Asperger’s Syndrome: NOT A DISEASE

Lars Erik Grambo

I am 18 years old, and have Asperger’s Syndrome. When I got my diagnose, I was told by my mother that, I had a disease, and there where little or nothing I could do about it.

Now I am going to change that, I cannot cure myself from that “disease”, but still, I got the cure.

THE CURE IS: to make Asperger’s syndrome NOT a disease. Now people I have talked to say that officially Asperger’s is not a disease, the medical term is a “disorder”.

Asperger’s is known for being labeled as a type of autism, or as the medical books says, “Pervasive developmental disorder” (PDD).

My ultimate goal is to rewrite the medical books, and get Aspergers out of the PDD-list.

True, Aspergers have a few things in common with autism and other PDDs, and often are combined with AD(H)D (Another known PDD).

I say that Aspegers are but a human race, the differences are small, but they are there. Are doctors so afraid to admit it, that they hide the truth?

Yes, Asperger’s are genetic, so are AD(H)D, genetic. I want to be treated like a human being, not a disease in human clothes. While looking around the web for more information, I find talk about a CURE, and that none has been discovered yet. My answer: OF COURSE YOU HAVEN’T FOUND A CURE, YOU CAN’T CURE WHAT IS NOT A DISEASE.

I also found an article in the Norwegian edition of science illustrated about some useful device to help autistic people, but in the article, they explain how it is Aspergers and autists are growing in numbers, and they also generalized them as the same thing. This is an example of how people who think they know what they are doing, really don’t. As in the article, they hardly mention better diagnosis , and blame increased traveling, mothers having kids at too high age(*1), viruses and diseases for increasing the numbers of autistic children. Just to confirm, the numbers of Aspergers (and autists) are NOT growing at any high rate, as mentioned in the article (*1)

*1 translated quote from Illustrert Vitenskap (Science Illustrated Norwegian edition) number 7 2010

It’s born more and more autistic children. Where for twenty years ago it was believed it was 1 of 2500 that was autistic, the numbers today is 1 of 150”

“Parents over 35 years have six times greater risk of getting an autistic child than parents in their 20’s

I can understand why some people might fear us. Because the stereo-type asperger (from my point of view) is also a stereo-type nerd, but that’s not all.

Asperger’s Syndrome, the basics: The asperger brain is build differently than so-called normals. Aspergers have increased sense of logic, and an equal decrease of social skills, that is what people fear, aspergers won’t socialize.

I remember something about my diagnose test, pretty funny, as it came out negative. I believe aspergers diagnoses have improved since then, however the story and my conclusions may still be helpful.

I don’t really remember much and hardly any details, but this is what I can tell. It was in first grade, I was taken to a facility (probably somewhere in or around Oslo), where I and my mom were to live some time (think it was a week…) with anther mother and son, who also was a suspected Asperger. I believe this was a social test, thinking of why… But I remember I was told to play with that kid, and they had a large toy train-set. I guess it was one of the key parts of the test, as I asked my mom more resent about it, it was revealed that the testers was shocked to see how well we played. My conclusion of this, is that we came along so well because we were so much alike. This is pure logic, ok, think: if you have a reduced social ability, you can’t compete with those with a normal ability, however, if you happen to find an equal, there would be no problem at all.

I read once on the web that they had found the “cure” for the social symptoms of aspergers, but as you know, there is no cure.

The so-called cure of the social symptoms of aspergers syndrome:

They got a few asperger kids as test subjects, they started showing them pictures of faces, to lure out one of the social symtomes; kids with Asperger’s syndrome don’t look you in the eyes. They used laser systems to monitor the eyes, and as expected, they “avoided” the eyes. Now comes the trick, they made the test subjects inhale a large dose of a gas with a hormone related to mother-sibling love (or so they said wrote). They ran the test again, and most of the test subjects looked in the eyes of the pictures.

I give an answer for that, now I ask: why DO you look people in the eyes? To uncover their feelings? Find a hidden motive? Those may be true, but for an asperger, the eyes are regarded as noting but a bodypart. Now let’s try to put normal people (you) in the situation, we replace the faces with flowers in pots, you are asked to study the pictures, and a laser is viewing where the eyes look, you are not looking specifically at the bottom of the pots, then it is a brake where you inhale a strange, but safe gas, and then the same test again. Now, what part of the picture did you not completely study? humm… Now that you get a second chance to look at the same flower in the pot, what do you look at? The bottom of the pot of course, it’s just a part, but you missed the details of it in the first run.

Another world:

One of many ways of describing an Asperger, is to say they are from another world, so people say we are from Mars. But I’m not from Mars, I’m from Vulcan, You see… I have always wondered why not change the angle of my eyebrows, and get pointed ears (not really).

For those of you that don’t watch Star Trek, Vulcans from planet Vulcan are known for their pointed ears, and their sense of logic, and hate most forms of social activities.

Now I hope this helps people understand aspergers better, because I hate people who thinks they know it all, when all they have done it reading the “known disorders” chapter in a medical book.

-The End

Lars Erik Grambo