One Aspie wrote twelve separate times. A few excerpts from his comments (which are all dated Jun 8th, 2014):
Can't even read the whole thing, because all you are doing is bitching. And there is a good chance that you have Asperger's. Don't talk about something you don't understand just because you ran into a couple of people that do the things you describe. Or because you hate yourself…. Dude, you act like a person with AS, so shut the fuck up. This whole thing is just self hate and ignorance….
How can you say that all these things you describe are traits of those who have Asperger's Syndrome? I know plenty of people who don't have Asperger's Syndrome that do a lot of the things you describe. So your blog seems like you are talking about yourself and not someone else. Hmm... You should get checked. Or maybe you did, and that is why you wrote this.
It's quite sad how someone can have so much hate for people. You know, that's an Asperger's Syndrome trait. Oh wait, that's just a human trait from someone who is out of touch and hurting and seeking attention in the worst way instead of trying to figure themselves out.
Good luck with your life dude, because you seriously need some help….
You have a narcissistic and sociopaths personality, from what I can tell with a lot of the things you write about. You are very rigid, you are very narrow minded, and judgmental. So if all these things you say are traits of those on the spectrum, then you sir, have Asperger's Syndrome….
Well good luck with your life.
I didn't want to bother responding to his comments in detail, so I just wrote:
Thank you for wishing me good luck with my life!
This enraged him further, so he wrote more comments after the Adam Lanza II post. An excerpt:
He [Adam Lanza] didn't have Asperger's. He was a disturbed kid obsessed with high status and having "the girl" to match it. He was completely out of touch with reality. He was apart of a woman hate group and complained so much about women….
And I read some of your other stuff. What is your issue with those who have Asperger's? You come off as someone who hates them, but yet you come off as someone who has Asperger's.
I thought it interesting that the worst insult he could think of to hurl my way was to accuse me of having Aspergers Syndrome myself.
He reminded me of the gay guy whose most scathing insult to me, in response to a post I'd written about gay men back in April of 2010, was to accuse me of being gay.
You can always tell a lot about a person from the insults he chooses.
Of course, it could be that they're right. Maybe I am a gay guy with Aspergers who just doesn't realize it yet.
Can't even read the whole thing, because all you are doing is bitching. And there is a good chance that you have Asperger's. Don't talk about something you don't understand just because you ran into a couple of people that do the things you describe. Or because you hate yourself…. Dude, you act like a person with AS, so shut the fuck up. This whole thing is just self hate and ignorance….
How can you say that all these things you describe are traits of those who have Asperger's Syndrome? I know plenty of people who don't have Asperger's Syndrome that do a lot of the things you describe. So your blog seems like you are talking about yourself and not someone else. Hmm... You should get checked. Or maybe you did, and that is why you wrote this.
It's quite sad how someone can have so much hate for people. You know, that's an Asperger's Syndrome trait. Oh wait, that's just a human trait from someone who is out of touch and hurting and seeking attention in the worst way instead of trying to figure themselves out.
Good luck with your life dude, because you seriously need some help….
You have a narcissistic and sociopaths personality, from what I can tell with a lot of the things you write about. You are very rigid, you are very narrow minded, and judgmental. So if all these things you say are traits of those on the spectrum, then you sir, have Asperger's Syndrome….
Well good luck with your life.
I didn't want to bother responding to his comments in detail, so I just wrote:
Thank you for wishing me good luck with my life!
This enraged him further, so he wrote more comments after the Adam Lanza II post. An excerpt:
He [Adam Lanza] didn't have Asperger's. He was a disturbed kid obsessed with high status and having "the girl" to match it. He was completely out of touch with reality. He was apart of a woman hate group and complained so much about women….
And I read some of your other stuff. What is your issue with those who have Asperger's? You come off as someone who hates them, but yet you come off as someone who has Asperger's.
I thought it interesting that the worst insult he could think of to hurl my way was to accuse me of having Aspergers Syndrome myself.
He reminded me of the gay guy whose most scathing insult to me, in response to a post I'd written about gay men back in April of 2010, was to accuse me of being gay.
You can always tell a lot about a person from the insults he chooses.
Of course, it could be that they're right. Maybe I am a gay guy with Aspergers who just doesn't realize it yet.
Posts
11 comments:
That is quite the lynch mob mentality, and spirals quite quickly. The remarks are quite base and distasteful. And any energy engaging with them would be misplaced. Unless one wants to amuse oneself by exacerbating the situation.
Shaun --
You're absolutely right, and I actually wrote a fairly recent addition to the bottom of the original Aspergers post (which now has 238 comments) that i was going to stop responding to all the comments, as I found I was repeating myself. But this fellow evidently didn't notice that. I usually don't respond to people like this, but I have to admit I did take some pleasure from his obvious anger. And I wanted to make the point in this post that the worst insult he could come up with was to accuse me of having Aspergers myself.
That is the height of lameness - feeling insulted that you described Aspies accurately, then insulting you back by accusing you of being one of them, thus inadvertently agreeing with your point. I lol'd.
- Gethin
Gethin --
My reaction as well. If yo look at his ("CK"'s) comments on the Adam Lanza II post, you'll see that he doesn't process information correctly either. When I suggested that if he was so against "stereotyping" Aspies he ought not to stereotype Asians himself (although I agreed with the stereotype he mentioned), he then said that I had said he was Asian.
There are a huge number of comments after that original Aspergers post in which the Aspies, while objecting to the post, then illustrate various points I made about them.
I see what you mean about CK. I didn't read the whole load of his comments, but I saw the general gist: lots of red herrings, straw men and derailment. His comments read like they were based on emotion rather than reasoned analysis of what you said. Until now, I've assumed that people who make comments like that on the Internet are simply a bit dim, but from now on I'll also be taking into account that they might have some sort of developmental disorder.
- Gethin
Gethin --
Yes. The scary thing is, he sees himself as being in the right. You should see all the comments he wrote on the Aspergers post (all dated 6/8/14). He quoted most of the things I said, then would say afterwards something to the effect of, "This is not true, I know people with Aspergers who don't act this way." Then, at the end, he triumphantly declared that he had "debunked" me.
The other funny thing was the way he kept accusing me of "stereotyping" people with Aspergers. To make that accusation is as silly as saying that I "stereotype" sociopaths by saying that they are dishonest, disloyal, and manipulative.
Nothing I said really registered with him; but that's the way Aspies process information.
Hey John, Gethin here. I believe congratulations are in order: you made an accurate psychiatric assessment over the Internet!
You mentioned a while back that you didn't think I seemed like a typical Aspie, even though I received a diagnosis ages ago. It turns out you can sense that through talking to someone over the Internet because I've had confirmation from three psychiatrists that I don't have it.
The story starts when I was in treatment for depression, many years ago. The psychiatrist had a special interest in autism and, as the saying goes, "when the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail"*. She recognised that I was shy and geeky, so diagnosed me based on that. I began questioning the diagnosis when you said you'd had experience with Aspies, and that I didn't seem like one. But I didn't question it enough to bother seeking a second medical opinion.
*https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic
Fast forward to the beginning of this year: I had some unresolved issues from my past that I wanted to discuss. I figured the best option would be to see a psychotherapist so I could talk all I wanted without feeling guilty. The therapist (Dr A) happened to also be a qualified psychiatrist, and I booked three one-hour sessions with her. After two sessions, I mentioned the Asperger diagnosis and she frowned, asking "did you diagnose yourself with that?"
Fast forward another few months: I'd been somewhat sexually frustrated and decided to seek a date. Due to shyness, I tend to solicit my partners online. One guy asked me to meet him in a restaurant first, so I agreed, thinking he was nervous and just being cautious. He seemed normal online, but I figured he wasn't as soon as we saw each other. He was making poor eye contact, seemed aloof, and his conversational style seemed flat and unenthusiastic, and his voice monotone.
In the restaurant, he became worse: there was no emotional reciprocity. I'd ask questions out of politeness and he'd either answer with a single word or deliver a long and boring lecture, which I only half-listened to, thinking "I'll just eat this and go home". He mentioned that he was actually straight, but was experimenting with men and transsexuals due to his failures with women. "Women don't like me because I'm not ultra-macho", he said. I was thinking "erm, no, that's not why women dislike you. And you're not going to get any more success with men or trannies either", but didn't voice it.
After half an hour of this psychological torture, I blurted out "do you have some sort of disability? Something neurological or psychiatric?" He replied Aspergers, which was an eye-opener for me.
Determined to do more field research, I attended an Aspergers self-help group. The attendees there were all nice people. Some of the men seemed a bit awkward, but the women seemed totally normal. However, they were going on about things like tantrums in their childhood - something I never experienced (I was a remarkably quiet child). Until then, I never did understand what was meant by "meltdowns".
After that, I booked a fourth session with Dr A just to ask her why she didn't think I had Aspergers. She replied that I just didn't come across that way because I'm obviously social, albeit shy. Dr A wrote a brief letter to state her medical opinion, to counter the diagnosis on my medical records, and said that I could get a more thorough assessment at the local hospital.
At the hospital appointment, I had to fill out a bunch of questionnaires - including the empathy quotient, alexithymia test, autism spectrum quotient, 'Reading the Mind in the Eyes' (RtMitE) test - and my results excluded autism. In fact, I got significantly higher results than the general population on the empathy quotient. RtMitE is something autistic people are supposed to really struggle with, but I can do it better than average.
So you were right: Aspergers is overdiagnosed, likely a result of how it's been glamourised in the media. What was once deemed a severe disorder has been depathologised to the extent that garden-variety introverts are diagnosed with it. It's only when meeting with people who match your original 'Asperger Syndrome' blog post description that it's apparent that it's a disorder - not something to celebrate.
Gethin --
Good to hear from you, and thanks for that congrats and letting me know I was right.
I've never met you in person, obviously, so I was basing my opinion on your many insights about people, which Aspies almost never have. I remember one in particular (it may have come after I gave you that opinion) about how radical third wave feminists may have Aspergers syndrome because their points of view are all so unrealistic and transparently self-serving, or something to that effect. But you were also honest about your weaknesses (which Aspies rarely are, in my experience). And you were appreciative of various things I wrote (which Aspies rarely are as well).
Part of the reason Aspergers is over diagnosed in this country is because if a child has it, he is given more time on a test, and ambitious parents "encourage" psychotherapists to give that diagnosis in order to get that advantage for their child. I don't see it as being "glamorized," most people who know one know how difficult they can be; but there are all those lists of famous Aspies on the internet which try to claim every offbeat genius as a member of the club, and so people make the vague association between genius and Aspergers, which puts a sort of romantic aura on Aspergers, which in my opinion is misplaced. There certainly are some geniuses (Nicola Tesla, for instance) who were pretty obviously Aspies, but I've seen lists which include famous womanizers like Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin, which is pretty ridiculous.
As far as your date, yes, that's what they often come across like. Little to no eye contact, not much social grace, and lame and false excuses for their failures ("Women don't like me because I'm not ultra-macho"). It's not their fault that they're that way; but that's how they often are.
Anyway, glad to hear you've had that cloud lifted. Listening to your story makes me think of how much damage is done by erroneous diagnoses by incompetent psychotherapists. Your hammer nail analogy seems apt in that case.
Sir Anthony Hopkins 'doesn't believe in' Asperger's diagnosis
https://www.msn.com/en-us/entertainment/entertainment-celebrity/sir-anthony-hopkins-doesn-t-believe-in-asperger-s-diagnosis/ar-AAO3KhT?ocid=msedgntp
"They call it neurodiversity."
Never heard of this neurodiversity before....
GT --
Interesting, thanks. Geez, 83, a little late in life to be diagnosed. He never struck me as having Aspergers, but i really didn't know much about him, other than that he was estranged from his only child. Now that I think of it, estrangement from one's own family members is sort of an Aspergers thing, I know of a couple cases where that happened.
Hopkins is always referred to as a great actor, and he certainly was convincing as Hannibal Lecter, but I'm trying to think of a role where he acted completely differently (to me, the mark of a great actor), and I can't. Maybe I haven't seen enough of his movies.
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