I have a confession to make here.......

Forever Knight said:

Yet they are Asian and have smaller dicks. The irony.

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FK has experience with that.... :laugh: jk/jk...

I think it was only recently people were accepting that there was a medical reason for things that people could mistakenly attribute to environment. Ie. Asperger's Syndrome and ADHD, are accepted as viable and medically sound diagnoses that can be hindrances to social functioning. And it does depend on the society/culture.

My friend who's a medical doctor now herself, has ADHD but her parents didn't believe that was a real diagnosis; they refused her the presciption she needed, which meant that she had harder time in school and whatnot.

Obviously, however, case in point, people with such conditions can work around them and be successful too as attested by my friend. For those of you with such hindrances, I encourage you to persevere and not lose hope. Ganbatte!

I'm incredibly unnerved that your everyday run-of-the-mill douchebag can claim to have aspergers and there is absolutely no way to verify.

Even though it incredibly marginalizes the disorder, I find the end result for most people is the same: "Aspergers or not, I don't want the people who treat me badly in my life anymore." This is how it's like in an individualistic culture like in the US.

As for collectivistic cultures such as China, where social harmony is most important, I would guess the main reason why they tell you to pretend it doesn't exist is because well...you're still rather high functioning and can contribute to society anyway, so it's like there isn't a problem at all and the people who complain about it are just being denying their true potential.

Midori Ken said:

I'm incredibly unnerved that your everyday run-of-the-mill douchebag can claim to have aspergers and there is absolutely no way to verify.

Even though it incredibly marginalizes the disorder, I find the end result for most people is the same: "Aspergers or not, I don't want the people who treat me badly in my life anymore." This is how it's like in an individualistic culture like in the US.

As for collectivistic cultures such as China, where social harmony is most important, I would guess the main reason why they tell you to pretend it doesn't exist is because well...you're still rather high functioning and can contribute to society anyway, so it's like there isn't a problem at all and the people who complain about it are just being denying their true potential.

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Absolutely not. There is a huge difference between douchebaggery and Aspergers. If you've ever met a person with Asperger's you'd know. BUT, I think it helps once you know the truth about someone. There's a girl at our church with Asperger's and it was definitely awkward and a little uncomfortable in talking to her. I guess it depends on the individual. It's still interesting in interactions with her, but knowing that now, it's also a bit of a relief actually because now both sides know and can deal with it together. Tru, I'd love to say that people will treat everyone with the best intentions regardless, but yeah, reality doesn't always go that way.

MaraJade said:

Absolutely not. There is a huge difference between douchebaggery and Aspergers. If you've ever met a person with Asperger's you'd know.

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There are no absolutes when talking about lay people. If somebody doesn't know, then they just don't know.

Even to reasonable fellows such as Lynxara and myself, because we do not know how to distinguish the differences. Like we don't know how to diagnose Retts, or Angelman.

You knew people with Aspergers and I think I remember you mentioned studying psychology before too.

EDIT: So turns out Lynxara and I don't distinguish for a reason that's somewhat the same, and somewhat different at the same time.

I know a few people with Asperger's, but a) they're mostly high-functioning and b) they're all around my age (late 20s, early 30s). I wouldn't say "it affects your life less" at this age, but generally by now people have figured out how to deal with their problems.

I do have one friend whose Asperger's is so bad that he doesn't work, but he has a trust fund and a loving family so he'll be fine. Another friend with Asperger's is studying to be a lawyer and is a ridiculously talented games reviewer.

A third friend (who is more in his early 20s) has a combination of Asperger's and mild clinical depression but is extremely smart and very successful as long as his meds agree with him. When they don't he can shut down for a month or so but he's always bounced back.

Lynxara said:

A third friend (who is more in his early 20s) has a combination of Asperger's and mild clinical depression but is extremely smart and very successful as long as his meds agree with him. When they don't he can shut down for a month or so but he's always bounced back.

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This got me a bit worried. I know a guy in my school who has Asperger and he's always been a very depressed kid. He also had a very depressing life, coming from Sydney. He's almost exactly like your friend here, except for one thing: his medication stopped working, and he didn't bounce back this time.

He just disappeared after that. His parents are divorced, he's in a gang. I'm pretty sure you all know what "BNE" is. He was part of it in Australia until he got kicked out of school there and came to stay here since he had relatives here. He then enrolled into my school and starting working hard. Then one day, his medication just stopped working. He didn't come to school. Didn't do tests. All he did was stay home and smoke weed. We tried to get him back on the medication but he refused it. That's when the school had to let him go due to not coming to school for the last semester.

He's back in Sydney now with his mom. From what I heard, he's at a military school...

That sounds more like he decided to stop taking the meds? I wonder if he was having bad side-effects. My third friend has had to adjust his meds every year or so because of that.

I can relate to this. I was bullied at school. Even now, little kids in the neighbourhood recognise me and say "Oi, Andy, chicken legs!" while teens and 20-somethings yell "Hey, Power Ranger!" at me. My name isn't Andy, it's James, so I think these youngsters have me confused with a neighbour. The adults who ought to know better remember me from school. I've always been into things aimed at younger kids. Such as Power Rangers (hence the above insult) and TMNT. To this day I still buy The Beano comic every week (I'm 26). I was on a bus a few days ago, and I could hear some girl passengers probably in late teens muttering about it. I'm not embarrassed to read comics on the bus, what's their problem? It's like people can tell that I'm different just by looking at me. When I was at school, I got registered as special educational needs, but the Doctor never diagnosed exactly what it was. We think it was probably Aphasia. I had speech therapy. I also had problems with balance and thus never learned to ride a bike.