{"id":1440,"date":"2010-02-10T21:39:09","date_gmt":"2010-02-11T02:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.yuriar.com\/wp\/?p=1440"},"modified":"2010-02-10T21:39:09","modified_gmt":"2010-02-11T02:39:09","slug":"redefining-normal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yuriar.com\/katp\/2010\/02\/10\/redefining-normal\/","title":{"rendered":"Redefining "Normal""},"content":{"rendered":"

“Normal.”\u00a0 You know… that word has always bothered me.\u00a0 I mean, who decided what was normal and what wasn’t?\u00a0 Somewhere in the attic I have a philosophy paper I wrote in college that asked that very question.\u00a0 My theory was that everyone would have some character trait that someone else in this world would consider “weird.”\u00a0 I barely scraped by with a C, because one of the two professors did not like my theory and failed me, but the other professor was a weirdo<\/span> an eccentric, so he gave me an A to balance out the F and allow me to pass the class.<\/p>\n

I slipped the news into that big 2009 round up that we had GeekBoy tested and officially confirmed what I had long suspected.\u00a0 ADHD, Processing NOS, Dsygraphia, and Asperger’s Syndrome.\u00a0 We recently had thePinkDiva tested also, and lo & behold! Another Aspie.\u00a0 Not really surprising if you really know her\u2026 I mean, there *is* a reason her online nickname is \u201cthePinkDiva\u201d.<\/p>\n

First, let me say that I am well aware that I am blessed.\u00a0 As far as the Asperger’s goes, life could be so much worse.\u00a0 See, Asperger’s Syndrome is a form of Autism.\u00a0 But Autism and Asperger’s have a huge range of possible difficulties, that’s why it’s called a “Spectrum.”\u00a0 When most people hear “Autism”, the tendency is to think of either the kid who is walled off from the world, unresponsive to those around him for the most part, or the mental genius who can’t relate to the world a la “Rain Man”.\u00a0 There is so much more to the disorder though.<\/p>\n

Asperger’s Syndrome falls on the edge of the spectrum.\u00a0 The biggest difference between Aspies and Autistics is language.\u00a0 While Autistics usually have a speech delay to varying degrees, Aspies usually have no speech delay.\u00a0 In fact, often times their speech is so well developed that Aspies have been referred to as “little geniuses”.\u00a0 The biggest problem for an Aspie, is the social game.\u00a0 Aspies just are not good at reading other people’s emotions and non-verbal cues.\u00a0 There are other difficulties to be sure, but that’s the biggest one.<\/p>\n

\u201cNormal\u201d in our house is much different then \u201cnormal\u201d in many other houses.\u00a0 A normal day in our home consists of dealing with the daily misunderstandings and the fights that result, as well as the almost daily flares of temper and screaming fits that collide with another\u2019s audio sensitivity.\u00a0 Our days must be planned in advance, and routines must be maintained.\u00a0 Any deviation from the routine requires forewarning and patient explanation as to why the disruption is necessary.<\/p>\n

But\u2026\u00a0 It has always been this way in our home.\u00a0 This is<\/strong><\/em> our \u201cnormal.\u201d\u00a0 When I look at my children, I don’t see a couple of Aspies.\u00a0 I see brilliant, sweet, loving, Godly children who just think differently than I do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Normal.”\u00a0 You know… that word has always bothered me.\u00a0 I mean, who decided what was normal and what wasn’t?\u00a0 Somewhere in the attic I have a philosophy paper I wrote …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family_life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yuriar.com\/katp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yuriar.com\/katp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yuriar.com\/katp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yuriar.com\/katp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yuriar.com\/katp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1440"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/yuriar.com\/katp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1440\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yuriar.com\/katp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yuriar.com\/katp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yuriar.com\/katp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}