I have Asperger's Syndrome. Mitt Romney does not. And I'd like all of the internet clinicians who once saw an episode of Law and Order where the bad guy had Asperger's to keep their diagnosises to themselves.
Mitt does not have ANY of the symptoms of Asperger's/autism. People who have Asperger's tend to be MORE empathetic to other people, not less. Asperger's is NOT a synonym for sociopath. People with Asperger's aren't lacking empathy, they have trouble reading social cues. Because of this, Aspies often find themselves bending over backwards not to offend people because we can't always judge a person's reaction correctly.
People with Asperger's usually also have a hobby they obsess with and focus on. Does Mitt honestly strike you as the kind of guy who has ANY outside interests other than being President? Because if he did we would have heard about it. It also ironically would have humanized him.
Aspies also tend to be bullied and their inability to read social cues correctly makes them easy targets. The idea of a bully Aspie is laughable and would almost be funny if it weren't so ironic and hurtful.
For the sake of people with Asperger's and those who love us quit trying to diagnose anyone you don't like as one of us. I know it's easy to pick on The Other and try to put people in an easy to explain group but it's offensive. Mitt Romney is a jerk and an @$$hole. Contrary to popular opinion on this site that does not mean the same thing as someone on the autism spectrum.
For the record this post came from me reading the comments section to This post. Please be gentle in your responses to this diary because I often have trouble telling if people are mad at me or not. That's the main reason I post so few diaries.
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Where Dana Carvey(?) was Koppel and it was Clinton's campaign, and Clinton answered every ever progressively idiotic question with "That's a good question", until at some point Koppel said, "I am sorry, Governor Clinton, that is NOT a good question. Try to salvage some shred of dignity, you're leading, for God's sake!"
That's exactly it.
Good advice for us all. Except those who started out calling names.
You just called someone a sociopath based on your view of them from news media and on a 'definition' of a sociopath from some random site and you would like courtesy?
That's rich.
on this list to romney. in fact i'd say the only patterns he doesn't show are ones that would have been mitigated by his religious upbrining: the promiscuity, substance abuse, etc.
good list. i bookmarked it. i'll probably want to look at it again before november.
By the fact that this list is, like, a list. On the internet. Using, down below, quotes from DSM-IV. Yawn.
better catch up on your sleep. you seem to yawn a lot.
I'm just surrounded by assholes.
or even just another post. or you could not post.
there - 4 solutions to your problem.
you can count
that's intriguing.
I would REALLY love for there to be a concrete explanation for not only why Mitt Romney is such a monster, but for how he got so far in politics. Easy answers for society and it's role in validating bullies are not easy to come by and I'm probably not the only one who wishes they were.
that this is what drives people to do the keyboard diagnosing. Desperately trying to understand/explain behavior that is somewhat inexplicable.
I couldn't agree more.
would be so mean and lack so much empathy. So they suggest that the cause is some medical disorder.
Romney is a rich boy. He is the son of an Auto CEO and a former Governor. He has never had to earn a dollar in his life. He did not earn the money he used to start BAIN, he inherited it. He doesn't know what it means to have to work to earn money to eat or have shelter. He is completely outside normal human experience. He went to the best prep schools and the best colleges money could buy. While there, he apparently was permitted to engage in any kind of behavior without consequence. He has never had to accept a consequence of his actions.
These experiences have taught him that he can do what he wants and people will just follow along because he is Romney. It really offends me when candidates like Romney, Santorum and Ryan who have been born to some form of privilege tout the accomplishments of their parents as though that made the candidates better. The fact is, the children of privilege (with a few exceptions) rarely have the character their parents had. They accept their privileged position as their due.
People with Asperger's should not be maligned by being compared to over-privileged assholes with no empathy.
same reason that people like Mitt do not understand. We approach what we see from the perspective of where we've been. Mitt Romney truly doesn't understand what non-rich or even just merely wealthy people are coming from. He could - it isn't impossible but he doesn't - quite like a lot of people. People born in less opulent environments will have a hard time fathoming what drives a Mitt Romney to behave in the manner he does. Some will excuse behavior from their own perspectives while others try to explain it in terms of mental or behavioral deficiencies.
I just think that he doesn't really care all that much. He sees a prize that he wants to achieve (maybe on behalf of his father) and he is going for it using whatever works. Want him to put on jeans he will. Want him to spout social conservative hoohah? He will. Want him to spout more middle of the road ideals? He will. So if you pay attention to all of his actions and it seems like he is all over the place.
I personally suspects that what he says only reflects on a strategy to influence and has little to do with his own convictions. And it is that way because he really doesn't care. He just wants to be President. Heck - it worked for George.
and no matter what it takes to get it, that's what he'll try and do.
There's nothing medical about that. It's textbook definition of "ambitious". However, while there's nothing wrong with having a lot of ambition, plenty of other people get what they want without being assholes about it.
Or bullies.
That's not a medical condition for Willard (or anyone else, for that matter). Romney is a spoiled brat rich kid who clearly learned how to be a bully early on. Which makes him an asshole. Period.
Back around 2006, maybe earlier, he decided he wanted to be president.
I've been wondering if maybe he's forgotten why he wanted it in the first place, and so he's wandering around, like John McCain wandering the stage during a debate, trying to perform the way the campaign staff tell him to perform, but clueless.
A huge number of his "flip-flops" may simply be due to his failure to master the list of talking points handed to him in the morning. He's become a spokesmodel who performs poorly.
at occasionally expressing sympathy, but his whole career is evidence of him having very little sympathy or empathy. And of course he is also a rich kid, given everything, etc. (ever hear the story about him threatening Garry Trudeau when they were both at Yale, or how he defended the "tradition" of branding with a hot coat hanger (he claims it was a cigarette) the new pledges to his fraternity.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Compare that to Ted Kennedy, another rich boy. For all his faults (and he had them!), he devoted his life to trying to make things better for the most vulnerable in this country. I remember when he was pushing for a raise in the federal minimum wage and he threatened to use Senate rules to attach the raise to every bill that went through the Senate. He got the raise.
So he went to bat, full steam (mixed metaphor, sorry) to get another 50 cents or so an hour for the poorest Americans even though he never had to worry about money in his life.
The difference between a mensch and a shallow self-centered person.
Bush had severe (if you'll pardon the term) parental issues on both sides -- I don't know what Romney's relationship was with his mother, but he's definitely trying to outdo his Dad.
They-- or really anybody who's a social failure, really-- are treated like second-class citizens by a lot of psychological authorities. They're subtly compared unfavorably to bullies. They always have the specter of potentially being less employable because so many jobs in America have become de facto sales jobs, particularly ones that pay anything approaching a living wage.
{donning asbestos suit, for I'm about to say something potentiallyflameworthy}
And receiving a diagnosis yourself, or having a loved one receive it, thrusts you into the company of some of the most patronizing individuals ever to grace the medical profession. Who reserve the right to concern troll you, and say it's all for your own good; because after all, they are your social and emotional betters.
I think the autism spectrum is more cultural than most people think, and a way to create a new second-class citizenry and socialy acceptable way to discriminate.
The psychiatric community specializes in creating stigmatized groups of people with their so-called "diagnoses". This is job security for them.
The problem with their "diagnoses" is that historical study proves them to be based mainly on politics rather than on science. Thus homosexuality used to be a "diagnosis". In the early 20th century, psychiatrists diagnosed people as "feebleminded" and recommended that they be sterilized so as not to pass on their "feeblemindedness". Statistically, "feebleminded" people tended to be poor, female, immigrants from Eastern Europe who spoke little English.
There has never been a time when psychiatry was not at the forefront of human rights abuses. Today they study "learned helplessness" by waterboarding, electroshocking, and otherwise torturing prisoners at Gitmo and similar places. When they can't get their hands on humans to torture, they use dogs.
And not embrace it as a diagnosis. It's why even if I did have a diagnosis, I would not make AS my identity. Because it would feel like caving in to the values of a group of people who have a vested interest in keeping us down, by finding a new way to marginalize anyone wishing to topple the existing structure of power and privilege.
AS is a pathologization of the human condition.
From a parent's perspective, is... there are a lot of ways therapy can help an AS child adapt to the world, including sensory integration therapy, OT for fine motor issues, social skills and behavioral therapies, etc. In order to access these therapies without paying out of pocket, which for a lot of us is way beyond our means, you have to have a diagnosis. Without the diagnosis you get no therapy. It's sometimes very hard to get the therapy even with the diagnosis.
This by the way is not looking for a cure for the AS, but looking for a way to help the person with AS learn how to relate to the world, and how to deal with and minimize sensory processing issues like intolerance to clothing, noise, touch, etc; how to judge their strength so they don't bruise when they hug you or hold your hand (especially important with younger siblings), etc. Also improving balance, trunk strength, etc which is sometimes an issue in childhood as well.
I would like those who live in a country with single payer to say if it's so: is there such pressure to get a diagnosis under a single payer system? If I am correct in assuming a lack of diagnosis requirement, then that gives a single payer system a certain freedom to NOT be defined by a diagnosis. And would allow people to be treated and respected as whole human beings. At least that's my hope.
they won't pay for a therapy or treatment without a diagnosis that qualifies for it. That's just smart, otherwise you'll have people asking for and getting treatments they don't need, or that won't do them any good. That's called "Evidence Based Practices", the definition follows:
the practice of health care in which the practitioner systematically finds, appraises, and uses the most current and valid research findings as the basis for clinical decisions. The term is sometimes used to denote evidence-based medicine specifically but can also include other specialties, such as evidence-based nursing, pharmacy, and dentistry.Without a diagnosis, which gives one an understanding of what is wrong, how would a medical professional know what therapy or treatment for any disease or disorder would be appropriate? Taking the diagnosis requirement out of therapy and treatment leaves desperate parents open to more snake oil salesmen as well. How would you know if a therapy or treatment were 'experimental' if you didn't know and understand what is going on in the first place? (Because if you take out diagnostic requirements for AS disorders, you've got to take it out for everything.)
Mosby's Medical Dictionary, 8th edition. © 2009, Elsevier.
While it is quite efficient in terms of coordinating DRG's with reimbursements, not all pathologies imply disease.
AS, is very much a human condition of spirit and perception. Clearly part of the fabric that's always made the World just a little bit more interesting, a bit more fun.
But as a pathology? Sure, if it gets one inside the office of a counselor, to hash out a strategy for the workplace, etc.
We're just starting to get a little bit smarter about the brain, about how societies function. But AS has always been a part of the condition of certain humans. We just have new nomenclature.
Kind of reminds of that old Palmolive commercial;
"You've been soaking in it the whole time"
not a disease, thus pathology doesn't apply to it. AS is a disorder or a syndrome or a condition. It isn't treated the same way as a disease (which is required for pathology) would be.
That's the reason why people looking for a 'cure' are so frustrated, autism spectrum disorder isn't a disease, it can't be cured. It is a "disorder" and can be treated to minimize symptoms when they get in the way of life. I don't want to cure my autistic son, I do want to treat the symptoms that interfere with his living life to the fullest and accomplishing what he wishes to accomplish. Therapy and treatment are aimed towards improving functionality rather than making symptoms go away entirely.
probably shouldn't be considered medical, but educational.
There'll always probably be a need for psychological assistance (and for some, psychiatric help as well) -- but the real benefit to getting kids a diagnosis is that you then get access to special education funding. It'd be much better to have a system where every kid got whichever kinds of special assistance they needed, without needing to involve to involve med. professionals other than maybe their pediatrician.
School OT's for example are very limited in what they are allowed to do, especially when it comes to Sensory Integration. You would think that could be listed as education easily, but funding is limited so Educational OT's are limited. It shouldn't be that way, and I agree, every kid should get whatever special assistance they need, but I don't see that happening any time soon unless funding is increased for schools and the way schools work is completely reformed.
those involved in treating assisting aspies (& other spectrumites) should be in the education field (which psychology should be part of), rather than medicine.
was Occupational Therapy, in the form of Sensory Integration therapy and fine motor as well as core strengthening specifically. Behavioral (which is more educational) and Speech helped when he was younger, but understanding his melt downs and teaching him how to self-regulate his senses helped him learn everything else because he wasn't constantly overwhelmed. and OT is a medical field. Psychology is also a medical field. And while he spent years under Psychological care, those therapies and meds didn't help him nearly as much as the OT did.
I don't think he would have made the gains he made without that.
Granted, not every Aspie or autistic child has sensory issues but they are very often inter-twined, often enough that I know more on the spectrum with them then without them.
All those therapies are categorized as 'medical', paid for by funds set aside for 'health care" rather than "education" -- but in practice, OT, PT, all of those other 'Ts", have more in common with what education is -- exposure to new/novel ideas or methods with the goal of changing/learning new ideas or behaviors over some course of time -- than they do with medicine (alleviating pain & illness and/or fixing physical/physiological problems). Psychiatry and, to a lesser extent, psychology span the categories.
It's the 'medicalization' thing. There's no inherent reason for spectrumite treatment/assistance to be focused around hospitals rather than schools. On a theoretical basis, a better argument can be made for handing the responsibilities for those treatments over to experts in children & learning, rather than to those whose expertise is in finding&fixing bodies that don't work right. Of course, in practice the field of education is even more vulnerable to ideologues etc., so I wouldn't be too quick to turn things over to them entirely.
It depends what the therapist is treating, but OT is also used to help people recover from injury and illness, it isn't all education, though that is one of the many roles. Ditto for PT, actually even more so for PT than OT. It's about strengthening, alleviating pain (with modalities like heat, cold, tens units, etc), recovering range of motion, recovering functionality as well as developing compensation techniques, reteaching walking skills (for PT), balance, dressing, desensitization (sensory), etc. OT and PT definitely fit in medical more than in Educational. Psych it depends, someone in education for example can't write prescriptions, which makes it medical.
I'm a certified OTA and I can attest to the fact that there is a LOT of medical knowledge involved in OT classes (more even for OTR's then OTA's). Neurology, anatomy, kinesiology, Biology, side effects of common meds, etc are all a part of coursework in addition to therapy for specific types of conditions ranging from work injuries to strokes to dementia to autism, adhd, premature babies, hip replacements, breathing deficiencies, post-op, etc. OT and PT are most definitely medical related more then educational related.
usage, I'm talking theory (and assuming that what we commonly think of as 'medical' and/or scientific knowledge can be appropriately required for, say, specialized education)(also thinking about the Ts appropriately provided to various AS-specific situations, not all the Ts provided to all the people therapists might assist). Obviously there's lots of overlap.
I think that nearly all care provided to AS people related to specifically spectrum issues should be approached in terms of education (assisted by medical professionals when appropriate), not as medical issues (paid for & maybe carried out by those in the field of education). Part of that, of course, would be for even unspecialized education professionals to have much more rigorous knowledge of (well, just about everything) the various ways that people learn/interact with the world, instead of focusing on the 'normal'.
Of course, that'd also require, well, $$ and enough teachers and standards more involved with learning than with test metrics... etc. Like I said, theory.
that a person on the autistic spectrum (Asperger's or other) is being "defined" by their condition. Would you say that a cancer patient is defined by their cancer? Or a person with heart disease?
Recognizing that you have a condition that requires you make adjustments that so-called "normal" people don't have to make isn't being "defined" by that condition -- it's merely a fact of life. And the younger that condition is diagnosed and acknowledged, the more chance that people can get the help they need to learn to function in a crazy-ass world like the one we've got.
because my dear friend you know and support a young adult who is autistic, that autism doesn't not define Wesley but it helps explain a few things... for him. He's just now coming to terms with his autism.
He has to be able to advocate for himself at some point and part of that is not only understanding his autism and also being able to be comfortable/embrace it.
He has to understand his own ways and needs in order to survive some obstacles that we simply don't even consider. Like yesterday, the sirens sent him on a meltdown. He had to understand that it was his autism that makes him scared around sirens (there was more to it that day than just sirens but I digress) He has to understand his autism so that he can live with it.
We all know Wesley not as "the autistic hockey fan" but as the hockey fan
... who just happens to be autistic and he's fucking awesome :)
((((Cali) Scribe)))
They're considered "uncompensatable"-- our society no longer allows us to compensate for a lack of relational skill with hard work or academic achievement so easily. In fact, in more and more jobs we may not get the opportunity to accumulate those compensatory factors in the first place, because of employers selecting for soft skills and likeability.
Also, the method of assessing social capabilites is highly subjective. I could be judged socially deficient by someone for having merely five friends and no Facebook page, when their personal standard is ten friends minimum plus a Facebook page. And I could be OK with my level of social participation and comfortable with myself that way... but that won't stop a boss, doctor or prospective mate from judging me lacking and casting aspersions on my character. That won't stop the destructive meme in its tracks, that you can't relate to or work with someone unless they're a lot like you. And that leaves our crazy-ass world in its place... it doesn't make it better.
identified as such as an adult: having a 'diagnosis' isn't about being identified as ill/damaged/less-than -- it's about having the 'not like everyone else' that I knew was there for my entire life identified, explained, and acknowledged to be something that's happened to other people, too.
Most of the negativity (ill/damaged/less/needs-fixing) I've come across hasn't come from professionals, psychiatric or not -- it's from (some) parents and the rest of the public who aren't willing to concede or able to understand that "different from what I'm comfortable with" isn't by definition wrong/ill/in need of repair. Funny, that -- that neurotypicals would have problems with empathy...
is often scarier than the diagnosis. Once there's a name on it, it's something that can be understood and dealt with. Anyone who has dealt with any kind of medical condition understands that. Knowing that your child is on the spectrum, for example, and that's why they have violent melt downs is much better than just dealing with the violent melt downs without understanding why your child is like that, because it gives you a place to start to research how to help your child. It gives you a cause, other than the accusations other random people throw at you when it happens in public. It also gives you a place to look for helping your child find a way to control the over-stimulation that leads to the melt downs.
Without that diagnosis, it's way too easy to blame it on yourself, or on the child. Without the diagnosis you feel helpless and powerless and frustrated. With the diagnosis there is hope, support groups where you can connect with other parents going through the same thing, adults on the spectrum who can give you an insider's view and maybe some ideas to help, and a brighter future.
... that you and many others mentioned from getting a diagnosis. You may feel empowered, but when it comes right down to it, AS (at least the mildest form) kids are acting little differently from other kids. The main difference I can see is that their behavior is subjectively not liked by others.
The same behavior could be engaged in by two different people, but because one is considered "on the spectrum", that one's behavior and feelings are judged more negatively. If all that's required is a subtle change in how you present that behavior to make all the difference in the world in how it's perceived... that's not AS, that's human nature.
It scares me how differences in approach and mistakes in dealing with other people can be blown up into "socially deficient", and bring all the consequences of that label. All for the other person's subjective evaluation of you; are we, in order to prove ourselves socially OK, to just agree with everyone's criticism of us?
I see no psychological strength in being "better" at adhering to a message about social skills that is, really, no better at all: that socially skilled people just sit and wait for life and relationships to fall into their laps, because apparently the only acceptable way to ask for what we need is to allow our "auras" and body language to do the asking.
goes a lot deeper then just not having social skills. I think you need to research the disorder a bit deeper to get a better understanding. The spectrum can cover milder cases that may seem like just social skills lacking on the surface (though for the diagnosis itself there are several other catagories of criteria that need to be met), to severe cases in which the child can't talk, engages in self-injurious behavior, has trouble with self-care, only eats a very restricted diet, has trouble connecting with anyone, has violent melt downs, and almost constant stimming behavior amongst others. AS is NOT just a social skills disorder.
The big thing for there to be a diagnosis, there has to be a functional issue for the child, not just a shy child, or inconvenienced parents.
Here are a couple of sites to get you started.
Also, here's one to Sensory Processing Disorder, which is often co-morbid with AS and ASD
But please don't begrudge it to the people for whom it's been a relief, an explanation, and permission to relax a little bit and stop trying to be something that we can't be. I've been happier in the 10 years since my diagnosis than the 31 years prior to it.
"not playing well with others."
For example: have you done one of those facial-expression tests? That was one of my first data-points: turns out there are a bunch of subtle expressions that NT people find in faces which I just don't perceive. Sure, maybe I can train myself to notice them -- but these are 'skills' that are instinctive, built in, for NTs. (The Temple Grandin books were another data point. I recognized myself in them.)
And then there are the sensory issues. Again using myself as an example: when I'm in a big room with lots of people & background noise, even if it's not very loud (like a restaurant or at a party or something), it all overwhelms me so that I literally can't make sense of what's going on. It takes a whole lot of concentration to focus on what other people are doing/saying, so much so that 'hearing' and 'comprehending' what someone's said are two discrete actions. Apparently lots of people enjoy, are even stimulated by the lots-of-people-and-music thing -- while it shuts an aspie down. Maybe even gets me so nerve-jangly that I feel I have to physically shake it off.
There is no way that the Asperger's Syndrome as diagnosed thirty years ago and as afflicting my brother could possibly be considered anything but pathological, IMHO.
Today, we have a much more nuanced sense of the spectrum, which is a great thing. But I find that the label gets extremely broadly applied in ways that sometimes just sort of stun me, because of how non-pathological are the phenomena that now get that label sometimes.
Many considered to be AS today seem to me to have an extremely faint echo of the severe behavioral and adaptation problems my brother has had his whole life. Just a perspective from living a long time in the AS world -- as defined now and back then.
It was dubbed a spectrum to account for the differences in disability between one child and the next. There are some that are on the severe end and some on the mild end, and many more in the middle.
Also, there have been a lot of in-roads made in therapies which, especially when done at a young age, help with that adaptation and the behavioral issues.
There are still children on the spectrum on the severe end, both behaviorally and socially, there always will be. My son was on the more severe end behaviorally when he was younger, but more moderately socially and on the high end academically (especially once his speech started 'catching up', or at least the 2.5 year gap didn't mean as much.. a 4 year old who talks like an 18 month old is quite a bit different from a 10 year old who talks like an 8 year old, for example).
The problem is that AS right now differs in severity. It is a disability for my kids, bur much less so for me. Maybe because I am a woman. It did make childhood very very difficult. I find embracing the diagnosis empowering. My family is not weird--our brains just work differently, which makes me great at my job but bad at relationships.
And that's just the whole problem I have with the diagnosis. How do you prove skill at relationships? A lot of it has to do with how other people feel about you. But using that as a metric for social skill makes sense, because for years our society has believed we have full responsibility for how other people feel about us. And that there's something wrong with our personalities if other people choose (for their own reasons) not to give us favor. It's the old "pull yourself up by your (emotional) bootstraps" thing.
It's the same thing that's bothered me about all the studies saying how social connection is tied to health. It's a way to blame us for other people's free choices, and stigmatize people for individual interpersonal differences.
Not to to mention, putting forth the VERY toxic message that you can't make friends with people without making yourself resemble them, that buying into their culture is more important than, say, treating them kindly and like an equal.
I find it liberating. I don't worry anymore about pretending to be normal so I can go out with people I don't even really like to places I don't want to go to. And when I learned my kids were aspies, I stopped trying to force them into what I thought was normal, like having play dates and hosting big birthday parties where they would inevitably have meltdowns.
By bad at relationships, I mean that I and my kids don't do the things you need to do to preserve relationships or form them. I don't blame neurotypicals for expecting a friend to call once in awhile, to answer e-mails, or to recripocate an invitation. I can see why people think a friend would do that. But no one in my house does that. My kids have not invited a friend over for more than 2 years (since I stoped pressuring them). That is them being not good at relationships. And I fly into irrational rages when my expectations are not met or say things that are hurtful. I would not want to date me in a million years. In fact, being married to an aspie was very difficult for me. My boyfriend is not an aspie and we have been together seven years and he just gets it. I tell him all the time I don't know how he puts up with a girlfriend who never calls him from work and gets annoyed if he calls, dodges his hugs, hates talking to him by phone when he is traveling, and would rather play civilization alone than watch a movie together. But not all aspies are the same (my kids have major differences) so it should not be assumed we are all bad at relationships.
While there are lazy clinicians, the same could be said of any field. The stigma comes largely from the society in which one lives, not the diagnosis itself. Average, everyday people make judgments about individuals based on a diagnosis precisely because they do not understand what a diagnosis actually is: how an individual's patterns of behavior fit within the larger spectrum of human expression. A diagnosis is in large part a way of understanding what might be going on, not what is going on.
If we look at the actual definition of psychopathology (the study of emotional, behavioral, and cognitive maladaptive responses that cause distress within an individual, or impair their function in daily life) we immediately see that almost every person on the planet has had, or will express some form of some disorder. Have you ever been so depressed or stressed that you forgot to eat lunch? Here's your sign. Didn't feel like taking a bath? Here's your sign. Ate with your fingers? Here's your sign. Didn't do as well on that report as you could have. Here, I made this one special for you because you chose the red car instead of the white one because it makes you feel like you're going faster.
Neuropsychology, Psychiatry, Psychology, Sociology, Anthropology, Neuroimmunology, History, etc. ad nauseum are about helping individuals achieve their potential, not pigeon-holing them into subsets of handicaps. The difficulty of understanding that presents itself when it becomes clear that one must know what disabilities are present in order to implement strategies to improve function and attain potential.
Look at what Binet wrote about the IQ test he created. Look at what Goldstein did for soldiers during and after WWI who were savaged by war. Asperger, Rogers, Maslow, Ellis, Jones, Washburn, even Goodall, these were all great men and women who cared for people, not categories and fundamentally changed what we know, and what we can learn about human potential. Did they know everything? No. Did they make mistakes? I'm certain they did. That human quality of actually being wrong once in a while does not negate their contribution to mankind's understanding of how we tick.
We know so little yet about the brain and how it functions. That doesn't seem like it makes sense, but that is the reality of it. ASD represents, like heart disease, several different ailments that have like symptoms, differently expressed across a wide array of individuals. Without that understanding, a diagnosis means absolutely nothing.
That statement in no way negates the instructive nature about the actual symptoms, because the symptoms themselves, like in heart disease, give us clues in how to treat an individual to make their life better, and make them more able to face the challenges that each of us, in turn, do. The man who takes nitroclycerin is the same as the man who takes a benzodiazipine for his nerves. Both drugs treat a symptom, not a disease.
In the same way that you can't blame mathematics for how certain people abuse economic theory by not including intangibles in their quantitative analysis, you can't blame psychology for how certain people abuse psychological principles.
I agree with all you say about Romney being born into wealth and privilege, born into this family with money and political power.
But at the same time, there are people who grow up in just such a family and yet turn out to be pretty healthy and normal despite all these advantages, which seem to dent the mental health of others.
What kind of family life helps children born into such privilege to grow up healthy and productive and good, and what steers them in the other direction?
I wonder if he got family approval for being a vulture capitalist--just so long as he made buckets of money--or not?
From what I've heard, Warren Buffett seems to be someone who has tried to be the kind of father who encouraged his children to be normal, healthy, grounded people.
other than "the society we live in produces, protects and promotes this kind of monstrosity."
Romney (and plenty of other right-wing types) are almost anti-Aspies -- amazing at knowing how to get people to do what they want, awful at understanding/caring about how people actually feel. Lots of social skills, little compassion.
having one's inchoate feelings and observations about a person suddenly be revealed clearly as a pattern: you saw it, you felt it, and now there it all is, neatly tied together in a checklist.
it settles the mind.
and while i'm sorry people got hurt, i don't think there is anything wrong in coming to understand that there are sociopaths out there, that that knowledge is a strength, and a means of protecting yourself because it validates one's instincts and therefore leads you to correctly act and make choices.
willard rmoney goes well beyond the threshold of being a sociopath and i think one does well to note it.
it settles the mind.
Does it do that (aspie-think alert) accurately? Inaccurately labeling problematic people as "aspie" (or whatever) stigmatizes those for whom the label is appropriate.
(the problem that prompted this diary was that Romney was labeled 'aspergers', not 'sociopath'.)
But something we-who-are-not-normal see often is that those who are socially successful, skilled at getting along with and controlling/managing people, are rewarded with (by?) having any or all of their flaws excused.
Being able to tell oneself "that guy I disagree with/don't like" has a socially-unacceptable problem can also settle the mind -- by letting you believe that the social norms of the society you're comfortably part of doesn't in fact accept and reward behaviors that lead to unpleasant actions.
Which, well... is not the case.
i labelled him a sociopath. i'm not interested in labelling anybody anything but i do think identifying a sociopath among us has great value.
discussion was about calling Romney an aspie.
The sociopath thing was a tangent. I don't disagree with you -- but that's not the conversation I thought I was having.
The one and only reason:
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that's what i never got.
Sociopaths are the guys who are the gladdest hand and the biggest life of the party. They are also manipulators extraordinaire and they have zero concern for anyone's real feelings. It's all about how much they can screw you over before you notice they're doing it.
That's Romney to a T. This new information about his adolescence just confirms the original thought I had when I found out about his dog. He hasn't changed. He's just gotten better at hiding it.
These symptoms are nearly universal in alcoholics and addicts, too. And these folks are initially very good at hiding it. Think George Bush as the poster child of "dry drunks".
Although I agree that Mittens' symptoms fall under the sociopath heading, Mittens isn't a sociopath in the psychological sense. He certainly lacks in social skills, though.
He's just another Jerk™.
appear on the internet are generally so broad that many many people would fall in that category.
These very broad "diagnoses" by untrained people are generally useless -- tho they're tempting, and I've yielded to the temptation a few times myself.
And many, especially this year, have. Getting somewhere in politics means winning, not running. Mitt wishes he's come so far in politics, Mitt thinks he's entitled to come so far in politics, but Mitt has been running for president for a decade, and all he's managed to accomplish is to beat down a clown car full of fools.
Mitt's money opens Republican doors, but it seems like when he walks through the door, the room empties. He has not gotten very far in politics.
i want something specific. an incident or two about how he interacts with people that offends so deeply.
- Aristocrat born and groomed into high status
- Alpha-male looks (white, tall, strong brow/jaw/chin, good hair)
- Authoritarian, hyperconformist indoctrination and attitudes
- Unchecked love of status (money, power, etc. for himself and immediate family)
- Self-reinforcing sense of superiority and entitlement, leading to ruthlessness and dis-empathy in his behavior
Not medical or anything (could be though), just sort of all goes together, as I observe it. Most leaders actually have some of these factors. But what's critically missing in Mitt is motivation to do good, to be a statesman -- it's all 'will to power' for him. Actually really dangerous in the current right-wing-trending climate.
and full of that awful self-loathing from his own intolerance combined with unwanted thoughts and desires. In which case: It's okay, Mitt! Even Ann will understand after so many years together. Just get over it and stop being mean to other people!
for someone still closeted at his age.
Can't put this on on us gays either -- he's just a standard straight-white-guy bully. Lots of them around.
... is itself how we diagnose people with Asperger's, ironically.
Namely, why does our society think, deep down, that being a bully is in fact better than having Asperger's? Why have we become so wedded to a narrow definition of socially skilled, that we been willing to tolerate even outright sociopathy?
when I read that the long haired boy was later expelled for smoking a cigarette on school grounds.
Sure, boyish hijinks like attacking someone with scissors is overlooked because, after all, boys will be boys but a fag smoking a cigarette? We have a reputation to uphold.
Look at how many behaviors are considered "neurotypical", even if it's only on a corollary basis. Giving in to peer pressure. Allowing oneself to be ruled by instincts. Willingly either being a bully or a bystander-- and therefore tacit condoner-- of one. Acceptance of the existing power and privilege structure, in any other sense of "acceptance" besides simply being aware of it and truthful about its impct.
It doesn't give one a very rosy picture of average people. In fact, it seems to make a virtue of cowardice.
he is disgustingly rich and can buy his way to the top.
But really has he really gotten THAT far into politics? He has had one term as a failed governor, other than that what political experience does he have, besides losing?
Heh.
He probably also thinks he can muscle his way to success, with money or meanness or both.
sorta like the Donald -- in show biz and some other types of biz, being a snotty bully can get you "success." In politics, you have to be more selective. LBJ undoubtedly had his snotty-bully moments, but he also had leadership capacity when called for.
My assessment of Romney's character: he is driven by insecurity.
Bain was supposed to be a venture capital firm, and it did some of that, but by all accounts venture capital was too risky for Romney's taste. He was too timid for that. Venture capital takes a willingness to take long term risks.
Instead Romney preferred deals where you could crunch the numbers, take a position and then abandon the position at the most opportune time. Sound familiar?
If you time things right, you can shift risk and cost onto others and leave them holding the bag. That's how he balanced the Massachusetts budget, by shifting costs to localities and to future administrations, then getting out of Dodge before the shit hit the fan. It take some brains, which I wouldn't deny Romney has, but it doesn't take guts.
We're looking at a replay of George W. Bush: a man in the shadow of an extremely accomplished father who doesn't have what it takes to live up to expectations.
I think it's that simple. Social skills and empathy must be used in order to develop. If one is never required to put themselves in another person's shoes, or even recognize that they are extremely privileged in contrast to what most people experience (see Romney's "I'm not going to apologize for being successful!" comments) then how can they develop these skills?
People who have everything handed to them often end up being entitled assholes.
It seems to me that he's got a tremendous sense of entitlement, and a hard-wired belief system where he absolutely knows "right" from "wrong," and he's always right. In his mind, it appears he rules.
And underneath it is a highly repressed personality, one that dare not stray from right and wrong.
Rewards are measured in symbols of happiness like money and appearing to have it all together, not in ways a less stultified person would feel good and right.
That's just thumbnail sketching based upon what I observe from afar.
BTW, I tend to notice your comments, and I notice your recs of my comments, particularly the ones I consider good. And I thank you for that.
being psycho/sociopaths. But do we not have a moral obligation to identify psycho/sociopathic behavior? Because that behavior, whether clinically caused or not, is doing great harm to society. In the instance of climate change, irreparable harm.
I don't personally give a flying fig whether these guys need a plll or therapy or prison, but the behavior has got to stop. Psycho/sociopathic behavior is not tolerated from the poor. It shoudn't be tolerated from the wealthy. That antisocial behavior from the rich kills more people every day than it ever could from the poor.
Frightening how many of the traits of psycho/sociopath can make a person a perfect vulture capitalist. And I agree that this should be pointed out, esp when they run for Prez of USA.
Asperger's is completely different, they are much more likely to be abused than to abuse someone else.
Asperger's was ever introduced into the conversation about Romney's behavior. I've a feeling it may have originated as what someone thought was clever snark.
I think some of us, myself included, would be wise to curb the urge to snark once in a while. We hurt each other more often than we should just to get recs and laughs. The cancel button is our friend.
that once you get into the rarified strata of the .001% the incidence of sociopathy becomes the norm, not the exception. There is little else to explain why so many of these people indulge in an infinite lust for wealth and power with no regard at all for others.
When a society such as ours values wealth above all else, it becomes a society that positively selects for the id driven behavior of the sociopath. They rise to the highest positions in business because they are unfeeling and ruthless and these traits are amply rewarded.
All you need look at is the retiring CEO of a major health insurer taking a billion dollars with him knowing that many, many people were denied care they had paid for so that he could have more money than a person would need in a few hundred lifetimes.
These people consider themselves our betters and until we as a society actively begin to recognize and penalize this sort of behavior instead of rewarding it, we shall continue to be exploited and maltreated as the prey we are to these people.
rich old bastard at the country club who, IIRC, did physical injury to a server who, instead of putting it on tab, brought the check to the table -as the wife requested but the old bastard didn't know it.
fortune likes a great crime? Many of the scions of these families exhibit a distinct lack of conscience if not basic morality.
about politicians and narcissistic personality disorder.
No question.
We are lorded over by the emotionally twisted.
wanted to look at this a little more:
But do we not have a moral obligation to identify psycho/sociopathic behavior?I think you're onto some good points but wanted to check with some assumptions. Because it seems to me that
1) We do not need to apply a label for a personality disorder on someone in order to point out that person's destructive behavior. Among many comments here (not yours by the way) I sense a need to grab a nice tidy label to slap on Mitt.
2) Some psycho/sociopathic behaviors are not particularly destructive at all.
3) The diagnostic manual for mental health pros, the DSM IV continues to change and morph over the decades. The next one, DSM V, will again reflect new thinking. There are still unsettled questions even among the top experts in the field about how to diagnose sociopathy or psychopathy.
4) Discussing diagnoses and disorders should be OK here. But we all need to realize 99.9% of these discussions are purely in layman form.
... as long as they qualify it as speculation, and as long as they are serious and actually do some research into what they're speculating about, and are not just throwing out diagnoses as insults.
Done in that spirit, I think it's perfectly acceptable and fair. It can even be educational for other people to learn more about such things.
And I say this as a professional psychotherapist.
We need to remember that there really are no such things as "diagnoses" -- at least as defined in the various psychiatric fields, in the various DSM editions, etc.
They are human-invented categories and labels, based on human-invented lists of criteria. They go against the concept of every human being being an individual. And they were largely invented not for the use of the people attempting the healing, but for the use of insurance companies. That should tell you something right there.
....as someone with ADHD, Sarah Palin really comes across as someone with untreated ADHD, to these eyes. Of course, I'm no psychiatrist, but she shows a lot of the signs. Restlessness, impulsiveness, inability to focus on boring details, etc.
from TomP is particularly meaningful to me as well.
He doesn't show any of the classic symptoms of AS but does show the classic symptoms of being at least somewhat sociopathic a la GW Bush.
I've taught a number of kids with Asperger's -- they are lovable in the extreme. Not a word I would apply to Romney.
who is acting warm.
I agree that he has nothing in common with Asperger's but ever he is.. I feel sorry for him, to be so rich and yet so very very poor.
And as the parent of a high functioning autistic (who would better fit Aspie except for speech and language delays) I have to say I agree with you wholeheartedly. There's a huge difference between an Aspie and Romney's "I'm to rich to be able to sympathize with the 'little people' I look down on" attitude. I don't think I know anyone on the spectrum who has that "better than thou" attitude, usually it's the opposite due to years of being bullied and trying desperately to fit in.
