Plant Poisons and Rotten Stuff – The Blog

Asperger Syndrome or (Asperger’s Disorder) is a neurobiological disorder named for a Viennese physician, Hans Asperger, who in 1944 published a paper which described a pattern of behaviors in several young boys who had normal intelligence and language development, but who also exhibited autistic-like behaviors and marked deficiencies in social and communication skills. In spite of the publication of his paper in the 1940′s, it wasn’t until 1994 that Asperger Syndrome was added to the DSM IV and only in the past few years has AS been recognized by professionals and parents.

Individuals with AS can exhibit a variety of characteristics and the disorder can range from mild to severe. Persons with AS show marked deficiencies in social skills,
Yep. I don’t know how to make friends with people. I don’t know how to keep friends. I don’t know how to answer emails from friends. I have to work hard at social niceties. If a friend hurts me, I am like the elephant that never forgets (bitter, twisted).

have difficulties with transitions or changes and prefer sameness.
Not exactly. I get bored by sameness. I have to move house every couple of years. I have to change my specialist subject/career every few years. This is supposed to be an ADD/ADHD trait. However, I feel really “put out” and panicky when people change things at short notice, for example, if I am given some new work to do, it will take me a day to get used to the idea of doing it. My maternal grandmother was an absolute slave of routine. Nothing would alter her plans, come hell or high water. She would complain about not seeing her grandchildren, but she wouldn’t go out of her way and delay her Saturday shopping trip for a couple of hours to see us!

They often have obsessive routines and may be preoccupied with a particular subject of interest.
Yep. The food/nutrition obsession is justified, but yep. I’ve always been obsessive, and as a teenager had seriously obsessive crushes on some unlikely people. I had a lot of OCD traits: hand washing, also, washing new things I bought from shops. Strange teenage obsession with stationery. When I was a kid I used to climb one side of the climbing frame, and have to climb the other side. I had to do everything ten times. I had to jump ten times, and if one hand touched the floor, the other hand had to touch the floor, then I used to have to touch the floor ten times to make it even… My sister had this trait too, but to a much lesser extent. She was the hyperactive one.

They have a great deal of difficulty reading nonverbal cues (body language) and very often the individual with AS has difficulty determining proper body space.
I think I’m actually good at this, but the result is it makes me paranoid because I can tell when people are taking the piss or being fake. I don’t have any problems with body space, but I get very put out when someone enters my space.

Often overly sensitive to sounds, tastes, smells, and sights, the person with AS may prefer soft clothing, certain foods, and be bothered by sounds or lights no one else seems to hear or see.
This makes me laugh, because it’s so “me” it’s untrue. I’m like “turn the radio DOWN!!!!” or “what is that annoying noise?!” all the time, and like Captain Hook, I can’t stand ticking clocks. Or dripping taps, or high-pitched almost inaudible whining from electrical equipment. I was a very picky eater as a child. This was trained out of me, but now I understand why I need to be on a bland food diet. I’m ultra-sensitive to labels in clothing, scratchy seams, anything stiff, tight, or made of wool. I hold my breath all the time when I smell something nasty. I hate it when the room is too dark or too light. I am always complaining it’s too hot or too cold.

It’s important to remember that the person with AS perceives the world very differently.
I suppose since I’m a subjective observer, I can’t really comment on what is a normal way to perceive the world, but I’d rather be me than most of the other people I meet.

Therefore, many behaviors that seem odd or unusual are due to those neurological differences and not the result of intentional rudeness or bad behavior, and most certainly not the result of “improper parenting”.

By definition, those with AS have a normal IQ and many individuals (although not all), exhibit exceptional skill or talent in a specific area.
Of course!

Because of their high degree of functionality and their naiveté, those with AS are often viewed as eccentric or odd and can easily become victims of teasing and bullying.
That would be an accurate description of my miserable life as a child and a teenager. I was very naive. I was badly bullied.

While language development seems, on the surface, normal, individuals with AS often have deficits in pragmatics and prosody. Vocabularies may be extraordinarily rich and some children sound like “little professors.” However, persons with AS can be extremely literal and have difficulty using language in a social context.
I do have a big vocabularly, I do a lot of reading and always have. I was an annoying smart-arse who used long words when I was a kid. My dad has this habit too, and it’s really embarrassing to watch when he does it when he’s talking to a builder or a labourer. I muddle up the words in clichés all the time or word-substitute by mistake. I’m not sure what specifically is meant by a social context. The definitions of pragmatics and prosody are:

Pragmatics:
Linguistics. the analysis of language in terms of the situational context within which utterances are made, including the knowledge and beliefs of the speaker and the relation between speaker and listener.

Prosody:
1. the science or study of poetic meters and versification.
2. a particular or distinctive system of metrics and versification: Milton’s prosody.
3. Linguistics. the stress and intonation patterns of an utterance.

Pragmatics: you’re not kidding. I have a habit of assuming that people think the same way as me about the world, i.e. I might offend someone religious by assuming they are an atheist like me, or end up in a misunderstanding because I assume someone knows more about something than they actually do.

Prosody: I have a postgrad degree in writing, but I am absolutely useless at rhyming, structured verse. I don’t think my language is repetitive. I do often exaggerate or get the emphasis wrong when I say things. Sometimes I sound stilted. I am not very good at speaking out loud and have problems completing sentences, I tend to let them trail off into a “…” assuming that people get the meaning. This is probably very irritating.

At this time there is a great deal of debate as to exactly where AS fits. It is presently described as an autism spectrum disorder and Uta Frith, in her book AUTISM AND ASPERGER’S SYNDROME, described AS individuals as “having a dash of Autism”. Some professionals feel that AS is the same as High Functioning Autism, while others feel that it is better described as a Nonverbal Learning Disability. AS shares many of the characteristics of PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder; Not otherwise specified), HFA, and NLD and because it was virtually unknown until a few years ago, many individuals either received an incorrect diagnosis or remained undiagnosed. For example, it is not at all uncommon for a child who was initially diagnosed with ADD or ADHD be re-diagnosed with AS. In addition, some individuals who were originally diagnosed with HFA or PDD-NOS are now being given the AS diagnosis and many individuals have a dual diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome and High Functioning Autism.

I guess I could rediagnose myself.

Asperger’s definition from OASIS: What is Asperger Syndrome?

Whatever the case, Asperger’s syndrome is a good thing for the human race.

We’re having a 24 series 5 fest at home right now. I was inspired to put a picture of Chloe O’Brian on my msn messenger profile because, well, she uh, just about sums up my personality disorder.

She displays extraordinary mastery of computer hardware and software but has horrible social skills, displaying symptoms consistent with Asperger syndrome.

Everyone hates Chloe because she’s so annoying and always says the wrong thing and is embarrassing, as well as being more intelligent than everyone else in the office. Everyone hates intelligent people, especially when they know it. I actually relate to Chloe and I find her very amusing.

Of course I’m nowhere near as weird or as intelligent as Chloe, but I still always say things that I shouldn’t and freak people out, or find myself slapping my head in annoyance when people don’t “get” it, then wondering “why do I do that? I hate myself!” I spend a lot of time feeling guilty about it. Yes, I do sneer internally when people are stupid. This is partly because I feel like other people are sneering at me. I just have to go about my normal life in an office and within a couple of weeks I’ve been labelled as the Chloe who doesn’t talk to anyone and only ever speaks to make some sort of frustrated, sarcastic outburst that I always regret. I can be hostile. I try very hard to be nice. I relate to animals much better than humans. Animals always put a smile on my face. Sometimes I make nasty remarks about people walking down the street, usually if they’re wearing ridiculous clothes. I seem to generate some sort of repulsion field that stops me making friends. I never learned the niceties of conversation like “how are you?” or “how is your job going?”, which always felt fake to say. I still struggle to spit them out today. I do not “do” offices well. I used to be much worse than I am.

I’m not a nasty person. I often think about ways I can try and help people, whether that’s because they’re sick, or because they have social problems of their own. I feel really sorry for people who are ill or who don’t fit in. The rest of the time my thoughts are focussed on something more abstract, such as biochemistry, nutrition, politics, or the design of society.

I’ve always joked to myself that I’m a bit of a social autistic. I always had to put a phenomenal amount of work into figuring out what was going on in other people’s heads. I always used to either over-think or under-think things. When people say or do things I just don’t understand I’m always really shocked by it. As a teenager I was such a social retard that I literally couldn’t even look people in the eyes. I was defined as “shy” by my family and “a snob” by my classmates. “Shy” really isn’t the word for it as it was far more extreme than shyness. Being defined as “a snob” really hurt me, because I wasn’t. I regarded myself as lower on the social ladder than everyone else. If anyone suggests that I’m a snob or says something like “you think you are more intelligent than everyone else,” then even today I am totally crushed and hurt by it and I simply can’t forgive them. Even now I don’t like putting my friends out by even emailing them about my life.

Because my level of social weirdness is relatively mild, I doubt I’d qualify as having Asperger’s on the tests. Besides, I know how to cheat those kinds of tests anyway.

Autism and Asperger’s are food chemical related.

Someone with Asperger’s left a message on my blog a few weeks ago. He had diagnosed himself with Asperger’s as an adult. Typical of someone with Asperger’s to diagnose themselves!