Look at our diagnosis, and look at the hyper-social world we live in today, even when we have skills and professional accreditation etc, we just cannot fit in.
Could it be that the few of us who are diagnosed with some form of autism cannot cope with the present social needs of the world? Well just look, as per an article I quote from CBC News, Paul Shattuck of the Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin at Madison said "many of the children now being counted in the autism category would probably have been counted in the mental retardation or learning disabilities categories if they were being labelled 10 years ago instead of today." Despite so, the rate of autism still climbed from 9 (2006) to 11, or more, children per 1000 people.
I feel that the era of 'mental retardation', which I, an individual with High Functioning Autism (that is, I have higher-than-normal IQ but I also had significant speech delays), was initially diagnosed with in the past, is long over. Now, I believe, increasingly, the new diagnoses could be people with the old 'Asperger's Syndrome' in DSM-IV. This may still be present in DSM-V, but the new psychiatry standards would be that more likely, people with Asperger's may be grouped together with those with High Functioning Autism.
That's why, these days, the very few INTJs we know are diagnosed as having Asperger's Syndrome, or, in the future, autism.
I am not sure about those with Asperger's Syndrome. However, I can be very certain that smartness comes in multiple forms, and definitely for people with HFA, we may not have the ability to communicate early, as indicated in our significant speech delay. This does not stop us from being really able to change the world - Prof. Albert Einstein, a fellow HFA-er, invented the atomic bomb that ended World War Two. However, it is true that we are really disadvantaged to have the social smarts to navigate around a social world, and an increasingly social one that connect everyone, but us (those with autism).
In addition, in my case, I can't do engineering due to my motor skills (indeed, my mother is much more frustrated than I do, in terms of motor clumsiness), and I am really uncertain of what I can do for a living - because I have no idea what I can do next.
Also, from what I know in my studies currently, we are all going through globalization. We seek one best way for the world to improve. So instead of filling workers in one country to replace the retiring baby boomers, we hire more people from developing countries, while having spare workers to put some baby boomers on early retirement; and then for many countries, it is cheaper to put some people on welfare than on competitive employment. This is a way I see to explain why we have an economic depression: we have a slight bulge in population due to the echo boom from the late 1970's to early 1990's, the off-springs of baby boomers.
The odds are stacked against me and my times. I see little hope. I do not know where I can go next. Now, even my country has so many accountants, I do not know whether I can bag a job after I graduate.
If I do not know my future, where do I know I can go? How can I plan for the future?
This is why, from my personal experience, it is so much better emotionally to live at the moment, than to live for the future. I admit, I have no long-term goals. If I had any, I'd say 'my life experiences robbed them'.
Have you gone through what I went through in life? I wanted to be a firefighter when I was a child, but I can't fight the depression within me. I wanted to be a doctor like my elder sister, but I cannot overcome my autism in getting through the tough interviews. I wanted to be a civil servant (teacher, administrator, government-based urban planner etc.) but look, I was exempted from conscription because I 'don't want to do National Service/conscription'. Thing is, my father claimed, 'the Ministry of Defense doesn't want you either'. I really don't know whom to believe.
This is why it had been a pain when people say they want to even guide other fellow people on the Spectrum 'back to normal'. What is normal? Normal is everything but me.
And as Soup presciently mentioned, we often have interests that cost money. Yeah. She's right. It's my belief, and others' too, that the only way to stop our pain is buying our sorrows away. She's so right, I totally and completely agree with her point.
For those of you who are lucky to find a way you feel comfortable in, and that you can reasonably contribute to society, good for you.
But from my experiences, you have to be careful. I know friends who did electrical engineering and still are jobless, after a few years of graduation from University. So much for professional jobs. Every job in Singapore, a much more collectivist society (but the most dynamic in Asia and hence, the world) than many Western societies, requires some form of conformity. Some can conform. I can, but my records don't, and this worries me.
And saving is not enough - I know a friend who scrimps by having only malted drinks and biscuits to survive on, but he still has no job, due to his skin conditions and some nasty things that happened to him.
Such tunnel vision is expected if we see no hope in ideas that give us hope in real life.
Could it be that the few of us who are diagnosed with some form of autism cannot cope with the present social needs of the world? Well just look, as per an article I quote from CBC News, Paul Shattuck of the Waisman Center at the University of Wisconsin at Madison said "many of the children now being counted in the autism category would probably have been counted in the mental retardation or learning disabilities categories if they were being labelled 10 years ago instead of today." Despite so, the rate of autism still climbed from 9 (2006) to 11, or more, children per 1000 people.
I feel that the era of 'mental retardation', which I, an individual with High Functioning Autism (that is, I have higher-than-normal IQ but I also had significant speech delays), was initially diagnosed with in the past, is long over. Now, I believe, increasingly, the new diagnoses could be people with the old 'Asperger's Syndrome' in DSM-IV. This may still be present in DSM-V, but the new psychiatry standards would be that more likely, people with Asperger's may be grouped together with those with High Functioning Autism.
That's why, these days, the very few INTJs we know are diagnosed as having Asperger's Syndrome, or, in the future, autism.
I am not sure about those with Asperger's Syndrome. However, I can be very certain that smartness comes in multiple forms, and definitely for people with HFA, we may not have the ability to communicate early, as indicated in our significant speech delay. This does not stop us from being really able to change the world - Prof. Albert Einstein, a fellow HFA-er, invented the atomic bomb that ended World War Two. However, it is true that we are really disadvantaged to have the social smarts to navigate around a social world, and an increasingly social one that connect everyone, but us (those with autism).
In addition, in my case, I can't do engineering due to my motor skills (indeed, my mother is much more frustrated than I do, in terms of motor clumsiness), and I am really uncertain of what I can do for a living - because I have no idea what I can do next.
Also, from what I know in my studies currently, we are all going through globalization. We seek one best way for the world to improve. So instead of filling workers in one country to replace the retiring baby boomers, we hire more people from developing countries, while having spare workers to put some baby boomers on early retirement; and then for many countries, it is cheaper to put some people on welfare than on competitive employment. This is a way I see to explain why we have an economic depression: we have a slight bulge in population due to the echo boom from the late 1970's to early 1990's, the off-springs of baby boomers.
The odds are stacked against me and my times. I see little hope. I do not know where I can go next. Now, even my country has so many accountants, I do not know whether I can bag a job after I graduate.
If I do not know my future, where do I know I can go? How can I plan for the future?
This is why, from my personal experience, it is so much better emotionally to live at the moment, than to live for the future. I admit, I have no long-term goals. If I had any, I'd say 'my life experiences robbed them'.
Have you gone through what I went through in life? I wanted to be a firefighter when I was a child, but I can't fight the depression within me. I wanted to be a doctor like my elder sister, but I cannot overcome my autism in getting through the tough interviews. I wanted to be a civil servant (teacher, administrator, government-based urban planner etc.) but look, I was exempted from conscription because I 'don't want to do National Service/conscription'. Thing is, my father claimed, 'the Ministry of Defense doesn't want you either'. I really don't know whom to believe.
This is why it had been a pain when people say they want to even guide other fellow people on the Spectrum 'back to normal'. What is normal? Normal is everything but me.
And as Soup presciently mentioned, we often have interests that cost money. Yeah. She's right. It's my belief, and others' too, that the only way to stop our pain is buying our sorrows away. She's so right, I totally and completely agree with her point.
For those of you who are lucky to find a way you feel comfortable in, and that you can reasonably contribute to society, good for you.
But from my experiences, you have to be careful. I know friends who did electrical engineering and still are jobless, after a few years of graduation from University. So much for professional jobs. Every job in Singapore, a much more collectivist society (but the most dynamic in Asia and hence, the world) than many Western societies, requires some form of conformity. Some can conform. I can, but my records don't, and this worries me.
And saving is not enough - I know a friend who scrimps by having only malted drinks and biscuits to survive on, but he still has no job, due to his skin conditions and some nasty things that happened to him.
Such tunnel vision is expected if we see no hope in ideas that give us hope in real life.
