Running Away from Neurodiversity

[ylevental]

I don't think neurodiversity works for me anymore and that's why I want to join this forum.

A lot of my family is in STEM. As a result, I thought I would be a future Einstein or Gates because of my eccentric nature and family background. Very few people become an Einstein or Gates but I needed to make up for my lack of friends and was looking for compensation and hoping for something close. I have an engineering degree but no job lined up because of my lack of networking skills.

I have not been formally diagnosed but that's because I believed the old media myths that half of engineers have Asperger's. On the contrary, engineers are actually flexible, extroverted people, and the lamestream media is lying to your face. The one talent I did have was plugging numbers into formulas so I thought engineering would be for me but engineering involves a lot of abstract problem solving and I want to broaden my talents.

As for Einstein and Gates, Einstein had a lot of friends, but he was introverted as a child.  He never was in special ed, whereas I was from Kindergarten until the fifth grade.  Bill Gates was really good at marketing Microsoft.  So therefore, I have no reason to support neurodiversity anymore.

[OOM]

Hey there! What is neurodiversity? I've been dx'd since middle age and been on WP since 2011 and I never paid much attention to the word. I assumed it had to do with attitudes and I wouldn't agree with it so believe it or not I ignored it. Also what is STEM?

I'm diagnosed. I have AS. High functioning I guess. When I was a kid I was bad off. Never had learning problems but I had a lot of other problems. Tons of social ones as well. I got my first friends about 13. A few new girls in my class who saw something worth salvaging in there and liked me once they got to know me and I started trying to have a relationship with them and they decided to teach me how to act right and be normal. You have to remember that in the late 70s nobody had AS. We were just nerds (totally different than the meaning today. Back then it meant the same thing that retarded in the vernacular and not diagnostic meants today). Or we were losers or one of several other terms meaning people nobody wanted to be around because we were too weird and annoying. Then again lots of NTs werebin that category too. I had no idea that I had any actual biological and organic and physical reason for why I was how I was and why things were so hard for me to learn and understand and do. Social and common sense things, not academic things. I was top dog academically and just A Dog socially and in every other way. The latter is what my friends fixed and taught me to fix.

I won't bore you with details but they had to literally teach me and explain things to me that most people don't need to have explained. I had to learn it by rote before I started to get instincts and such and things came naturally to me. I pass for NT just fine and have done it since about a year after i met my friends and its now my natural state of being and thinking and coming across. But to this day I don't know if my instincts and it coming naturally to me is the same for me as it is for NTs maybe I learned to make all of my brain function like thatbor maybe just part of it.

I'm a great judge of character and I have good guy feelings that are usually right so that sounds like NT functioning. I'm very extroverted and easy to get along with and laid back but all that had to be learned and only started being comfortable and coming naturally after I forced myself very uncomfortable for a while then faked it somewhat uncomfortably for a while then faked it OK for a while etc. It got easier. Ypu gety drift. But I don't know if my brain function is like NTs or if it's so second nature after close to 40 years to analyze things and figure them out and decide what is wanted of me and decide what to do and say that is appropriate and go through all those tedious steps i used to have to go through with every single social interaction, that maybe I'm still only doing that but it's second nature and well practiced enough so as to seem instant to me and others and I just don't notice doing it anymore and couldn't notice if I tried. Or maybe I did learn it and it came naturally to me like it does for NTs once I started doing it. It doesn't matter either way though. It's not hard to socialize and its no effort and I enjoy it when I'm in the mood just like anyone else.

Until I went to therapy for a totally unrelated issue (panic attacks) I had no idea that when o was a kid I was anything other than sheltered and painfully shy. None of us knew that they were doing more than just helping me to "come out of my shell". I also didn't know then that some things were much harder for me than others. Neither did they. We all thought I was just like then except shy and clueless

I remember how terribly hard most things were to do and remember and understand. How everything felt like such an impossible task. I'm strong now but then I was very very weak. I would have given up if I had known that it was harder for me I most certainly would if I had known I had a medical condition that caused it. But because I believed that it wasn't any harder for me than anyone else and that I was just thinking it was cause I had been so overprotected, I put myself through some of personalityStephanie hardest personal change that I can imagine. It was like Rocky but for personality, and Rocky was a 98 lb weakling and had to learn how to box. It was very hard.

Also I had other issues than personality and social. I had sensitivities to things and meltdowns over things and I was clunsier than I am now and all sorts of the other issues that come along with it.

Is be very hesitant to tell anyone to make any kind of judgment or decision about seeking a dx based solely on personality and social traits. There is much more to it. NTs can have almost the same exact personality and social problems we do but they will be for different reasons and they won't have most of the other issues though. And when reading about it you could easily think you don't have the other issues or you do and you could be dead wrong or right on the money. You won't know until you see somebody about it. They aren't just going to ask you the same things you read online. They have other questions that help point out these things and determine if you did have them or just something similar. You could have been dealing with something so long that it just seems like an annoyance and not an issue and the doc will ask the right questions to be able to see what you can't.

That's why self dx is hard.

But if you aren't having problems and don't need accommodations or don't need therapy to learn to better deal with things then its really just a matter of curiosity as to whether or not you go find out. It won't hurt you not to I'd you are doing fine and since your not a cat it won't kill you to follow your curiosity.

When I was diagnosed I was married and has four kids. I was fine. I had had jobs and had even talked myself into jobs I had no experience or training for but they looked cool and I was a quick learner. I had gotten that good at socializing and charming and such and I had come that far. I stood up for myself and I had had absolutely no social problems or anything from it since I was a young teen really. Not big ones anyway and none at all really since I was an adult. I had other issues but I thought of them as quirks. And special interests. Obsessions more likely lol. But I wasn't obsessed I was just extremely interested and that was all I wanted to pursue when I had free time. Long story a bit shorter she noticed it over the course of therapy and after I was over my main issue, the panic attacks she brought it up. Explained it. I had relaxed around her obviously. She was a bit odd herself and she became actual friends with her patients from time to time. We has gotten to be friends so I was doubly relaxed and she saw sides of me that she wouldn't as a therapist. We talked about it and I said "holy shit you're right. I can't not know now!"

So she sent me into the labyrinth of diagnosis. And yep I have AS. However it wasn't a big deal. Not like being told I have high blood pressure and have to stop eating good food and smoking and take tenormin. That would be terrible. I felt that OK I have it but I'm basically over it. She felt the same way up to a point and also explained I'm not over it I've just learned to deal with it and work around it and function well and succeed in spite of it because of left to my ow n devices and my own inner resources I'd be living with my mother and 50 cats and still wouldn't say shit if I had a mouthful.

So we talked about it a lot and I still had meltdowns when overwhelmed but mainly with stress, frustration or fear of losing someone important to me and having no control over that. And boy these were undoubtedly meltdowns too. I learned two important things. How to spot the buildup and avoid them by getting away from the stressor so I can calm down and then go back and deal with the problem and fix it and also that it wasn't my fault nor was I purposefully having a temper fit. I knew I wasn't. Or felt like I wasn't and it was truly physically impossible to control but nobody else had heard of it so what else were any of us supposed to think? It was like when you put am epileptic in a room with a strobe light. Want too or not, too much of that shit stimulates their areas and they have a seizure. Same sort of control and physical factor sort of. If you put a gun to my head I might could control a meltdown but am epileptic can't control a seizure.

So get checked if you need to.

That was just my story and I thought hearing about some of my past and present issues and all that stuff might help you. And what is neurodiversity.

BTW, my dad was an engineer. They divorced when I was a baby and I met him once when I was 21 and flew out to tx to spend a weekend with him. He designed some shit for a nuclear power plant there. Had been in whose who too. Looking back he didn't seem at all like am engineer. He's full Italian. I'm half. He seemed a lot like what you think of as a regular Italian upper middle class guy. He had been engaged to Vic Damon's ex after he left my mother. She was his second wife. Looking back there was nothing aspie like about him at all.

My father in law was an engineer too. Worked for the govt. Invented the starlight scope, flew it to Cali on a transport jet with security escort cause it was new and secret sort of, and held it in front of the camera so the camera could shoot through it in that scene in the Free Berets where the soldier says "lets see what starlight srarbright has to say". That's my FIL. Met John Wayne that day of course. Had to tell him no he couldn't hold the actual piece of equipment. They did have a mockup. He also headed the lab that made the tracking system for that bomb that they kept showing going through the door during the first gulf war. He was ex army (47th Rainbow) and a big deal in the govt. He didn't seem aspie like at all. He seemed like The General. That was what his kids called him and I see why. However he was the smartest and best man I ever met and since I didn't have a dad really he stepped up and was a dad to me too. I met my husband at 21 and married at 22 so he helped me when I was still doing some growing up. I loved him and will miss him forever and I thank God or whoever every day that he was there as an example for my boys. My husband's a good man but had an easy life and it shows. He's not his dad but he's hisbdads son if that makes sense.

Those are our two engineers in my family. Neither seemed aspie at all but then neither do I.

Sorry for the wordiness. I'm not always like this. Thanks for reading. Good luck.

[ylevental]

Neurodiversity means that Autism is a good thing. Some say that it promotes technical ability but there is no actual evidence, and the opposite is usually seen. STEM is science, technology, engineering, mathematics.

Hopefully, I will get diagnosed soon. I thought it would be redundant in my case and I would fit in with other engineers, but I was wrong.

[Deleted]

I was starting to get tired of the experience at WP that if you offered a helpful suggestion to someone, they would snarl at you, "I shouldn't have to do that! Others should accept me the way I am!" It seemed they had given up on even the idea of meeting society halfway. And yet, they wondered why they were lonely and depressed! How is that helping people?

[Deleted]

ylevental, I have a very accomplished brother with a Ph.D. in EE and a good job, and he is as clearly aspie as anyone I've ever met. I've never discussed it with him, in part because I am not disclosing my own diagnosis to my family of origin. I've also known quite a few professionals and professors who just plain had to have an ASD.

More education might help you with the job thing, but it is important that engineering is a field you really enjoy. If you don't, and you don't have an aptitude for it, you won't be very successful.

[ylevental]

Nov 1, 2015 18:40:20 GMT @beaarthur said:

ylevental, I have a very accomplished brother with a Ph.D. in EE and a good job, and he is as clearly aspie as anyone I've ever met. I've never discussed it with him, in part because I am not disclosing my own diagnosis to my family of origin. I've also known quite a few professionals and professors who just plain had to have an ASD.

More education might help you with the job thing, but it is important that engineering is a field you really enjoy. If you don't, and you don't have an aptitude for it, you won't be very successful.

I would really enjoy engineering, except for the fact that it is too much work for me.  In my current state however, everything is too much work for me, even organizing my room.  That's why I need treatment.

Additionally, I bet that your brother and others are nothing like this video, which is what I'm mostly like, just milder: www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_mlyEtzax8

I admittedly notice disproportionate eccentricities amongst people in STEM, but most are organized and outgoing from my experience.

[OOM]

Nov 1, 2015 19:32:46 GMT ylevental said:

Nov 1, 2015 18:40:20 GMT @beaarthur said:

ylevental, I have a very accomplished brother with a Ph.D. in EE and a good job, and he is as clearly aspie as anyone I've ever met. I've never discussed it with him, in part because I am not disclosing my own diagnosis to my family of origin. I've also known quite a few professionals and professors who just plain had to have an ASD.

More education might help you with the job thing, but it is important that engineering is a field you really enjoy. If you don't, and you don't have an aptitude for it, you won't be very successful.

I would really enjoy engineering, except for the fact that it is too much work for me.  In my current state however, everything is too much work for me, even organizing my room.  That's why I need treatment.

Additionally, I bet that your brother and others are nothing like this video, which is what I'm mostly like, just milder: www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_mlyEtzax8

I admittedly notice disproportionate eccentricities amongst people in STEM, but most are organized and outgoing from my experience.

Ever been checked for ADHD? My boys had it. Vyvanse worked miracles for the younger one. It focuses you very well. It's considered nonabusable because it's a prodrug and converts in the liver. They give this easier than adderall. It's amphetamine. He was on 20mg for years and I think that's the lowest dose. Didn't have to titrate up either.

[ylevental]

I haven't either. From what I know about how my body works, it wouldn't have a significant effect. I'll explain more if you want.

[OOM]

Nov 1, 2015 18:36:32 GMT @beaarthur said:

I was starting to get tired of the experience at WP that if you offered a helpful suggestion to someone, they would snarl at you, "I shouldn't have to do that! Others should accept me the way I am!" It seemed they had given up on even the idea of meeting society halfway. And yet, they wondered why they were lonely and depressed! How is that helping people?

If those of us with AS should be accepted exactly the way we are, how come they bitch at me so much? I have it. I'm not supposed to have a filter between my brain n and my mouth or typing thumbs. Why do they expect me to use the one I learned to develop if their mantra is the old altar call hymn "Just As I Am?".

If they feel like that only those with AS can mention our faults to us, since they obviously think it's OK to do since they call me all kinds of shit and smack talk me a lot, and I honestly don't give two mouse poops about it - hell I honestly don't give even one mouse poop what they say to or about me (except direct personal accusations of specific acts which I did not do and why I left) then why can't I call Boo a yammermouth with a severely inflated sense of pride in his Johnson (he's sent me pics. No I didn't ask), Sly a lying, whining little shit, and Edentheil just a fucking batshit crazy little lollipop all wrapped up in psycho?

I understand the harshness of my words but apparently it's harsh to say to some of them that they are overreacting and they will slap you down fast for it when asked to.

I've honestly only gotten outright mean one time there. In all these years. Some piece of crap ripped into Cockney Rebel who is one of the nicest and most caring posters there, who never says a negative thing and will bend over backwards to make somebody feel better. I like Cockney so I decided that little bobblehead puppy needed to play with the big dogs. I held back but I really went off with personal insults, name calling, creative swearing and an invitation to dance. They closed and discontinued the sticky thread I did that on lol.

I could see them doing this if THAT is what I did a lot or even occasionally. But I've never been harsher in debate there than I am when my husband and I go spend the evening with our preacher friend who is very conservative and kinda crazy about tinfoil hat stuff and the sun goes down and the shine comes out and we are kicked back on the sipping poarch and the conversation turns like it always does to politics and why I'm wrong.

I don't think we should get more coddling than we absolutely need and at times we should get less so we are exposed to it in limited fashion and get it in our brains that uncomfortable does not equal torture. It's not good for anybody to be so protected and petted constantly that they lose the ability or the idea of doing something that they don't want to do.

Sure we have the right to not follow the social protocol. We have every right. And we have every right to go in our houses and be left alone. Everybody else has the right to think we are douchebag because of how we act though. They have the right to use a tone when they talk to us or to roll their eyes or whatever. And while we have the right to whine about it when they do we don't have a leg to stand on of we do cause our insistence that we be left as we are is what led to it. We are left as we are. Nobody's making us change. But nobody has a right to insist they like is the way we are. Or accept. They do have to tolerate. People forget that.

Sorry to run on. I missed my soap box lol I have nobody to debate with at home and they won't listen to my rants and opinions. They will argue though, gladly. But not about anything I care about. Where is that blue shirt, who should let the dog out this time, who went to bed last and didn't move the garbage can so the dog turned it over, whose headphones these are (that one has come to blows between the kids) etc. That's no fun. It's not even am argument. All I have to do is tell goddammit really loud and they freeze and I tell them what to do and they do it. Usually I just do the work though. Much easier and I don't lose my voice. Cause nobody wants THAT to happen lol

I'm glad you came here. I'm gonna try and do whatever the members want. It's not MY forum, its everybody's who comes here. I spent a minute and a half clicking links on the phone to create it. I got no money and very little time invested so I can't claim it. It's in my name cause I made it. And if ever a majority wants something different than me I'll do it. Unless it's the PC bunch and they want something stupid and in that case I'll just ban them. My mama didn't raise no idiots lol

Look around and post suggestions in the techy forum please.

Make yourself at home. Welcome.

[OOM]

Nov 1, 2015 21:05:58 GMT ylevental said:

I haven't either. From what I know about how my body works, it wouldn't have a significant effect. I'll explain more if you want.

Sure. I'll listen. But while its largly nonabusable it is speed. Everybody responds in some way or other to it. It's a question of natural tolerance. Some people's is higher.

How old are you anyway? Just curious. And kinda nosey.

[ylevental]

Well potassium has a similar effect for me. I can concentrate better, but I still have problems with mobility. This is because of the shape of my face.

www.cbsnews.com/news/children-with-autism-have-distinct-facial-features-study/

It puts pressure on my face, impacting my breathing.

[iliketrees]

I only have 2 problems with neurodiversity:

1. The idea that autism isn't a disability
2. That they don't want a cure

I know you linked this before on WP, but I'm not sure if everyone has seen it. It summed up my thoughts better than I'd be able to myself:

slatestarcodex.com/2015/10/12/against-against-autism-cures/

[btbnnyr]

Personally, I have positives and negatives from autism, and positive and negative qualities that are just me, not an autism automaton, but a person shaped by my brain, how my brain developed, my life events, my choices, how my parents raised me, relationships with people, etc.

I don't support current neurodiversity movement, because I think it is not on right track towards helping autistic people in practical, concrete ways.