Tired of People Blaming Their Aspergers

This was posted on fanficrants, note I'm not the one who posted the rant

It was a rant about someone blaming their AS for their crappy fanfic, the link to the author in question's profile wasn't given, but here's the rant


"I have aspergers syndrome just so you know. I'm not ashamed of it and no-one should be, but that is why some of my stuff seems a little strange."

Your stuff doesn't seem strange, it seems dreadful. And don't list your medical conditions to ward off flames or con-crit. I've come across this a few times recently. Do people really want their fic to be viewed differently because they're ill? Or are they assuming victim status in the hope of getting an easy ride? Either way I would like it to stop.

I just took a class on abnormal psychology this semester, and we talked about personality disorders. In some ways, Schizotypal Personality Disorder seems like Asperger's Syndrome, which I've been diagnosed with as of 2002, though it doesn't involve being preoccupied with the paranormal or thinking I have magical powers.

Asperger's Syndrome criteria include having a desire for sameness or liking routines to stay the same, odd or formal patterns of speech, a tendency to fix one's focus on a particular, and even odd, things or parts of things and talking about it even at inappropriate times (one of my "obsessions" is history and random bits of information about different things), a tendency toward being socially withdrawn, and difficulty reading social cues.

Asperger's Syndrome is one of the Autism Spectrum Disorders and has some similarities with Autism, but not as severe. One of the issues concerning diagnosing people with a particular disorder is the tendency of the different disorders to share some of the criteria, but not others. For this reason, self-diagnosis and diagnosis by parents or teachers can be dangerous and should only be done by a professional after much consideration (and not just 15 minutes and one session, either). Diagnoses can create self- and socially-damaging labels that can stay with a person their entire life if care is not taken in how they are diagnosed and treated, both by the specialist diagnosing them and people outside the medical profession. Generalizations have their uses, but stereotypes can be very dangerous and should be avoided by all.

Autism Spectrum Disorders are not personality disorders, just to avoid any confusion. They are a part of the Pervasive Developmental Disorder family or PDD. PDD also includes Rett Syndrome, Childhood Disintegrative Disorder, and Pervasive Developmental Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (PDD-NOS). For more information, go to http://www.autismspeaks.org or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perva…. For information on personality disorders and Schizotypal in particular, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perso… & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schiz….

There’s a topic which came up for me last week during my Tantra Facilitator’s training for which I’m seeking opinions and strategies.( Collapse )

Hey kids! I just made a new community, called residual_aut. It's for people with residual autism to join under one lj community, although anybody can join I suppose. Read the rules, and stuff.

Also I'm terribly sorry if this post is inappropriate for this community.

Let me ask all you members something: have you ever spent a day as an Aspie (a person with Asperger's)? No. So why assume that you know what it's like, then? Face it, you have absolutely no idea. Just like I, an Aspie, have no idea what it's like to be a NeuroTypical. Yet I'm not making blogs that are meant to insult NeuroTypicals. I'm not going assuming things about you guys. Until you can totally understand every single nuance of Asperger's Syndrome, and know what it's like to live at least one day with it, I'd like to kindly ask you to stop being so damned ignorant about it. Thanks. :-)

But you're not an idiot for making a 'I'm calling you on your BS' community. I think it takes guts and a carefree attitude. Hell, tons of people make excuses based on their AS, and it's only going to get worse as it becomes the new Fad Disorder.

You're an idiot because you are vindictive, mean, and unneedingly cynical.

anyone else experience this?

Yesterday I was driven nuts by a tag on my shirt; as it is, I wear mostly cotton clothes because some fabrics I find too scratchy.