Hello and welcome to Aspiebloggen podcast episode 5. I am your host Tommy Eriksson. In todays episode I finally talk about aspergers syndrome and autism.
This is the podcast where I bring you my views on things, in an attempt to let my voice be heard and to grow my confidence. For too long I have not voiced my opinions on the things that matter to me but will all change now.
Some of what I will bring up will be about asperger and autism related stuff since that is what my blog is about, but most will be my opinions on things and what is going on in my life. My website is at aspiebloggen.se. There you will find the shownotes for each episode as well my other blog posts. The blog itself is in swedish but this podcast and the corresponding shownotes will always be in english.
Now let’s get started.
Todays episode is brought to you by the letter Ö.
On my aspergers page I have a quote from me saying that aspergers is like a computer that someone has ripped out all the cables from and then put them back in, it works just not the same. That, well is not the best thing I have ever written, but at the moment I think I will leave it in there.
Unlike some people like Mike Cernowich I don’t believe in changing my previous blogposts to reflect new opinions unless I wrote something that was way out of line. No I would rather just make a new post or now adays a podcast about how my opinions have changed. That is why I don’t necessarily agree with everything on this site and some things like the page about love shyness makes me embarrassed, but I would like this blog to show how I have changed through the years and I can’t do that if I delete old content or change it to reflect my current views. I think I said in the very first episode that a part of this podcast will be about older blogposts and what I feel about them today. Maybe I really don’t like it anymore or more likely I still do. Still, the blog celebrated its 8th birthday this year so there is plenty of material.
Due to laziness I tend to write the script about an hour or so before recording, yet if I where to actually talk about what I have written before I will obviously have to read what I have written before and that would take a long time and remind me of a lot of things that I would rather forget so it might take awhile before I find the courage to do so.
So what is asperger. Some call it a disorder but I’m not so fond of that description. Others call it a disability or handicap but aspies like myself argue that from our perspective others are the handicapped ones. I mean sure our social interaction skills are different but can they truly be called a disability. That’s just a point of reference. Granted while how I chose to socialize or not fits better with the term introverted, something that not all aspies are. Yes unlike the pop-culture version you can have aspergers and still be extroverted.
Still, I do have some actual disabilities and they are all tied to my senses. All my senses are on high alert all the time. My vision is sensitive to light so while outdoors on sunny days I wear sunglasses. My nose is sensitive enough that I really don’t like being near smokers or people using lots of perfume. Interestingly those people tend to overlap. I remember back in school when the girls who smoked used to try to conceal the smell of smoke by using lots of perfume and deodorants. Everyone with a working sense of smell, IE non-smokers immediately recognized the futility of that endeavor. Oh well. And don’t even get me started on how public restrooms can smell.
My sense of touch is really sensitive as well. Slight pun intended.