An Aspie Journalist writes for CNN

[Soup]

I have Asperger's; I am just like you - CNN.com

 

[King_Oni]

Perhaps I"m playing devils advocate, but it could just as well be someone pretending to be an aspie, just to calm down the masses and get some information out.

Media usually gets people to listen a lot better than just about anyone screaming on a soapbox... or forum.

And even if he is an aspie, I do think that there's still something to be said about the difference in aspies. I'm sure some aspies might be more violent. What he is right about is that there is no connection to autism and violence. If an aspie is violent, that isn't caused because autism. It's caused by external factors that make him frustrated, much like other non-autistic people might experience as well. I've seen enough people get angry and from what I knew, they weren't autistic. And if they were, it's weird that I run into autistic people a lot and the numbers of what... 1 in 88 (at least US statistics; probably somewhere around the same number here) and see less non-autistic people.

I for one think this exposure to Asperger's is getting silly. It's where we're turning Asperger's into the ugly A-word that society would like to attribute to criminals. In this way I'm almost happy that it will be clumped up into autism come DSM 5 even. No more complaining about Aspies, since it doesn't exist anymore. Blame it on all the autistic people... that's a way bigger group.

/end rant.

 

[Soup]

That's something I asked myself as well. It seemed a little odd for an Aspie to pen an article titles "I'm just like you". I'm tempted to write one & title it, "I'm an Aspie & I'm NOT Just Like You."

The idea that our differentness makes us somehow bad, dangerous or malevolent is absurd. All the talk now is about finding simplistic 'silver bullet' solutions & simple causes for what happened in Connecticut. Blaming a mysterious (to the masses) form of Autism is easy. Easy causes make people think that they can prevent something similar from recurring. FAT CHANCE! there are over 300 million guns floating around in over 32 million households - & those are just the ones that the gov't knows about! Being able to come up with idiotic solutions makes them feel like the problem has been solved.

Truth be told, they have yet to identify what, exactly, the problem IS (& there are many). With Americans unwilling to give up their arsenals, because you never know when THEY will come for you (they: the federal gov't, bleeding heart liberals, commies, gay guys, Black guys, Mexicans, the Chinese, Jews, Feminazis, Aliens, Al Qaeda, Alan Alda...).

They don't want to pay more taxes either. Frankly, nobody truly wants to pay more taxes. Exploring this kind of problem will cost money. Improving the quality, duration & access to mental health care will cost money. Institutionalizing or temporarily housing people who have revealed themselves to have truly hostile intentions & who are also mentally ill will cost money. Right now, the prison systems serve as warehouses for tens of thousands of mentally ill people: some of them severely so (as well as impoverished & unable to advocate for themselves & lacking in any support system). Since prisons & jails are already there, just shoving more people inside is economical.

Alarmingly, prisons are often privately owned businesses in the USA (Really! I'm not $#!TT!NG you!). A person with money, like Justin Timberlake, could open one! Many see all us maniacal Aspies as a business opportunity. What with the DMS eliminating the diagnosis & shoving us more deeply in with the less functional Autism Spectrum, it'll be more difficult for us to advocate for ourselves as we are perceived & officially categorized as more non compos in the mentis department than we truly are. Those of us who can speak articulately, may even be viewed as oddities like a talking horse but, they'll warn, "Don;t be fooled: they really don't understand what they're saying & they're cracked like an omelette on the inside."

Another possibility is that since this Lanza guy was DXed with Asperger's officially, the DSM's authors will be scrambling to cram it back in- even if they have to cut the page from the DSMIV tr & Scotch Tape it into the new DSM 5. The sudden attention brought upon Asperger's will make them look terribly unreliable & unscientific (which is the truth, really) if they have to explain to an already sceptical American public where this dire & dangerous condition scarpered off to.

Already, theres a veritable conga line of Aspies & parents (friends, colleagues, neighbours & hangers-on) of Aspies tripping over themselves to upload posts & blogs about just how harmless, cute & cuddly-wuddly we really are. I was beginning to feel like a freakin' puppy reading some of these! "My son is an Aspie & he wouldn't hurt a fly!" intoned one mother. GREAT! The flies of the world can rest easy. Could you imagine had the guy been Black?!? Imagine the absurd blogs:

HI! I'm A BLACK FELLOW & I'm just like YOU! I eat _____. I like to watch________. Please don't lock me up in a straitjacket: I'm really quite nice.

Why the heck do so many of us feel the need to apologize for this guy's actions & distance our condition from him? Lanza also had brown hair...as did Bundy & the Unabomber & Edmund Kemper...Do brunettes have to validate their goodness & declare themselves as a group to be benign? What gives?