I'm talking about Aspergers.

DXed at 32 in 1997, it explained a great deal about my previous life. All the problems I had both at school and at work - especially the latter. Before that time, I wondered what the heck was going on. What was I doing to deserve all the abuse and ridicule I was being force fed - and worse still not being protected from? And I was expected to know, from just being told "You're upsetting people - stop it". I had no instinct to be able to respond appropriately to this otherwise reasonable instruction, and I ended up getting blamed for virtually everything that happened.

This is the reality of an Aspie's adult life without being diagnosed. A recent poster said that 50 years ago Aspies and other people with behavioural difficulties were treated as mad and lumped in asylums. Absolutely right. We didn't want to know about anything different in those days. You either fitted in, or you were mad and needed the full treatment to bring you around. Thankfully for the most part we have grown out of that sick attitude.

Then again - to have people speculate that these issues represent "fake" diseases just gets my blood boiling, because it harks back to those days again. Maybe not the act of sending us Aspies into asylums, but the attitude that got us there all those years ago. We are supposed to be progressing through the concept of tolerance for those who are different - the concept that everyone is different. Being an Aspie can, in fact, be a benefit if the positives of being an Aspie are properly utilised. If this is done, then the Aspie can in fact be just as useful as any other person - and in the normal way as well.

Another point - there is also another factor that has changed over the years. 50 years ago, sometimes Aspies could get by. If they had a special interest that fitted a particular work place, they could leave school early and work their way through a job from a young age - with little need for qualifications. Now, you need degrees and diplomas for this that and the other, and to get into university you have to do things that previously you didn't have to. Also, the work place in general consisted of individuals with specific single skills. Now it's full of multiskilling and grey coloured flexibility. The work place for the Aspie of the past has gone so the disability had to be recognised, even though it always existed in the shadow of it's more pronounced brother - Autism.

I don't need to provide sources for my information. I'm talking through personal experience. What I have been through. It's all facts from my own life.

All us Aspies ask is to be understood for what we are. If we get abused, invariably we will respond in kind because that is the logical reaction. We will seek information, and when we are ignored we'll persist, and probably get abusive as well. It's frustration because we are not being understood (as opposed to not being agreed with - which is an all too common complaint) and we desire to be. Everyone wants to be understood and accepted for what they are. Achieving such a feat world wide is the secret to world peace IMHO. And that doesn't just go for disabilities either.