this game, WC Saga, and the truth

do you have the AS socially cripplingly bad or just makes life more difficult bad? I'm more the second... but I was like the hermit kid until high school because no one knew what was up with me... "well I got better!!!" - Holy Grail
 
meisdavidp said:
I apologize for that. I have a rare (read commonly misdiagnosed as ADD) condition known as Asperger's Syndrome where I say a lot of things without thinking about whether they're appropriate for the situation. Wouldn't be the first and definately won't be the last time I accidentally misrepresent myself as a troll... apologies!
Wow, they have a special syndrome name for people who don't know when to keep their mouths shut? Ah, the wonders of modern science :rolleyes:.
 
I've been diagnosed with Asperger's too, althouugh if "not being able to keep your mouth shut" is a requirement, it's more likely the entire Saga team has it :p
 
Aspergers is a real condition, but from what I've seen various places online it's often claimed without supporting evidence, much like there used to be a lot of adults claiming kids had ADD just because a child wasn't the quiet little statue mommy and daddy wanted as a status symbol.
 
ADD is largely disproven since those same kids will sit for hours in front of their Playstation
 
LeHah said:
ADD is largely disproven since those same kids will sit for hours in front of their Playstation

Actually, gaming has been presented as a potential treatment for ADD. I don't have the link on me at this moment, but I found an article at one point about a helmet-like device that would be worn (it had connections similar to lie-detector devices, I believe) and would monitor attention to gaming. not entirely sure how the device itself worked, but if I recall correctly it would alter both the picture on the screen and the response time of the controller when the player's attention took a vacation. I think the price was somewhere in the upper 500-700 range...
I read about it in a newspaper article I found on the news host my college subscribes to. I still don't know how much stock I'd put into the device, but it raises some interesting points about ADD and other developemental/functional disorders that manifest in similar ways.

For instance, many children with Autism develop seemingly inhuman gaming skills (and some do argueably more useful things like accurately copying a rembrandt painting they haven't seen in a week, but for the sake of this post, we'll focus on the gaming sort). Asperger's Disorder is a much much, milder variant of Autism that is becoming more and more popular as a diagnosis. Unfortunately, AS is a harder call to make than ADD because as far as I know, it lacks any sort of a test-proof whereas ADD has its "Paradoxical Effect."

What I do know about AS is that those who suffer from it tend to have what may be described as a cripple on their understanding of social interactions. "What not to say when" is a big issue for me. My dad's always catching me talking about, for instance black comedies while eating in a restaurant where my white ass is the minority. Things like that where in another location, such comments would be completely harmless. AS sufferers often find themselves in trouble with friends and family due to something they said that, to them, seemed entirely harmless.

My understanding of the workings of ADD (which I admit is very limited) is that in persons suffering from ADD, the brain is understimulated by things that should be able to fully or even partially stimulate it. The degree of the effects varies by individual. As a result, the typical medications prescribed tend to fall under the catagory of hardcore stimulants. This is where a lot of the controversy comes from.

As Death pointed out, ADD is often a chance for parents to throw the blame elsewhere. This does not however make ADD any less real. It becomes tricky when you give kids "power pills" to calm them down when in reality, they are in a sort of over-calmed boredom that manifests in the form of attention lack. ADD results in something called the "paradoxical effect" where caffeine and other similar mild stimulants seem to calm or tire children with ADD. When given equal doses of these stimulants, non-ADD children find themselves energized or even hyper. I myself cannot even drink caffeinated sodas unless I can afford to take a nap nearly immediately afterwards. Now we take it a step further where the same hardcore stimulants that work so well for ADD sufferers are prescribed on a regular basis to children who don't need them. See the problem now?

The connection of ADD to gaming is simple (in theory anyhow): Gaming engages as many of the senses as it possibly can. We see the graphics moving around frantically, we hear everything happening around us, we get to control what's going on in our little world and most recently, we've gained the ability to feel to some extent the games. All of this is contained within a single focal entity: the video game. However, within this focal point, we are rewarded for our ability to notice anything changing or happening. Our unique aptitude towards situational awareness allows us to notice patterns and trends with great speed. In the real world, we find ourselves in classes where the teacher stands or sits at a desk and talks. Here, our tendacy to notice any outside factors becomes a weakness rather than a strength. If learning World History involved Mark Hamill saving the earth from a cat-like menace on a computer screen where you got to do the shooting yourself, you can bet you'd hear a lot less complaints of "my son is failing because he has ADD".

Another interesting thing about children with ADD is that as long as they aren't overly distracted by outside factors, they tend to do better in math (and to some extent, science) courses than in humanities, english and history courses. The reason: math and science are rooted in patterns and formulas where the other subjects rely on emotion, comprehension and opinion among other things.

In any case, I suffer from both ADD and AS and do indeed spend hours in front of my playstation and/or computer and even create anime music videos (which apparently range from average to excellent, if I'm to believe the feedback I get).

(Hopefully this makes at least some sense... haven't slept a lot lately and my writing coherence seems to have suffered greatly for it.)

-DP
 
meisdavidp said:
What I do know about AS is that those who suffer from it tend to have what may be described as a cripple on their understanding of social interactions. "What not to say when" is a big issue for me. My dad's always catching me talking about, for instance black comedies while eating in a restaurant where my white ass is the minority. Things like that where in another location, such comments would be completely harmless. AS sufferers often find themselves in trouble with friends and family due to something they said that, to them, seemed entirely harmless.
See, and this is precisely what makes me sceptical about this syndrome. Autism itself is a fairly well-researched disease, so it's hard to question the existence of either autism or this AS thing as a disease... but I'm willing to bet that about 90% of cases (almost certainly including yours - the fact that you've been diagnosed with two very rare syndromes seems to indicate that the people diagnosing you are simply bullshitting) are misdiagnosed. What you're talking about is perfectly normal - everybody make such mistakes. It's one of the aspects of being young, that you don't have social experience, and therefore frequently don't know what's appropriate in a given situation. To shove this under the label of a disease is just plain harmful, however - thanks to syndromes like this one, there's probably thousands of people out there that don't bother working like the rest of us to improve their social skills, to learn what is appropriate - instead, they simply blame their behaviour on a disease. "Did I say something stupid? Oh, sorry, I have Asperger's."

Really, whoever first identified this syndrome should have simply burned his/her research data - it would be far better for the whole world if even people who really have this syndrome remained under the impression that they're entirely normal and simply have to work on their social skills.

The same goes for ADD and for most of the other "amazing" research of modern psychology. It's just plain disgusting - at the rate they're inventing new syndromes, soon enough we'll all be able to blame our actions on one syndrome or another.
 
Quarto said:
The same goes for ADD and for most of the other "amazing" research of modern psychology. It's just plain disgusting - at the rate they're inventing new syndromes, soon enough we'll all be able to blame our actions on one syndrome or another.

And have a pill to take for it.
 
firstly, let me say that THERE IS NOT PILL FOR AS. Secondly, that diagnosis changed my life, I had been in and out of depression for a long time before I was diagnosed about two years ago. Since being diagnosed, I have been able to work with support groups and specialists to develope strategies for dealing with social interactions. Compared to where I was two years ago, I'm a social animal. As I see it, I don't simply say "Sorry, I have AS, can't be helped". It's a lot more like "I'm sorry, was that offensive? Can you explain to me what about what I said bothered you so that I can try not to do it again?" Also, for the record, AS has been documented for over 20 years now, it's only recently become a big focus for the psychological community.

And before we go saying that people use these disorders to point the fingers away from themselves, I'd like to say that I have always taken it upon me to take responsibility for my failings, I work as hard or harder than most of the students here and my grades reflect this. You don't make deans list saying "Shit, sorry, I have AS". You work your ass off to overcome it.

I take medications, sure. Most of the work to keep myself on top of life and my work still falls to me. Medications are like windex, even if you use it on the window, it doesn't make you look outside.

Quarto said:
but I'm willing to bet that about 90% of cases (almost certainly including yours - the fact that you've been diagnosed with two very rare syndromes seems to indicate that the people diagnosing you are simply bullshitting) are misdiagnosed.

Oh, and thanks, but no, I'm not misdiagnosed or being bullshitted to. Sometimes people have multiple conditions. Sorry you can't believe that. You seem to suffer from stupidity and arrogance yourself.
 
Since when were ADD or AS rare anyhow? Not as common as we may be led to believe, but I've never heard them called rare.
 
meisdavidp said:
Oh, and thanks, but no, I'm not misdiagnosed or being bullshitted to. Sometimes people have multiple conditions. Sorry you can't believe that. You seem to suffer from stupidity and arrogance yourself.

Mighty strong words for someone with a social anxiety disorder
 
meisdavidp said:
Sorry you can't believe that. You seem to suffer from stupidity and arrogance yourself.

If you call Quarto stupid, you either havent read alot of his post, or you are extremly stupid yourself.
 
And before we go saying that people use these disorders to point the fingers away from themselves, I'd like to say that I have always taken it upon me to take responsibility for my failings, I work as hard or harder than most of the students here and my grades reflect this. You don't make deans list saying "Shit, sorry, I have AS".

... except that's exactly what you just did in this thread: "I apologize for that. I have a rare (read commonly misdiagnosed as ADD) condition known as Asperger's Syndrome where I say a lot of things without thinking about whether they're appropriate for the situation." That's exactly what Quarto was replying to -- your claim of "don't blame me, I've got an excuse!"

I think you'll find that pretty much everyone has gone through some kind of hardship in their life... as Paladin says, that does not make you special. The fact that you can put a label on it is fine and dandy, but it's not really all that interesting to us. I have an awful genetic disease, Chris is obessive compulsive... I don't know about Quarto, but I would imagine he has a hard luck story or two about growing up on the other side of the Iron Curtain... and so forth. It's too-busy-for-Saga writ small... we've *all* been there, but the rest of us aren't bragging or using it as some kind of excuse.

You're also talking to the best of the best... the fact that you worked hard to be on the Deans List isn't compelling to us. You're spitting in the ocean -- we're the people who worked just as hard to be in exactly the same place... PhD candidates, airplane designers, advanced computer scientists, career military officers and so forth.
 
You don't have to, but someone keeps closing the thread.

If it happens again I'll ban the entire Saga staff.
 
powell99 said:
So err, do we keep on going?

The point isn't if the thread should continue. It's that Saga shouldn't hide behind a closed thread as a "final say" manuever.
 
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