Category: Blog Posts

• You cover for their social blunders.
• You walk on eggshells because you never know when an uncontrolled temper tantrum will erupt.
• You constantly hear, “That’s not right” because they don’t ever see things from another’s perspective.
• You don’t receive the natural and genuine warmth and closeness that others experience – no pillow talk or romance.
• You’re only acknowledged when you’re needed to fulfill their agenda.
• You live with unresolved and unfinished business all the time.

It’s so depressing and infuriating. It crushes your spirit.

Perhaps you’re thinking, “It can’t be as bad as that!” You have no idea! It really is that bad and worse. Because the NT (Neurotypical) person is all alone. No one sees what you deal with daily. To the outside world, the Aspie seems like a good guy (or gal). And you end up looking like the bad-tempered, overbearing person.

It’s a huge problem for NTs to find ways to explain our lives with high-functioning ASD family members. Many of us feel misunderstood at the best and shunned at the worst. The reactions we get from others cause us to pull away and live quietly with our despair. Of course, this is understandable but the last thing you should do.

I wrote my two books to help get out the word about what we live with. “Going Over the Edge” and “Out of Mind – Out of Sight” have brought interesting feedback regarding this problem of understanding. From NTs around the world I have been told that my books are like “oxygen in a life without air.” From some with ASD I am told that they have a window into the world of their NT loved ones. But from many with ASD the feedback is hostile. I can count on one hand the feedback I receive from NTs who do not live with ASD.

It might be true that the only understanding we may get is from others who live this life. That’s a start. But it’s still pretty isolating, isn’t it? What we need to do is stop hiding in plain sight. We need to talk about what we live with and never be stopped by a lack of understanding. We need to trust our instincts and press ahead with what we know is the truth even if others are hostile.

If you’re a member of the Asperger Syndrome: Partners and Family of Adults with ASD group, please join our discussions and video conferences.

If you need some 1-on-1 with me to discuss your situation privately, please feel free to contact my office and we’ll schedule an appointment to discuss your options for creating a more secure and fulfilling life.

In order to have empathy for another person, you must have a Theory Of Mind. That is, you must be able to recognize that another person exists and has beliefs, intentions, desires, imaginations, emotions, etc., to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires, intentions, and perspectives that differ from your own. The Theory of Mind perspective kicks in the other aspects of empathy, such as understanding and nurturing.Recently a New York Times article reported on new research that shows that pregnancy changes the brain in the regions associated with Theory of Mind. They report:

“Only the pregnant women showed gray matter reduction, thinning and changes in the surface area of the cortex in areas related to social cognition. Changes were so clear that imaging results alone could indicate which women had been pregnant. The researchers said they did not yet know what was being reduced in size: neurons, other brain cells, synapses or parts of the circulatory system.”

Researches are hypothesizing that the brain is pruning away portions of gray matter as a process of specialization, thereby increasing the mother’s ability to resonate with her baby.

Understanding this may also help us to understand Theory Of Mind when it comes to autism. If development of theory of mind is biologically important for the survival of a newborn, the lack of this vital element surely affect relationships in general.

What feels so natural to us NTs and especially to mothers is not learned, but biological. This means that we have to build “workarounds” with our Aspies if we are to communicate effectively.

If you’re a member of the Asperger Syndrome: Partners and Family of Adults with ASD, please join our low cost Video Conference on Thursday, January 12, 2017, at 9:00 AM. We’ll discuss “Theory of Mind is vital for survival”. This video call is an opportunity to learn more about the mind of your Aspie and how to reach them…but also to take better care of your need to connect with others who have a “theory of mind.”

We all have habits we don’t even notice anymore. Maybe you get up each morning and immediately make a cup coffee. When you get to the office, you might take a moment to organize your desk and plan your day. You could take the same path through the grocery store every time you shop.Our days are made up of a series of habitual behaviors. We develop habits because they are convenient mechanisms for getting things done without having to think too much about them. This leaves us more time and mental energy to devote to other things. Entrepreneurs, who are pulled in so many different directions throughout the day, find mindless habit to be extremely helpful as it allows some things to just flow.

But what happens when your formerly good habits no longer serve your best interest?

When you come to realize that a habit, or even a series of them, is no longer serving its purpose, stop doing it. Once we get something working, an efficient routine, it can be hard to give it up. But the fact is that what works now, won’t work forever.

Our lives are ever changing, as is our environment and our business. Therefore, it is important to assess your habits from time to time. Ask yourself: Are my habits helping me? Or are they just comfortable? Have they gotten to the point of being counterproductive?

I worked with a couple who, for many years, had a great routine going. Don ran the family business and Maria cared for the home and the children. The problem came later, when the children were grown. Maria wanted to go back to work, but she had trouble seeing her husband taking care of some of her former household duties. Don was afraid to relinquish control of their family finances. They struggled because everything had worked so smoothly for so long, they were reluctant to change even though change was needed.

What they needed to do was examine their habits in the light of their values as a family. If traditional family roles were most important to them, then it would make sense for Maria to not work outside the home. However, if their traditional style was simply convenient when the children were young, they should have no problem changing their style and habits to suit a dual-career life.

Successful entrepreneurs are all about managing exterior change, but many forget that they have to change themselves sometimes. While it is not always a comfortable process, change is a part of life and it is vital to our progress and happiness. We all need to experience new things, overcome new challenges that take us outside of our comfort zones, to grow.

As this year draws to a close, it is the perfect time to step back and assess your habits, personally and professionally. Can you identify any of your habits that might be doing more harm than good? I’m sure you can recognize some of your habits as being helpful and moving you forward in the right direction. Are there any new habits you want to develop?

New Year’s Resolutions often get a bad rap for not lasting past January. It doesn’t have to be that way. Instead, try examining your priorities and resolve to establish habits and routines that maximize your values and beliefs. These are changes and habits that will last…until they need to change again!

Have your habits and routines stopped bringing you joy? If there is something about your life that’s not working, don’t settle for it! If you live near Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA please contact my office and schedule an appointment. I will help you get to the root of the problem and find a solution.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year – spending time with family and friends, giving and receiving gifts, and invitations to a lot of parties. With all this merriment, often comes more drinking. Even for people who generally drink in moderation, holiday celebrations can really impact their alcohol consumption and quickly lead to overindulgence.What is it about the holidays that lend themselves to an increase in drinking? There is a festive feeling in the air at this time of year. It seems there are endless occasions for celebrations, from end-of-the-year office parties, to the reunion of long-lost friends and family.

The flip side of that, though, is the extra stress brought on by the holiday season. Family dinners do not always equate to relaxing, enjoyable evenings. Memories of those who are no longer with us can bring sadness. The sheer cost of the holidays can also make it tempting to escape in a glass of spiked eggnog!

Whether you’re celebrating, or trying to de-stress, it may be tempting to overindulge or even use the holidays as excuse for binge-drinking. It may seem like a good idea to help you cope with difficult family members or an uncomfortable office party, but the reality is over-drinking can have a detrimental physical effects and lead to behaviors you often regret later.

So how can you enjoy drinking during the holiday season wisely? Here are a few suggestions:

Have a plan. How much alcohol are you comfortable drinking? A martini? Two glasses of wine? Decide ahead of time how much you will drink, and stick to your decision. Don’t let others push you to drink more than you know you should.

This is especially important for recovering alcoholics. Go in to any gathering with two or three responses prepared for when you are inevitably offered a drink. You don’t have to tell anyone that you have struggled with addiction. A firm, “No, thank you. I’m fine,” can suffice.

Keep a non-alcoholic drink in your hand. This helps space out the drinks you’ve already decided you can have. Instead of drinking two glasses of wine before dinner is even served, sip on some water or sparkling cider in-between glasses.

This is also a great way to avoid being offered a drink. If people see you with a glass already in your hand, they will be much less inclined to try to push something on you. Having something bubbly and delicious also helps you avoid feeling deprived.

Remind yourself why you plan to drink in moderation (or not at all!). Have you made bad choices in the past when you over-drink? Do you feel sick, tired, and weak the next day? Remember why it is important to you to make this choice.

Keep alcohol in its proper place. Instead of viewing the party as an opportunity to drink, look at it as a wonderful time to socialize and enjoy good conversation. Then if you choose to have a drink, it’s just an addition to a lovely evening not the focal point.

Surround yourself with supportive loved ones. For those that deal with addiction, it is vital to get support from close friends and family. While they may not understand exactly what you are going through, they want the best for you and will help in any way they can. If you start to feel your willpower waning, reach out to them. If you make it through a tempting situation successfully, share it with them!

If one of your family members struggles with addiction, it is very important that you help them as much as they will accept. The function of the family unit is to nurture and protect its members. Family members tend to overlook, condone, deny, rationalize, or minimize the problem for the sake of keeping peace. No one wants to rock the boat, especially around the holidays. Of course, you can’t force anyone to do anything. But offer to help. Do not enable them, or ignore their addiction. And if they turn around and get their life back on track, celebrate with them and support them in their ongoing efforts!

If you feel that you need help dealing with addiction personally, or in your family, and you live in the Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA area, I can help! Please contact my office to set up an appointment.

We live in the information age. If you want to know anything, just Google it. However, it can be incredibly difficult to sort through it all to find the truth. The disturbing thing is that many people are acting on the false information they find online. They make unwise purchases; they retweet “facts” without checking for truthfulness; and even worse they may end up harming themselves or harming others. For example, only this week NPR reported on a man who took a gun to a popular family restaurant to investigate a conspiracy theory that Hillary Clinton was running a sex ring there. His source of information? Fake news stories on the internet. If grown men are so easily misled and manipulated by false information on the internet, what’s going to happen to our children?

To make wise use of online information, a person needs to have good reading and comprehension skills. But that’s not all. You also need to be able to make comparisons and critically assess if the information is accurate and reliable. This is a skill that needs to be taught to our children.

At present, our children are woefully unprepared. If you want to read an interesting study conducted by the Stanford History Education Group, click here to read their PDF summary. They found, for example, that over 80% of middle school students identified a native advertisement as a legitimate news story although it was labeled “sponsored content”. And just because they say a photo, they believed an obviously false story.

How can children learn to read online information critically? They need to learn how to ask searching questions, such as:

1) Is it from a reliable source?

• Is this person or organization known for telling the truth?
• Or do they have bias that causes them to only report things that promote their viewpoint or puts cash in their pockets?
• What authority, experience, training, or credentials do they have?

Every day we’re confronted with interactions where we have to figure out what other people are thinking and planning on doing. Will that child dart across the road in front of your car? Will your spouse be receptive to your request? Does the new girl you just met really like you? Is there a way to tell?While the spoken word gives you some indication of what someone is thinking, it’s not reliable in and of itself. Someone may be pulling your leg by sarcastically complimenting you while keeping a deadpan face. To know what they really mean, you have to learn how to read what their eyes are telling you.

The eyes and the surrounding areas are the most expressive part of a person’s face. Once you know how to read a person’s emotions through his or her eyes, you’re much closer to being able to predict their behavior.

Judging a person’s mental state, also called having a “theory of mind,” is an important skill that most of us develop early in life. However, the brains of people who have Asperger’s, a high functioning form of autism, develop this skill only partially or not at all. This helps us to understand why our Aspies lack empathy and have trouble socializing.

When you can empathize, you feel what the other person feels, and you connect with that person on a deep level of understanding and trust. Empathy comes from being able to reading emotional cues, such as the message being sent through the eyes, the tone of voice and body language, in addition to the actual words spoken and the context in which they’re said.

Would you like to take the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET) that Simon Baron-Cohen developed? It presents a series of 36 pairs of eyes, and you have to pick one emotion out of four possible emotions being communicated. It’s so effective it’s been used as a tool to help point toward a diagnosis of Asperger’s. I’d love for you to come over to my Facebook page and report your results. The good news is that taking the test over and over again can help train your brain to improve in its ability to read the emotions revealed by the eyes. It’s a fantastic way to improve your ability to understand other people.

If your results indicate you may have Asperger’s, don’t despair or feel embarrassed. Take it as the first step toward creating a more rewarding life. If live near Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA please contact my office and schedule an appointment for a proper diagnosis. This may be exactly what you need to put you on the path toward healthier and long lasting relationships.