As for the discussion about AS, I am going to try my best to be very careful in what I say here. To say the least, I have been really worked up and angry every since I got home and read it. After what I say here I am not going to talk about it further openly here as it seams that it is becoming a very unfair and heated argument that can easily spin out of control.

Pretty much, everything that has been said here pertaining to me and AS, is very hypocritical and close-minded. Every point that you have made and said, can be said of BIID and how it relates to truly physically disabled people and how they view it at large. I’m sorry if that offends you, but it’s true. Furthermore, you don’t know the circumstances in which I grew up and how my relationship with my parents personally were. You don’t know how I always had to be the perfect holy child who was put up on a stool and carried threw the crowds for others to see, learn, and worship. When I began to show signs of not being perfect, my parents say that as a discipline problem or something that they had to hide and “fix.” For me to be labeled with some kind of medical diagnosis would be absolutely disgraceful because it would show them as not being “perfect” parents and their child would not be a god. My mother even at one point did seek out medical help with I was about 14 months because I still had not spoke one word. The doctors basically told them that I was not deaf and that I was just taking my time…nothing to worry about. Later in life, when it was clear I was showing heavy traits of something being wrong…all my teachers and educational staff pleaded with my parents to have me tested and even went as far to perform some test themselves, but my parents would hear nothing of it. I couldn’t be labeled as having some sort of “problems”. I just had discipline problems so I was placed in a heavy discipline school where the problems would be beaten out of me.

I’m sorry, but for you to say that if I truly had AS my parents would not have been able to raise me and that they would have searched for help with for me years ago isn’t true. Not all parents have the thoughts of such and not all parents raise their kids with such considerations. The fact that AS is a disabling condition and a lot of people have to be “institutionalized or need 24 hour care”…obviously you must have worked with some sever Autism cases, but if you actually do the research, Aspengers is a “high functioning level of Autism” meaning that those who have it live a high functioning normal life and that they don’t normally need care, help, or to be institionalized. Now given, every case is different and there are those with other severe sensory problems and tendencies that do, but on the overall percentage…people with AS don’t.

Another thing you don’t know…you don’t know about the 17 page research paper I wrote (single spaced at that) where I compared my life to the traits of AS and wrote about how so many things can clearly be seen and expressed in my own life. I’m sorry…but you don’t know me or my life and for you to claim so strongly how my life was growing up or how my life is now and how this is true and not this…then you clearly have no place as I have no place to say wither you have something going on in your life or not.

Think what you want, I don’t care. As far as I am concerned, the annoyances of me expressing such have been expressed. I will not discuss or try to relate such other personally on the forum here. If anyone wishes to carry on this conversation or one like it with me personally, I am glad to, otherwise…I am done here, I am tried of everyone trying to cram their harsh beliefs, thoughts, opinions down my throat to tell me what I have and don’t have, feel and don’t feel, and wither or not I have BIID or not. I am what I am, and you are who you are. Can’t we all just accept each other and get along? Isn’t that what we are all seeking in life anyway…to get along with everyone and be accepted?

To put people straight if they are in doubt:

Aspergers is at the milder end of the Autistic Spectrum, but that does not mean it is a ‘mild’ condition. I know of many Adults with Aspies who cannot live independently and need professional 24 hour care to function in our society. Others find their ‘niche’ but remain significantly impaired.

As for those of us who believe we may exhibit some Aspy traits (right at the ‘non-clinical’ end of the Autistic spectrum), of which there are very many in everyday life, including myself, we are insulting those people with actual, clinical Aspergers if we try to imply that the syndrome is somehow not disabling. The reality is that if your ‘traits’ have not driven you or your significant others to request assessment by now then YOU DO NOT HAVE THE DISORDER.
Aspergers is not self diagnosable. Claiming to have it without a proper diagnosis from an expert is like telling everyone you have pneumonia, when in fact you have a slight cold. There is a term for people who do that sort of thing for material or, more often, emotional gain. It is Factitious Disorder, and used to be known as Munchausen’s Syndrome. That, I think, is where I shall stop.

From the research I have done, Aspergers is not the “disabling” condition you make it out to be at all. Infact very often it is confused for ADHD and isn’t detected until around the age of 8. People with AS live a quiet normal life, though they have different difficulties when it comes to social, communication, and sensory issues. In ways it is like Autism, but it is not as disabling as Autism. Perhaps I am wrong in everything that I have come to understand, but then if I am, so is all the research that I have done into this and the discussions that I have had with people with Autistic kids and people who have medical diagnosis of AS.

Maybe I am just wrong here, but I thought BIID was all about wanting to actually become physically disabled (aka Wannabee) if it is not then perhaps I can be labeled as BIID, but if it does mean that one wants to become disabled, then no, I am not a person with BIID.

I will NOT get into an argument with you, but I have to say your statement of “here in the US we don’t run to the doctor for every little thing” is not necessarily accurate, nor is it appropriate. Aspergers is NOT a little thing. It is often quite a disabling condition. I have no doubt that you show Aspie traits. But there is a huge chasm between having some traits of a condition and actually having the condition. It could be easily said that I show traits of addiction. Yet I am not a drug addict, nor am I alcoholic. You have traits of BIID (you use a wheelchair and braces), but you say you don’t have BIID.

Now, let’s return to the program at hand, shall we?

As for me getting a “proper assessment” I have stated before that I felt that was a complete waste of my time and that it wouldn’t prove or provide me with any benefit other than to be able to say “Yea it’s official, I do have AS” as to prove it to someone who didn’t believe me. To me personally, that is not really that important. Looking at this from a different angle, it would not only be a waste of my time and money, but also the time of the doctor, the specialist, and the whole medical community. It’s not like suddenly by having a diagnosis that suddenly I am going to completely change in how I feel or that anything is going to change at all.

I don’t know how things are in other countries, but this is the way things are here in the US and honestly, this is how I feel it should be (just my two cents). People don’t just go to the doctor for every scrap or cut they get. They doctor it up themselves and take care of themselves and only if something gets really infected do they then take it to the doctor. We humans have the knowledge of how to tend to our bodies when it gets injured, it is not something that we really need help with unless it becomes very more than the ordinary. When we are feeling sick, we don’t first get in the car and drive to see the doctor, we take a temperature and then say “yep, I got a fever.” And then proceed to doctor our bodies, sleep, and take care of ourselves. If problems do not go away after a few days, then we will seek help.

So basically the point I am trying to make: Here in the US, we don’t run to the doctor for every little thing. We try to take care of ourselves not just because we don’t want to spend money (though that is one motivator) but also because it is just the proper thing to do and keeps the healthcare system from becoming overloaded with people who don’t really need all that care from the medical field. Me getting a proper assessment would be a waste of not only my time but the time of the medical field as it would have no real end result.

As for a linking between AS and BIID, I personally do feel that a lot of us seam to show AS Traits, (Yes even you Sean, though if you do not wish to think so then that is your own thoughts and I have no place trying to tell you otherwise) but I just know about my own personal case in life and how things have always existed and been for me personally. Personally I do not claim to have BIID as I do not wish to be actually disabled, I am simply, proudly, and comfortably a pretender. So right there the thought that their might be something between AS and BIID could be viewed as false.

I know in your own life Sean you have strongly looked to the medical world for a understanding, classification, and linking of BIID and what causes it, effects it, and relates to it. I personally, and maybe this is just because of the fact that I am happy as a pretender; don’t really care what the medical world thinks of such. I don’t look to the medical world to provide answers for me or to justify me or to assist me with living with the choices of my personality and outward appearance to the world and others around me in my life. The only thing I can see from having the medical world in my favor would be if I was indeed a BIID person and actually wanted to be disabled, then it would make achieving a disability a lot easier, safer, and less painful. Honestly, I believe that everyone should have a right to do what they want to with their life and their body so I support your fight to have the disabilities you desire and with seeking medical surgeries to make such happen. But as for providing a understanding or a link about BIID, to me personally…it doesn’t matter. My life is what it is…I feel what I feel…I want what I want…why try to understand it or to get another human being who doesn’t have the same feelings or even the concept, to try to understand and be able to link traits for me. Life is what we make it, not what is made for us by people who we try to make understand.

Andy, if you think you have asperger, I *strongly* recommend you go get a proper assessment done. At any rate, this site isn’t intended to discuss aspergers at such length as you have. It’s ok to mention it in reference to BIID, but you are focusing on asperger so much, you’re getting away from the topic at hand.

My Skin has always been very sensitive to touch and to irregular irritation. I find that things that brush or touch my skin that are even very minor, like my hair coming out of place and feeling differently on my head, bother me tremendously and constantly have me rubbing my hair trying to make it stop. If I do work that is coarse or dirty in a way and my skin becomes covered with dirt, it irritates me greatly and I feel as though my skin is going to itch off constantly.

Bug bites have always been the worse for me and during the summer it is nothing to see my legs covered with wounds and scabs from where I constantly can’t leave them alone because they hurt and itch so bad.

With AS, ASD, and Autism one of the main things is that the brain becomes overloaded with so many sensory input and trying to constantly process the world around the person that eventually they just become overloaded and irritated because they can’t process everything around them and that is going on so eventually it causes them to “meltdown.”

One common trait for these is that sometimes one will become self-injurious. It is not that they actually want to or wish to hurt themselves, it is that they simply may not realize just what they are doing, are so irritated that they don’t care, or they can’t feel what they are doing to themselves. You see, when the brain becomes so overloaded with different things going on and it can’t process anymore, sometimes the brain will no longer be able to understand or process different senses such as a point of pain on the body. So, if the person becomes injured or they injure themselves, they don’t feel the pain of what is happening at it’s full intensity because their brain is so overloaded with the irritation that is happening to their skin or body causing them to want the pain to stop, so they take action to make the pain stop by hurting themselves.

With my bug bites, my skin would become so sensitive and so irritated with the constantly strong itch of the bite and I simply couldn’t stand the feeling so I would try to make it stop. My brain would become so overloaded with the itching that I couldn’t feel anything else against my skin, so I would then go as far as to completely dig my skin and the bite with my finger nails until I had completely dug a hole into my skin and completely removed the bite leaving just a gaping, bleeding, open hole. With time, as the skin would try to heal and form a scab, I would become irritated with the scab and the feeling of the bite and mostly the scab itself that I would reopen the wound and never let it heal.

Another common trait is that someone don’t have a normal level of sensory understanding and to them, they can’t feel the same intensity of pains. Another would be that they enjoy pain because of the feeling and the sensory input into their systems. They thrive off the feeling of what is happening to their skin and the “rush” they get from it. I had this phase when I was younger…I used to slam my head against walls, books, tables, desk, and other hard objects. Why? Because I liked the tingle I felt in my head from the impact. I would just sit there and go it for a period of like 5 to 10 minutes straight. It is kind of like AS and ASD people enjoy swinging, rocking, spinning, and other such rushes to their senses.

It is sometimes common for people to bite, pinch, cut, and otherwise hurt themselves because of the desire for the feeling to their senses because they are not used to the feeling of peace/comfort to their senses.

I get knee pains frequently and it frustrates me because I should be able to feel them. In some ways I’m hypersensitive to them because they shouldn’t be there.

I get back pains sometimes, mostly if I’ve been in my chair a lot and not moved my back in a while. I don’t really mind these pains because they are part of who I’m supposed to be.

I’m not sure that really makes a lot of sense but then us BIID lot know that not all feelings make sense!