Asperger’s Syndrome – People are Not Stereotypes
The diagnostic criteria for Asperger’s Syndrome, like so many other “labels” is so stigmatizing and stereotyping. As if all people with any given “label” or any group of people, regardless of why or how they are grouped together are a) all the same and/or b) all-good, or all-bad – c) acceptable or not acceptable based upon those who would judge others by how much of themselves they see mirrored back to them, or not. Each and every human being is first and foremost an individual human being. Why is it that so many people lump all people with Asperger’s together like we are all the same? We aren’t. We don’t all experience Asperger’s the same either.
People with Asperger’s Syndrome (AS) are different in some ways from Neuortypicals (NT’s). But, so too is each Aspie different from other Aspies. So too is each NT different from the next person. We all have strengths and weaknesses. Life is about radically accepting that and learning that weaknesses and vulnerability are strengths too. Sometimes what one thinks is his or her strongest strength or quality may well not be. Life is about so much paradox. The more we can find a balanced middle-ground the better off we will all be collectively and individually. If we, those with Asperger’s and NT’s meet in the seemingly-impossible middle-ground that stands all around us, in that space and from that mind-set we can learn more about not only tolerance of difference but respect and celebration of difference – an acceptance of difference that does not judge one way of being as better than another.
Make peace with your experience with Asperger’s Syndrome in your life. I have. Self-acceptance and self-love and understanding are so very important. A.J. Mahari, herself, an adult with Asperger’s is also an Author of over 20+ Ebooks, a Life Coach, BPD/Mental Health, Asperger’s, and Self Improvement Coach. Mahari makes the point that no one is perfect and that there is no such things as normal. The construct that neurotypicals are normal and Aspie’s aren’t is a polarized and arbitrary one at best. It doesn’t have to mean anything to you. You don’t have to be defined by this dichotomy or adhere to it either. Free yourself from feeling “less than”. Celebrate who you are and know that difference is just that – different. It doesn’t have to mean anything else.
Inside My Asperger Experience Audio
Asperger’s Syndrome and Adulthood From The Inside Out Ebook
Asperger’s Syndrome, and yes I have Tourette Syndrome (TS) too, which often seems to “go with AS” and is something that I never admitted online before. I guess it took me a bit longer to accept and come to terms with that and to be as okay with and about that as I am anything else about myself. Why? Simply because I am no more defined in the totality of what it is to be human and to be me by Asperger’s or Tourette Syndrome than I am by the sum total of all that makes me who I am.
© A.J. Mahari, March 27, 2011 – All rights reserved.
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There Are So Many Paths
Asperger’s Syndrome is a journey within the over-all journey of life. For those of us diagnosed as adults the journey may have a few added challenges to it. Life is a journey, not a destination. Within this journey there are as many paths that lead to connecting points, junctures of mutual understanding, as there are people living lives.
This applies whether you have Asperger’s Syndrome or whether you are a neurotypcial (NT). So, you see, we do have something in common after all.
There are many different paths and individual differences among those diagnosed with Asperger’s as well. I believe that along with these individual and personal differences are interwoven the many distinctive ways that AS manifests or is evident in males and females.
Just as there are a plethora of differences between those of us with Asperger’s and those who are NT, there are at least that many differences between each one of us with AS. While we share many traits in common and are thusly identified and diagnosed as having AS this does not make us anymore all the same then all NT’s are all the same just because they are neurotypical.
There are so many paths. There are paths that we choose to take, in life, and there are some paths that are chosen for us. I see having Asperger’s Syndrome as a path that was chosen for me. It is a reality that has taken much but that has also given much and promises to give much more to me in the future. A road or path less traveled apparently. It is a path that encompasses a journey very far from ordinary. Having AS presents challenges that highlight and only serve to strengthen my most inquisitive resolve. Difficult to explain. Complicated to live with and process. Interesting to call upon in all the social/relational situations in which I am impacted the most by it.
I have been told by professionals that AS is actually the source of a lot of my strength and that as I continually seek to profoundly understand myself and how to relate to the NT world better there are ways that I can take this path and have it be an enhancing experience. I am just beginning to tap into this now as my self-acceptance continues to grow. This is a newly formed realization and belief of mine now based upon enough NT input combined with my own AS understanding. This is a testament, for me, to the reality that there are so many paths. I think ever since I was diagnosed I had a mindset that there was only one path or one way and that was the NT way. I had believed that any other way was less than, flawed, dsyfunctional, and abnormal.
It is so freeing to be opening much wider to seeing my path and journey in life as valid in and of itself. I am able to do this now because I can esteem myself for who I am the way that I am. I no longer feel like I have to apologize or make excuses for who I am or how I am. I don’t feel or believe that I am in any way less than because I am not NT.
Finally, the soothingly-sustaining entrance opening up paths not realized in my previously tormented and pent-up existence.
I have also been told by professionals that I am “very high functioning”. Okay, well, I am still trying to figure out if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Truthfully, I realize there are many blessings in being high functioning. It is my experience that there are also considerable challenges associated with this reality, this path, this way of being AS in an NT world. It is not without heart-wrenching pain. The pain of knowing one is other, outside, different, and being profoundly aware of all the times in the social/relational NT context I simply don’t get it. In the past it has been disgustingly devastating to me over and over again that no amount of applied intellectual prowess on my part has been able to ameliorate what I refer to as asperger lostness.
It seems clear right now though that I stand on the precarious precipice of evolving edgy contradiction – correlating my high functioning AS path with the indefatigable paths of the NT world of existence, connection, and communication. I feel compelled to continue to push my limits.
Through this ardent approach to the challenging of my limits I have found that there are a myriad of archetypal paths to be discovered and synthesized as I now consciously travel this barren wasteland, this seeming vacuum of void, this largely collectively unmapped adaptation of paradoxical dualistic survival by creating my own algorithms.
The algorithms that are relevant to my enterprisingly energetic exposure to all that is non-aspie-like are step-by-step problem-solving procedures that I am continually processing and mapping out to assist me in developing a stronger sense of the lay of the land on planet NT. Specifically the lay of the social/relating land.
In my qualitative quest I am now buoyed by my new understanding, and more importantly, my new acceptance of the fact that I, being on the autistic spectrum and having AS, need to acquire my knowledge base and working understanding of socializing and relating cognitively. I am not able to acquire it or understand it through observation, or the trial and error that NT’s learn social skills by. What a pivotal piece of the over-all ever-unfolding puzzle this is for me. It seems and feels strange and yet it is a huge relief to finally get this.
Clearly, there are so many paths each of us can choose to travel that will facilitate our connecting and communicating capacity and capability.
© A.J. Mahari, March 1, 2005 – All rights reserved.
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