Category: Blog Posts

Statistically five times more males are diagnosed with Asperger’s, yet there are women who have Asperger’s Syndrome, too. So, while in this post we discuss husbands, it can apply equally if your wife has Asperger’s. Either way, you have a tough road ahead when it comes to romance and love.

As Neuro-typicals (those not on the autism spectrum), we tend to see our lives as a function of a network of interconnected relationships. During the day we’re busy doing things, but behind it all we’re constantly thinking about our loved ones. Let me give you two examples:

1. As you look at the computer screen, you keep your mind and eye on the clock in the corner because it reminds you that soon the kids will be home and you’ll need to stop to make dinner for your family.

2. In the garden you may want to plant Roma tomatoes, but you also plant cherry tomatoes for your husband because they’re his favorite.

Can you see how everything we think and do revolves around our loved ones, family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers? But this is not true for our Aspie loved ones. It’s true we’re on their list somewhere. But not as part of the context of their lives. We’re just one of many things they hold dear. Instead of being the glue that holds their world together, we’re a love object. We may be a very important love object, but it’s not the same is it?

So many times I hear that our Asperger Syndrome Meetup members struggle with how to resolve their relationship problems with their Aspies. They love them, even though nothing else seems to work in the relationship. That love feeling is so strong and so binding for NTs that it’s unimaginable that the other problems in the relationship can’t be resolved by sheer willpower. However, we soon learn with Aspies that love is not enough.

During the December paid Video Conference, we’ll explore the emotion and concept of love with regard to these trying relationships. This topic, Love Is Not Enough, is scheduled for Thursday, December 3rd at 9:00 AM PT. There’s only room for 10 attendees, so register right away. One of my past attendees put this Video Call on her calendar as “Lifesaving Video Conference”. It’s that powerful to connect with others who understand.

Relationships are ever evolving. Because we as individuals change over time, we can’t expect our relationships to stay the same. Nor would we want them to since they would become boring and stale. We want our close friendships to mature and grow with us.

Do you find yourself in a stale relationship? How can you refresh it? Without good communication skills and quality time dedicated to communicating, relationships soon flounder and fail. We all need to learn that relationships are not a thing, but a process.

Recently I wrote an article for PsychCentral discussing this topic and shared an example of how one couple, Steven and Danielle, assumed they knew how the other felt and started taking each other for granted. I’d encourage you to click here to read the entire PsychCentral article. (And while you’re there, will you share this information from your favorite social media platform, too?)

How can you nurture a floundering relationship back to health?

Firstly, recognize that people are relationships. We know ourselves (our similarities and differences) only in relationship to others. When we aren’t able to communicate with others, we become confused and begin to doubt ourselves or we build impenetrable defenses against change.

Secondly, pay attention to how you listen. Listening means that, instead of planning your next comment, you just listen and try to understand where your partner is coming from; don’t comment; don’t judge. And it also requires that you make sure you’re on the same page to begin with and that you then stay on the subject.

Thirdly, disagreement is good if handled respectfully and honestly. It gives everyone the opportunity to examine their own views, challenges them and allows them to grow as they consider something new.

As you develop the art of listening and conversing, you’ll have more meaningful conversations and develop deeper relationships. Without these skills you will never achieve the intimacy you crave. If you live near Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA, and you our struggling to adapt and communicate in your relationship with your partner please contact my office and schedule an appointment. It really does help to talk with someone.

Holidays should be a fun time to connect with friends and family, but when your husband, wife or child has Asperger’s Syndrome it can be anything but joyful. The increased number of social occasions makes it tough on your Aspie loved one because they have difficulty with socializing. This makes it hard on you, because you always feel like you need to be on guard to field their social faux pas.To help you cope, let’s focus on how you can minimize the stresses of the coming holidays. This will help you be more prepared to manage the meltdowns and your own dashed hopes for the upcoming seasonal events.

Of course you can plan better self-care, like a massage or an extra session with your psychologist. You can reduce the number of parties you attend or you could even skip taking the kids to see Santa. However, instead of thinking about what to avoid, why not think about the positive things you can do?

You can introduce these new traditions that actually are fun and soothing…

1. Have the holiday meal catered or ordered from your deli. If you don’t have the stress of planning and cooking a big meal, you’ll be in better shape to handle the other stresses. Plus you can stay home where your Aspies feel safer.

2. Drive separately to the event so your Aspies can go home early or one of you can take home a overtired child. This leaves you and more stable family members to still have fun.

3. Skip all of the extended family invitations and leave town for a quiet weekend at the beach or the mountains or even at a downtown hotel. You can still enjoy the holiday spirit if you phone ahead and request that your children are allowed to decorate the tree in the hotel lobby.

Your Aspie may be appalled that you want to do these things, but you can tell them “This is a new tradition that I want to start. Let’s try it to see if it works.” They might buy it. In any case you need a break.

Sometimes you’re too close to the situation to see the best solution to your problem. Often others can think outside the box and provide you with some great ideas.

Learn more about the science of Asperger Syndrome and how it can help your family be happier in my book, Out of Mind – Out of Sight: Parenting with a Partner with Asperger Syndrome (ASD), click on the image below to download a free chapter.

“Repetition is the mother of retention” or so the saying goes. Yet recent studies are showing that this adage doesn’t apply to those on the autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Why? Because people with ASD have difficulty transferring information from one context to another.

In fact, a study conducted by the Weizmann Institute shows that this repetitive training may make it harder for those with ASD to apply learned knowledge to new situations. After running a series of test on high-functioning ASD adults and a control group, the researchers discovered that the ASD adults could learn the first bit of information, but they couldn’t apply it to the next situation presented to them. All subsequent attempts at teaching them the second piece of information failed. They were unable to learn it.

“It’s like they showed ‘hyperspecificity’ of learning – their learning became fixed and inflexible – since learning the first location adversely influenced their ability to learn the second instance,” said Hila Harris, the study’s lead author from the Weizmann Institute.

They then ran a test on a new group of ASD adults and control individuals without the repetitive teaching. “Our conclusion is that breaks in repetition allow the visual system some time to rest and allow autistic individuals to learn efficiently and to then generalize. Repeated stimulation leads to sensory adaptation which interferes with learning and makes learning specific to the adapted conditions. Without adaptation, learning is more efficient and can be generalized,” said New York University’s David Heeger.

The research team believes this has important implications for educating those with autism. They concluded that “incorporates variability from the beginning and promotes learning a broad concept rather than a specific example” works best with the ASD community. They gave the illustration of teaching what a dog is. When they used only one picture of one breed, those with ASD were unable to identify that other breeds were dogs because they were taught initially with a very narrow and specific focus. When they used many pictures of various types of dogs to teach what a dog, then the ASD students were able to understand what a dog is.

Are you having difficulty interacting your ASD family member? If you live near Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA please contact my office and schedule an appointment and we’ll explore all options that are available to help you.

If you’d like to learn more about the science behind Asperger’s Syndrome (a high-functioning form of ASD) and learn why they do what they do, you’ll find answers in my book, Out of Mind – Out of Sight: Parenting with a Partner with Asperger Syndrome (ASD), click on the image below to download a free chapter.

Most of you who live with a family member with Asperger’s Syndrome can instantly relate to these feelings. Living with the Aspie Mind means that your hopes are frequently dashed. It means that your spirit/mind/body crashes from time to time too. And in spite of your best intentions, your Aspie trashes you and your efforts to repair the relationship. Rather than ignoring these feelings, it’s time to address this problem head on. If you’re to repair your relationship you absolutely must take care of yourself instead of fall victim.

Furthermore, relationship repairs are required daily in these Asperger/Neuro-typical marriages and families. The communication problems are intense as you well know. But before you can be successful at managing your life, you really must understand the phenomena of dashing, crashing and trashing.

Have you been looking for a supportive group that “gets” what you’re going through in dealing with your Aspie family member? Learn more about the November paid Video Call on the topic: Dashed! Crashed! Trashed! It will help you parse the system that may lead to dashing, crashing, and trashing by your Aspie. We’ll discuss how to keep yourself safe, how to rebuild your inner life . . . and how to hold people accountable for their behavior. Each Video Call is held twice a month so you can choose the most convenient time for you. Register early, because these calls fill up quickly.

If you want to understand those with Asperger’s better and how to make your family thrive, please make the time to read my books, Going Over the Edge? and Out of Mind – Out of Sight.

Many people have found that meditation is a helpful technique for relieving stress and getting clarity of mind. But is it the only way to achieve that? Do you have to practice meditation in order to relax and de-stress?

Some people have the idea that they must meditate to achieve maximum relief from stress. However, Adam Grant, professor of management and psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, contributed a recent New York Times article that reminds us that we can gain relief with or without meditation. Here are a few highlights: 

Stress is not always bad. In fact, the way you view stress will affect your health. In an eight-year study, “adults who reported a lot of stress in their lives were more likely to die, but only if they thought stress was harmful.” Over a hundred thousand Americans may have died prematurely, “not from stress, but from the belief that stress is bad for you,” says health psychologist Kelly McGonigal.

Stress is a signal that something matters to you. An experiment led by the Stanford psychologist Alia Crum, found that people who had only 10 minutes to prepare a speech, simply reframed the stress response as healthy and it was enough to relax them.

Increase mindfulness by removing absolute thinking. By changing “is” to “could be,” you open up yourself to the possibilities that there are more options available. Mindfulness helps us see that there are many different ways of doing things. We see opportunities not difficulties.