d) Get professional help.

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)

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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

I got low on everything...

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.

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...