Dated someone with Aspergers

Glad no one "stepped in" with me. I spoke at 6 months and full sentences as 12. Started eating solid foods at age 3 months. I didn't have motor skills issues as a child, I started to lag behind there when I hit puberty. IDK what "behaviors" I should have been trained to do or stop doing.

I know people hate to hear this, especially with the new DSM, but aspies DIFFER from auties. There has been TONS of research hinting at those being 2 different things. I'm glad I wasn't treated like an autie growing up. Because I'm not one. It would have harmed me.

Autism is a developmental disorder as opposed to a mental illness.

Luckily, I stepped in for my son who is now 20, back when he was 3. He got to go to an intensive preschool classroom with only 6 children and 2 teachers. Back then parents had to fight and advocate to get ABA training, which is one on one discreet trial training. I did not get the one on one training. After preschool we tried a typical kindergarten class but he needed more attention so we switched to a structured autism classroom.

No one should be treated a certain way simply based a diagnosis. Those with asperger's and autism should be treated like individuals based on their individual needs. If a need for interventions exists then they should receive services, no matter what their particular label might be and obviously, on the flip side, not get services if none are needed. It really is not as simple as just what you are diagnosed with.

Stb,

My reference to denial in this discussion truly had nothing to do with people with Autism. You are very open about it and I am very open (with my close friends) about my depression. I was very open and honest with my girlfriend about it also. I don't deny the fact that depression hits me once in a while and I work through it.

I just saw a lot of denial in my former girlfriend. She would say things such as she did not know why bright lights bothered her, or why her son hummed very loudly, etc. And there were a lot of signs such as her shutdowns which I talked to her about and she totally downplayed it. And it is fine that she has shutdowns but at the time, I had no clue what was going on.

The denial card really came into play when she brought up once that she felt chemicals and vaccinations cause Autism. That told me she has knowledge of the subject. I wish I would have taken that opportunity to talk to her in more detail.

So I hope my posts don't offend anyone here. A year ago I had very little knowledge of what Autism is and had no clue what Asperger's is. It took some time for me to figure out what was going on and during that time, it put a lot of strain on the relationship.

Let's put it this way, if she truly knows she is on the spectrum, and told me upfront, that would have helped me understand things.

I understand, and thank you for your honesty. No offence taken at all, I'm sorry if I did make it seem that way.

I just didn't like this whole "stepping in" terminology that was being used. I agree that autistic people can receive help throughout life with the things they may struggle with, but there are several so-called therapies out there which is just a smokescreen to cover up a program where basically the autistic child is forced to try and become neurotypical in his/her thinking. There are therapies (the name of which I will not mention here) that force autistic people to stop stimming and other autistic behaviours for example, because it is regarded as socially unacceptable behaviour.

The danger is when you step in with a child, you might very well end up in such a type of therapy and do the individual more harm than good in the long run. Be very careful of the "stepping in" thing. It should rather be teach, not punish and correct.

Stb,

Yes, I do not think that she or anyone with Autism needs to be fixed or even think that they are not normal. I just wondered if anyone in her family has ever discussed it with her. While I was reading up on the subject, I found that people with Asperger's sometimes think they are different than everyone. Knowing why we think or act a certain way is empowerment. When we broke up, she seemed confused as to why. I really did not know what to say to her.

Take me for instance. I have found that some people think depression is self-pity. I have even been told that to my face. It really ticks me off when I hear that because it so incredibly far from the truth. But I have found the more I learn about depression, and ways to cope with it, helps me immensely.

Yes, for sure. It can actually begin to spread to any mental "abnormality". People who have never experienced these things don't regard depression, autism, bipolar, etc. as "normal".

What gets me most is how people enforce the belief that "normal" = correct, and subsequently any deviation from that must be corrected or fixed.

And, the truth is, it is not for our benefit as these people claim, but solely for their own. They don't know how to deal with people who are autistic, depressed, etc. so they try to define it as a "problem" so it can be "fixed". It is simply because they don't have the tact and the understanding to deal with it. Truly, they have a much bigger problem than you or I have/had, being depressed and autistic, respectively. Indeed, it is them that needs fixing!

But OK, I digress. Normal is simply the norm, a numbers thing. Just because something occurs the most, doesn't mean it's correct. Any person who tries to treat autism and tries to bash it out of someone's brain to make them more normal is automatically elevating themselves higher than that person, because who are they to judge what is acceptable and not acceptable social behaviour? They simply go by what is acceptable by society's standards.

I think this can really leave a lot of damage on a person, especially a child, when they are subjected to such "therapies".

I think I would have ended up dissociative with almost any type of intervention. I already feel hollow like someone just barely failed to kill the me inside of me. If they had started picking the parts of my behavior apart that I feel are part of myself, I think I would have split worse than I am. My core personality is very "small" because of other people's way of treating me when I was a child.