pathologizing of ‘difference’ even by splitting the definitions that high functioning asperger people are in fact now high functioning autistic people, this isn’t quite exact but only surmising and in doing so draws more into the net of psychopathology.

 Definitions of norm are ever decreasing and I see a day the majority of people now normal will be the minority of to day, defective.

Imagine this, weeping at a funeral now is to be given a medical term and it is being considered to consider it a pathological manifestation!