'Neurosedyn-child'
                              By age 33.
    Right: A teacher
    I had compared
    mental problems
    with the "not
    grown out" limbs
    of Neurosedyn-
    children. The
    comparison is
    more valid from
   an autism point
   of view. 
         
 

Some English quotes from my page about Asperger's syndrome
(There are more of my pictures and about me etc. after the quotes.)

On my page about Asperger syndrome (in Swedish) I have some English quotes of
persons with the diagnosis and doctors. Mainly on the subject of "normality". The
ones marked * are allso in my book.

Hans Asperger (1938):
"Not everything that steps out of line, and thus 'abnormal,'
must necessarily be 'inferior."

Doctor Tony Attwood: "No! You don't suffer from Asperger!
You suffer from other people."

A sentence from Donna Williams book, Somebody Somewhere:

* "...Unless you eat, breathe, sleep, and shit 'normality', you will
be treated as less than zero and possably not even survive at all..."

Frank Klein - Autistic Advocacy:

"..Normal people often carry with them the assumption that all people that are abnormal should want to be normal..."
                                                 -
* "For the autistic person without retardation (high-functioning autistic), often it is the unyielding social norms that cause the greatest difficulty.  Perhaps it is more logical to strive for greater acceptance of individuality than for the curing (or reduction of) of autism.  As uncomfortable as autistics often make closed-minded normal people, their positive traits are vital for innovation and societal growth...
- ....and to celebrate autistic people as being part of the genotype that includes Einstein and many other people of genius... people of greatness. "
                                         -

"....I dislike the fact that NTs, unlike those of us on the spectrum,
are neurologically programmed to maintain and defend a social
order.  They are biologically programmed to learn and adopt a
complex set of unwritten rules.  These rules are not innate within
the NT mind...  they're a learned behavior, but the ability to learn them at a very young age and to adopt them fully is neurologically-based.  Those of us on the spectrum not only lack the ability to automatically determine what these rules are, but we also lack
the ability to apply them appropriately and without thought.  Unfortunately, another innate NT trait is to enforce these rules, and
to punish anyone that violates them....(.........)...As you can see,
contact with them is bound to get rough at times, given their programming to enforce the rules, and our ignorance of them.  The problem is compounded by the fact that we are very sensitive to criticism, and we can get emotionally hurt very easily... and the more hurt we accumulate, the lower our self-esteem and resistanc for the next attack.  Is it any wonder that so many of us are depressed, and put ourselves into a relative exile?....(.......)....Anyway, most of us have to deal with living in a hostile NT world, and it is not easy.  Unless we completely isolate ourselves from NTs, which is not practical, we are going to feel the wrath of their enforcement attempts.  We can try to emulate NTs, and this can and does help to reduce the transgressions of the rules that trigger the attacks... but notice that I said "reduce" and not "eliminate."  Even NTs violate the rules fairly regularly, but they usually get back in line pretty quickly.  That leaves only one choice, and that is to develop "armor" against NT comments.........."

                                                         -
From Jim Sinclair's Web Site:

* "...Some autistic children internalize this message and accept "being normal" as their major goal in life.  And it's been my observation that the more deeply invested an autistic person is in being normal, the more likely it is that he or she suffers from anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem.  It's a natural consequence of making one's top priority to become something other than oneself..
                                                          -
  ..Feeling sad about the mere fact of being different is a handicap that non-autistic people have.  It's not our problem, and we need to stop allowing it to damage our self-concepts.  Besides, even though non-autistic people may hate or fear or pity us for being different, I think they really need us to be just the way we are.  We're the ones who notice that the emperor isn't wearing any clothes..."

                                                                      -

* "...If professionals are to be more helpful than casual friends, they should be more objective than lay people, more willing to explain, less eager to jump to conclusions, more open to questioning their own beliefs.
Assumptions about emotions cause the most impenetrable barriers to understanding, the most devastating damage to relationships, the most harmful interventions, the most irreversible oversights...[..]  ..The results of these assumptions are often subtle, but they're pervasive and pernicious: I am not taken seriously.  My credibility is suspect. My understanding of myself is not considered to be valid, and my perceptions of events are not considered to be based in reality.  My rationality is questioned because, regardless of intellect, I still appear odd....."
                                                                -

On the weight of diagnosis writes Jen Birch (Congratulations! It's Asperger syndrome):
 
"..It is always easier to deal with known facts than with a mystery in one’s life; as Jesus said, “The truth will set you free.”"
                 -
"....and it became official: I have Asperger Syndrome, (a form of Autism), diagnosed at the age of 43. A lifetime burden of inadequacy, guilt, confusion and fear was lifted from me...."

* ”…Yeas, I was naive and trusting – and this is a trait of Asperger Syndrome. If we lack the essential brain wiring that deals with indirect communication and deception (the lack of which is a part of having Asperger Syndrome), then we are going to get into a lot of undesirable situations – by accident…”

* "...For an Asperger adult to get a late diagnosis, it follows that his or her parents
are in an older age group - which can mean
that they are too old, too conservative in
their ideas, to accept the news. As they have grown old with their "Johnny" always having
been this way, they are not always able to
accept that Johnny is this way because of a developmental disorder, a neurological
condition, and they may simply not want to
know. Such a situation is, of coarse, a sad
and a difficult one for the Asperger adult...."

                           -

*"…some Asperger adulys, (such as myself), portray ourselves more "straightforward" than
do "normal" people in that we do not see the need for the trappings of status and so on.
In fact, (speaking for myself), I not only
dispense with such trappings, but see them,
(when I see them at all), as a negative trait of "normal" people. To me, this trait seems not only illogical but also unpalatable – because it implies that people can be, and should be, pre-judged by outward appearances. This superficial evaluation is one of the very things of which some Asperger individuals disapprove intensely.
The Asperger individual may turn out to be a surprise package. This is because many of us do not feel the same need to outwardly display statements about ourselves. Underneath an ordinary or shabby exterior may well exist a complex private self…"
(I have this quote on a CD leaflet to a CD that comes with my book.)

                                                    -

From the web page oddizm:

"Great things happen when autistics are given a chance to live up to their potential."

                                                   -

Frank Zappa (who is not autistic) is one of my "special interests". He has said this about a video of his:
* "...I belive Normalicy Can Be Cured. Baby Snakes might
show how this can be accomplished to those people who
haven't yet opted for The Bleak Life. Being different can be
fun, once the fear of hostility from Normal People has been
dealt with. Without deviation, progress is not possible..."

Another quote of Zappa: "There are alot of things people can
do that are of benefit to society that are not normal."

reconnected - via shit, at all cost.
Inherent with(in) us is the dream of the task of the alchemist to create from the clay of man. And to re-create from excretion of man pure and then soft and then solid gold.
All must not be art. some art we must disintegrate......"

  ← Me "riding a goat". Peter Pan and Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt rides on goats.
   This is a metaphore used in many contexts. In Christianity, but also in the
   Nordic mythology, with Thor riding a goat driven wagon. (The origin for the
   goat representing "evil" ought to be that when people lived as nomads they
   couldn't have the goats near them, under the same tent, because of their
   sharp smell - which is the probable reason for the christian word "separate the goats from the sheep".
                                                               Language in Scandinavia
     In Scandinavia people's names usually come from either the
     Roman/Christian culture or from the Nordic mythology. My first
     name, for instance, means Thor's spierd. (Thor + geir) My middle
     name, on the other hand, is Anton.
     My last name, Berstad, is from a place in western Norway, which
     actually still is called Berstad. The name translated means a
     "bare place". The windy weather (it lies by the Atlantic ocean)
     often makes the islands quite, or completely, without vegetation.
      Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are quite similar languages
     (almost like dialects). Some words come from German; some
     from English and some are Norse words. An interesting example
     is the word window. This is a Norse word, that the vikings have
     taken to England when they invaded. The word means a "wind's
     eye": "Vind auga" in Norse. In Norway they now use the word
     "vindu". In Sweden, on the other hand, the German word has
     come in use instead. So here we say "fönster" - from the German
     word "Fenster".