Challenges of Friending Within the Spectrum

Anyone with an intellectual disability knows the struggle of trying to blend in to society. Lets face it, as much as you want to be yourself you know that some of your habits and rituals and even obsessions don’t belong in public for the sake of keeping friends and acquaintances. Now while there are high functioning people that are fully aware of what’s socially acceptable and what’s not, there are those who don’t not do they even try to correct their quirks. Whether no one pointed out their quirks or if they just flat out don’t give a shit is beyond me. The reason I bring this up is because though connecting with neurotypicals (a big ass word meaning those not on the spectrum) can be a challenge, connecting with those on the spectrum can be even trickier. I bet ya everyone is completely flabbergasted and wondering why such a thing can be do difficult. Allow me to go back to the snowflake analogy for the umpteenth time, people on the spectrum are like snow flakes, everyone on the spectrum is different. Now we’re not even just talking about differences in function, we’re talking differences in rituals, interests, and personalities. Those who have worked with people on the spectrum know very well how radically different the personalities can be due to the complex wiring which 90% of the time can look like the back of our entertainment centers. It looks like a jungle to others and only you know how it works and where everything works and that’s all that matters. This difference in personality can make it very tricky for me to be friends with those on the spectrum cause when we have a clash of opinions it happens in the worse way possible, you’d think a blood bath was about to ensue with the way we were arguing. Now there’s another obstacle that makes connections difficult for me but in order for you guys to understand I’ll have to go back to the early years of my life in order to explain an issue that every person with a high functioning form of a learning disability has had to deal with.

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What is Normal?

Two nights ago I ended my most recent blog entry with a paragraph asking a simple question that yields a great deal of complexity when you really peel away at the layers. Today I want to dive a bit deeper into the concept of “normal”. What is normal? What do we consider to be normal? Normal as defined by the dictionary is “conforming to the standard or the common type; usual; not abnormal; regular; natural”. It also means serving to establish a standard. If normal is what ever society decides it should be then by society’s norms I’m the furthest thing from normal but then so are a lot of people.

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You’re Autistic? But You’re So Smart!!!

You’d be rather surprised as to the type of responses I get when I tell people I have Autism. They will range anywhere from “but you’re so smart” or “but you seem so normal” to stuff like “prove it”. People over the years have grown to know Autism by two common traits, people who drool, flap their arms or spaz when there are loud noises. The second common trait people look for is what we call the savant which is basically the super intelligent person much like the one in Rain Man who could count cards, do complicated math in his head and register the sound of 200 toothpicks falling to the ground.

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It is Purpose that Created Us, Purpose that Drives Us

We’re all put here by what ever force you want to believe in to do something. If anyone told you that you’re one in billions, that your life against the life of others doesn’t hold some sort of merit then someone lied. For some of us we know from day one what our purpose in this world is but for the rest of us, it can take some serious soul searching and years before we realize what we’re meant to do and some unfortunately leave this moral coil before even realizing what their purpose is.

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