Hmm. My new Spanish professor is from Spain. This makes me highly curious what the education and attitudes about autism are in Spain. I hope this works out.

She looked at me like a crazy person because I didn't know how to use a copy machine.

Here is a cool magazine article I found on AFF.

Desperate measures: The lure of an autism cure

LEO MILIK is a success story. At age 2 he was diagnosed with autism. After his mother heard the condition could be linked to certain foods, she eliminated wheat and dairy products from his diet. Now six years later, Leo has only a mild form of the condition. He attends a mainstream school and doctors say that in a few years he could lose his diagnosis altogether.

There's one wrinkle in this tale. The diet that appears to have turned Leo around has recently been tested in a randomised, placebo-controlled trial for the first time. The researchers reported last month that it provided no evidence the diet worked.

The diet is not the only unorthodox treatment around; a range of "biomedical" therapies that purport to treat the root causes of autism have gained popularity in recent years. These range from vitamins and antibiotics through to drugs supposed to remove heavy metals from the body, and even a hormone treatment that can delay puberty.

The autism "biomed" movement is well organised. An organisation called the Autism Research Institute, based in San Diego, California, lists the hundreds of doctors and therapists who provide these treatments. There are countless websites where parents swap advice; some members speak of trying out dozens of treatments, and spending many thousands of dollars over the years.

Some say biomed has helped their child, but others tell heart-rending tales of dashed hopes. None of these therapies has been shown to cure or even alleviate autism in good-quality trials. Some are very expensive, others are difficult and time-consuming. A few are even dangerous. This raises a question: why do so many parents of children with autism opt for unorthodox remedies, some of which are no better than snake oil?

Here is the full article: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627661.300-desperate-measures-the-lure-of-an-autism-cure.html?page=1



In other news, I am thinking about starting a vlog.

I am reading the book "Asperger's and Girls," by a whole bunch of people. There is a section written by someone who specializes in teaching social skills to people on the spectrum, and she basically has making friends with girls down to a formula which she attempts to teach in this book.

I just can't read these things without feeling nauseated. The fact that these books are basically saying, "if you don't do this COMPLETELY superficial, meaningless, and stupid thing-- NOBODY will want to be friends with you" and it's TRUE is just too much. If that's what it takes to make friends, I don't want any.

I wish somebody had told me when I was born that everything I was going to be taught about the world would be a lie. People put in so much effort to tell kids that what matters is what's on the inside and that you should never judge a book by it's cover, and that is so entirely not the way the world works at all. If you don't meet the social norm you will not be worth talking to. Your classmates won't work with you-- hell, they may not even be willing to sit within six feet of you. And not only will nobody want to be your friend, but nobody will even say hello to you. You will be invisible. It will be as if you do not exist. It doesn't matter if you follow all the hygienic rules and dress at least reasonably well, if you don't contribute to a woman's conquest to attain a higher social status, she's not going to talk to you. You aren't WORTH it if you don't look "right."

It's just completely overwhelming how stupid the world is. I am sure I must be the stupid one since I'm in the minority, but I don't care. People make no sense.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that my best is never good enough. Ever. Even in the most mundane sort of ways, like makings sure my house guests leave by 10 and cleaning up my breakfast dishes. I try REALLY hard and genuinely do my best to do all the things I am supposed to do and do them right, but it's never good enough. And on top of that, my mom is a nagger, so it's almost CONSTANT nagging and correcting and scolding. And if I say I need help, or that I did my best, the response is always the same. "You're 21 years old!" Constantly reminding me of my age is not going to change anything. REALLY, it's NOT! I feel so fucking defeated every single day, and I have to wonder why I even bother trying if my efforts are never rewarded anyway since they're just never good enough.

I try to just celebrate the small victories. Maybe I scratched the car trying to get out of the parking structure today, but I passed my Spanish exam. I didn't get my house guest out on time yesterday, but I actually HAD A GUEST. I didn't think to rinse out my oatmeal dish before it hardened, but I woke up on time and had time to shower and eat breakfast before school. I am not dead, injured, or failing out of school, and my relationship is still solid. I think I am doing pretty well, damn it! I just wish the world gave you credit for the small victories. They don't seem to matter to anyone but me.

disabled

So on one of my asperger's forums there is a discussion going on about whether or not autism/asperger's is a disability. The general consensus I am gleaning from this is that most everyone admits there is some huge obstacle they hit because of their autism, but they don't consider themselves to be disabled because HFA/asperger's is a GOOD thing and shouldn't be thought of negatively.

Here are my thoughts:

I think a lot of people make the mistake of assuming that "disability" is an inherently negative word. I don't consider it to be. To me, it just means that I cannot do something I need to do. That isn't a bad thing to me, because I have AS-- I have a good reason. If I just couldn't do something because I suck, then I would see that as negative, but if you have a legitimate diagnosis of something that makes you in some way different, for better or for worse, that explains a difference in ability, I don't see that as a bad thing. In an NT world, I AM disabled by my autism. But in general, I don't think that makes autism a bad thing. It's just a different thing, which means that the sweeping generalizations society makes about what one can or cannot do will not necessarily always apply to me. Yes, that makes me disabled, but that doesn't mean there's anything *bad* about my condition.