Category: Blog Posts

During the month of December I ran a “Feedback” Contest on Facebook asking for your heartfelt thoughts about my two books on the topic of Asperger’s Syndrome. I’m happy to say the winners have been posted on my Facebook page.

Yes! There are two winners! When it came down to the final decision, I just couldn’t decide – so both of these people will receive their own 20 minute remote education call with me during the next few months. I’m really looking forward to getting to know them better. I’m hoping they’ll share with me how I can better serve this NT/AS community.

I just wanted to share with you their winning comments. I’m using initials to protect their privacy.

Jules NZ commented: “Out of Mind – Out of Sight. For me, this book has given me permission to follow my instincts and trust myself again after 30 years of invalidation and dwindling self esteem. The chapters about zero empathy from the Aspie spouse, and invisibility of the NT partner were revelations for me, and there are simply too many other topics that are for me, like gold. This book has become my bible and I refer to it frequently to help me understand the craziness that has been my life, parenting with my Asperger husband.

Going over the Edge has been a life saver for me, I have used the knowledge within to understand and learn about Asperger Syndrome in my relationship with my husband. The practical examples are so easy to relate to when you live this life. Dr Kathy must have been talking about me? how did she know?? I have read this book over and over and each time find another gem to support myself and remind myself I am ok, that what I am experiencing is normal for life with a spouse with Aspergers.”

JB commented: “I read Going Over the Edge. I am married to an undiagnosed man who shows many traits described in the book. I was most impacted by the young girl’s drawing and discovering the busy brain. Like most challenges we face if we become aware and accept them they become manageable and even tolerable especially when you know there is support available for you. I don’t love my situation but the book did give me hope and settled me down. It caused me to sit back and look at things from a new perspective. I have to read parts of it from time to time to wheel me back in when I start to feel crazy. Thank you.”

Their comments really touched my heart as I can see that my work is truly helping them. And yes, I do consider myself to be one of the winners, since I get to connect with wonderful people like you. Please come on over to my Facebook page and congratulate our winners.

Learn more about Asperger’s Syndrome:

Once in a while I hear a comment that my books are Aspie bashing or that our Asperger Syndrome Partners Family of Adults with ASD Meetup group is all about denigrating those on the Autism Spectrum. Most of the time these complaints come from well-intentioned people who are not really looking at the whole picture.

To keep quiet about the crazy-making and suffering experienced in many of these relationships is incredibly harmful to those Neuro-typicals who have lived without validation for years. On the other hand, I have limited the Asperger Syndrome Partners Family of Adults with ASD group to only NTs who live this life. I really don’t want Aspies to feel threatened by the openness of our communication. After all, there should be a safe place to vent and connect for all involved.

Join our next Asperger Syndrome: Partners & Family of Adults with ASD local Meetup on Saturday, January 17, 2015 at 1:00pm PST or our international teleconference Meetup on Friday, January 23, 2015 at 2:30pm PST. We’ll discuss this topic: Is it Aspie Bashing to talk about our pain?

Let’s get together to talk, not blame. This topic is important. How do you come to terms with the crazy-making stuff in your life if you can’t review it with others who understand? Our Meetup is a place to share your experiences with others who get what it’s like to be married to an Aspie. When others are trying to discourage you from expressing your feelings or may even be blaming you, you need a safe and secure place to help you resolve all of those painful memories. It can take the painful pressure off of the cork so you can release the years of pent up emotions before you implode and destroy yourself. Asperger’s is in no way an excuse for abusive or violent behavior. Let’s use the time together to find positive and strategic ways of coping and supporting one another.

And really…maybe the accusation of bashing is the result of a lack of empathy for what we are going through. Think about it.

Three more ways to learn more about Asperger’s Syndrome:

A large number of adults with Asperger’s Syndrome suffer from depression. Scientists don’t know if this is a result of the struggles and rejections they face in life or if it’s because of the way their brains are hard wired. As Dr. Simon Baron-Cohen said in a recently published study on Asperger’s and depression, “Adults with Asperger’s Syndrome often suffer with secondary depression due to social isolation, loneliness, social exclusion, lack of community services, underachievement, and unemployment.”What we now know, regardless of the causes, when your loved one has Asperger’s Syndrome and shows symptoms of depression, alarm bells to go off. The study mentioned above found that there’s a significant increase in suicidality among adults with Asperger’s. They are ten times more likely to have suicidal thoughts, suicidal plans and suicidal attempts than the general population, which is even more than those who have psychotic disorders, such as schizophrenia.

Up until now, studies on Asperger’s Syndrome and depression have been concentrating on preadolescents, and they show a low rate of suicidal behavior. So, even though previous studies have shown that there’s a link between autism and suicidal thoughts, these findings about adults with AS come as a surprise to many. What concerns me is that many adults with Asperger’s have lived their lives undiagnosed, so they haven’t sought help from a mental health professional unless they’ve experienced severe mood or psychotic changes.

Nomi Kaim of Asperger/Autism Newtwork (formerly Asperger’s Association of New England or AANE) describes poignantly how depression affects someone with Asperger’s. She highlights the paradoxical battle that goes on inside in the following areas of life:

• Those with Asperger’s focus on and gain comfort from their special area(s) of interest. Depression steals any delight in doing such activities. This leaves an immense sense of emptiness.
• People with Asperger’s Syndrome deal in concrete, black and white thinking. Depression forces them leave the comfort of these thoughts as they have to learn to deal with overwhelming emotions they are unprepared to handle.
• People with Asperger’s Syndrome find comfort in being alone. Depression makes it essential to seek out others so they don’t spiral into self-destruction, which causes the pain of socializing to become more pronounced and threatens their sense of being self-sufficient.
• People with Asperger’s Syndrome hate to be touched. Depression creates a need for physical yearning to be held and comforted, which, in turn, may leave them feeling violated.

This study highlights the need for us to be alert and prompt about seeking professional help for our Aspie loved ones who are depressed. If you live near Portland, Oregon/Vancouver, Washington, please contact my office and schedule an appointment. Together we can create new ways for them to cope with this situation before it becomes a tragedy.

Have you noticed that your Aspie struggles to understand that someone is “pulling their leg”? Or they’re confused by irony, pretense, metaphor, and deception? Their “mind blindness” and difficulty with empathy cause them to be clueless in social situations such as these and they need help to navigate through them.

Empathy is a complex system of emotional empathy and cognitive empathy and multiple transitions between the two. To help clarify this issue, I wrote an article for PsychCentral discussing the difference between emotional empathy and cognitive empathy and how you can help your loved one bridge the empathy gap. 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?)

Most Neuro-Typicals make the transition between emotional empathy and cognitive empathy very easily, and thereby strike an easy balance between the two. Aspies, on the other hand, find it very difficult to accomplish this. The resulting disconnect between cognitive empathy and emotional empathy really defines Asperger Syndrome.

They struggle to recognize where someone’s distress is coming from (Cognitive Empathy) and they struggle with knowing how awful someone is feeling (Emotional Empathy). And they can’t easily move between the two and they’re unable to put personal needs aside for the moment and reach out to comfort another. Another factor is that true empathy also requires the ability to talk about this integration.

Don’t misunderstand. Those with Asperger’s can be deeply moved by life experiences. Yet they’re unable to speak to those responses through their own mental reasoning. And because those feelings can become so intense without having any way to express them, those with Asperger’s shut down to protect themselves. They avoid eye contact, because it adds to the emotional overload. It’s hard for them to hear your words and change their focus when their feelings are so overwhelming.

Because those with Asperger’s can’t bridge that gap, family member must make a bridge for them with comforting, supportive and loving words. One way to reduce the emotional overload for Aspies and NTs alike is to have a calming and knowledgeable professional to help sort things out.

If you anticipate an emotionally trying time approaching, such as the death of a loved one, a psychologist can help your Aspie reason through what’s happening to himself and to the dying loved one. An objective professional can put words to the emotions that well up. If you live near Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA, please contact my office and schedule an appointment. With practice in therapy, your family may be able to talk about the events to come and plan a course of action, thereby averting the need for, and the resulting trauma of, any unprepared sudden emotional transition.

How do you determine what’s right and what’s wrong for yourself? How do you judge the actions and ethics of others? Are we hardwired with a set of standards? What accounts for the differences among people? Neuroscience of morality is uncovering the remarkable way in which reason and emotion activate the brain networks when we make decisions, especially moral judgments.

As studies are conducted using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) patterns are emerging, which give us clues as to what is going on in the brain. A CNN article, “How your brain makes moral judgments”, reports on many of these findings. Here are a few that I found fascinating…

Joshua D. Greene, associate professor at Harvard University, published an influential study in 2001. His study suggests that the three brain structures involved in the emotional processes that influence moral decisions are the medial prefrontal cortex, the posterior cingulate and angular gyrus. Other studies also confirm that these areas, as well as the ventral prefrontal cortex are activated in processing moral judgments.

And there’s evidence that supports that we are hard-wired to activate these regions as we’re confronted with moral dilemmas.

Randy Buckner and colleagues wrote a 2008 study that says in part:

“Thirty years of brain imaging research has converged to define the brain’s default network…(this) default network is active when individuals are engaged in internally focused tasks including autobiographical memory retrieval, envisioning the future, and conceiving the perspectives of others.”

His study goes on to say that this default network can be defined by the interaction of multiple subsystems in the brain, i.e.,

“The medial temporal lobe subsystem provides information from prior experiences in the form of memories and associations that are the building blocks of mental simulation. The medial prefrontal subsystem facilitates the flexible use of this information during the construction of self-relevant mental simulations. These two subsystems converge on important nodes of integration including the posterior cingulate cortex.”

Understanding the brain’s networking systems will enable us to better understand those with impaired abilities to make good moral judgments – which includes various mental disorders. Until there’s a cure, psychotherapy has proven very effective in helping people to live a much fuller and more meaningful life. A healthy brain equals healthy relationships. If you live near Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA, please contact my office and schedule an appointment.

Do you feel your biological age? Some days do you feel like your 18 again and others you could be 100? A recent CNN article discussed new research published by JAMA Internal Medicine online about our attitude toward aging and how it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. (Check out their slide show of 10 centenarians and their amazing accomplishments during “old age” like running a marathon and competing in the AU World Masters Games.) The way you perceive your health, limitations and wellbeing can greatly affect your mortality.

Researchers found that those who feel younger than their chronological age live longer than those who feel their age or feel older. While they don’t fully understand why, the researchers have noticed the following similar traits among the long-lived:

• This “youthful” group keeps more active.
• They maintain a healthy weight.
• They nurture their happyinterest in life.
• They engage in healthy behavior instead of risky behavior.
• They feel more in control.
• They have greater resilience.
• They have good social relationships.
• They keep a positive, optimistic attitude.
• They are content with their lives.

The two main characteristics that seem to help people live a longer life are consciousness and optimism. While the findings of this latest research are not new, it does reinforce that our conscious choices shape our quality of life. So what does your future look like?

It’s never too late to start living a more meaningful and happy life. I had the privilege of having one of my essays published in a wonderful book entitled, Sixty Things To Do When You Turn Sixty. (You can purchase a copy of the book here.) The big 6-0 is just the beginning! Do you have any stories of people who have accomplished remarkable things in their 80’s, 90’s, and 100’s? Please come to my Facebook page and share them with us.