The things NT believe about us

stranger said:

Following on from my first post, it appears that some people on the spectrum believe this rubbish too.

When will people understand it's a spectrum, and that whilst some are good at maths, not all of us are?

At the risk of banging on about my recent qEEG, it even showed up that I have problems with maths due to my brain connections (or lack thereof).  And I quote:

"The parietal region where we observe excess beta activity is highly involved in spatial attention, that is disengaging, moving and re-engaging spatial attention.  It can affect numerical processing (maths) as well as..."

So people that have this misperception about us all being autistic mathematical genuises are plain wrong.

This is about overall ignorance to autism as a condition.  This is why the government needs to make some adverts or something to put autism in the public eye and dispel myths, make realise how many of us there are and we are as diverse as neurotypicals.  Professionals also need to see us as people with individual personalities and understand that even though we do some things, it can be at great cost to us to do so, we manage them with huge personal challenge and can have lasting after-effects from doing them.  It's not enough to say "well, you got to your appointment" they have to look deeper.  Until they stop merely matching traits up to a checklist and accept that there is a lot more to us than that list of traits they won't ever get it.

longman said:

Comment by my former GP when I asked if he had received a copy of my diagnosis: "Is that a new kind of vegetable" ....................funny...except it came from the same GP who, when I asked for a diagnosis referred me to a psychiatrist, saying in the referral letter, which I was shown at my assessment, "as aspergers only affects children the patient must be delusional".

Working that comment out took some cognitive effort.  I was confused, then I thought "what vegetable does autism sound like?" and my brain went blank, and then I thought "or perhaps he means Asperger's" and then it hit me.  Asperger's sounds a bit like asparagus - or so some silly GP thought would be amusing to make a joke about it doing so (presuming he was actually joking and not incredibly stupid/uneducated).

As for the second part of your paragraph, no doubt that gave the psychiatrist a good chuckle!   The GP only made himself look an idiot, psychiatrists are already up their own rear ends, I mean they think they are higher in the "food chain" than psychologists as it is, so I can only imagine their opinion of GPs, which will only have been cemented by such a ridiculous comment.  No doubt the psychiatrist dined out on that comment for a month!

Longman that's terrible! I'm shocked that a GP can be that ignorant.

Oh that word "spectrum" again. It suits lazy scientists, but is it really?

It isn't a constant curve from marked to mild (log or linear). It doesn't really merge into the general population - surely not - as that's what leads to all the wisecracks about symptoms being nothing unusual.

I keep arguing that there must be baseline characteristics common to all, of which poor eye contact leads to social interaction difficulties and sensory overload causes many difficulties.

It may then be that over and above the baseline chacteristics there are more variable parameters, but the variation is itself variable between characteristics.

The "spectrum" concept is what leads the medical profession to underestimate the impact autism has on individuals at the less conspicuously disabled levels.

Comment by my former GP when I asked if he had received a copy of my diagnosis: "Is that a new kind of vegetable" ....................funny...except it came from the same GP who, when I asked for a diagnosis referred me to a psychiatrist, saying in the referral letter, which I was shown at my assessment, "as aspergers only affects children the patient must be delusional".

The facts remain, until the medical profession is persuade to address autism to the highest professional standards, we will continue to witness the shoddiest and most offensive and inconsiderate of behaviours. I wish I could make my feeling plain to the BMC -hypocratic oath - doesn't apply to autism.

Following on from my first post, it appears that some people on the spectrum believe this rubbish too.

When will people understand it's a spectrum, and that whilst some are good at maths, not all of us are?

I'm not too worried about lay perception, NT conversation seems to have an apttitude for false trails and misinformation.

What worries me is the rubbish coming out of the medical and health professions, doctors, dentists, nurses, hospital support staff etc etc.

You appear to have eye contact so you cannot be on the spectrum

You are married/have a job/ drive a car etc so you cannot be on the spectrum

You sound quite intelligent actually.........

You managed to get to the appointment OK....

Don't you have a support worker with you, oughtn't I to be speaking to them....

There's certainly no use for the amount of patent ignorance from the medical profession.

stranger said:

I feel like banging my head against a brick wall.

Over the weekend, I have discovered that NTs believe the following things about us:

- we can't get married and form serious relationships. Those who do, were wrongly diagnosed

- we're all good at maths. Apparently, if someone has a maths degree, that automatically means they're on the spectrum. I can think of at least one NT with a degree in maths and computing science. (to my knowledge he's NT and he doesn't seem like an Aspie in anyway)

Anyone know where these bizzare myths come from? I was told I have no idea what I was talking about when I said we could have meaningful relationships. When I asked for their evidence, they couldn't provide any.

In fairness, I had a very fixed, stereotypical view of Autism (i.e. Rainman)...

...until I was diagnosed with Autism aged 34!

I do blame Hollywood and other media representations of Autism for how we sometimes view it.  i.e. as a fixed archetype, rather than as a spectrum disorder that can affect people in different ways and severities.  

If everyone with ASC was a maths genius there would be a lot of renowned maths geniuses out there and there would be no savants for any other field.

Erm, considering that there is a large genetic component to a lot of autism cases how would they propose it was passed down if people on the spectrum didn't at least procreate?

They should see my maths in that case, I am appalling at maths, and I don't say that lightly.  I can only manage basic maths my head blanks out the second it starts getting even slightly more complicated.  My teacher banged her head against the blackboard in frustration at school because after countless explanations I couldn't get something and everyone else in the class got it.

These myths come from ignorance.  The best way you can deal with ignorance is to educate people.

Exactly.

NAS did something on Twitter (something to do with World Autism Day, I think) earlier in the year and the myth about maths came up. They said that like everyone else, we all have our own interests, etc. For some, that's maths and for others, it's something else.