Re: Reading about autism and sinding a comfortable palce to balance

[Guest guest]

What do you wish to discuss in particular?

I attended a five-day course on Autism, some time after my son's diagnosis.

This was after reading several thousand pages on the internet as well as

paper books. During that course, which spent a fair amount of focus on

Sensory Dysfunction, an experiment was conducted to allow the participants

to understand what someone with Sensory Dysfunction experiences. That

exercise was, for me, pivotal, in that it was the final, conscious

realization that I was on the spectrum. I was the only person in the room

that experienced sensory overload and had to spend some time coming down.

I am now acutely aware of my, my son's and others' sensory issues, and the

role it plays in interpreting the environment.

Colin.

Re: Beings precisely myself or prostituting

myself?

Good heavens. Immediately after posting that long and incoherent message

on this thread (about how I would like to be able to like being with

people), I made a cup of tea and came across this in Prnce-' book.

She has just had her autism diagnosis officially

confirmed, and her partner is feeling dismayed: " it

was almost as if the diagnosis made it inescapable

that I would never be able to connect with her deeply,

to really be there for her or be able to change. "

Prince- continues ...

----begin quotation from p. 175:

It is hard to blame her when the cut-and-dried

description provided by the DSM-IV makes people with

Asperger's seem to be the epitome of cold disinterest,

complete uncaring, and total self-absorption. What

Tara [her partner] learned, and what I hasten to

remind the reader, is that the characteristics de-

scribed in the DSM-IV are just that: they are descrip-

tions of *coping behaviors " and not descriptions,

necessarily, of innate orientation. People with

Asperger's seem not to want to reach out, but it is

not always a problem of desire, but one of comfort:

they need to feel at ease in their bodies and at ease

with people they might be interested in knowing. In

the past I have felt unable to reach out to people

because I was physically uncomfortable.

---------end quotation.

That's as far as I've gotten. " In the past " makes it

sound like a change was on the way for her. Maybe

that's another infinitely manifested aspect of autism:

various autists are able to reach varying levels of

the kind of comfort that makes reaching out tolerable.

Jane