Mike_GX101

Texting has been incredibly useful not least because of my stammer. When I was younger I used to avoid the phone at all costs even shunning contact with friends and family because of it; it was like my demon in life distancing me from everyone! Everyone else simply lifted the handset, dialled and spent hours at a time chatting; but not me! Texting was revolutionary for me and meant I could suddenly keep up with those who could text back (not many people initially but more and more people text these days even the older generations). My stammer no longer bothers me though and I use the phone all the time in work. But I continue to use text because it is quick and simple and reliable. The only thing I wish some times is that they'd increase the limit as you cannot say much in 120 characters but then if it's important than a talk is infinitely more valuable than any text could ever be.

Can't Cook, Won't Cook springs to mind here! I think to cook one has to be in the mood. And to be in the mood one has to have already eaten which kind of defeats the point. A good cook also needs a helper to wash and dry everything. A good cook also needs someone to lay the table. I have neither. It is me, myself and...me! Cooking simply requires too much energy to want to bother. It also requires a suitably-sized kitchen which is something else I don't have. Not that it stops the over-zealous domestic bin services wanting me to turn it into some kind of industrial-sized rubbish cleaning and recycling plant every Sunday night of course which drives me up the wall and often leaves me feeling peaky after having splashed gone-off meat juices everywhere as I've transferred the remains of forgotten rotten beef steaks from packaging to my food caddy and washed the packet ready for suitable collection. I used to just place everything into a black bin bag and that was it but not any more!

I have experienced this too where some drivers seem oblivious to road conditions and will actively tailgate even in hazardous conditions like thick fog and ice. I get worried when such drivers are behind me. Then there are those who overtake in unbelievably stupid places on blind corners leaving you shaking your head in sheer horror while you very gingerly put space between yourself and the poor drivers who are being overtaken in front. I have seen it happen and hear about head-on collisions all the time in the news. And yet such people never seem perturbed by such news...it's like preaching to those who smoke 20+ a day from cigarette boxes that read "smoking kills". Then there are those who aggressively tailgate in built-up areas (often at night with their beams on full); they know the roads, they know there are speed cameras on them but they disappear or slow down completely as the unsuspecting (having been tailgated for 5 miles) triggers a camera for speeding due to the fluster the tailgating caused. There are also those who get aggressive when the traffic slows in front of them and decide to overtake the lot without a moment's thought for the safety of everyone as if it's 'do or die' or some kind of sport. Bring back common-sense policing; bring more police onto our roads in place of cameras which cannot decipher 'accidental' from 'deliberate' and certainly aren't 'going with the flow' of the traffic and aren't aware of the traffic conditions at play. For example large slow-moving commercial vehicles have a duty to pull up every now and then to let traffic built up behind them past. But many do not do this and this creates frustration especially when it creates lateness and possible job losses further up the road which can impact the economy. Sadly cameras can do nothing about these sorts of things. But more police on our roads instead sure could.

Should have glared back.

Quite how an Autism Alert card would have helped in this situation one is not so certain. It seems to me as if a misunderstanding may have occurred and without clarification sought at the time from the party bothered about the situation there can be no ascertainable certainty as to what was right or wrong. Just don't let a single couple (one out of millions and millions) bother you. Do other couples point their fingers and look with disapproving looks?

For the purpose of this discussion when I speak of personal independence I am talking about independence within the realms of normal every day life - i.e. the independence to make ones own choices and decisions in life, etc. Yes thank you for going into more detail regarding your difficulties; it helps to clarify things a little easier. Yes I can identify with the problems you had with your neighbours because I too have had neighbours in the past who have played loud music until 4am every morning and basically been a noise-related problem with loud clumpsy feet on the floor above, etc. Landlord's aught to be more proactive in this sense because excessive noise-levels by some tenants can mean loss of revenue for them when other tenants end up losing jobs, etc from lack of sleep as a result. I have lived in places where it was impossible to leave the house without bumping into certain flat mates who you would happily go the rest of your life never seeing again - so yes I do know where you're coming from and if it's that bad and the landlord does nothing (if you have one) then independence would give you the freedom (and peace of mind) to decide to move to better accommodation. As per the chicken noodle soup incident - not everyone uses trays when they have a hot bowl of soup to eat from and no table. To be honest I find trays a bit too large and bulky and some times just 'make do' without a tray. That is my decision. That is what it is to be independent.

Emotional stability has very little to do with emotional maturity. People can be emotionally unstable (say after a failed marriage) and yet be emotionally mature.

You say you had abusive neighbours and yet you do not explain what made them so and you certainly offer nothing to validate your perception of them being that. You say you were isolated, lonely and unable to leave your property. Many people feel like that from time to time. It isn't just some people with an ASD who feel like that. You say you burned yourself with chicken noodle soup and went to hospital. But you do not quantify a sufficient enough link for that to be associated with any of the above. Yes you are right though there will be some people on the 'spectrum' who do require more care. But some of us are more than capable of being independent within the society in which we live and even prefer it that way.

Which emotions can you not deal with? Please list...

When I was growing up I was driven by the desire to be independent; it got me up in the mornings because it gave me a sense of purpose in life. What I am learning increasingly day by day however is that there is a general perception that all adults with an ASD are unable to be independent and cannot therefore fend for themselves. And sadly I fear many young people with an ASD grow up with a learned sense that because of their ASD they will never be able to be truly independent. I am only grateful in retrospect that I was late in learning of my ASD and was therefore pushed earlier in life because I got to learn through experience and through making mistakes. Youngsters with official diagnoses of autism do not appear to get that opportunity and that is a shame in that it denies them of that initial spark which makes them want to become independent and self-sustaining.

I think the concept of emotional immaturity gets banded around much too often. What does it mean to be immature emotionally? What point of reference are you comparing your level of emotional understanding to? Are you comparing yourself to someone of your same age group? Are they the same gender? Are they from the same culture? Yes sure there are always people out there who are emotional life coaches. I can certainly remember people in my own life at all ages who have been especially tuned-in emotionally (such as teachers who weather a storm following a playground fight). Most of us probably also know people who are emotional manipulators; these types of people are often in highly influential positions in workplaces and will cry and kick up a fuss just to get what they want. Another difficulty with defining emotional immaturity is the fact there are so many emotions (have you ever tried to list them all?). Where you might be weak with regulating one emotion you might have mastered another. For example people who are good at telling jokes (i.e. master's at making people happy) may be poor with commenting appropriately in occasions requiring tact where tensions are running high.

I would imagine many parents come on here because they seek help for their child(ren) who are affected by autism. They will have picked up the usual assortment of leaflets on autism and they may believe that autism only affects children. They may be unaware therefore that adults can also have autism. But things are changing I think and too right because today's children will be tomorrow's adults and to my knowledge there remains no cure for autism. This means that parents need to understand what to expect, i.e. 'what comes next'. Therefore I do believe that the contributions made by adults with autism are very important indeed especially on forums such as this one because it helps to paint a better picture of who we are other than the one which is banded around only too often which I feel totally misrepresents us.

Godly

One way ASD might affect me though is my insistence with always driving within the speed limits which apparently irritates a lot of other motorists as I slow down for every 30 and 20 speed limit sign. Some days it's as if I'm the only one aware of the speed limits. Tailgaters used to cause me a lot of distress but to be honest if they want to get past then that's their business and to be honest it's a relief when they do overtake - let them hassle someone else! Despite the fact that I stay within the speed limits I still get very anxious when I see a speed camera coming up and will often slow down even more despite already driving clearly within the limit to start with. I get quite anxious with any journey where I know there are loads of speed cameras on the route despite the fact I keep within the speed limits.

It was an interesting survey although the questions were a little too assuming that you could give a totally accurate answer. More often than not we may not even know ourselves exactly how we're affected on each of the attributes and it should be the role of the questionnaire to ascertain how accurate the answers given actually are.

I used to do it when I was little - I had favourite toy cars and things that I used to take everywhere even out into the garden. I suppose it wouldn't be hard for casual observers to deem almost everything people do as an obsession but usually for something to qualify as an obsession officially it would have to be a bit more problematic than hanging on to the same toys for a long time. One could at a push argue that being in a relationship is also an obsession to another person. Is it always bad to be obsessed? What would happen if love itself was classed as an obsession which had to be 'cured'?

But for anyone on the spectrum seeking advice regarding orientation I recommend having a read of the following article: here. I discovered this article purely by accident having clicked on a wrong link on the Wrong Planet forum I am now also a member of. It makes some interesting reading and may even offer some comfort for those who identify with that orientation and who are also on the spectrum.

At the moment it is incredibly difficult to know because the statistical data needed simply isn't there not least because many people on the spectrum have never had genetic testing. Maybe there is a link with the testosterone thing or indeed simply an imbalance of hormones within the body at crucial stages of development. My Mum died of cancer when I was 3. But apparently that was a second tumour she died of and the first was present when I was being conceived and was successfully (as the tests apparently showed) treated during the pregnancy. I was born with Klinefelter's Syndrome and I have wondered whether there is a connection between cancer treatment during conception and my KS. There are in fact groups of syndromes which seem particularly to favour males and perhaps there is a common link between all of them there somewhere.

I know people who read their horoscopes every day and actually take guidance from them. What many don't realise though is that such things are written so generally that they can apply to almost anyone and countless meanings can be obtained from them. Similar things can happen with ancient texts too which can often be so generalised that they can mean anything. What often happens is things like horoscopes instruct the mind to look for patterns or to identify connections with what is being said. Once these connections have been made it can take a lot of willpower to counter the effect the 'script' has had. But if you are aware of the generalisations it shouldn't be hard to do and you may be able to connect with other scripts - for example with horoscopes it should be possible to connect with other star sign scripts besides your own. So as with any new concept (whether it's ancient or scientific) it is important to weigh up pro's and cons of such an argument and not to be too easily led by the positives which of course are the ones they want you to see. Look outside the box and use your own judgement.

Science is all about what we can observe and measure. But the things we're talking about here cannot be measured, or even observed for that matter. Consciousness for example has no length; it has no width, no height. How do you measure something which has no ascertainable dimension? It isn't because modern science is looking in the wrong places - it's more to do with the fact that they're not able to look in the right places. Until someone pinpoints exactly where the consciousness exists and can actually get a handle on it good enough to measure, the best anyone will be able to do is to offer theories for it. This is where science some times gets a bad name because theories are often treated as 'fact' - for example we're all taught about the 'Big Bang' in science lessons in school and yet it has never been proven to have happened. It cannot be unproven either and yet we're told definitively in school that it happened. Yes there are probably many ancient texts which do offer some light where modern science doesn't. But then there may also be ones which have become distorted over the years too (ever played Chinese Whispers?).

But now you're getting to the point where it pushes our understanding of consciousness - i.e. What is consciousness? Where is consciousness? Where are you? How are you? The more you puzzle over it the more puzzling it becomes and it almost becomes unreal. I mean if we're not really here - i.e. if 'here' is just electrical signals and our minds are too then we're not real 'here'.

I'm sorry to hear you were discouraged from thinking about things like this. But don't ever be scared to think outside the box Mannify - there's no shame in it. Some of the best inventions that were ever found were discovered purely by accident such as with the 'apple' incident which sparked Isaac Newton's theory of gravity.

"Autistic" can too easily be accidentally associated with the word "Artistic".

Well Aspie is short for Asperger's and Autie is short for Autism. The ie at the end of both (pronounced ee) makes it sounds 'familiar' and 'nice'. To make it more manly-sounding I suppose you could use an 'o' at the end, thus reading: Aspo or Auto. Now I don't know about you but the first sounds like Asbo and the first is short for Automobile so it doesn't quite work does it and cannot really be used. So which would you rather have - Aspie or Aspo?