The Pardox of Social Impairment and Profound Social Disconnectedness

There is an inherent and burdening paradox within the reality of being an adult with Asperger's Syndrome. Central to the most devastatingly-challenging reality of Asperger's Syndrome is its synergistic social impairment intrinsic to or juxtaposed to a profound social disconnectedness.

The intricate labyrinth of this paradox exists within the assumption that a social impairment in and of itself, however that is defined and experienced in each individual (AS) life is tantamount to social disconnectedness

Gregory B. Yates, in his writing, "A Topological Theory of Autism," - the website - www.autismtheory.org/topotheory.html explains that the three founders of "autism", Eugen Bleuler, Leo Kanner, and Hans Asperger, "clearly saw other features of autism as secondary to social disconnectedness." and emphasizes that this disconnectedness "...is the central, eponymous feature of autism it is the primary feature..."-- "it is social disconnectedness that most defines autism..."

The degree to which there are differences, generally, between autism and Asperger's Syndrome (AS), more specifically, in terms of this social disconnectedness varies greatly with each individual. It has been my experience that the manifestation of this social impairment and social disconnectedness also varies greatly between those with more classic forms of autism as opposed to those with Asperger's Syndrome (AS). Even within those with AS the extent to which this paradoxical synergetic syndrome is present depends upon many individual factors including age of diagnosis, intervention, support, counselling and general educational intervention.

I experience this social disconnectedness, as an adult with Asperger's Syndrome (AS), in ways that I imagine are more difficult for me and others like me than they may be for those with more classic autism. It is the awareness that one has with AS that often brings with it a more painful lack of connection. Many, like myself, with AS, to varying degrees, have strong desires to try to be as social as we can. This is, however, coalesced with what is an equally strong aversion to being social.

This paradox of simultaneously desiring and feeling aversion to social connectedness is born out of a lifetime of difficult and painful experiences in the social realm coupled with a lack of understanding and difficulty in truly being able to feel a sense of joining in what others are experiencing as a shared experience.

I am keenly aware, in the social realm, that while I have learned to do many things that one is supposed to do from all accounts and appearances I do not experience them in the same way that neuro-typicals (NTs) do. There is still this feeling of not totally