1. Will not go along with the crowd if they know that something is wrong I hate to do things I know is wrong already so only if I am force or I do not know better then I will walk with the crowd
2. Don’t force others to live up to demanding social expectations I do not care what the social expectations says that you have to do, I do not care
3. don’t have hidden agendas I say things blunt and yes it sometimes give me problems but I rather have it all in the open than keep it a secret
4. don’t usually recognize hierarchies, and so are unlikely to give someone superior status simply because that person is wealthy or has attained a high position in an organization I can talk to anyone as long you want to talk to me and I do not care about who and what you are
5. are very accepting of the quirks and idiosyncrasies of others please be how you are around me and do not fake it
6. have no interest in harming others I do not like to hurt people which is also why I do not like fights no matter what, I know it sometimes means I go silent but it is just because I do not want to continue the bad way
7. like to spend time alone and are perfectly capable of entertaining themselves Sure I can have fun with you but I do not mind being on my own as well
8. don’t discriminate against anyone based on race, gender, age, or any other surface criteria If you are kind to me, I do not care about anything, sometimes I just need a little ‘push’ to get started but that has nothing to do with you
9. you definitely know a few autistic people. Maybe you don’t know it, but you do. Maybe they don’t know it either. We’re 1% of the general population, which is higher than it sounds. I might have Asperger’s but we are different just like you are to someone else
10. Asperger’s is not a thing anymore I know Asperger’s is not a thing but it was when I was diagnosed and I am not sure where to place me in the new system.
This post inspired by movie ” I Used To Be Famous ” on Netflix. One of my favorite movies about autism. The review is still in my draft. Maybe i will post that soon. Yes … yes … i admit it is too late to post the review because the movie released maybe almost 3 years ago. But better late than never. Hehehe.
In that movie, a mother described as a very protective mother to her son that has autism. Thats what i feel about Jesper too. Sometimes impression that i got from him about his mom is a protective mother.
I have a daughter too. Teenager. I also have a super protective mother too. I am a neurotypical but i don’t know why she was very protective to me since i was born till about grade 7. So everywhere i went, she always sent her employee to go with me. Now also if her kids go somewhere that new, she will nonstop worried.
I guess i understand why the mother figure in that movie and Jesper’ mother for example, are very protective to their kids with autism. Actually their purpose is to protect their kids so people won’t hurt them. Usually related to bully.
But i can feel also that very protective treatment from mothers can brings uncomfortable feeling for the kids (the people with ASD or asperger) because it is usually still happening even until they are adult. Sometimes their mothers also try to get involved in their “things” for example about their love life. The mothers usually try to be more strict or controlling or wanna know about their kids’ relationships. Usually that will trigger friction between moms and kids.
I guess there are some ways that can be solutions to have a better condition :
Try to be open and honest to your mom about your feeling and what do you want. For example you want to be trusted or you want your mom to stop worrying about you or you wanna have relationship with someone but free from her control. You tell her and also listen about what she feels. Discussion with opened mind and patience.
Try to gain trust from your mother. So after you talk to her about what do you want and for example you get chance to do things your way without her being involved, make sure you keep the agreement you make with her and being responsible. With that way you can gain her trust. After you gain her trust, dont ever dare to break it. Moms are so hard to trust again when trust is broken. Especially to their beloved kids. Prove that you can be trusted.
Don’t stop communication. So keep your mom informed and updated about yourself and about trust she gives to you. So she doesnt wonder about things and she can be relax. Not easily to get worried and dont try to get involved again.
If those things above go well, i think the friction because of super protective behaviors from the mothers can be prevented. Your moms love you. It is just they need to prepare you for the real world. Not just keeping you in her protection all the time.
And for mothers, we need to listen about our kids especially the ones with autism. They can be strong and independent if we let them to be. We cant always beside them to protect them forever. Expose them to the world so they will have strength and chance to be participate in this world with all kind of people. So they can be independent.
Today I wanna do an Asperger’s alphabet where I will write down the first thing that comes into mind about Asperger’s or me and then give a short explation about it. Then I will use it to make posts over the next weeks.
A = Asperger’s would be the most normal thing to write here but I find that a bit cheating so will write Atypical instead which is a awesome series about Sam, who has asperger’s and really enjoy penguins. We follow him in the changes of his life. B = Bali, my next holiday… Cannot wait to go Ria. C = Cans of soda… I drink too much soda so now I will cut it down and hopefully stop completely or at least only drink at events. D = Do/did = things I need to do or that did, sometimes / often makes me overthing before and afterwards. E = Everyone matters. F = Favorite subjects, I almost always have a subject that I love to talk about and at the moment it is either Asperger’s or my novel Beyond love existence that I am really trying to write G = Goals… I do not have a big goal at the moment and life is good so what more can I ask. H = Humor, I have lots of it but not sure my humor is normal and sometimes I need to think a bit before I get a normal joke. I = Ironi, I do not always get it and my brother jokes that he needs to hold up a sign to tell me that he was joking or similar. J = Japan, just a wonderful place and very Asperger’s freindly in mind except for the filling of trains. K = Kissing, I do not mind it but guess I perfer hugs. L = Love, I wanna feel love like everybody else and just not always the best at show my feelings. M = Movies, I love movies and would not live without those. N = Neurotypical = ‘Normal’ people hahahaha, how does feel being labelled and that people sometimes just stop talking to you when they learn you are different from them. O = Open minded, I am see people for people and not their religions, race or hobbies or what else as long it is legal and not hurting me. P = Pictures, I hate getting taken pictures as I always feel out of place or similar. Q = Quizzes, I like quizzes even I am not always the best at knowing the answers for them. R = Ria, my best freind. S = Stop blaming Asperger’s and autism for the reason you do not want vaccines. T = Teamwork, I am not the best at teamwork all the time because I feel I loses control over things but things are getting better. U = Unknown, unknown things can both be a good and a bad thing to be as I am not affair of trying new things but I am not always able to handle an unknown meeting or something like that. V = Vaccines are good so stop blaming us for lies, sorry I said this twice but it really botters and hurt me. W = War.. I hate it for both the killing and such plus the way people are treating other people. X = X-ray, I was tested a lot during my childhood and I did not get an x-ray but got MRI instead. Y = You only live once. I guess I should try to remember this so I can do more things in life. Z = Zone somes I can focus on something so much I am in a zone and then things like food or you talking to me does not matter at all to me.
Well today’s subject is maybe crossing the line for some people and not all people are the same so this is as always just my experiences with the subject. I will start by answering some questions that Ria gave me, before going to about me and ending with sexuality.
Do people with Aspergers interested in sex?
Well I think most people with Asperger’s has interest in sex, but it requires a great deal of things for them to make it happen… Here is a small list of reasons for me.
I am not social enough to just date like neurotypicals
I want a connection and not just do it because everybody else is doing it
I feel like that during my teen years I spend more time learning about myself than learn the sexual stuff so I am “Slow”
I am nerdy and not strong and buff
I have no clue about what you want unless you tell me
Do people with Aspergers have less desire than neurotypical?
I do not think that the sex desire is less than with neurotypical but guess we just have a hard time showing and get to it
About me
Well I have not experienced it yet so nothing interesting to say about me but I would like to try it someday.
Sexuality
This is just how I feel when reading on forums like Reddit and such so sorry if it offends people or is wrong but I feel that most people with Asperger’s don’t just love girls but is a bit more into trying different things like being gay, trans and so on. Which maybe is making it even harder for us to do things in the name of sex. I am a normal person who just like a woman but have a few kinks that I wanna try if possible.
Here are some questions that Ria (Neurotypical) wants me Jesper (Asperger’s) to answer, maybe more will come.
1. What makes you feel hard to interact with neurotypical?
Answer: I often find it hard to know what the person want from me fx if a person is hurt sometimes I need to know if they just want the bandage or if they want a hug instead if that sense. (I know now but it was the only example I could think of) I also find it hard when no subject is given from the start.
1.1 Why?
Answer: I do no know why.
2. If you can reborn, you choose to still have aspergers or not?
Answer: Yes.
2.1 Why?
Answer: Because Asperger’s is how I am and I am sure that many of the things I have done I would not have done if I did not have Asperger’s.
3. Do you think your family fully support you as family member that has Asperger?
Answer: Yes I feel like they all support me.
3.1 How do they help n support you?
Answer: Help me with things I need help with, cannot come closer to that… maybe answering my stupid questions.
3.2 Is there any problems happen in family because of your Asperger?
Answer: Not that I know of.
3.3 Do your parents treat you differently?
Answer: Not that I know of, but I think they sometimes blame themselves a bit about that they did not noticed I was getting bullied and such before it was too late.
4. What you wish from neurotypical to understand about you as an aspie?
Answer: That we are not rude on purpose, sometimes we just speak the thing we find most obvious in the situation.
5. Do you want a cure?
Answer: Nope.
5.1 Why?
Answer: Because Asperger’s is how I am and I am sure that many of the things I have done I would not have done if I did not have Asperger’s plus I do not hurt anyone so why change me.
Autism ( or specifically, asperger’s syndrome) is not that famous in Indonesia. I mean, it is not well-known here. I am sorry i need to say bluntly, even word “autism” widely used by people for joking. So when i heard word autism, i just knew about “ohhh that is special condition” period.
But life is a journey. Destiny brought me to meet one special friend. Call him O, i mention initial only because i haven’t asked his permission to mention about him here. He is a person with asperger’s syndrome. Since beginning he said it, i started to feel interested in asperger’s syndrome. But i didnt really find info about it. Until we became closer and i felt “wow this guy is different. He is quite difficult”. Because the way he acted and treated me were quite different from other friends i have. I felt hurted often. Felt difficult to understand him. But deep inside my heart, i believed he is a nice guy. And then i decided, i need to learn more about asperger’s syndrome. I need to find out why he treats me like that. I didn’t want to give up with this friendship. Beside that i really love challenge. I felt challenged by O and his characters. So i collected articles about asperger’s syndrome. Read and learned about it.
We talked a lot about it. He taught me about anything related to asperger’s syndrome. So many and maybe i cant explain it perfectly but he taught me so many important things that affected my life after knew it, in good way of course. What a precious life experience i learned from him. Life changing events. I feel grateful for that.
He showed me his good characters and traits that he has and mostly related to asperger’s syndrome. And i need to admit, i started to think, people with asperger’s syndrome are very nice, unique n interesting. I admire some of their traits.
Finally we reached next stage of friendship that was better than before. I was very happy, admired our friendship. We started to know each other better and less conflict.
More i learned about asperger’s syndrome and aspie people (people with asperger’s syndrome) , i could understand “ohhh being unique and different is sometimes not as easy as we can imagine” . I got conclusion, mostly people with aspie got bullied. I thought about it and felt sad. No. That happened because people dont understand enough about asperger’s syndrome. It is not fair. They face difficulties in life that they don’t deserve just because people don’t know much about them. So i told him about my idea. Let’s make a book about friendship between aspie people and neurotypical people. Make more people aware about asperger’s syndrome and accept the differences. Let’s tell readers and people about our experiences. And he agreed.
Unfortunately other destiny brought us into different way of life. So we walked into different path.
But sometimes it is life. You need to lose someone or something, in order to get more space for someone or something new in your life. Maybe something better or more suitable for you. And unexpectedly, i met Jesper after that.
I didn’t know that Jesper is an aspie, in the beginning, until i found it later. Ohhh my … ! I felt so happy. Yeay. I had thought maybe it is my destiny to have aspie people surround me again so i can learn more about asperger’s syndrome.
I remember O told me. An aspie is an aspie. So i wont find other aspie that same like him. Every aspie is unique. He is correct 100% and i finally proved it.
Jesper is having different characters with O. It means i need to learn again about him from zero. Ok. I love it. I love the process and the challenge. But because i have experiences from friendship with O before so it is bit more easy than i had with O.
O and i have very different characteristic but with Jesper , we share some similar interests. Walking, watching movies, travelling, old songs, and some other things. I told Jesper about the idea of making web or something similar like this. But Jesper didnt feel interested before. He said hey so many people already did that. But i told him about an aspie is an aspie. Plus we can make based on our experiences that i believe different with other people’ experience. And i told him about his dream become kindergarten teacher to help kids with asperger’s syndrome (autism). Until one day … he said yes. Hahahaha. I don’t know what made him finally changed his mind hahaha. But here we are. Yeay 🥳.
I feel grateful for Jesper’ presence in my life. So far we have beautiful friendship. Sometimes misunderstandings happened but i think we never fight. He is very patient friend. Always by my side in hard or happy time. He did many things to help me or simply, to make me happy. He has so many good characters, i.e honest, sincere, blunt and funny. I think i need to make new post, special, under topic Jesper in my eyes. Hahahaha.
Sometimes i had frustration time. When Jesper treated me differently from what i thought he would do, in some certain conditions. But it helped me to be patient and tried to understand him more. Many things in life that he haven’t experienced it. So i think it is normal that sometimes he doesnt know how to do. But he is very humble person that want to learn. So we learned about many things together and i think we are happy to explore and discover things in life. I can see clearly, he made so many progress in his life lately. I am proud of him.
One of plans for this web is we will share our friendship experiences between aspie and neurotypical. We hope to get more new friends. Both from aspie and neurotypical people. We will learn more with other aspie and neurotypical people. Maybe we can share our experiences too. Have discussion. Sounds nice. Hahaha. But no judgement. No negative vibes. We learn together here. We make mistakes here.
Suddenly i remember about Atypical series on netflix. About Sam and Paige. Thanks for Kay, a friend that told me about this series. I watched the series right before i met Jesper. This series quite helped me to learn about asperger’s syndrome or autism.
This is link for atypical series on netflix in case you are wondering or feel interested in.
I believe things that happens in Atypical series , most likely happens in an aspie’ life and their friendship or relationship with neurotypical people around them too. From what i heard, sometimes, aspie feel bit hard to understand about neurotypical, social interaction and social clue. O said because the aspie’ brain wired differently. So let this journey begin. I hope at least a little clue can be found here. For aspie n neurotypical. Let’s celebrate life and differences.
I felt that the first post I wanted to do here on my new website which I have created together with awesome Ria, is going to be the story about how I got my diagnose and how it changed my life.
WHAT
Before I start my story I would like to tell that I have Asperger’s and I was diagnose pretty late at 18-19 years old and I am 33 years (Soon 34). I am not much into the new terms for Asperger’s so to me Asperger’s is the name of diagnose even some people might prefer other terms. The way Asperger’s effect me is that if stressed I can get sick with mostly puking and/or headaches. I can get stressed by as simple things as go to work, go to the mall with too many people or a simple phone call. I hate phone calls, meetings, and too many people in one place. I prefer talk to people one-one or texts which is also how I managed to do my job which is being a supporter at a local computer firm and have done so for soon 10 years. I am very happy for my work place. guess that is what you need to know about me.
HOW
Well the story starts when I was born as already when I was just born I was very clumsy and having problems with normal stuff but because Asperger’s was not a normal thing in little Denmark in 1989 then no one knew I was different so my parents was doing their best to help me in life and I have been doing many things over the years like fx almost getting tested for allergy, when I said almost the doctor only noticed that my sickness was not fitting a period of allergy on the time I was about to get tested. Thank God for that as I am scared of needles. I also got MR brain scanning where I almost fell asleep and a trainer for my being clumsy. All of this attempts happened until I was 18 years old and got to try a psychiatrist. Until I had always felt weird and I have been teased and bullied a lot doing my child hood. I was not so ‘clever’ on that so luckily did not learn what it was before 16 years old and I am not saying I am the best kid in school because how can you know a thing is bad as a child when it happens every day and no adult tells you it is bad. The teachers and my parents only discovered it because I was almost killed by a class mate who almost broke my neck. I was sad the days I was sent home to find a new school because I did not understand it was bad what had happen. From there life got better but I continued being sick with puke and headaches every time I started new school or place.
WHEN
Like I said I got to join a psychiatrist at 18 years old and we started talking. I do not remember much about what other than life, my family and such things but I do remember them asking me if I was fine with a Norwegian as psychiatrist because they felt he could help me. He could as he was the guy giving me my diagnose. I also remember him laughing when he told me that I had it because Asperger’s really enjoy dinosaurs, space and military in a certain order and I did as well even without knowing it. It was the best day of my life to finally learn why I was like this and I am happy to know.
WHY
The reason I got my diagnose was because I had always felt different and out of place and had a hard time doing anything about it. As I first got my diagnose in high school I did not get any help in primary school at all but in some ways I am happy for that as I fear I would been teased and bullied even more. My life has not been 100% happy just because I got my diagnose as for 1 I tried to become a kindergarten teacher to help kids with needs like mine so when I could hear them say “No one understand me”, I would look them in the eye and say “I know exactly what you feel and think because I have the same and life gets better” to make them feel better but to make a bit long story short then the kindergarten teacher school never understood me and force me to quit instead of trying to help me.
NOW
Now I am working hard in computer company working 25 hours a week, having a boss that helps me and cares for my problems and all of that was possible because Denmark has an awesome school named ASPit for people like me, who helped me, learn computer stuff and get a job.
You but different 