? for those with AS or with AS Partners

[Lynden]

I've been pondering asking this but I'm hoping it'll help me understand my H a bit better! We're pretty sure that he is AS. Actually it is something that he'd thought of even before we had Logan but we'd always dismissed it as rubbish and not really looked into it. Anyways there are a couple of times when we've reacted totally differently to things and I wondered if it was just a personality thing, or if its AS related.

 

Recent example is when Logan was diagnosed with Autism. Even though I knew we would get that diagnosis, I was still fairly upset when I sat down and thought about it, then again when I received a letter from our consultant supporting our DLA claim and all his problems (Autism/hypotonia/development delay) were there on paper. My hubby however wasn't phased at all by this - he doesn't understand how I can get upset about something I already know and I dont understand how it can't bother him (though we've been together long enough it doesn't affect us iyswim).

 

There have been a few other times when similar has happened. Is it an AS trait or is it just a male/female/personality thing?

 

Lynne

Edited October 21, 2005 by LLaverty

[littlenemo]

everyone deals with feelings differently

 

men don't deal with emotion in the same way as women

 

AS people don't deal with it the same way either

 

and Nemo says 'AS men don't deal with it at all' - but I know he does, it just comes out in different ways

 

actually Nemo finds Com's autism quite difficult at times, he doesn't get flustered by the problems or go all weepy because he feels sad for Com but he finds it very emotional when something crops up that reminds him of problems he used to have. You may find it takes longer for the feelings to sink in or come to the surface for your husband and the triggers will be different for him, he does not react to something he already knew and had expected (it was probably already written in stone for him and dealt with long ago) but he may well react to something you find equally small and insignificant.

 

stay strong

 

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Zemanski

[mossgrove]

Simon Baron-Cohen has a theory that Autism is 'extreme maleness'. What he means is that women tend to think about things at an amotional level, and men tend to think about things at a systemising level. Autism can be thought of, or so he argues, as extreme systemisation at the expense of emotional thinking.

 

If applied to your example, you had an emotional response to the diagnosis in terms of being upset.

 

Your husband however took the completely 'rational' view that you were already 90% certain so this is just confirmation and therefore, in itself, unremarkable.

 

It will take him longer to understand at an amotional level what this is going to mean for your family in the years to come, but I am pretty sure that this is something you were immediately acutley aware of. In the long run this will have an emotional impact on your husband, but the emotional impact will happen over a longer timescale.

 

I hope that made sense!

 

Simon

Edited October 21, 2005 by mossgrove