[mxhunter]

Did Anne refuse to do anything else last night? I didn't watch.

I have a diagnosis of Aspergers and I was so sad to see Anne refuse to do even the most menial of things like wash the dishes on the previous episode. It is further making the whole country believe that we are incapable of living independently, that opportunities must be denied to us because we could not possibly cope. It's because of that perception that I never tell anyone of my diagnosis because I don't want them to look at me in that way.

People on the Aspergers side of the autism spectrum usually live independently, just as Anne does. She lives alone (albeit in a bit of a **** hole from what she said), she travels into London every day for work, she handles the stress of recalling facts on a television set in front of an audience. She lives a great life, just as so many of us with Aspergers do. So many people with Aspergers go on to become academics and doctors and engineers because our difficulties drive us to want to succeed and better ourselves.

Most of us are a god damn mess when we're teenagers, I was too. But by adulthood we have learnt more about life and society and we usually try our hardest to fit in and lead as normal a life as possible because we don't want to be perceived differently. We have difficulties and some 'normal' things are off limits, e.g. I could never to go a club or a loud party because I would be so awkward and not have a clue what to do. It's also true that we can find it difficult to process things. However most of us wouldn't find it difficult to process the most basic things like how to wash a pot, certainly not by Anne's age, but even if we did, most of us would take two minutes to process it and then join in with the rest of the group once we're ready.

Sorry for the long post. I am just frustrated because I think she is using the autism card either because she is lazy or because she wants sympathy, and it's annoying me because I don't want the whole country to think we're all like that. There are some things that I can understand. I would find the first day or two in the jungle difficult to cope with too, just as Anne did. I'd definitely hide it from the others and I wouldn't want to show other people that I was struggling but if Anne wanted to express herself in that way then so be it, we all deal with things differently. But I think she takes the piss a bit sometimes.