by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2013/10/10 07:01 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2013/10/10/10453675.aspx
I was watching The Daily Show last Tuesday, and they were talking about autism.
It hit me really personally for a reason I haven't ever talked about in the wider world before.
I have a mild case of Aspberger Syndrome, and although I am what most people would call functional, it makes me sensitive to the whole spectrum of autism-based disorders.
The only people I have ever told before is a small group that meets at Microsoft.
You know I'm a little uncomfortable admitting this, but on the other hand, regular readers know about my Multiple Sclerosis and my MS-induced seizure disorder. So how can admitting Aspberger Syndrome be such a big deal?
It is unique in that it is the only medical problem I have that is not caused by my Multiple Sclerosis, which is pretty unique.
And how did I find out I had it?
A woman I was dating, we had this syndrome in common.
She knew she had it, she helped me see that I did.
Hardly scientific proof, of course. But we were responding the same way to the same situation. Proof enough for me....
I have had no medical treatment for it, and thus no way of really knowing whether my coping mechanisms are the best ones.
Maybe I will mention it to Jane during my next visit. What can it hurt, right?
It can be hard to know how people will react. But I don't care at this point. I've shared the rest of my medical history with thousands of my closest strangers, so there doesn't seem to be something too terribly awful in sharing the one neurological problem I have that can't be blamed on my Multiple Sclerosis.
Maybe it will convince someone else with a borderline case of Aspberger Syndrome that they can go public and not be so afraid of the consequences?
I am also reminded of the interesting fact that most of the traffic in my Blog is searches from Bing and Google. This is why my recent breaks haven't affected overall Blog popularity. So maybe someone else will find it some day.
John Cowan on 10 Oct 2013 8:19 AM:
Please do go and get a firm professional diagnosis. Lots of people think they are on the pathological part of the autism spectrum (or the cyclothymic spectrum or any other spectrum) when they are actually within normal variation.
I have four independent chronic medical problems (well, not completely independent, perhaps): diabetes, sleep apnea, anxiety, asthma. Comorbidity isn't just not rare, it's the normal state of things.
And hey, I read every posting the day you publish it, or nearly so.
cheong00 on 10 Oct 2013 9:09 PM:
It bugs me to see "Aspberger Syndrome" but then I see Asperger Syndrome.
Well, no big deal, a large portion and developers I know of (including me) have some level of autism. At least you can do some face to face talk, so is better than me. :)
Michael S. Kaplan on 10 Oct 2013 11:05 PM:
I think I fixed those outliers now! ;-)
Shane Dillingham on 13 Oct 2013 10:49 PM:
I was admittedly an arrival from Google.