BTW, Nick also doesn’t like school and asks me why he has to go (or do work) even though he knows the answer. He also think that he can retire when he graduates!! Hahahahaha!!!!! I say, get in line!

Oh, it is an interesting life…

BTW Rocky recently asked me why I can’t just teach him at home. I told him it’s illegal. Shhh.

You must be an extremely tough and patient woman to be a single mother and to home school an autistic teen. My hat is off to you.

I wanted to drop you a comment because I am trying to raise money for the Autism Action Partnership this Christmas. We are selling a Velvet Suit Santa Figurine and a sterling silver Four-Heart Pendant. They really are beautiful pieces and each sale benefits the Autism Action Partnership. I was thinking that you might know some moms who would be interested in these gifts/contributions. You can buy the gifts online at
Pendant: http://shop.borsheims.com/Borsheims/ProductDetail.aspx?ProductID=4SVRD0307
Santa:
http://shop.borsheims.com/Borsheims/ProductDetail.aspx?ProductID=6XZZZ0756

Merry Christmas and keep up the good posts,
Will

there is always so much more to learn, so many truths to uncover .. so often it seems that we find something that works, latch onto its success and eventually slough it off like an old skin as we feel like we don’t need it anymore.

9 times out of 10, my ‘discoveries’ are simply re-fittings of those old strategies and truths i left behind. reminders that they’re not really out of date, they just need a new applicaiton.

i find it comforting to think that most of what i need i already have, but incredbly frustrating that i don’t generally see it without some struggle.

I agree, he is not selfish. He is simply about “self”. His sees the world through his eyes and that is what frames his response to everything. It is nearly impossible for him to understand how someone else might be feeling unless he has already had that exact same feeling and I can say “remember when you…”

when somone struggles to think from another perspective: there has to be some way of communicating that other viewpoints exist, eliciting thought experiments that allow a person to begin to grasp this fact. Maybe not understand it…but at least respect that this is the case. i don’t know. i’m sure the are teaching methods, i just haven’t come across them yet; perspective is such a personal, subtle thing, it’s always interesting to read descriptions of it.

it’s so nice…heartwarming…to read about the way you approach this. it’s so difficult…and has to be so frustrating…yet you continue to approach the situation like a puzzle, wanting to solve it, understand, be there for him.

everytime i click onto your site, i can just feel the love glowing from the computer screen. so nice.

by the way…i did my covert word searches. three of them i think.

lol I know that may be an oxymoron.
After all, if you can think about how you’re not thinking about how others think, why can’t you, well, think about them?

But I do. I try. And the only thing I can come up with is what a therapist told me once.

I actually don’t remember the words he used. But he told me most people understand other people by intuiting their feelings, more or less, and I understand people by using logic. That is, what previous situations or context tell me they might be feeling, or what *I* would be feeling if I were them; obviously, there are a lot of faults in that system.

Based on the fact that I have watched a lot of movies and tv and read a lot of books in my life and have some grasp of how “normal” people are supposed to think, I can most of the time draw upon this knowledge to realize how people are thinking and act accordingly.

But it is anything but intuitive, and that can be VERY frustrating. I tend to feel people are mad at me a lot. That is because I don’t know enough about reading people to tell otherwise unless definitively proven otherwise; and this seems to be my default understanding of others. Not a particularly healthy one, but so be it.

In some ways Aspies and HFAs can be more empathic/sympathetic/supportive, if they want to, simply because since they have to *think* about it, they are more likely to put more effort into it and really try to figure out how you feel and support you in an appropriate way. I have found my Aspie friends to be far more supportive than my NT ones.

Because they show it in a verbal, obvious way; whereas NTs don’t; you have to read their minds ie pick up on nonverbal signals. Which is a weakness obviously.

But it all comes down to - no, we don’t mean to consciously not think of you or your situation; it’s just that, unless we remember to consciously try to (and motivation to do this sometimes only comes with age), we just don’t think about it.

When I got old enough to a) realize that I wasn’t thinking about how others felt as much as I should and b) realize that doing so on a regular basis would improve my relationships, and strengthen my friendships, I made a point to do so. But it took a while.

I really like your blog, by the way. I’ve read most of the old entries and all of the new ones.

Kate

24 year old with Asperger’s

blog is at libertyandhope.blogspot.com

Asperger’s website is http://www.freewebs.com/aspiefrommaine