Tally

Suggestion 1: go If it's really awful then all you've wasted is a few hours and you never have to go back again. If it's run by people who have any clue about AS, they'll try and help facilitate conversations, introduce you to a couple of people, and all round help you to settle in. They would expect mewcomers to be nervous. I hope you will have the confidence to give it a go. Is there anyone who can come with you first time to make sure you find your way, are OK, etc?

I have an account, but I never post from it. I use it to follow people and organisations I'm interested in, mainly wildlife conservation organisations. I don't know anyone personally who uses twitter, so the social networking side of it is a bit lost on me.

If you've got suspicions about a member you need to PM Lufty with it, as he is the one with access to the information he needs to deal with it. IP addresses are not given out to members so you can't deal with this on your own. Posting publicly is not acceptable and you don't know whether the person you mentioned has even done anything wrong. This member appears to be a newly registered member who has not yet had their account validated.

I was disappointed that I did not get the photo of David and the girl together before the picnic today, so the album is not quite finished and I could not give it to her today. Then when she arrived she got very upset and her parents had to take her back home before we could meet her. So sadly I still have not met her But there was someone else who did not make it either, my brother's boss, the manager of the respite centre. So we are going to have a second, smaller picnic. The weather today has been lovely. David's birthday would have been on Wednesday and that was a really hard day, but today has been very enjoyable.

I agree that what's going on at work does not sound like bullying. I'm glad that you have a supportive employer, but I also understand that criticisms and suggestions can be difficult to hear. I also had no luck with CBT the first time I tried it. I would still recommend trying again with a different therapist. A good therapist should be able to guide you through the process without frustrating you. Sometimes you simply don't 'click' with a therapist even if they are good at their job. So don't let one bad experience put you off trying again. There are also many other types of therapy you could try. The reason I suggested CBT is because it does not involve in-depth discussion of your emotions and that can be good for people with ASD who are not very good at this anyway. But you might still find another therapy technique works well for you.

Smiley, I don't think this is part of Asperger's, it sounds more like depression. Everyone makes mistakes, but a person who is well can shake them off and feel Ok about it. But when you have depression, you can end up thinking all sorts of negative things about yourself and spiral into all these negative thoughts you talk about in your post. I think this is something you can get help with. CBT therapy can be especially good because it focusses on the automatic negative thoughts, helps you recognise them, and replace them with something more realistic and healthy. You seem to have a good understanding of your thought patterns - you explain them very well in your post. So I think you would be in a really good position to benefit from CBT therapy. I had CBT about 5 years ago now to help me with similar negative thought patterns. Even though it was so long ago, some of the skills are still with me now and help me to keep things under control a bit more.

Hi pabs, and welcome. I'm sorry that you have lost your mum. You worked really hard to look after her, and then to make sure she was well looked after by others. I'm glad you're getting help to sort your life out now. It really does sound like you are going to be OK. Asperger's affects everyone differently, so when you read about Asperger's, there will always be things that don't relate to you. You can just ignore those things. Maybe you need to ask the people who are helping you for more information about your assessment and what difficulties they have identified. Many of us with Asperger's find it hard to see ourselves as others do and realise how we are different, which is why it can be necessary to ask others sometimes.

That's a shame you guys can't come. Personally I think £200 is really good value for 3 nights accommodation and all meals provided, but if you don't have it then I can see the difficulty.

We've had forum meets before and it has not made those who didn't come feel uncomfortable. You really can't stop people making private arrangements and I'm not sure why anyone would want to. In the past we've had a meal in Newcastle, picnic in Greenwich Park, and several lunches in Covent Garden. It's impossible to please everyone, but if you'd like to meet people you might get on well with, then it's probably best to suggest doing something you'd enjoy somewhere you can get to easily. Remember not to share personal details via the public forums, share phone numbers, etc only via PM. Arrange the meeting in a public place.

If you want to attend Autscape 2012, you can now book See here for more information: http://www.autscape.org/

I'm sorry your mum forgot Personally, I don't think I could not say anything. Make sure your cake says "Happy Birthday" on and that she sees it.

I'm hoping for dry weather too! My photo album is nearly finished, just waiting for my mum to give me the photo of David with the girl to copy and stick in.

Not right now, but it should come up on iTunes if you search for "langsame gesproche nachrichten." Or you can find it via the Deutsche Welle website - there are all sorts of other resources there too.

Some very good suggestions. I have just a couple more. Do not advertise your valuables. Do not talk on your mobile or listen to your mp3 player, they are safest left inside your bag/pockets. If you must make a phone call, stand with your back against a wall. That way no one can come up behind you and you can see all around you. Items are easily pick-pocketed from your back pocket. Keep them in your front pocket, pushed down right into your pocket. Don't keep your keys in your back pocket if you intend to sit down - it hurts your bum!

You might find the teachers join in. They already have mounds of paperwork to do, the last thing they want is extra homework to mark! Even if the protest doesn't work straight away, you might find the homework fizzles out after a while anyway.

Anything that makes it easier is one less thing to worry about. I'm sure your reading will go just fine after all the effort you've put in to preparing.

I only recently discovered podcasts. I listen mostly to wildlife-related ones including the BBC Wildlife magazine one, and the Wildlife whisperer. I like Stuff To Blow Your Mind (science). As I'm learning German, I also listen to one called The Slowly Spoken News which is in German (obviously) and especially for learners of German.

I've got some falafel in my lunchbox for tomorrow!

That's a real shame. I'm sorry it didn't work out.

Hi Carrias, and welcome. There is a stereotype about Asperger's that we are all really nerdy and into Physics. The autistic people you are meeting on your course probably do meet that stereotype, and it sounds like you'd meet the definition for nerdy too. Part of the diagnostic criteria states that people with autism or Asperger's have difficulties which affect their everyday life. There's nothing in your post to suggest you have many difficulties. Obviously it would be impossible to tell us everything about yourself, so you may just not have thought to mention your difficulties. But you're unlikely to get a diagnosis of Asperger's purely on the basis of the things you've mentioned in your post. One thing that did catch my eye was you mentioned that you'd been diagnosed with Dyspraxia. There is quite a lot of overlap between Asperger's and Dyspraxia. Most people with Asperger's have some difficulties with motor co-ordination, and most people with Dyspraxia have some social difficulties. You would have to have fairly major difficulties with both to get separate diagnoses of both conditions. The Dyspraxia diagnosis may already explain any social difficulties you have. I second LancsLad's book recommendation. The Tony Attwood book is very thorough and is one of the few books that talks about adults with AS. It would be good for you to learn a little more about AS to help you decide whether it's worth pursuing a diagnosis of AS. But diagnosis or not, you may well find that strategies that help people with AS are helpful for you. Particularly since you have Dyspraxia, which can cause some similar difficulties. So learning about AS might help you find strategies to help even if you feel you don't have AS after all.

My parents are planning a bit of a get-together and a picnic to mark my brother's birthday in a couple of weeks. Mostly it's his old school friends and a few of our family who live close by. We also invited a little girl he used to work with at the respite centre, who was one of his favourites. She has very severe learning disabilities and she stopped going to the respite centre because she got a place at a residential school, but they used to exchange postcards and he visited her at home sometimes. She doesn't come home very often so we expected she would not be able to make the picnic. But it turns out she is home that weekend and she is coming to the picnic, so I will get to meet her! I'm going to make her a little picture book called "My Friend David" with some photos. I only have one of them both together, but I'm going to choose some funny pictures of the things he liked to do and caption them with things like, "David liked to show off his muscles," "David liked to climb trees," and things like that. She has a couple of photos of him in her bedroom at school and she likes to light candles for him when she visits churches to listen to the bells, so I think she will like a little photo album.

It's not bullying. He's one of the gentlest people I've ever met, to the point where he is massively taken advantage of by his friends. It's just annoying, although there's not a lot that puts me off my food. I can't really eat outside because there's nowhere to go except the car park, and it's just a little too far to go home for lunch. So maybe I will criticise his lunch and see how he likes it. He basically eats various forms of potato, cheese, very little meat, quite a lot of toffee and chocolate, and no fruit or vegetables apart from parsnips. He says he does not have time to cook, but he does spend a lot of time on hobbies and chatting on the phone. It seems to be a choice he's made and won't change for anyone, which is why I don't see the point in trying to get him to change. It frustrates me because I am aware my diet is restricted and I am not well enough to cook the foods I would like to eat. When I do cook fresh foods it's generally alongside processed foods. For example, I might slap some nuggets and chips in the oven and cook myself a carrot to go with it. Or if I cook spaghetti bolognese or curry it's with a jar of ready made sauce. Even my salad is from a packet of ready-prepared salad. So it's not like I'm even the complete opposite of him, I just have a slightly wider repertoire, and possess saucepans.

I don't think you need to be answerable to your church over the content of your dreams. People don't often give up their faith over seeing ghosts of their loved ones, so this would be an odd strategy anyway. It sounds like the whole experience was a comforting one for you, until you started to think more deeply about what it all means. Maybe you need to go back to seeing it simply for what it was - either your nan or your own brain (doesn't really matter which) telling you not to worry about the reading. Nothing satanic in that!

People are weird, aren't they!

My boss is really doing my head in at the moment. He keeps going on about all the "poncy" food I eat in my lunchbox, during my lunchbreak, when I would prefer to have a rest than defend my choice of food. This is a man who eats only things that come in a box with instructions on, and he's pretty picky even about that. He eats 5 different meals that I am aware of. He does not eat any vegetables and he does not eat anything green or brown (chocolate excepted, naturally). He does not eat meat, even meats which are not brown, because it is dry and gravy reminds him of diarrhoea. He does not eat curry because it reminds him of vomit. His diet is so restricted that he cannot buy himself a meal in McDonalds (beef is brown). He was shocked by the healthiness of my sandwich, which contained egg mayonnaise and a very little bit of cress. It was made with granary bread which he thinks is lumpy and horrible. He always goes on for ages when I eat a little bit of salad, how it's not real food because it's green and nothing green is edible. The other day I dared to eat an onion bhaji and he stuck his head out of the window, retching and chocking because it smelt poncy, foreign, and he was convinced the smell would upset him stomach. He did this until the boss arrived and then suddenly he was absolutely fine again We had a weird conversation last week because he was very worried about going on holiday with his girlfriend because she likes to eat meatballs and he doesn't know if he likes meatballs. I asked him if he liked spaghetti bolognese and he said he'd never eaten it but he does like spaghetti. I assumed he was talking about a meatballs ready meal, but apparently she likes to buy fresh, raw meatballs, fry them in a pan, add a jar of ragu sauce, and serve them with spaghetti. He thought this was a real palaver and poncy food. The thing that really worried him was that the jar of tomato sauce would clash with the spaghetti. I tried to reassure him that it would go nicely together, but he was insistent it would clash. In the end it emerged that he thought spaghetti meant Heinz spaghetti that comes in a tin with tomato sauce! He checked with his girlfriend and she has confirmed that she eats plain spaghetti with her meatballs and tomato sauce and he was really shocked to learn that not only does she eat "poncy" sauce (froma jar), she also eats "poncy" spaghetti instaed of tinned spaghetti. So then he went on for ages about her eating poncy food as well! Her diet is about as restricted as his, it just happens that she likes different things. She likes curry, but only korma, but he won't try it because it looks like sick or bogies, and he's worried it would be too spicy. We always have a conversation just before home time about what we're going to have for dinner, and he goes on about the "poncy" food I eat for dinner as well as my lunchbox. He thinks I have a really exotic diet because I eat things like spaghetti bolognese. I've got my mum in one ear telling me it's my restricted diet that's causing my health problems, and my boss in the other telling me it's the disguisting poncy food that looks like poo that is causing my health problems. It's just like talking with a small child. Instead of accepting that he has an unusual diet, he just calls other people names and criticises their diet: poncy, posh, exotic, disguisting, looks like poo, etc. I don't criticise his diet (to his face), but he's quite happy to tell me my lunch looks like poo.