Every week when I do my grocery shopping, I stop at a cafe at the shopping center to have a cup of coffe before I hit the supermarket. This is an integral part of doing grocery shopping for me, as I have a bad phobia regarding supermarkets, and stopping for coffee is my way of getting myself 'psyched up' enough to enter the supermarket.

Unfortunately however, I was told by the girl who works at the cafe that they will be closing next month as they can't compete with the Starbucks that opened nearby at the start of the year.

This has left me with three choices:

a) Get coffee from Starbucks before I do the shopping. This is a problem though, since the place is always very crowded, so I would need to go there several times with someone I know before I could enter on my own. Also, I vowed never to drink the crap that they call black coffee again.

b) Do my shopping without stopping for coffee. Probably doable, but changing routines is not something I do easily, and which usuallymakes me feel phyically ill.

c) Find another supermarket that has a small cafe I can stop at. While I probably wouldn't have a problem going to an unfamiliar cafe (provided it wasn't busy), a new supermarket would mean I'd need to have somebody with me for a few months until I was used to the place enough to go alone.

Option b) is probably the easiest, but since the supermarket I currently go to has stopped stocking a few things I like recently, I might go for c).

At any rate, Starbucks are now back at the top of my Most Hated list.

d) Get professional help.

I've been receiving that for years. There was a point when I couldn't leave the house alone. Now there are just certain situations (such as supermarkets) that I have problems with.

I've only had a few years to undo 30 years of bad self-programming, so one step at a time.

Would drinking coffee at home, before going to the supermarket be an option?
If the distance to the supermarket is too far and the effects of the coffee would have worn off already when you get there, then i'd suggest bringing the coffee with you in some heat-conservation-can.(don't know what it's called in english, we call it Thermuskanne here)

It isn't the coffee itself that's important (in fact they recommend that people with anxiety disorders don't consume much caffeine), it's the 'ritual' that's imprtant to me. If you know what OCD is, you'll know where I'm coming from (I don't have OCD, I just have compulsive tendancies).

I could do the shopping without the ritual if I had to, but it would give me very elevated stress levels, which is something I try to avoid.

In English, it's thermos.

The solution is simple: stop wanting "psyching up" or whatever and just go and do your shopping. You are simply thinking too much.

Not being familiar with that disorder, I'm probably asking silly questions: Could you set up a replacement ritual of some sort or would that also cause too much stress?

Ah, i just looked it up, it is also thermos in german. Bad typo, a result from me actually never having seen the word written, so I just adapted it from the (also wrong) phonetic sound that everyone around here uses when saying that word.

Yeah, I can. It just takes time and requires external help. Luckily I have a worker assigned to me by the local health authority to do just that sort of thing. It's really more an annoyance than anything else.

Starbucks seem to make a habit of being a source of annoyance in my life. Though it's not really their fault - it just makes me feel better blaming them. Mind you, it is always disappointing when a small business with high standards cannot compete with a large corporation with lower standards and is forced to close.

Just a thought: How about having your coffee in a thermos just outside the café? That would be a Pretty similar situation/environment I guess, and you could continue doing that after the café (sadly) shuts down

question (which you don't have to answer if you feel uncomfortable LennyLen):
I've been reading all about Asperger for professional development. Is that something you know about from personal experience?

If you are getting professional help, what's she/he saying? I think you should listen more to a professional than to us. But of course being a psychologist doesn't bring super human powers, so if they have no good ideas our suggestions are worth more.

Have you really given Starbucks a chance? They have lots of different coffee, maybe something is drinkable? If you choose to have your coffee there you would "make peace" with them as well. Also as it's more of a busy place it could be a good training ground. If you feel that Starbucks is "evil" remember that you are having double standards if you still shop at/from McDonald's, IKEA, Coca Cola, Burger King etc.

That's not a bad idea, as there is a nice little park next to the shopping center.

Actually, yes, since I have being diagnosed with Asperger's. I don't have a severe case, which is both good and bad. Good in that I have been able to adapt to it over the years, and have been able to learn, through observation, the social skills that most people would take for granted. The downside is that because it was not severe, it was never picked up as a child. Teachers would often describe me as eccentric and distant, and I rarely had any friends as a child, but since I was always one of the school's top pupils academically nobody thought much of it.

I've been told that it is not uncommon for people with any undiagnosed mental disorder to develop social phobia and/or agoraphobia, as you've gone through your entire life being aware that you were somehow 'different' from others in some way that you can't explain. For myself, and others I've talked to in the same situation, you often become more lonely in the company of others than when you are on your own. This is why group therapy sessions are often more helpful than individual therapy, as this feeling of being alone amongst others is replaced by a feeling of unity.

From my own readings, I've learnt that people with Asperger's often also suffer from ADHD, OCD, Bipolarism, Depression as well as Anxiety disorder. I have found this interesting since when I first decided to seek professional help I was diagnosed with depression (though this was by a GP, not a psychiatrist). Then when my GP decided it was more then depression and beyond his expertise he referred me to a psychiatrist. His first diagnosis was ADHD (for which I incidentally I fulfill every single diagnostic criteria in the DSM-IV), however, since I did not respond to any of the medications used to treat ADHD (though oddly enough, Ritalin did cure my sleep disorder), the diagnosis was changed to Bipolarism with OCD. Again however I did not respond to any of the treatments and was eventually diagnosed with Asperger's. I was also from the start diagnosed with Anxiety Disorder, which was actually fortuitous, since my Psychiatrist is the senior consultant at the local Anxiety Disorders Unit. He transferred me form being one of his private patients to being a patient of the ADU, which meant I received free treatment instead of having to pay $50 an hour fro private treatment.

If you want a good insight into the life of someone who has Asperger's, I would recommend you read the following two 'articles' by Marc Segar: A survival guide for people with Asperger's syndrome and The Battles of the Autistic Thinker. I have found them to be very inspirational, and I read them often.

If you have any more specific queries, just ask, I have no problems discussing the subject. In fact it's quite therapeutic.

I was fromally discharged from the ADU a year ago, which means that I no longer see a psychiatrist. My GP is now my case manager, which basically means I just see him every few months to have my medications reviewed. I do have a community support worker who visits me weekly, but he has no psychiatric training, and is really just a social worker who specializes in mental health.

A psychiatrist would actually tell me to stop relying on rituals as a crutch and to expose myself to the situations which cause anxiety more often to desensitize myself to them. I have found that this personally doesn't really work for me, and I'm taking a slower approach. I'm slowly improving which is good enough for me. There's actually no way to get rid of Anxiety Disorder, just ways if making it more manageable.

Yes, I've given them several chances. Part of the problem is that I'm a coffee snob, and I'm very specific about how I have my coffee - black espresso only. I don't drink instant, plunger, filter or percolator coffee. I also do not add sugar to coffee, as a good bean will have a semisweet component to it naturally. And therein lies the rest of the problem: Starbucks specialize (at least here any way) in milky coffees - cappuccinos lattes, etc. usually with flavour syrups - and the beans they use are blended for this purpose. They simply do not taste nice as a black coffee. To make matters worse, most of the staff I have observed there are completely undertrained - I've watched as they fill the basket without first cleaning it out; they don't use hand tampers and instead use the tampers built in to the grinder (it's extremely difficult to tamp properly when you are pushing the group head up into the tamper rather than the tamper down into the group head); they also don't seem to understand that if you leave the lid of the bean hopper the beans will oxidize and become more bitter.

The other problem I have with Starbucks is that if I ask for a long black (they don't have even short blacks on their menu) it gets served in a mug (which is filled to the brim). This is not a long black, this is what is known as an Americano, which is a long black that has been watered down so as to resemble filter coffee. The first time this happened to me, I shrugged it off as a mistake, and just drank it, even though it was foul (when you water down coffee like that, you lose most of the subtle flavours and undertones, however the tannins are still quite pronounced so you end up with bitter coffee. Adding sugar simply gives you a sugar-sweet flavour which is not at all what I like). The second time I went, the same thing happened, so I took the coffee back and asked if I could have my coffee in a proper espresso sized cup instead. I was shown a latte bowl (which was nearly twice the size of the mug, and a mug is roughly twice the size of an espresso cup) and asked if that was what I meant. When I said that an espresso cup was about half the size of the mug, I was told that the mug was the smallest size cup they had. I asked if I could have one made only half full, which they did, but it still tasted watered down and bitter. My third time was at a different Starbucks. When I asked there for the mug to be only half filled, I was told that they wouldn't do it as that wasn't the 'Starbucks Way' of making coffee. This was when I decided to blacklist them for life.

I have since managed to acquire some of their beans. Even when made properly however, black coffee from them is lacking in flavour. Which is no doubt why they make so much money off their flavour shots.

While I'm not a fan of large corporations, I don't boycott them. If Starbucks served decent coffee, I'd go there. I also consume 3-5 litres of Coke a week and I sometimes go to BK (I avoid McDonald's as I always feel sick after eating there).

Bleh... long post... must stop... now.

Don't worry; 95% of the people here probably have Asperger or some form of a social disorder. Anyway, why don't you go shopping with someone else?

I guess I get a certain ammount of satisfaction doing it by myself. It's a kind of reminder about what I have achieved. If I need to get a lot of groceries for some reason, I usally get a friend to take me, as I don't have a car. Otherwise I just walk, since the supermarket is only five minutes away.

I agree about feeling sick after McDonalds. Sometimes I fool myself and eat there and the result is always the same.

It sounds like you have given Starbucks a try and they failed. Torbjörn Josefsson's suggestion sound nice, especially with the nice park and everything.

a) do shopping online and the money you spend on coffee spend on the delivery charge
b) when you enter the supermarket go to the cafe and have a coffee with some pie, chips, beans and gravy
c) get a live-in girlfriend/wife. It is part of their genetic make-up that they do the shopping, as well as cleaning the house and cooking

I do all three, depending on my mood

That low but count me as one of the 5% with proof that my maths and memory skills are rubbish and I'm great on the dance floor

What you need is for a Cylons to open up next to them.

I know this was posted before: Personality Disorder Test. I doubt anyone could take that test and end up with a clean bill of mental health, but anyway.... here's what it thought of me:

Paranoid: High
Schizoid: Very High
Schizotypal: Moderate
Antisocial: Moderate
Borderline: Low
Histrionic: Moderate
Narcissistic: High
Avoidant: Moderate
Dependent: Low
Obsessive-Compulsive: High

Me + Credit Card = TROUBLE. The last time I had one, I spent $5000 in one week and it took me six years to pay it off. Of course, if you'd be so good as to let me use yours...

I've tried that one a few times. I don't seem to be a ble to live with someone for very long though. Or perhaps it's the other way around.

Only if it's the original ones. The new human-like ones are just too creepy.

I got low on everything...

thanks for the info Lenny. If I think of anything to ask, I'll be sure to refer to you. There are students that raise flags at work and I want to keep an eye on them.

Paranoid: Low
Schizoid: Low
Schizotypal: Moderate (I think that it's because some ppl said I dressed funny)
Antisocial: Low
Borderline: Low
Histrionic: Low
Narcissistic: Low
Avoidant: Low
Dependent: Low
Obsessive-Compulsive: Low

p.s. Leverton is a computer

Hey, look at me, aren't I great, you all love me and my histrionic narcissistic ways

Paranoid: Low
Schizoid: Low
Schizotypal: Low
Antisocial: Low
Borderline: Low
Histrionic: High
Narcissistic: High
Avoidant: Low
Dependent: Low
Obsessive-Compulsive: Low

but seriously though, these questionnaires have as much accuracy and psychological depth as the church of scientology. If I went back to when I was at school/uni the values would have been way different, but that wasn't because of any disorder, just mellowness with age and experience.

Well, determining that there may be a problem usually isn't that hard. Figuring out exactly what the problem is can be a lot more difficult however. There are a great deal of similarities between Asperger's, ADHD, and Non-verbal Learning Disorder (NLD). Some researchers even claim that Asperger's is not a form of autism but is in fact an extreme from of NLD. There is some merit to these claims as many of the medical conditions associated with classical autism are rarely found in people with Asperger's.

Another thing to take into account is that reoccuring (yet not persistant) things such as malnutrition, sleep problems and family problems can cause irregular bouts of depression, which externally can present as bipolarism, attention problems, and even sometimes Asperger's.

Often, as in my case, the only way a correct diagnosis can be made is by finding out which drugs work and which don't.

If your students are teenagers, then puberty can also cause a lot of the symptoms associated with depression, bipolarism and ADHD.

As an aside, I remember my school sending a pamphlet to all parents titled something like "Signs your child is abusing drugs". These signs were things like moodiness, secretiveness, listening to loud music, changes in behaviour, etc. All of which, to my knowledge, just happen to be common signs of puberty. Luckily, my parents saw it as rediculous, but I wonder how many students ended up in trouble with their parents because of it.

Paranoid: 		High
Schizoid: 		Very High
Schizotypal: 		Moderate
Antisocial: 		Moderate
Borderline: 		Low
Histrionic: 		Low
Narcissistic: 		Moderate
Avoidant: 		Moderate
Dependent: 		Low
Obsessive-Compulsive: 	Low

I have no idea how I could be paranoid. I gave the exact opposite answers to all the relevant questions as I think a paranoid person would. I'll have to read about what some of those conditions are...

The test is a pile of doggy-doo, that's why. An actual psychiatrist would study a patient for weeks, if not months before compiling a personality profile. And they wouldn't ask such rediculous questions.

That was interesting...

Paranoid:              High 
Schizoid:              Low 
Schizotypal:           High 
Antisocial:            Low 
Borderline:            Very High 
Histrionic:            High 
Narcissistic:          Moderate 
Avoidant:              Very High 
Dependent:             High 
Obsessive-Compulsive:  High

It's not completely irrelevant, but it's easy to tell what the "right" answer is, and therefore is easy to manipulate. Of course it does not try to determine whether your condition is environment based (something you can change if you try hard enough) or a true mental disease. Obviously the results do not have "scientific" merit; they do, however, give you something to research if you think you are a bit peculiar.

For example, I definitely fit the literal definition of a Schizoid (although I don't consider myself Paranoid or Narcissistic at all, despite what the quiz said), but it is most likely something I brought upon myself by an excessive time spent by myself in front of a computer. As such, I believe I could undo most of the negative traits by forcing myself to spend time doing other things. And it is my opinion that most anti-social computer nerds are much like me in that regard.

Personally I despise the idea that wanting to be alone is a mental disorder.

It's not by itself. It's not until you develop irrational "people phobias" that it is something to be concerned about.

Sure, but using that site as an example...

None of these are really indicative of anything irrational. You can show each of these behaviours, all for rational and perfectly healthy reasons; yet the test would make you out to be severely schizoid.

Of course, I'm sure the profession at large realizes this. I'm just saying about the site.

Yes, and I agree. This particular quiz is just looking for symptoms and not looking for causes. Nor does it determine exactly how severe the symptoms are. The quiz is really nothing more than going through each of the listed conditions and checkmarking which symptoms you have.

I don't believe that much in the test, perhaps it can tell something about a person.

Disorder:             Rating
Paranoid:             edited
Schizoid:             edited
Schizotypal:          edited
Antisocial:           edited
Borderline:           edited
Histrionic:           edited
Narcissistic:         edited
Avoidant:             edited
Dependent:            edited
Obsessive-Compulsive: edited

(edited: on second thought, i dislike the idea of showing that to anyone)
Is that test some sort of competition on whose brain was in the heat the longest?
Damn, i answered all the questions honestly but i can't see anything wrong with me aside from being unemployed and spending 15 hours a day in front of the computer, checking a.cc and other sites every so and so many minutes and yeah, talking about me again(like i seem to do very often)... i have answered yes to all those "seek attention" questions.

What? It's society that has a social disorder, not we here.

I'm not schizophrenic... and I'm not either.

Paranoid: Low
Schizoid: Low
Schizotypal: Low
Antisocial: Low
Borderline: Moderate
Histrionic: Moderate
Narcissistic: Moderate
Avoidant: Low
Dependent: Moderate
Obsessive-Compulsive: Moderate

Those tests are a joke. Probably designed by a collective of teenagers in a move to self-diagnose themselves with numerous disorders to appear 'deep and meaningful'.

I read this and I thought; yeah he get's it! That's exactly how I am! Thanks for sharing your experience LennyLen. And thanks for the links.

I find that that statement is more true than one might think.

These definitions of disorders and diseases are a bunch of nonsense. A person isn't like a machine or program where you can easily identify something as a bug. A person is a human being with their own personality traits, own biological structure, etc.

I think for the most part it's entirely up to the person to decide for themselves what they want to be. If they don't like the way they're acting they can choose to go seek "treatment". But no one else should say they have to act one way or another, nor consider them sub-human.

Right then, moving on. Lenny, how about this. Establish a new pattern while following the same old pattern. If I were in your shoes I'd start listening to music while I go to the cafe to get a drink. Then when the cafe shuts down you can fall back to your new ritual. That way the loss of the full ritual won't be as severe.
It isn't a perfect solution, but better than nothing. And you've got about a month to establish this new ritual, right? That should be enough.

You could also rally people together and attempt to save the cafe. Explain to people how much you would hate to see this cafe disappear, since you really enjoy their coffee. Get them dedicated to going there.
That or spread exciting rumors about the cafe. Like how [insert celebrity] goes there regularly. Or how [insert type of specific coffee] from there cures cancer.
Yup, quite devious.

I was diagnosed a few years ago with Aspergers but my symptoms of it are decreasing (mostly because I overcame the mental block I had had on being social and being paranoid of trying new things and forced myself to, that and my parents forced me to do thinks I was deathly afraid of doing). Now I'm not usually too anxious to try new things.

Paranoid: Low
Schizoid: Moderate
Schizotypal: Moderate
Antisocial: Low
Borderline: Low
Histrionic: High
Narcissistic: Moderate
Avoidant: Low
Dependent: Low
Obsessive-Compulsive: Moderate

I don't agree with that test 100% - I am not Histrionic for example. I am not easily influenced by others and such... maybe I messed up a question on that test?

The real problem with trying to daignose mental disorders from symptoms is that most disorders share common symptoms. Also when you ignore the types of disorders that have purely psychological grounds - usually depression, post-traumatic stress disorder or specific phobias - and look at cases where there is an underlying medical condition, whether it be chemical or caused by brain damage, you often find more than one type of disorder. The Personality Disorder test fails to take this into account.

As Matthew has always pointed out, it does not take into account the causes of behavioural patterns. Take for example the question 'Do you prefer to be alone rather than in the company of others?' There are several reasons why one might answer yes to this question: a) the person might well be schizoid, and they simply like being alone. b) the person may have Asperger's, and while they want to be social, attempts to integrate with others (or rather the failure of such events), can cause so much anxiety that it is easier to be alone. c) feeling isloated, which can occur with many disorders - since you know you are different - mean that you feel more alone around others then when you are on your own (you need to differentiate the difference between being on your own and being 'alone'), so it becomes more 'pleasant' to be alone. Ecept for the first example (the schizoid individual), everyone else would be deemed, by that test, to simply have an 'avoidant personality disorder'. This label is simply too broad to be of any use.

Similarly the question 'Do you have intense feelings of inadequacy and helplessness?'... this is a symptom of Social Phobia and Depression as well as most eating disorders, where the underlying condition is one of distorted personal image. It is very hard to pinpoint a specific personality trait that causes these fellings. As an example, consider two anorexic patients. The first, was originally obese, and had no lifetime or genetic history of mental disorder. However constant taunting about her (I'm using the female gender for this example as anorexia occurs almost exclusively in women, though it would make no difference if the individual was male) weight becomes too much and she becomes depressed, which when it is not picked up and she starts obsessing on the object of her depression she transitions into fullblown Anorexia. The second patient has a genetic history of psychosis, and as she undergoes the hormonal shifts that occur when we pass from adolecence into adulthood, she develops chemical imbalances and loses her ability to grasp reality and rationalize her thaughts. She starts to (with no reason whatsoever) perceive herself as a demonic amorphous blob, while all around her others are transformed into angelic waifs. As her psychosis deepens, she sees herself more and more as societies antagonist, and in an attempt to redeem herself she vows she will shed her demonic form and revert to the angelic form she once was. She meticulously tests every type of food to determine what is holy and what is forsaken. Eventually she decides that only drinking holy water can shed away the fat and sve her. Every minute of waking day is devoted to weighing herself to see how much of the demon she has exercised. She is now not only psychotic, she is also anorexic. Both women eventually die, essentially from self inflicted starvation. At this point what does it matter what 'personality type' they had?

I'm glad my experiences can be of help to others. Even if you eventually decide that no, that's not exactly how you are, self examination is rarely a bad thing, so long as you can do so objectively.

The clinical term 'disorder' is often misunderstood. Take just about any human being and give them a list of the symptoms of Anxiety Disorder or Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder, and they will be able to identify with most of the symptoms. We are all at some time in our lives moody, or easily distracted, or worried about something irrational. Usally this is caused by things such as fatigue, side effects of drugs - whether recreational or pharmaceutical, a sequence of incidents that are purely bad luck, work related stresses (eg. half the plant is going to be laid off, is it me?), etc. Simply having these symptoms does not mean you have a disorder.

It is considered a disorder when it can be clearly shown that there has been a continual and detrimental effect in two of the three following areas: Social Life, Work Life and Home Life.

I agree with this for the majority of cases. The exception of course is when the individual has become delusional and fails to see that their actions are harming themselves or others. Manic people for example often start exhibiting the behavioural patterns of small children. It's all about instant gratification as well as a desire to be 'free'. They will give up their jobs, walk out on their spouces; their children, simply to be the perosn they want to be NOW, with no consideration for the future. Anyone who tries to point out the fallicies in their thinking is simply trying to bring them down; stop them from being free; and to hell with that. As terrible as it may seem to them, the only real things the people who love this individual can do are either watch them spiral into self-destruction or have them commited against their will to a psychiatric facility, where they can be medicated and rehabilitated. Hopefully.

This is another very good idea. Anyone wanna contribute to the 'Buy lennyLen an iPod' fund? Sadly my venerable portable CD player, which I've had since 1992, and have had to resucitate after several deaths already has finally died completely and it's beyond my abilities to repair. I'd much prefer an MP3 player though, as I have only about 20 CDs left that work, and about 5,300 MP3s on my PC.

Based purely on the above paragraph, that sounds more like Social Phobia than Asperger's. People with Asperger's (which I'll refer to in future as Aspies) usually have Social Phobia, but for very good reasons.

The 'symptoms' of Asperger's simply do not lessen, they are there for life. Aspies simply have to learn how to make up for their deficiencies. Luckily, most Aspies are very intelligent and observant, so learning the social skills that most people have instinctively, isn't too much of a problem.

There is no 'mental block' to being social which can be overcome for Aspies. In fact, most Aspies have a great desire to be social beings. Unfortunately, they simply do not have the mental faculty for it. It's like being born without a visual cortex - you can learn to live without sight, but you're blind for life (I'm ignoring technology here).

Aspies also have no anxiety associated with trying new things (unless they have developed Social Phobia). At least not more than anyone else would.

The following passages, which I copied from here descibe what Asperger's is very well:

A useful and easy read on Asperger's from the perspective of a 13 year old boy with AS. It's great for professionals and parents dealing with children/teens with AS but it's excellent source of education for the general public as well.

Freaks, Geeks and Asperger Syndrome: A User Guide to Adolescence by Luke Jackson

Luke Jackson has also written another book on the merits of a gluten free and casein free diet which apparently improve symptoms of developmental disorders such as ADHD, autism and AS.

A User Guide to the GF/CF Diet for Autism, Asperger Syndrome and AD/HD by Luke Jackson

If you can't get an iPod, here's some options:
Get a broken iPod. Usually the battery has died, and people put them up on eBay or another place for cheap. You can buy that, buy a replacement battery, and you're set.
$20-$50

Get a cheap MP3 player. If you don't care too much about audio quality (especially on cheap earbuds) you can get 512 minutes of audio out of a 512mb MP3 player made in China or Taiwan

Get a CD-MP3 player. A CD player which will play MP3s off the CDs. That way you can burn your MP3s to a CD.
$40+

Thanks William for those suggestions. I'll look in to them, though the price of electronic equipment in New Zealand is quite high compared to other countries. I did actually look at CD-MP3 players, and the cheapest one I could find here was about NZ$130 (US$80).

And now for a PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT!

I've received a few emails and PMs regarding the subject matter of this thread offering me supporti n my 'situation'. While I am very grateful for these gestures, they are actually quite unfounded. The purpose of my original post was not to find help for the current problem, but to vent my frustaration at Starbucks. I inadvertantly however made the situation sound worse in that post than what it really is.

So the reality of the situation is this: I am not distressed or depressed about my life. I can asusre you that I am probaly a lot more content with my life than most people on this planet. even my frustration towards Starbucks has subsided. I simply don't see the point in holding on to anger and frustration.

The original post also made it seem like it is impossible for me to do certain things on my own, and this is not the case. I have enough control over my phobias that I can if I have to enter what would be my worst case situation. Doing so would hovever still cause anxiety severe enough to cause me physical discomfort, but I can manage this. The point of the routines I have and doing things with compnay is not to allow me to do things at all, but to allow me to do them without the discomfort.

I also want to make it known that I don't consider having Asperger's to be a bad thing. While I do wish I'd had it diagnosed as a child (difficult since it wasn't recognised as a condition then) so that I could possibly have avoided the Anxiety Disorder - which is a Royal Pain - I'd honestly rather have Asperger's than be 'normal'. While there are negative aspects of Asperger's, these are easily alleviated, and there are some real positive aspects to having Asperger's that I wouldn't give up for anything.

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT ends

Yeah, stupid Starbucks.

Which is exactly what a paranoid person would do...

lololol @sympathy for AS

AS is often considered to be a gift rather than a curse. Attempting to "cure" AS is actually quite insulting to individuals with AS since it is part of their personality and who they are.

I think the more important issue would be to recognize it early in childhood that so that "aspies" can have methods to cope. Another issue is to educate the "normal" children/people as well as educators.

http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/Asperger's_Syndrome
http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/index.php/Self-diagnosed

Just my 2 cents...

That page was written just to get a rise out of people wasn't it? Just like most of Yves and co's OT posts? Seems to be written with the same degree of intelligence.

I'm saying that if people think they're not exactly normal in the upstairs department, maybe they should got to a doctor for having their heads checked up instead of assuming what they've self-diagnosed themselves to be true and proceeding to take it for a fact.

I don't see anyone here, who claims to have self-diagnosed him/her to have whatever disease.

Course you realize that a good chunk of the people here are smart enough to know that right? You just seemed to be overly insulting.

Aspergers would explain alot of things for me, but so does my current clinical diagnosis of:

• BiPolar (2) Disorder

• Social Phobia

• Generalized Anxiety Disorder

</li>

It's human nature to try to make fun of those who are 'less fortunate'.

Of course, anyone with AS knows that it's the poor 'normies' that are the less fortunate ones.

To whom are you addressing that?

Well, I assumed he meant jhuuskon when I replied.

Of course it was. If you read closely, you'll see what it really is bashing is Internet losers who sit around and mope that they have some (self diagnosed) mental disorder.

It also makes a minor point that many of the so called diseases are nothing but a collection of symptoms with no real (or known) cause. One who is different than the norm is often labeled something. If most people were anti-social, then perhaps social people would be given the name of some disease.

Again, the article doesn't claim that the condition doesn't exist.

I find it very hard to empathise with Aspergers sufferers. Ho ho ho.

Seriously though, I am hoping one day to develop OCD so that I can solve murders in very clever ways at first with the aid of someone named Sharona but more recently with a substitute named Natalie.

EDIT: more seriously and much more usefully, is is possible to transition between rituals? Could you start buying the coffee to drink out and taking it to the park before eventually incorporating your home made coffee? Would that make the process less painful?

On the prevalent topic of disorders and self diagnoses, I don't feel I have any recognisable social disorder and the only things I self diagnose are the things that are minor and painfully obvious. For example, for the last two days I had a mole that became red and painful to touch so I assumed the scarf I wore almost non-stop for the two days before had rubbed it badly, rather than that I had developed skin cancer. Today it is 100% fine again.

My Community Support Worker was here yesterday, and I was talking with him about the closure of the cafe and some of the suggestions people here had made. We've decided to use this as an opportunity to wean me off this particular ritual and just do the shopping. It's probably going to take longer than the time before the cafe closes to do this though, so what we decided on was moving to the park, and slowly reducing the ammount of time I spend there before going to the supermarket, until I don't go to the park at all. We pretty much decided do do exactly what you said, and start with take-away coffee while the cafe is still there, and then transition to my own coffee afterwards.

Now I just need to work it all into my WRAP. Bleh, I hate paperwork

AS very rarely causes suffering. Usually, the suffering is caused by other people.

I read the Asperger link, it seems pretty evident to me that somebody who studies abstract stuff has less time to learn to be "smooth" & vice versa. Some famous guitar player I read about years ago said he didn't learn to drive until he was 25 because he was too wrapped up in playing, and he said he had a dent in his ribcage from the guitar. You makes your choices and you pays the price.

Did you go through chemotherapy?

No, but Jhuuskon's post makes it appear as if he is saying that anyone who posts their diseases on the internet has been 'self-diagnosed' with it.

I diagnose myself before I see a doctor. If my own diagnosis is major, I go see my doctor. If it's minor, I don't.
"Hmm, blood in my urine? Must be from all that blue rare steak. Nothing to worry about."

Sometimes he leaves it up to me anyways.
Me: "Hey doc, I have some minor chest pains and they've been happening for quite some times. What could it be?"
Doc: "Hmm.... do you drink coffee?"
Me: "Sometimes."
Doc: "You know, caffeine is bad for you."
END OF EXAMINATION

Another time was similar, with a weird rash I had.
Doc: "Do you drink whiskey?"
Me: "Uhh, yeah."
Doc: "Rub this on rash writes prescription for medicated cream that no longer exists and baffles the pharmacist."
Doc: "Use shampoo."

..ok, doc! My doctor is a paki

In America we pay for that kind of service!

Whether or not you use a smilie next to your comment, you're still racist.

that's right you cracka;D