A La Aspie

Frosty, Heidi and Frank (a new addition to one of our local radio stations which has switched to this Free FM talk format) - began a discussion on Asperger’s Syndrome yesterday based (I believe) upon this story about a 19 year old boy (William Freund) who went on a shooting rampage and has Asperger’s Syndrome.

I didn’t catch their discussion about the actual news story - but the story about the shooting, to me, sounds like the boy acted out of depression. A word about the William Freund story before I get to my point :

Depression is common among people with Asperger’s Syndrome but depression is not part of Asperger’s Syndrome. Asperger’s Syndrome does not make you kill people. I feel very deeply sympathetc for someone who got so depressed that they felt that was the only way to handle it. I’m on several Asperger Syndrome forums and never saw a post from this boy. I hope that we would all take that sort of complaint seriously if we heard soemone say they felt there was no other way to deal with their depression than to hurt themselves or someone else. Granted, it’s difficult to do antyhing effective about it over the internet (what if you dont know their identity?). But I hope the people who saw his posts tried.

That said, I was disappointed by the conversation I heard on the Frosty, Heidi and Frank show. Luckily, I’m told, I didn’t catch the worst of it. They apparently were making fun of people with Asperger’s Syndrome and calling them names like ‘Ass Burgler’. How mature. What I DED catch was some general stupid nonsense about ‘I stutter.. does this mean I have Asperger’s Syndrome?’ If anything, to someone who knows something about the disorder, it made them sound like total idiots.

• Asperger’s Syndrome is a spectrum disorder. Symptoms and severity vary from person to person.
• Asperger’s Syndrome is a neurological disorder - not a series of bad habits or negative personality traits.
• People with Asperger’s Syndrome are usually not aware of their personality quirks in the moment and therefore find it difficult to change them. Examples might include perseveration, meltdowns, inappropriate words or actions.
• It is possible to learn to compensate to different degrees.
• Someone with AS is not likely to have an easy life and run across some list of symptoms some day and say ‘hey, I have Asperger’s Syndrome’. Although many people find the dx by accident (myself included), they usually struggle with the symptoms a great deal and it’s not just a set of small behaviors that they never think about.

Additionally, the little bit I heard, pointed out to me why AS is such a painful disorder to have. On some level (depending upon where they fall onthe spectrum), people with Asperger’s Syndrome are aware they are different from others and they ar aware of the difficulty it causes and they are aware of the frustration of not being able to fix it. Maybe they only know that no one really likes them and they don’t really like others. Or maybe, like me, they are able to look at a situation in retrospect and tell when others were turned off by them but find it extraordinarily difficult if not impossible to stop doing whatever that thing was.

Yes, we are often depressed. It’s hard not to be. People don’t like us (usually). Imagine being generally lonely all the time.. your whole life. Simple everyday things that others do without trouble provide us with huge daily obstacles. Emotions and stress wreck havoc in our brains. No one usually understands what we’re going through. Either we compensate well enough to ALMOST appear normal (like me) so everyone assumes we are normal and are just a bitch or just strange - or we don’t compensate well enough to really appear normal and are downgraded to some sort of mystery grab bag of wierddom in everyone else’s eyes.

It was disheartening and angering to hear someone list the symptoms of Asperger’s Syndrome and then make light of it as if it’s just some sort of personality flaw that a little bit of effort would fix. To do it in such a public forum and to be SO uneducated about it is irresponsible not to mention painful for someone who’s had to deal with that kind of childish ridicule and general insensitivity since grade school. And really, that’s what it sounded like. A bunch of middle school aged kids trying to poke fun at something they don’t even have a tiny grasp on.

I suppose there is always someone who gets upset about the subject matter of a talk show and I fall into the masses who would be upset about the Asperger’s Syndrome bit on the Frosty, Heidi and Frank show. It seems though that there should be a line somewhere. Make fun of society and stupid shit that people do. Make fun of bits of life and play jokes. But making fun of something someone can’t help doesn’t seem productive or funny to me.

Also may have been crossposted to my Asperger's Syndrome blog on Trusera.com, a site where people show health related stories. Check it out!