Background and experiences with autism and ADHD.
When I look at people I believe I can see a bit of both Asperger and ADHD in almost everyone. Persons that talk a bit too much, or take a bit too long to solve a problem, or gets stunned by things happening too fast around them. But they don’t seem to have this so much that they have a real problem. It just seems like it’s part of their personal makeup or something they do like an Aspie or a person with ADHD (a Dampie?), they just don’t do it so much it becomes a problem.
I remember a forum discussion where an Aspie was talking about his problems when living in the moment. Someone else commented that living in the moment sounded like a great idea and they wished they could do the same.
Yeah, haven’t we seen the movie/read the book and envied that wonderfully crazy guy that was living in the moment, improvising his whole life and just having a laugh all day, not a worry in sight?
I used to live in the moment, sometimes I still do, and I’m working hard not to.
You might ask why on earth I would go and do such a thing, aren’t living in the now supposed to be fun?
This Tuesday I participated in an education for health professionals. I was actually being a “test subject” for a diagnostic test for Asperger Syndrome, the professionals were learning to use. They were watching over a CCTV when I took the test. And, even though I went on with my life after the test was done (yay, work) I am sure they discussed it as well.
The test was pretty different from the Asperger test I took when I got my diagnosis. More of an interview than a test, actually.
Or, don’t talk about left and right with me!
The other day I had this incredibly stupid encounter.
In a hurry to the train station, I’m stopped by a couple in a car (about 50 meters from the station) asking me how to get to the station by car – I’m on the sidewalk. (In their defense, Solna station, where this happened, is pretty complex.)
I point (to my right, with my whole right arm) and ask them if they see the (large, clearly) red buses. The guy goes, “uh-huh, so it’s to the left then?”
About a year ago I was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrom and ADHD. Since I feel I’ve been able to figure out a few things since then, I’ll try to write about it here.
Now, if I were to write about cars, I wouldn’t need much explanation – just dive right into the cc:s, mph:s and so on so forth (disclaimer: I know almost nothing about cars, owned one the first year after I got my license, live in a part of my country with lots of commuter traffic, so haven’t missed a car since then…)
On the other hand, if this blog was about … let’s say Data Mining… I would have to explain what “Data Mining” was a bit before talking about it… but I would be able to do that, with a few well-phrased sentences…
However, when it comes to Asperger (ADHD isn’t that much of a problem in this respect) it’s not always that easy to explain it or generalize about it. What I’ve been able to figure out is that people with Asperger have it in different degrees, and when it comes to people like me, with a double diagnose (it turns out it’s not that uncommon to have both Asperger and ADHD or ADD) just separating the two becomes a chore.
I think the most important thing to think about when discussing Asperger is that it is a disorder on the autism spectrum. I interpret that rather literary. Just as it’s hard to tell exactly when red becomes orange or orange becomes yellow on the color spectrum, it’s hard to separate different symptoms of Asperger/Autism. They bleed into each other, making it problematic/impossible to separate one from the other.
In practical terms, this means one Aspie might be completely different from another. I’ve heard comments such as “…do you have Asperger? I know people with Asperger and you’re not at all like them…” – so, yeah… we Aspies are really individualistic! 🙂
I’ve added a few links on Asperger and ADHD below. I’ll talk about these two neurological disabilities (but I’m pretty sure I’ll be unable to tell which one of them is in play – if not both – in some cases) from my unique perspective, how I experience them, what I do to deal with them, etc etc. Hopefully I’ll be able to contribute to someone! 😀
The home page of Tony Attwood, one of the authorities on Asperger: http://www.tonyattwood.com.au
This is a fairly long article on Asperger Syndrome (however, I needed to ax some of the ads in order to “survive” the read — Firefox + Ad Block Plus rocks!): http://www.emedicinehealth.com/asperger_syndrome/article_em.htm
Here’s yet another link on Asperger (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/aspergers-syndrome/DS00551)…
And here’s a Wikipedia article on ADHD (I’m not sure about Wikipedia’s treatment on Asperger yet…): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention-deficit_hyperactivity_disorder
Talkwards 