How To: Live with Asperger's Syndrome

None of us are considered "normal", none of us live with a sense of normalcy in our everyday lives. Some people are born with more intelligence than others, some are born with more physical strength than others. Whatever the case is, none of that makes anyone any better off than the other, we just have our flaws and have our strengths, embrace them, and then go about our days. When it comes to someone living with Asperger's Syndrome, it is a totally different beast because you live in your own world. You see the world differently than most people. Someone can stop and tell you a joke and you won't necessarily know it was a joke unless they laugh. If the person telling you the joke is not smiling or laughing right away, your lack of reading ability and stimulus will affect how you react and it will make the outcome even more awkward than when it had started off. It all is what is referred to as, pre-operational standard, which is perception over logic. Just like a child, you can sniff out things from people but overall you do not pay attention because you end up thinking nothing of it. Like for instance, you can tell a joke, but it might not be funny, but it would be funny to you. No one else would be laughing, but you know you told a joke and you're okay with that at least. Once you get past how people feel about you or look at you, then you're on your way to accepting yourself. People living with Asperger's Syndrome battle with self esteem issues every single day of their lives. Their brain functioning is stalled in one aspect or another, be it physical motor skills or communication and social. Some "Aspies" they're nicknamed, just have the social cognitive disorder, and others have the physical motor skills deficiency where they cannot really perform anything that requires good coordination. Like tying shoes, and operating motor vehicles take a lot of concentration and coordination and some "Aspies" might not have the wherewithal to succeed at those two actions. Others are considered lower functioning and do not make eye contact, start yelling really loud out of nowhere and making someone uncomfortable and rely on other people to do things for them. Than there are the higher functioning people that make eye contact, use inside voices and manners and make it so that you cannot even tell they have a problem at all. Those type of people are on the mild end of the Autistic spectrum. There is nothing wrong with either end, all ends of the spectrum bring something to the table and either way, people with Asperger's Syndrome are naturally bright individuals. Some are mathematical in nature and at the same time good with words, and others are engineer types that can calculate and build a model that will one day turn into a real life building. They are considered geeks and will never be the life of the party or most popular on school grounds, but many have married, had children and live very "normal' lives in today's society. In order to live with Asperger's Syndrome successfully, you need to be aware of who you are, and what you bring to the table. Do not try to be someone you're not, embrace your strengths and weaknesses daily and do not be afraid to tell others who you are and what limitations you possess so that your employer or teacher will not assume you're just clowning around and won't fail or fire you. So as long as you end up being okay with you, understand who you are and what you offer, than you'll be okay. It can be very tough to live your life different and it is very understandable to lash out with frustration, but as long as you understand that over time you will be okay and eventually you will become more and more accepted especially with all the new media attention garnering the disorder, than everything will be okay in your world. Just take it easy, breathe regularly and take care of yourself and you will be alright. The world is a crazy place and sometimes we need different people in order to keep it going.