Category: Blog Posts

Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a very real neurological disorder. The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that 3% to 5% of children have ADHD, while other experts believe it could be more. Along with ADHD, people may experience anxiety disorders, learning disabilities, sleep disorders or depression.

Researchers have discovered that ADHD is, in part, caused by the brain’s inability to release enough neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and norepinephrine. These are the chemicals that enable us to be attentive and in control. I’ve written a comprehensive blog post about ADHD that you can read here, to learn and understand more about it.

Along with attention-deficit and hyperactivity, a common trait is hypersensitivity. Bright lights, loud noise and scratchy clothes are a thousand times worse for a person suffering from ADHD than for us. They can’t just ignore it and move on, like we can.

ADDITUDE Magazine published an interesting article with people suffering from ADHD telling about their sensitivities:

• Tactile Sensitivities: clothing tags, jewellery, etc.
• Auditory Sensitivities: ticking clocks, dripping taps, cutlery scraping the plate, etc.
• Olfactory Sensitivities: perfume, hairspray, diesel fumes, petrol fumes, body odor, etc.
• Visual Sensitivities: flickering lights, halogen lights on emergency vehicles, leg wiggling, etc.
• Claustrophobic Sensitivities: crowded places, elevators, supermarkets, etc.

If these hypersensitivities are interfering with the ability to function in daily life, people suffering from ADHD should consider cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). I wrote about the different types of therapy in this blog post.

Can a child have both ADHD and ASD? Yes, and a delayed diagnosis of autism delays vital treatment. ASD and ADHD are different neurological disorders, however they do have some symptoms in common. Which similar symptoms do “Autism” and ADHD have?

• Hyperactivity
• Impulsivity
• Inattentive
• Social awkwardness
• Difficulty in interactions with others

Do you suspect a family member of having ADHD and/or “Asperger Syndrome”? The cycle of frustration and failure can be broken with proper treatment. Please, I urge you to seek help immediately. Knowledge is power, so learn all you can about ADHD and/or ASD. The more you understand, the more supportive you can be. 

If you are a friend, partner or family of an adult on the spectrum, please join our private community, Asperger Syndrome: Partners & Family of Adults with ASD, to learn more, but also to talk and to get support from people with similar life challenges as yours.

Shame in “Aspie”/NT relationships is a sign of codependency where you mistakenly take on responsibility for your “Aspie’s” misconduct.

I’ve written before about “The Shame of Being Married to Someone with “Asperger”, where I’ve talked about the stigma of being labelled “Asperger” or “Autistic”, that “Aspies” may fear losing their standing in the community or their business relationships, so they don’t want anyone to know of the diagnosis, if indeed they consent to being diagnosed at all. 

This puts pressure on the Neuro-typical family members to hide what their lives are really like. In fact, Neuro-typicals are terrified to come out and talk about their lives. NT family members work so hard to please the person on the spectrum that they aren’t able to live their authentic selves. A blog with great resources on this topic is “How to Explain Asperger Syndrome to Others”.

However, in this blog, I want to address the “Aspie” blame and shame. I believe this topic needs to be addressed, to be talked about openly so we can start healing ourselves from all past wounds. This is the reason why I’ve decided to turn this subject into a video conference.

I define “Asperger Syndrome” as an empathy disorder and because of this lack of empathy, people on the spectrum are naturally blaming others for their troubles. It’s hard to take responsibility for a misunderstanding when you don’t have empathy to put yourself in someone else’s shoes or understand someone else’s point of view. As a result, people on the spectrum can become manipulative, narcissistic and engage in gaslighting, unless they develop a strong moral code. 

Neuro-typicals can also be blamed for overreacting to our “Aspies”. I know I used to be called on the carpet for not “controlling” my “Aspie” daughter’s public meltdowns. I was accused right on the spot of being a “bad” mother.

That’s where the shame comes in. If you are blamed long enough, and you have made a mistake or two in the relationship, you might take on responsibility for too much and feel shame. Shame is also a natural byproduct of living daily with a blaming spouse or partner or acting out “Aspie” child.

We take responsibility for the harm our “Aspies” are doing, whenever she/he is unintentionally rude to our neighbor or having a meltdown — because somebody has to. But we shouldn’t take responsibility or the blame for someone else’s actions.

I hope you will join our discussion in our private MeetUp group, “Asperger Syndrome: Partners & Family of Adults with ASD.” Don’t be afraid to ask for help, it’s not enough to understand what’s happening to you. You need strategies to take back your life and to know how truly wonderful life can be!

Not all of us get to celebrate Christmas with our loved ones. Among those separated from family at this time of year, there are broken-hearted souls who are disconnected from their children and parents due to parental alienation. We don’t often think about these families, especially the lifetime trauma of being cut off from loving parents who love their children forever.

I haven’t spent a Christmas with my children and grandchildren for 14 years. There’s a long story behind this tragedy, which is the subject of my next book, “LOVE GONE BAD.” For now, I want to tell you a Christmas Eve story that gives you a hint of how I manage the loss.

For several weeks my assistant Emily and I have been busy winding down operations at my leased office, preparing to leave December 31st. We have sold furniture, tossed out lots of garbage, filled the recycling bins several times, given away books and toys, and packed the rest with neat labels so that we can unpack at my home office.

Running short of time, Emily and I worked on Christmas Eve. Joseph, my IT wizard, dropped by to pack up the computers for transit. At noon, I took everyone to Christmas Eve lunch, where we laughed and told stories. But soon enough we were back to work.

Julie joined us about 2:30. It was her birthday, so I put her to work of course because we were way behind. She didn’t mind. We continued laughing and telling stories while shredding, sorting, and packing.

My doggy Simon joined us too. He wagged his tail and sat on our feet if we stopped moving for a second. He has doggy priorities, you know.

Larry and his roommate Bryce came by around 4:30 to load up some furnishings for their new house. Larry lost his mother (my cousin) a few years ago to a murder/suicide. He has worked hard for years to hold his family together through this trauma. Now he and Bryce are moving into a house with Larry’s sister and niece, a family home once again. They took a couple of lamps, an old table, a desk, and some electronics.

Then about 5:00pm, a tiny little US Postal carrier showed up with a package for me. He was no taller than five feet and had his hat pulled down over his ears, and with tiny wire-rimmed glasses. He could have left the package in the mailroom, but he brought it up to my office, on the second floor, way in the back of the building. By then we were the only people in the building. All of the other offices were dark and unlit. You need to know that my office building is on a little island, in a remote part of the city. What was he doing there?

The package was a gift from my friend Amy, who lives on the East Coast. Amy is one of those amazing Angels here on earth. She always mails her packages at the last minute. And in fact, I got a notice from the postal service just that morning that Amy’ package was late and wouldn’t be delivered until after Christmas. Apparently, Angels and Santa Claus thought differently.

By Christmas Eve, I had cleared out an old life, shared laughs with my favorite people, and got confirmation from Santa that I am loved. How does it get better than that?

Love around to you all,
Dr. Kathy

When you discover that your child has “Asperger’s Syndrome”, it makes you feel utterly helpless. I know, because I’m a trained psychologist, with a master’s degree in social work and a doctoral degree in psychology and I still felt that way about my own daughter who, by the age of 14, was officially diagnosed with “ASD”.

We want the absolute best for our children and as a result, I became a helicopter mom. Being a helicopter parent is a natural outcome of the crazy-making AS/NT world. Our natural instincts are to protectively hover over our children when they have such a serious disability. You can read about “Lessons I Learned about Helicopter Parenting from My ASD Daughter”.

A few weeks ago, I read an article that piqued my interest. I’m talking about the article from Eric Barker’s blog,  “This Is How To Make Your Kids Amazing: 4 Secrets From Research”.

In this article, Barker mentions two experts (Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. and Tina Payne) who wrote a book on fundamental skills children should be taught to be successful in life. We want our children to know they have more options than the basic “fight or flight” reactions. As a parent, I know you are wondering the same thing: how can we raise happy and emotionally healthy children?

Siegel and Payne establish 4 critical skills children need to learn:

• Balance: when your child has a meltdown (red zone), acknowledge their emotions and make sure they understand that you are listening. This doesn’t mean you cave. After the emotions have died in intensity, you should have a calm discussion and educate your child, by setting limits and holding him/her accountable. Bring your child back to the green zone – a state of calm and happiness. If we are dealing with those issues when we are calm, it’s a lot easier to implement those solutions when things get tense.

  

• Resilience: the next step is to expand the green zone. This doesn’t mean to eliminate the red zone, but to educate your child on how to act and handle certain situations. Here is where a helicopter parent will have difficulties. You need to allow your child to experience negative situations and deal with them in order to grow. Here is a blog I wrote on this topic: “Does Good Parenting Mean You Shield Your Child from All Adversity?” 

 

• Insight: help your child to be aware of their feelings and reactions, so they can know themselves better, have the ability to have an impartial view from the outside and learn to use that information to make better decisions in the future, to monitor themselves better. Help your child name his feelings to help him/her recognize that emotion.

  

• Empathy: children go through a development phase where they are self-absorbed and learn how to behave in society. This is normal, but what we don’t want is for them to be stuck there. You can try to deliberately draw children’s attention to other people’s experiences and their feelings. This can be done during storytime in the evening, not necessarily only when something bad has happened.

 

Of course, when your child has an empathy disorder, they will never outgrow that developmental phase. However, people on the Spectrum can learn rules of engagement, but they can’t be taught empathy. The article, “Can a Person Be Kind without Empathy?”, might be a good read for you.

Let me know what you think about this blog article, specifically these skills that might help our children be happier and mentally healthier. What do you think? Are they enough? How are you teaching your children these skills in a practical manner?

I’d like to start by clarifying a common misconception: verbal abuse doesn’t include only cussing and swearing. If you have heard “You are too sensitive” before, you have probably been verbally abused. Name-calling classifies as verbal abuse too. The list is long. This is a tough subject but it’s time to bring it up, isn’t it?

Is it abuse when your loved one with “Autism Spectrum Disorder” says the meanest things to you, your children or others? If they have an empathy disorder, do you excuse this behavior? Is it less abusive because there’s a reason behind the behavior? How much abuse should you tolerate because you’re trying to help?

In my opinion, if it feels like abuse… it is abuse. I wrote an article on “How Can You Tell if It’s Abuse or Asperger’s” that you might find useful. The short answer to that question is that it doesn’t matter. Regardless of the source of the abuse, it has to cease immediately. Check the article for a guide with steps you can take.

Patricia Evans has a good test for you, with questions you can ask yourself, to figure out if your partner is verbally abusing you. Check her website. There you can also find good tools to work through abuse and reclaim your life. 

If you are interested and live near Quincy, IL, Evans will give a workshop where she will bring awareness and understanding regarding the nuances of abusive relationships, and how to identify and address them in clinical settings as well as how anyone can respond to abuse. The workshop will take place on May 1st 2020, in Quincy, IL, and tickets will be available after January 1st. Find out more about this workshop.

Being a victim of verbal abuse (or any kind of abuse) can cause serious side effects such as depression, post-traumatic stress, and anxiety. If you believe you are in an abusive relationship, don’t wait too long and start working on taking back your life.

On our private membership website, reclaiming your life from abuse and stress is one of our main topics of discussion. We discuss how to manage the abuse, how to stand up for yourself, and how to put the responsibility squarely on the abuser. This is the first step for taking back your life, which is your real mission. If you aren’t a member yet, but you think you could benefit from joining us, please visit our website. Members have access to forums, video conferences and teleconferences, so I hope to see you there soon.

If you are a member of our private membership community, ”ASPERGER SYNDROME & RELATIONSHIPS: Life with an Adult on the Autism Spectrum”, you have probably noticed that I’m about to start a series of video conferences titled “Is intimacy a thing of the past?”

Love and marriage make for very complex relationships. They are not static but are ever-changing as each person matures and grows. A strong marriage requires constant and loving attention, which is challenging when one of the partners has an empathy disorder and the other partner feels like their love is one-sided.

How do you know you are in a one-sided relationship? I wrote an article with 10 questions to ask yourself and find out if you are the one who offers more in your couple’s relationship. Feeling like your relationship is one-sided doesn’t necessarily mean your partner doesn’t care about you, in his or her way. Lack of empathy is the reason for this one-sidedness. Of course, knowing this is not comforting, but it’s a start to understand what is happening.

Sex, socializing, and parenting in “AS”/NT Marriages are tough and complex subjects. Because of the lack of empathy in your “Aspie” partner, you will often feel misunderstood and unloved, and this may cause you to think that your marriage cannot survive, let alone thrive. This blog post dedicated to this topic might be helpful to you. There are ways that you can learn to cope and thrive as an individual and in your marriage. Whenever you choose counselling or joining a support group, you should know that you are not alone.

If you’d like to join our small group of people talking about intimacy and relationships, please register to attend one of my video conferences. I will give the same talk on 3 different occasions, so if you can’t attend on one day, maybe one of the other 2 dates will be better. All times are in the Pacific Time zone. The dates are:

Thursday, December 5th, 2019 at 4:00 pm

 Tuesday, December 10th, 2019 at 10:00 am

 Tuesday, December 17th, 2019 at 2:00 pm

 

 

We are also talking about intimacy in our forums, on our private membership website. If you’d like to talk about this subject with other members, check this forum (only for members – be sure to be logged in or you won’t be able to see our forums).

If you are not part of our private community, but you’d like to be, please take a look at our membership levels and see which one would be the best fit for you. You are not alone and you don’t have to face all the hardships alone. By being a member of our community, you will have access to video conferences, free teleconferences, forums and a supportive community who has been in your shoes. I hope to see you soon.