So I got diagnosed awhile ago now, and it explains so much, and I'm glad I'm not alone anymore. But my family's attitude hasn't changed. I'm still at the. bottom of the foodchain. There's three kids, I'm the oldest, but that's a joke. The two younger ones (they're not very much younger than I am) constantly gang up on me. Constantly. Sometimes I think I get it and they really are 'joking around' as they put it, but a lot of the time, when I'm really aspie ing out and it's been a long, touchy, social day, it's the last straw, and I beg, plead, for them to stop, but they get closer, and poke me, and ridicule me further I stutter through an explanation for my behavior, and they make fun of my explanation then. Anything weird and aspie that I do, they have to make fun of it. And then at dinner it's the whole family making fun of my tendencies. Maybe they are just 'joking around', but I don't think so. I'm the least able to defend myself, so they go for me first. When I was younger and it happened I would just run upstairs and slam the door to my room, nothing else works. Sometimes I feel the joking around vibe and I laugh at myself too, but mostly not (I'm a sensitive soul) and it's just a constant barrage of crap from all sides of the table. I try, these days, to verbally stop the harrassment (I thought the meaning of 'leave me alone' was obvious), but days like these, when it's already been too much, babysitting my wild cousin, and it's been all social and touchy (it's the holidays) I couldn't talk myself away from it (not that I ever really can), and it just escalated and got worse until I ran up to my room and slammed the door. At least now that I'm 21, I can sneak a beer upstairs with me. /end rant

Merry Christmas everyone!

Haven't got much else to say, just enjoy the celebration (whenever you celebrate). Also this is my 3rd (!!!!!) entry in 2009. wow I've really been a lazy bum xD
Maybe I'll actually post something next year.

Holiday debuggery

We know there were a few kinks with the holiday promotion. We've been working very hard to get them ironed out. If you have a paid/permanent account, keep on sending those coupons. Here's an update:

• If you were unable to send out multiple coupons at a time, please perform a hard refresh, and you should be good to go.
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• If you tried to redeem a holiday coupon and had trouble using a gift certificate to cover the balance of an annual paid account, we identified the root problem. If this happened to you, you can now use your holiday coupon together with your gift certificate.
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Tweaks

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Give a little extra!

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Celebrate with holiday vGifts!

Stop by the Virtual Gift Shop and share some holiday magic with your LiveJournal friends.

Photos of the week

We're back with more dazzling pictures from around the world. Congrats to marlenemcc, who has been awarded a virtual blue ribbon as the winner of our fourth photo contest. We hope you'll click over to LJ_Photophile poll and tell us your picks in pics!

For more fantastic user content, we'll meet you under the cut. ( Read more... )

Curtains

Thanks, again, for reading. Here's wishing you the very merriest of holidays. We'll see you next year!

"Kim Peek, the autistic savant who inspired the Oscar-winning film Rain Man, has died, aged 58."

I'm probably going to tick some people off posting this, but that's fine- I honestly want to start a discussion and see what others think.

Has anyone ever had the impression that we, as Aspies on the autistic spectrum, have a certain level of privilege, that we sometimes forget when talking about autistics?

Now to preface this: I am not trying to discredit any Aspies involved with autistic rights, or discredit any aspies in positions of leadership in autistic rights movements. I feel that fighting for autistic rights is the responsibility of all with autism and/or their allies, regardless of where they fall on the spectrum.

However, I also think that sometimes Aspies have a tendency to try and speak for all on the spectrum and assume that our experiences are the experiences of other autistics on the spectrum. While I find the actions of Autism Speaks, Generation Rescue, etc deplorable, I cringe a little whenever I see someone with AS saying "living with autism isn't that bad, I deal with it all the time." Our experiences, in where we are in the spectrum, are not the experiences of others, and by speaking for others on the spectrum, we are essentially doing the same thing as Autism Speaks does so often. Being an ally is good, and in fact necessary; however falling into the trap of thinking all autistics share an experience is a common mistake, but one I think the Asperger's community as a whole needs to become more conscious of.

I recently had an experience with this that prompted me to make this post. I have a friend with severe HFA and a few disorders along with it, and she was talking about how she would probably end up living with her parents all her life. I suggested she try vocational rehabilitation, since it's been a great help to me. She grew angry, pointing out that she couldn't handle it. I continued to say "you can get the help you need" which upset her. I realized that I had privilege she lacked honestly- it's much easier for someone who's just Asperger's like me to adapt, since I've done it all my life, and to tell her she should too is hurtful.

In short, I know that the reason many Aspies are at the forefront of the autistic rights movement is due to the skills Aspies have being excellent skills for those involved in causes and leadership, and I'm fine with that, and think it's fantastic that there are more and more groups like ASAN starting to provide a more evenhanded voice for autism. However, I do think that we as Aspies need to check our privilege at times before speaking and realize that autism is a whole spectrum, and the spectrum of autism is also a spectrum of experiences.

Any thoughts?

Given the general autistic trend towards high anesthesia tolerance and the general weirdness we may or may not have with any mood-altering substance (e.g. dairy makes me drunk), I was wondering if any autistics here are regular users of Kava... not the pills, but the actual south-pacific turn-the-lights-low root beverage. Given my ever-increasing levels of stress and the fact that I feel like I am just one or two steps away from the fabled mid-30's autistic crash, I have made a 2010 new years resolution to drink Kava every night. I was wondering if any others here had any tips, tricks or advice. Thank you.

Edit: No advice will be considered too elemental. For example, having a sweet juice as a chaser is a good recommendation. To pour that juice out of the glass bottle to avoid hitting one's incisors with the bottle due to the lack of coordination is something that common sense would dictate, but I have very little common sense. I have a high degree of uncommon sense, which can be very useful at times.

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.

Get to know My Guests. Want to know who's checking you out? You can now view the 100 most recent, logged-in users who visited your journal during the past 30-day period with My Guests. For those who prefer to fly under the radar, you can update your My Guests privacy setting here.

Introducing My Stats. If you have a Paid or Permanent account, you can now see detailed reports on how many people are visiting your journal, friends pages, and entries (wherever they're posted on LiveJournal). You can also view data on comments and RSS requests. My Stats is only available to Paid and Permanent account holders, but you can upgrade anytime. (FYI, an annual subscription costs less than a large pizza with everything on it, PLUS it's rumored to make you lose weight in your sleep!) For additional details on this feature, read this article in paidmembers.

Get ready to check your vital statistics!. To begin, mouse over Journal in the upper nav bar and select My Stats from the dropdown menu (Horizon) or select My Stats under Journal in the side bar (Vertigo). If you're using another design scheme, you can visit My Stats directly. You'll find My Guests on the My Stats tool bar.

Happy holiday promotion!

We're delighted to tell you about our holiday coupons, which will help you share the love with your LiveJournal friends! If you have a Paid or Permanent account, you can send up to 10 LiveJournal Basic/Plus users a $10 coupon for an annual paid subscription now through January 15th, 2010. Recipients can upgrade for $9.95 (instead of $19.95) for one year by enrolling in our automatic payment plan or make a manual payment of $15 (instead of $25). Please note that these coupons are not transferable and cannot be used to renew existing paid accounts. If you're a Paid/Permanent user, you can send out your holiday coupons now!

Tweaks and Enhancements

1. The search is on: We've replaced our default search tool with one from Yandex, a leader in search engine technology. This means you'll get smarter, more granular results! To get started, enter your search terms and click the Go button to the left of the Find box on the upper right of the LiveJournal header. This will take you to the search landing page where you can further refine by Entries, Comments, People & communities, and FAQs. You can also access the search page directly.
2. Whitelisting: We've released a new option to help you moderate your busy communities more efficiently. If an entry contains a link to a whitelisted (i.e., trusted) site, it will be posted automatically without need for moderator approval. If a post contains a link that is not on the whitelist, you'll be prompted to approve. To access this option, please visit settings for any community you maintain and select the third option in the Community Moderation box (located in the lower left-hand corner). Click the enable link to custom-edit your community's whitelist, which has been prepopulated with trusted domains. You can manually add or delete URLs in the text box. Please note: If you're the maintainer of an unmoderated community, you may see the radio button for this setting checked, even though it's not active. This is a known issue. Please select whichever option you prefer and click Save Changes at the bottom of the page. If you're happy with your current settings, then no need to do anything!
3. TMI, dude: We've added some fun FREE sponsored vgifts! You can send up to 50 TMI vgifts to mutual friends (btw, you cannot send free vgifts to communities). If you're a Paid/Permanent user and you want to view sponsored gifts, click Show sponsored gifts on your homepage or visit the sponsored gift page. These vgifts will only be available through Wednesday, December 23rd.

You can view more awesome user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

Thanks, again, for joining us. Until next time, stay snug!

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.

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.)

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.

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).

Tweaks and enhancements

• As a number of you reported, a service interruption impaired sending and receiving notifications for a couple of days. This was due to an avalanche of snowflake cookies. We've removed the free snowflake cookie and unclogged the pipeline. Timely notifications should resume shortly. Please note that there's a backlog in our queues, so you'll be getting earlier notifications first. For more details, check out this post at lj_maintenance.
• In anticipation of the new year, we've embarked on a self-improvement kick to boost our backend (pun semi-intended). This will allow us to offer you a holiday promotion in the next few weeks (yes, we're listening and working very hard to make it happen). We sincerely appreciate your continued patience and support.

Holiday vgifts are here!

We've added some fantastic new vgifts to help you spread holiday cheer. We also hope you'll honor AIDS Awareness Month by purchasing virtual red ribbons. Priced at $2.99, we'll donate 100 percent of gross proceeds to IAVI.org (the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative) to support the development and global distribution of an affordable HIV vaccine.

Introducing: LJLimericks

We cordially here do invite you
To craft a fine limerick. Might you?
Each week, a new theme,
Then a poll, that's our dream
Winner posted on news to delight you!

In honor of all the brilliant writers on LiveJournal, we've created a brand new community: ljlimericks! Each week, we'll enter a handful of limericks into a poll (which we'll tuck snugly under an LJ-Cut). The winning poem will be published in the following newsletter. In addition, the author will receive a virtual blue ribbon! If you have the time, come drop us a rhyme. Please keep the "Nantucket" stuff on the downlow, since this is a youth-friendly community. Our first prompt is: Insomnia in winter.

Photos of the week

We're back with more incredible images from our global photography community. Congratulations to sempre_marseeya, who has been awarded a virtual blue ribbon as the winner of our second lj_photophile poll.

We hate to squelch your creativity, but, as a courtesy to other users, please post only one photo at a time and keep the main photo no larger than 350x350 (so images display properly via mobile and on friends pages). You can link to a larger image and/or post photos under a cut. Just so you know, we select photos for the poll blindly, based on user comments and staff feedback. Please continue to vote, comment, and, of course, enjoy. You can check out the week in pictures and view more awesome user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

Thanks, again, for joining us. Stay warm and safe out there!