Don't judge a book by its cover

    Have you ever publicly spoken and recorded? Have you ever had your picture taken and realized that you look awful just because you didn't pose??? Despite the fact that everyone tells me I have more personality and expression that the typical aspie, I still tend to look very flat in photographs unless I am posing. Just take a minute and look at the photo at the top. I am am the individual with the brown flowered dress on, smiling and giving a hug. Yup, thats me!!!

     You ever heard the phrase, never judge a book by a cover? Labels don't mean a whole lot. Labels for aspergers are simply to get services. They have various symptoms, but not all show all the time. I am typically very flat in my pictures. Typically I see the aspergers in me when I look at pictures, but in this picture I see J. Simply J. I wasn't posing, I was greeting the bride.

     When you look up symptoms of asperger syndrome, one symptom that sometimes appears is awkward facial expressions or inability to know what you're expressing. Supposedly we could be completely happy, but have a frown on for just one second. Someone could think we are sad or unhappy due to that one second, but I guess its an inability to modulate our facial expressions.

    When I was little, I had epilepsy. Fortunately I have out grown this. I have always been open about my issues. When I would share that I had seizures,  people would tell me that I would swallow my tongue if I had a seizure. They would also tell me that seizures were really scary things that made you fall to the ground and start shaking. BOTH are myths. Yes, you can fall and convulse, that is called a grand mal seizure. No, you can't swallow your tongue thank you very much.

     The above example just goes to show that people have weird ideas about stuff. It goes to show how its portrayed in media and how it portrayed in our culture. Now, granted these conditions were a lot less know fifty years ago, but there is still stuff to know. I have prove to myself today to not believe some of the stuff that people tell me. Even though I know about autism, I make mistakes myself. Never judge a book by its cover or a diagnosis by its myths for that matter. Get the facts right!!! Thats what this picture did for me!!! The one with aspergers.