Below are the most recent 15 friends' journal entries.

Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
asperger [ caerfrli ]	8:35p	an interesting approach A young Jewish autistic is about to be Bar Mitzvah-ed, that is, celebrate his coming of age at 13, Usually, the child reads from the Torah (Bible) in Hebrew and often delivers a sermon. The youngster in question however is non verbal. The dilemma: how to perform a significant ceremony. The solution: the congregation leaves the synagogue, all but nine. Since ten adults are required for a number of important prayers, the young man will be the one to make the tenth, thus acknowloging his becoming a grown up. Then everyone comes back. It seems like a good idea to me. Current Mood: mellow Current Music: ncis (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
asperger [ dazed_girl ]	12:24p	Officially Diagnosed With Asperger's I just got officially diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome by my new psychologist. I've been seeing her mostly to get some help with getting a job. Today she brought Asperger's up to me. She took the DSM-IV off the shelf and started reading off the traits and asked if it sounded like traits I have. I was saying "yes" to them until eventually I just said I knew what she was talking about. Then she later told me "This is what you have. This is your diagnosis." I was surprised because out of all the therapists I had, no one ever figured it out, but I never brought it up either. I feel like it's probably a good thing now I've been officially diagnosed, even though I've known it all along. It feels like I don't have to wonder about it anymore. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, December 14th, 2009
asperger [ subgirl ]	11:09p	Airplane travel question So I just had several (semi-traumatic) flights to and from Vienna, Austria (from San Francisco, CA) last month. I was able to cope with most everything, except one thing, which I figured I'd ask you inimitable folks before embarking on my next flight, to Oklahoma, on Thursday. **How/what do you do when you're sitting in a seat, say on a plane, and the person next to you keeps *touching* you, either by putting their arm in your seat or by taking up the entire arm-rest-area into your seat-personal-space? I had this happen on all but one of my flights (5) to/from Vienna last month, and they were without exception male seat-mates. For some reason, being a female, I wouldn't feel so.... violated(?) if it were a lady touching my side-boob/back fat with their arm. (I am chubby, but DO NOT take up more than my own seat space. I put my arms between the armrests so I am definitely NOT taking up more than my own alotted space. I travel economy-plus, and cannot afford an upgrade to first, otherwise I would because being touched by jmale strangers freaks me out that badly.) Current Mood: nervous (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, December 12th, 2009
asperger [ wanton_mephisto ]	12:17p	Facial expressions I have a very difficult time recognizing face, but also, while I've learned to read faces due to repetition, I've come to a rather startling realization. Which made me ask this: How many aspie people actually have their *own* way of facial expression, which is radically different from NT body language? How many times does this cause greatly negative problems for AS people in an NT situation? Even more so, I've noticed that I can read the body language of ADHD or AS people much intuitively better than NTs. Might there be something to that? The reason I started thinking about this: Many of *my* facial expressions for certain emotions are ones which NTs read as extremely *different* from what I'm trying to express. This often results in them getting the wrong 'message', and often becoming angry. I believe this also results in them viewing me as too complex of an individual. Example: I learned last weekend that the 'universal lip curl', where one side of the face/cheek curls up, expresses contempt to NTs, and supposedly *most* people across the world understand this facial expression. I use the exact same facial expression, but not to express contempt. I use it to express the fact that i'm *unsure* of something - usually involving a fact that someone else asserts - and therefore I do not have extreme feelings on the matter, other than being deeply unsure. this explains why other people often become irritated when i make that facial expression, and then tell them that i'm not sure as to whether they are correct in the matter. They might even see me as being patronizing and arrogant. I'm sure I have many other 'incorrect' facial expressions. Current Mood: awake (26 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, December 11th, 2009
asperger [ keristars ]	10:18p	It's really awkward when someone drags you to an event "for your own good" that is crowded and very loud with no one you know, and while you're standing to the side, quietly minding your own business, one of the event volunteers comes up to ask if you're all right, because "you look kind of lonely." You can't really say that no, you're not doing well and you feel like you're about to cry because the nosie and crowd are so bad, because the volunteer can't do anything about it, and it would embarrass the person who dragged you along (in this case, your mother who insists that you go to the event to "network" and meet people to further your attempts at finding a job), and you can't really say that you're fine, because you're not - you're clearly about to cry or have a meltdown of some kind, and you've been standing more or less in the same position with your fists under your arms and rocking on your heels for the last half hour without talking to a single person. This is what happened to me tonight. I did end up crying at one point, but my sister found my coat for me and I went outside and the briskly chill air helped the tears a bit. I also drank two cups of wine, which made things worse. I'd been dreading this event all week, ever since my mom told me in no uncertain terms that she had bought tickets for the family and we were all going. It was at the museum of contemporary art, which is this giant box of a building, so there wasn't any place free from noise, not even the elevator (which at least muted it a bit). There was a live band playing covers of rock and blues songs. I'm glad that I could see my old art teacher's pieces, though (my former university mostly owns the MOCA and there's a gallery currently dedicated to the art faculty right now). It made me happy, because I love my old art teacher and her pieces were lovely. It also inspired me to finish some of my paintings, which I keep meaning to do, but never quite get around to. But I wish I hadn't gone. It was a miserable experience and now my head hurts and my eyes hurt and I want to either hit someone or cuddle my dog (who I don't live with anymore, and anyway is suffering from ticks). (21 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
asperger [ pinkindia ]	2:12p	Autism seen as asset, not liability, in some jobs My mom sent this article to my email, I found it to be very interesting and wanted to share. "Ron Brix’s longtime job as a computer systems developer for Wrigley, the gum and candy maker, required intense attention to detail, single-minded focus and a willingness to work on something repetitively until perfect. The secret he credits to his success? Autism." here is the link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34047713/ns/health-mental_health/ (12 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
asperger [ freakshownia ]	11:46p	Are there any books about AS/NT relationships that are targeted towards someone with a female AS partner? I'd like to get a book for my husband; I've found a lot about AS/NT relationships but they seem mostly to be geared toward women in a relationship with an AS man, and that might be hard for him to relate to. Thanks. (5 Comments |Comment on this)
asperger [ literalgirl ]	9:19a	Podcast I found/Halifax Question I found this yesterday while looking for resources for my paternal uncle, who is finally starting to catch on that AS runs in the family (and yeah, he's clearly one of us, just didn't want to accept that!). Anyway, he's in Nova Scotia, and I am looking for an adult support group to suggest to him (so far without luck), but I did find this podcast, and thought it was great. (It's several months old, so if it's been posted, I apologize. But it's kind of an obscure source, so I thought perhaps it would be new for the group.) If anyone knows of any adult AS groups in Halifax, NS, please let me know! Thanks! :-) http://citizenshift.org/learning-late-adult-asperger-s-syndrome (Comment on this)
Monday, December 7th, 2009
lj_maintenance [ mhwest ]	1:15p	Notification System **FINAL EDIT Thu Dec 10 02:15:47 UTC 2009** So there is the final update... Over the past day we have processed around 11 million jobs out of the 12 million that were in queue at that time. Please bear in mind that over this past day, more jobs for notifications are also created. So while the queue has been dropping, we are still not fully caught up at this point, due to backlog and new jobs. We have roughly 3 million jobs still pending that involve the notification system in some manner. We had hoped we could have fully cleared the queue in a day, but unfortunately we can't clear it too quickly, since we need the rest of the site to operate normally. From our current perspective on the amount of jobs that are left in queue, and how many it has processed thus far, we believe it will take around another 8 - 12 hours to process everything. And finally some answers to some questions: ( Read More and Get Some Answers... ) Current Mood: grumpy (600 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, December 6th, 2009
asperger [ conuly ]	11:33p	MOD POST The style of this community has just been changed. Apparently, we can't customize our own colors, though I'm not sure why. I can change the style itself if the colors are a problem, but I can't change just the font or just the background color. If you have any commentary, please comment here or email us at the community mailbox, asperger.community@gmail.com. We now have the option, incidentally, of making a Links List. If anybody has any suggestions, again, you can comment about it or email the community mailbox. Some people suggested that they might like to try tagging a *few* past entries, so long as they know there's an end in sight. I just checked, and as this community has been around 10 years (wow!) that makes a lot of sense. If you would like to tag some entries, I would suggest that you first take a look at the existing tags so you have a general feel for how they're used. (I know there's some overlap, and there are also subjects that come up often enough that the tags don't cover.) After thinking it over, I think the best plan is for anybody who wishes to volunteer to help us tag all these entries to take a month at a time. You can take as many or as few months as you wish, and go from the top down or the bottom up, whichever you prefer. Just comment if you decide to tag a month so other people know not to take that one. (And thanks so much to anybody who helps do this. I already know it's going to take a long time and be a lot of work, so even a tiny bit of help is appreciated!) If you see a subject that doesn't have a tag and you think it needs a tag, either because it is an important subject or because it comes up frequently, please contact us either in a comment to this post or though the community mailbox to suggest it, and we'll add it if necessary. At the moment, only maintainers can create tags. Other members can tag entries in the community, but only with tags that already exist. (This way we don't have to worry about people making typos, or about having a tag for "add" and another one for "attention deficit disorder" and a third for "adhd" and one more for "add/adhd".) Not every entry does need to be tagged - if none applies, feel free to ignore it and move onto a new entry. ( Months to be tagged ) Thank you everybody for your understanding, and, again, you can always contact us with any comments, criticism, or suggestions. (20 Comments |Comment on this)
asperger [ awstuff4friends ]	10:34p	You Might Be an Aspie... ...if you look more like a drowning victim than a swimmer when you're trying to do anything other than the "doggy paddle" or "frog kick." Current Mood: embarrassed (22 Comments |Comment on this)
asperger [ polygonia ]	4:40p	Does anyone else hate Pre-Christmas as Much as I Do? I hate all of the stuff leading up to Christmas. I don't think these holidays were invented for introverts or people with asperger's at all. First of all, I work at Macy's for the holidays, which is already a bad job for introverts as there's Christmas songs played 300 times a day, the same songs over and over. Noisy customers asking questions (I am starting to hate North Face jackets because yesterday alone I had to go up the stairs 7 times just to fetch a jacket of the right size and type. Which meant diving into a tight corridor of jackets) I swear I want to go into a corner, take down all of the jackets, make a nest and HIDE under them with my MP3 player, but I think they would not like that very much and I need to have some sort of job, but in the future I would like to be a writer so that no one bothers me every five seconds and I could be quiet and content. Plus working on Saturday or on sales days is the WORSE thing ever. Crowds! Gum popping! Swarms of people bouncing off each other like pinballs. I can't stand it! Plus the bells jingling makes my teeth feel like it's being scraped by tiny cold needles. I can't wait for the holidays to be over. At least when Christmas is over I can finally have peace and quiet and no more Frosty, no more Rudolf. No more walking in a winter wonderland. Christmas itself is not too bad. Especially when I get to either hang out with my friend's family or go to the movies and see 2 different kind of movies there. (39 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
asperger [ conuly ]	7:08p	MOD POST This is a little long, but please read. A week ago, we found out we had run out of tags due to our custom of tagging entries by username for administrative purposes. So I undertook it to eliminate the username based tags and instead have an alphabetic tagging system to do the same thing. You can see the remaining tags here. I would like to make tags more useful for this community. While I was going back to all those old entries and retagging them I saw a lot of old posts that could be very helpful to new members. I learned a few things, too! For example, I learned that a surprising number of people in the front of the alphabet wanted to know if there's a connection between migraines and asperger, and that lots of us think that Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory is probably on the spectrum :) The trouble is that tags haven't been consistently applied to entries, and also that we can't see a list of tags from the main page of this community. I would like to change this. One thing we're going to do is change the style of the community so we can see the tags from the main page. That will probably be on Monday. Before we do that, if anybody has any comments about accessibility, I'd like to hear it. We don't want to pick a color scheme that will make half of us unable to use this community. If we don't get many comments, we'll probably use a color scheme similar to the existing one. This change will only affect people who read the community from the main page. If you normally read new entries on your friends page and then click to comment, nothing will change for you. And if you do view the main community page but find the new scheme problematic, you can opt to view that page in your own style either as the default or by adding ?style=mine to the end of the URL. About the tags, at the moment maintainers can create new tags, and all members of the community can add pre-existing tags to entries. If you would like to suggest a new tag that you think would be useful, you can do so here or by using the community email. If you don't want to check the tags before posting a new entry, that's fine. They'll simply be an option for people who want to see if other people have posted on a subject before. (This can only help users who have something private they are reluctant to share. If somebody else has spoken on the topic, they won't feel they have to make a post.) Once this is all set in motion, I'd appreciate it if we could get some volunteer help in tagging older entries. It's going to be slow and tedious, but it would really be useful. Some of those older entries are very helpful, but nobody knows it because there's no way for anybody to find them, even if they want to. If you have any concerns about any aspect of this community, you can always email the maintainers at the community mailbox, asperger.community@gmail.com. (17 Comments |Comment on this)
asperger [ aslanscountry ]	11:53p	driving? I'm kind of noodling around looking for jobs this summer, and one job I would like a lot is working in a residence for people with developmental disabilities. the problem is that they usually require you to be able to drive. I wouldn't be able to get the job anyway because I have a Connecticut and not a New York license and I'm looking at jobs in New York, but even if I had a New York license, I would feel nervous about driving in a city and driving other people. I am just not a very good driver and never will be. It's sort of making me discouraged because I've been thinking for a while that this would be a job I'd enjoy, but it seems like you're always expected to have a license. but it occurred to me, do you think this is the kind of thing that a person could request accommodation for? they usually don't have only one staff person in a residence at a time. if they hired a person who couldn't drive, couldn't they just schedule the person to work at times when there would be another person available to drive if necessary? I wouldn't feel like I couldn't ask this if I was blind, and trouble with driving is a common problem that ASD people have. what do older people (with more employment experience) think about this? (6 Comments |Comment on this)
asperger [ spikeyannie ]	1:27p	hibernating Does anyone else ever go through these phases where you don't feel like going outside or talking to anyone and you just want to hang out inside your apartment or house and either work only on one thing (writing, music, art, etc.), or clean like a maniac, or sleep or something...but all you know is that you just don't feel like interacting with the world? I think I get this way when I'm overwhelmed or when I've been working too much. And it gets worse in the winter. I jokingly call it "hibernating" but I think of it more as recharging my batteries. It seems to become more necessary whenever I'm around a ton of people or after I play a gig. I'll have these bursts of extreme productivity where my life is kinda non-stop, and then all of a sudden, I'll find myself craving downtime to myself after working really hard for weeks on end. It's annoying because I have a lot to do these days and I don't want to lose momentum. I also always feel out of sorts when I don't make time to go to the gym or at least go running, and when I'm so busy that it's hard to find time, I get frustrated that I use up my free time being LESS active. I feel like I'm sort of "all or nothing" when it comes to my work ethics and it bugs the hell out of me...I want to learn to either harness that potential completely, or stop being a workaholic and thus, eliminate the need to be a slug once in a while. This also seems to be an old pattern of mine from my first few years in college. The unpredictable structure of my life (I'm a freelancer) makes it hard to eat and sleep well, so generally I don't, and I'm sure that contributes to it...but I'm so used to living this kind of edgy, overly-caffeinated lifestyle, that I almost prefer it to anything else at this point. When I was first starting out in college, I was the same way: go to my classes as often as I could manage, and spend the rest of my time hiding and working on music in my apartment, fueled on peanut butter sandwiches and coffee, with strange sleep habits. I feel like in this backwards way, it makes me more creative, but I'm just annoyed by my own coping mechanisms when things get too busy. I would rather just consistently bust my ass and work hard instead of feeling like every once in a while, I become this withdrawn, eccentric person who is impossible to deal with. (12 Comments |Comment on this)