Posted by IsoM on December 22, 2001, at 13:28:10
In reply to Re: Psychotherapy and CBT » caroline, posted by Dinah on December 22, 2001, at 9:10:31
Dinah, - first a disclaimer from me.
All this comes from long heart-felt conversations with my son, Erin (I know - but it's also a guy's name) & with living with him for 26 years & observing his reactions to situations & always asking him questions about it.It used to irritate him that I'd ask questions. His reactions to siturations seemed so different to me & I knew something was different about him & I was desperate to understand him better as I love him so much. But when he was diagnosed with Aspeger 4 years ago, he no longer minds me asking as he realises the reasoning behind the questions. He said the questions used to make him feel like he was some sort of freak but he wants to understand himself better too now.
So all in all, I'd say my comments about Asperger are fairly astute but some of them may be specific to him alone & not necessarily all people with Asperger.
He can hug me warmly & often - that sort of contact doesn't bother him. He can shake hands with new people he meets. But any other physical contact disturbs him. Even when younger, if he had sore aching shoulders, he'd refuse to let me massage them but my other 2 sons loved it. I never pushed him about touch. Even as a little child, he wasn't very cuddly after he stopped nursing. My other two sons would've nursed forever if I hadn't weaned them myself, but Erin weaned himself & when I'd ask he wanted "nummies", he say "no!" & run off.
Erin can judge emotions expressed in the face not badly, but it's been through a lot of 'training'. I'm very good at reading people, body language, etc & have taught him. But he does get overwhelmed very easily by the display of too much emotion in others, even good. He has to retire alone to recoup, so to speak. He does have trouble with faces otherwise though.
He, for the life of it, can't ever judge how old a person is unless there's tell-tale signs like wrinkles & gray hair. Once a person is an adult, they look the same sort of. He has a lot of trouble telling the same face with make-up of hair changes done to it. If you were to show him a picture of the same person done with red hair, black hair, & blonde & alter the face with glasses, make-up, etc, he wouldn't know it was the same person, but most everyone else could see the same person. That sort of thing is what he can't judge about faces.
When the psychologist accessed Erin about Asperger, he spent a couple of hours on two separate appointments to run tests & then another appointment to discuss with us the results. Any one who gets 'diagnosed' by reviewing whether they fit some critieria in a manual, hasn't had a thorough job done of it.
\**************************************************************************************************> Wow Caroline,
> That last post hit home. I thought I was the only one with difficulties kissing because of sensory problems. I have OCD, and it has been strongly suggested I have schizotypal personality. I've often wondered about Asperger's myself, but isn't the inability to "read" the emotional reactions of others an integral part of the disorder? I am often bombarded by the emotional reactions of others, although I can't seem to do anything with the information. It's like the input is fine (or even oversensitive), but there's something wrong with the processing of it to social output.
> I think I also read somewhere that people with Asperger's have trouble seeing the whole of people's faces. That they instead saw eyes and ears and chins, but couldn't put them together. That's what first made me wonder about it in relationship to myself, since that's what happens to me. And I also think I remember something about lack of both social and physical rhythm. But I might be confusing that with something else.
> I was just wondering, are there certain qualities that have to be present with Asperger's and that would rule it out if you don't have those qualities?
> I'm sorry if this post is muddled. It's still early.
poster:IsoM
thread:87154
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20011222/msgs/87696.html