5 ms·

Nothing in your description is specific to Asperger's Syndrome. You sound like an introvert with some social anxiety, which is not a developmental disorder.

by pluto9 9y ago

Will_Parker 9y ago
That pins down an interesting characteristic of the situation. If we manage to self-treat ourselves into passable normality, few people believe we ever had a serious problem in the first place! Or that they (with their actual serious diagnoses) could learn from those who applied self help and rational analysis to their own lives. I actually think some people get attached to the idea of their victimhood and helplessness, and this can easily become a disincentive to making positive (and very difficult) change. (Yes I know there is the other side of it which is real, that medical expertise can help too. But like everything else, oversimplifying into a clear binary of diagnosable vs not, is not always useful.)
- mercer 9y ago
  I've read that there are quite a few people who sort of 'grow out' of their aspergers, often when they find a suitable partner. While obviously they might still be neurologically different, as a result the diagnosis might not strictly apply anymore.
- jerf 9y ago
  "If we manage to self-treat ourselves into passable normality, few people believe we ever had a serious problem in the first place!" Elaborating, I think, rather than disagreeing: Self-treating into passable normalcy is basically life. One of the characteristics you have to have in order to be diagnosed with any psychological disorder is that it has to be interfering with your life. Absolutely everybody can read the DSM and find a good half-a-dozen things they may have tendencies towards, but if it's not interfering with your life, it's not a disease/diagnosis. Liking a clean space does not mean you're on the "OSD spectrum", being a bit nervous around spiders does not mean you're on the "phobia spectrum", etc. "Healthy" isn't a single point in psych space, if for no other reason then that there isn't a "perfectly healthy" person available to define that point for us! It also certainly isn't a well-delineated boundary, but it is clearly not a single point, and even within the space of "healthy" there is clearly a lot of diversity.
- astine 9y ago
  "That pins down an interesting characteristic of the situation. If we manage to self-treat ourselves into passable normality, few people believe we ever had a serious problem in the first place!" Yes, and this is true of any mental issue. Hell, it's also true of physical ailments that don't leave obvious visible markers. Depressed? You don't seem depressed. Anxiety? You talk with people all the time. People don't always understand that this functioning is the result of a lot of invisible effort. I'm sure that their are people out there that like to play the victim, but that doesn't mean that people's struggles aren't real.
- lisper 9y ago
  > That pins down an interesting characteristic of the situation. If we manage to self-treat ourselves into passable normality, few people believe we ever had a serious problem in the first place! Wow, you really hit the nail on the head with this. Just look at all the people here trying to second-guess my own self-assessment!
lisper 9y ago
You should consider the possibility that I have not given a complete description of my situation in a single HN comment from which one could properly diagnose me one way or the other. Maybe the aspects of my situation that would definitively decide the question one way or the other are too painful for me to air in public even after all these years, or maybe I just don't feel like baring my soul in public. Either way, I don't really care if you want to attach the label "disorder" to it or not. All I know is that it caused me a lot of pain and anguish well into my 20s and 30s, and it took a lot of years of concerted effort to change my situation. My point is not that I want to wear the scarlet A with pride, my point is that I was able to do something about it, whatever it was, and my life is immeasurably better for having made that effort. The rest is just quibbling over terminology.
- mercer 9y ago
  I would be interested to hear what things helped you most in changing your situation, though! I'm still at an early stage of actually 'doing' stuff to improve things, so I'd be very curious to hear what worked for you.
  - lisper 9y ago
    Mainly just making a concerted effort, when something went wrong, to go back and analyze why it went wrong and what I should have done differently. It took a lot of trial and error (like 10-20 years worth), and even today I will sometimes freeze up in social situations because all of the things I can think of to do in some situation are being flagged as "wrong" based on some prior experience.
    - wolfgke 9y ago
      > Mainly just making a concerted effort, when something went wrong, to go back and analyze why it went wrong and what I should have done differently. It took a lot of trial and error (like 10-20 years worth), and even today I will sometimes freeze up in social situations because all of the things I can think of to do in some situation are being flagged as "wrong" based on some prior experience. Perhaps you should write this down as a concise theory with falsifiable predictions of what kind of social behavior people really expect.

Nothing in your description is specific to Asperger's Syndrome. You sound like an introvert with some social anxiety, which is not a developmental disorder.

by pluto9 9y ago

Nothing in your description is specific to Asperger's Syndrome. You sound like an introvert with some social anxiety, which is not a developmental disorder.

Will_Parker 9y ago

That pins down an interesting characteristic of the situation. If we manage to self-treat ourselves into passable normality, few people believe we ever had a serious problem in the first place! Or that they (with their actual serious diagnoses) could learn from those who applied self help and rational analysis to their own lives. I actually think some people get attached to the idea of their victimhood and helplessness, and this can easily become a disincentive to making positive (and very difficult) change. (Yes I know there is the other side of it which is real, that medical expertise can help too. But like everything else, oversimplifying into a clear binary of diagnosable vs not, is not always useful.)

mercer 9y ago
I've read that there are quite a few people who sort of 'grow out' of their aspergers, often when they find a suitable partner. While obviously they might still be neurologically different, as a result the diagnosis might not strictly apply anymore.
jerf 9y ago
"If we manage to self-treat ourselves into passable normality, few people believe we ever had a serious problem in the first place!" Elaborating, I think, rather than disagreeing: Self-treating into passable normalcy is basically life. One of the characteristics you have to have in order to be diagnosed with any psychological disorder is that it has to be interfering with your life. Absolutely everybody can read the DSM and find a good half-a-dozen things they may have tendencies towards, but if it's not interfering with your life, it's not a disease/diagnosis. Liking a clean space does not mean you're on the "OSD spectrum", being a bit nervous around spiders does not mean you're on the "phobia spectrum", etc. "Healthy" isn't a single point in psych space, if for no other reason then that there isn't a "perfectly healthy" person available to define that point for us! It also certainly isn't a well-delineated boundary, but it is clearly not a single point, and even within the space of "healthy" there is clearly a lot of diversity.
astine 9y ago
"That pins down an interesting characteristic of the situation. If we manage to self-treat ourselves into passable normality, few people believe we ever had a serious problem in the first place!" Yes, and this is true of any mental issue. Hell, it's also true of physical ailments that don't leave obvious visible markers. Depressed? You don't seem depressed. Anxiety? You talk with people all the time. People don't always understand that this functioning is the result of a lot of invisible effort. I'm sure that their are people out there that like to play the victim, but that doesn't mean that people's struggles aren't real.
lisper 9y ago
> That pins down an interesting characteristic of the situation. If we manage to self-treat ourselves into passable normality, few people believe we ever had a serious problem in the first place! Wow, you really hit the nail on the head with this. Just look at all the people here trying to second-guess my own self-assessment!

lisper 9y ago

You should consider the possibility that I have not given a complete description of my situation in a single HN comment from which one could properly diagnose me one way or the other. Maybe the aspects of my situation that would definitively decide the question one way or the other are too painful for me to air in public even after all these years, or maybe I just don't feel like baring my soul in public. Either way, I don't really care if you want to attach the label "disorder" to it or not. All I know is that it caused me a lot of pain and anguish well into my 20s and 30s, and it took a lot of years of concerted effort to change my situation. My point is not that I want to wear the scarlet A with pride, my point is that I was able to do something about it, whatever it was, and my life is immeasurably better for having made that effort. The rest is just quibbling over terminology.

mercer 9y ago
I would be interested to hear what things helped you most in changing your situation, though! I'm still at an early stage of actually 'doing' stuff to improve things, so I'd be very curious to hear what worked for you.
- lisper 9y ago
  Mainly just making a concerted effort, when something went wrong, to go back and analyze why it went wrong and what I should have done differently. It took a lot of trial and error (like 10-20 years worth), and even today I will sometimes freeze up in social situations because all of the things I can think of to do in some situation are being flagged as "wrong" based on some prior experience.
  - wolfgke 9y ago
    > Mainly just making a concerted effort, when something went wrong, to go back and analyze why it went wrong and what I should have done differently. It took a lot of trial and error (like 10-20 years worth), and even today I will sometimes freeze up in social situations because all of the things I can think of to do in some situation are being flagged as "wrong" based on some prior experience. Perhaps you should write this down as a concise theory with falsifiable predictions of what kind of social behavior people really expect.