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Since my son was identified as autistic (with the flurry of research that inspired), I have come to realize that many of the previously "anomalous" things about my own life, headspace, behavior, and day-to-day "issues" are rather strongly suggestive of Asperger's Syndrome*. It is unlikely that I would receive a diagnosis in the US, according to the DSM-IV criteria (which emphasize "clinically significant impairments," more on that below), but the broader profile suggested by people like Tony Atwood do place me on the spectrum - specifically, what Atwood has called "residual Asperger's" - which doesn't mean that the Asperger's has "gone away," but that it has been accomodated to the point that any impairments are no longer "clinically significant" (e.g. learning, through careful observation, the basics of body language or to recognize figurative speech).
Reframing my "problems" in terms of Asperger's/Autism has really (really) helped me to understand and manage them. First and foremost it has helped me to make sense of them: one common feature of Asperger's/Autism is an unusually uneven distribution of abilities, so that typically-reasonable assumptions of "I can do A, therefore I can (or should-be-able-to-goddamit-what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-me) do B" don't always apply. In a conventional educational setting (and, occasionally, in intimate relationships), this can lead to trouble when it's not understood. I have also come to appreciate that my capabilities on one day are not always a good predictor of my capabilities on any other day, or under different conditions. This is true of everybody, to a certain extent, but for people with Asperger's/Autism, the changes can sometimes be profound (sometimes I can't actually communicate verbally at all, and find myself relying on prelearned stock phrases or echoing exactly what others say around me).
I can ramble on about Asperger's for hours, but I'm going to stop for now so I can get some work done before lunch.
*this is apparently a fairly common phenomeon, as many people with Asperger's make it to adulthood undiagnosed until they come into contact with autism specialists, etc., on behalf of their child (there seems to be a strong hereditary component to spectrum conditions). Stephen Shore calls this APHID - Autistic Parent Heavily In Denial. |
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