[xoxAngel_Kxox]

(Original post by cpdavis)
Firstly

Secondly, if there is anything is particular that you would like to know, just let me know

(Original post by LipstickKisses)
I think you'd be welcome here! Can't speak for everyone, but anyone willing to learn more about AS is welcome to talk to me about it, it's great some people are trying to understand.

Thank you, I appreciate that. I'd like to learn more about my boyfriend's condition so that I can be supportive of him so I do appreciate you letting me chat in this thread.

Not going to ask anything major now as it's the beginning of your thread so don't want to steal it.. but just want to know one thing.. My boyfriend and I are keen to start a family soon, but he's worried that our baby might have AS, and that he/she might have to go through a similar childhood that he did (which was horrendous thanks to stupid teachers and unsupportive health workers). I thought it was unlikely, as his parents don't have AS, his brother doesn't have it, and nor do any of his close relatives.. but he seems to think our baby is guaranteed to have it!

I said it'd be fine even if it did, we'd love it whatever, and make sure he/she got all the help or support needed (and obviously if any AS symptoms were present they'd be picked up on quicker because of my boyfriend's diagnosis).

Should he be so worried?

[generalebriety]

(Original post by xoxAngel_Kxox)
just a man thing

I think it's great if you want to try to understand Asperger's, but let's not be offensive...

[Terpsikhore]

(Original post by Anonymous)
Speaking in terms of academics, it seems that I can only take in information that is in a written format (and not bullet points, but nice descriptions with context and everything). And all sorts of graphs and tables are good, I have a sort of photographic memory. However, everything verbal... I may as well be deaf.

This!

When I read something, or look at a graph, I remember how it looks. Then later when I'm trying to remember what I read, I can picture the page again, and kind of 'read' the information off it all over again. Or I hear the paragraph out loud in my head as I read, and then I can write it out verbatim later on.

But actually read me something, ask me 30 seconds later what you were talking about...and I do a great impression of Dory from Finding Nemo.

[xoxAngel_Kxox]

(Original post by generalebriety)
I think it's great if you want to try to understand Asperger's, but let's not be offensive...

Sorry I didn't mean to be offensive, I will try not to be in future posts.

[LipstickKisses]

(Original post by xoxAngel_Kxox)
Thank you, I appreciate that. I'd like to learn more about my boyfriend's condition so that I can be supportive of him so I do appreciate you letting me chat in this thread.

Not going to ask anything major now as it's the beginning of your thread so don't want to steal it.. but just want to know one thing.. My boyfriend and I are keen to start a family soon, but he's worried that our baby might have AS, and that he/she might have to go through a similar childhood that he did (which was horrendous thanks to stupid teachers and unsupportive health workers). I thought it was unlikely, as his parents don't have AS, his brother doesn't have it, and nor do any of his close relatives.. but he seems to think our baby is guaranteed to have it!

I said it'd be fine even if it did, we'd love it whatever, and make sure he/she got all the help or support needed (and obviously if any AS symptoms were present they'd be picked up on quicker because of my boyfriend's diagnosis).

Should he be so worried?

I think it's great you're such a supportive partner

I have no one else in my family diagnosed with it but I do have close relatives with traits of it who are older than me, and if more had been known about when they were younger may have been diagnosed with it. I don't think he should be worried - there are plenty of non-AS parents who have AS babies and AS parents who have neurotypical (non-AS) kids, as far as I'm aware the risk is only slightly higher in families.

Don't know if this will help much but maybe a perspective from someone else with it might - I wouldn't change having AS for the world. Yeah some things are more difficult, but I feel it gives me far more advantages than disadvantages. It makes me who I am, and I actually quite like who I am. I look at AS as a difference rather than a disability, although it is important to note there are some issues it causes obviously. But if someone gave me the chance to start over as NT, I honestly wouldn't. I'd like to be NT for a day though, out of sheer curiosity

As long as you make sure to support your child if s/he does turn out to have AS, I wouldn't have thought there should be a problem!

[generalebriety]

(Original post by xoxAngel_Kxox)
I said it'd be fine even if it did, we'd love it whatever, and make sure he/she got all the help or support needed (and obviously if any AS symptoms were present they'd be picked up on quicker because of my boyfriend's diagnosis).

Should he be so worried?

Well, I think it's at least understandable that he is worried - whether he's right or not I don't know. After all, no matter how much love and support and help you give your child, you can't make their friends for them. It can be a really horrible, painful experience to **** up every fleeting friendship you make. On the other hand, this happened to me from about the ages of 0 to 19, but I got through it, and I'm far happier for having done so. My childhood was pretty rubbish, but the rest of my life damn well isn't going to be.

[generalebriety]

(Original post by xoxAngel_Kxox)
Sorry I didn't mean to be offensive, I will try not to be in future posts.

Sure, don't worry about it.

[DR20]

I wanted to know what you guys was studying at Uni ? and what career you want after University ? fellow Aspie here just very unsure about my career path, really my ideal career would be clinical Psychology as helping people with Asperger's Syndrome is my dream job and my inspiration is Tony Attwood

[cpdavis]

(Original post by xoxAngel_Kxox)
Thank you, I appreciate that. I'd like to learn more about my boyfriend's condition so that I can be supportive of him so I do appreciate you letting me chat in this thread.

Not going to ask anything major now as it's the beginning of your thread so don't want to steal it.. but just want to know one thing.. My boyfriend and I are keen to start a family soon, but he's worried that our baby might have AS, and that he/she might have to go through a similar childhood that he did (which was horrendous thanks to stupid teachers and unsupportive health workers). I thought it was unlikely, as his parents don't have AS, his brother doesn't have it, and nor do any of his close relatives.. but he seems to think our baby is guaranteed to have it!

I said it'd be fine even if it did, we'd love it whatever, and make sure he/she got all the help or support needed (and obviously if any AS symptoms were present they'd be picked up on quicker because of my boyfriend's diagnosis).

Should he be so worried?

I think at this stage I wouldn't be worried. They haven't shown that Austism/Asperger's is due to genetics so for now just keep showing support

[cpdavis]

(Original post by DR20)
I wanted to know what you guys was studying at Uni ? and what career you want after University ? fellow Aspie here just very unsure about my career path, really my ideal career would be clinical Psychology as helping people with Asperger's Syndrome is my dream job and my inspiration is Tony Attwood

Me I study Maths with Astrophysics at Kings Probably want to become an Astrophysicist

[eden]

oooh new thread.

i have to catch a train into london, wednesday rush hour. urgh. Presume i'm not the only one disliking busy trains?

[Morgsie]

I study Politics but I am taking a break on medical grounds.

I want to be the first MP with AS.

[stubear]

I study astrophysics at kent, no idea what I want to do as a career, my dream job would be too work in engineering of somekind preferably aeronautical or automotive

my dream dream job is to be a football manager though

[generalebriety]

(Original post by eden)
Presume i'm not the only one disliking busy trains?

What's not to love about breathing air that's 50% sweat?

[LipstickKisses]

(Original post by generalebriety)
What's not to love about breathing air that's 50% sweat?

+1

[Terpsikhore]

(Original post by DR20)
I wanted to know what you guys was studying at Uni ? and what career you want after University ? fellow Aspie here just very unsure about my career path, really my ideal career would be clinical Psychology as helping people with Asperger's Syndrome is my dream job and my inspiration is Tony Attwood

I studied Biomedical Science, and I'm now a medical writer.

Ideal for me; I love science but I don't have the dexterity for lab work or the creativity for academia.

Digressing for a just a second, that's the thing that frustrates me most about my brain - don't know if it's anything to do with AS, doubt it is, but I have no imagination or creativity. By that I don't mean "I'm no good at making up stories" - although I'm not. I mean I can't think of anything original. I wanted to do a PhD, but had to abandon that idea because I can't even begin to think of a topic to study. If I'd had to pick my own title for my dissertation instead of being told what I had to do it on, I don't think I'd have passed third year because I wouldn't have been able to think of a single project I wanted to work on. When given something - anything - and asked to think of a way it could be improved, I can't. If asked to speculate on why something might have happened, I can't. I can't use anything I know outside of the context I learnt it in.

I know lots, but I'm not even close to intelligent because I can't join it up. I just learn isolated facts, but I can't connect them to make any sense from them.

The result is that I'm great in pub quizzes, but I will never be anything more than average in life. And that's a downer.

[Anonymous]

(Original post by cpdavis)
They haven't shown that Austism/Asperger's is due to genetics so for now just keep showing support

Actually, they have. The current scientific consensus is that autism spectrum disorders are almost entirely genetic. What needs to be understood and is often a source of misunderstandings is that "genetic" doesn't mean it has a clear Mendelian inheritance pattern (where a man with the disorder would absolutely have a child with the disorder), but that the disorder has a an underlying genetic (DNA) basis. This theory has been proved by nearly every study from pedigree and population analyses to concordance studies in twins. Someone with AS (or with family history of it) would have a higher than population risk of having a child with the disorder, but this is a statistical figure, it's not deterministic.

(I'm doing biochemistry by the way and I've just finished a genetics module where, among other things, we discussed multifactorial diseases and used autism as an example.)


E.

[generalebriety]

(Original post by Terpsikhore)
I have no imagination or creativity. By that I don't mean "I'm no good at making up stories" - although I'm not. I mean I can't think of anything original.

Interesting.

I say I have no imagination or creativity, though I often do mean "I'm no good at making up stories" - because I'm terrible. But what I really mean is, whenever an original idea pops into my mind, I instantly reject it subconsciously as being a bad idea, an embarrassing concept, a silly naive thought, something likely to get me laughed at or pitied, etc. It's not just a subconscious thing, too - whenever I try to analyse these things consciously, I realise that I still agree with my subconscious self. It's the same reason I have a lot of difficulty choosing clothes (because I think they all look irreparably **** on me). But actually, the few times I've been forced to be creative, I invariably get funny looks, and I invariably hate my creation, but it surprisingly gets a bit of praise too. I wonder if it's a similar sort of thing...? Maybe not, but this is something I've wanted to sort out for a while, and it's kinda interesting to hear you mention something similar-sounding.

[cpdavis]

(Original post by Anonymous)
Actually, they have. The current scientific consensus is that autism spectrum disorders are almost entirely genetic. What needs to be understood and is often a source of misunderstandings is that "genetic" doesn't mean it has a clear Mendelian inheritance pattern (where a man with the disorder would absolutely have a child with the disorder), but that the disorder has a an underlying genetic (DNA) basis. This theory has been proved by nearly every study from pedigree and population analyses to concordance studies in twins. Someone with AS (or with family history of it) would have a higher than population risk of having a child with the disorder, but this is a statistical figure, it's not deterministic.

(I'm doing biochemistry by the way and I've just finished a genetics module where, among other things, we discussed multifactorial diseases and used autism as an example.)


E.

Oh this information I wasn't aware of. I thought it was slight coincidental that I have AS and my brother has autism (half brother from mum) My main concern is if I have a child with AS too, as I really don't want them to go through the stuff I did

[Darth Stewie]

Hey just though I'd drop a post, not been having a great time recently stress of university/life has taken its toll. My doctor has booked me in with a psychiatrist starting next week for monthly sessions and am gonna start taking SSRIs, anyone ever been on them / have any experience with what they are like? Did my own Internet research and some of the side effects people seem to have experienced don't sound great.

but yeh pretty fed up, managed to control my condition pretty much on my own since i was 15 so kinda feel like I'm taking a step backwards in that respect and its getting me a bit down.