I fired off this e-mail to Dr. Phil.

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Registered: 01-22-2005
I fired off this e-mail to Dr. Phil.
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Tue, 01-17-2006 - 6:21pm

Dear Dr. Phil,

This afternoon I watched your show on Extreme Disorders and Asperger's Syndrome.

I have to say I was very disappointed. I don't feel you gave a fair accounting of Asperger's Syndrome. I fell your views were very one sided and slanted.

I have a 9 year old son with Asperger's.

My son is quirky, he can be difficult, what 9 year old is perfect at all times? But he is absolutely not violent. He has never raged against another person.

He is an intelligent little boy. He is a kind little boy. He is the most caring and loving person I have ever met.

Asperger's, to me, is not a disease. It is a disorder. Asperger's is not terminal.

My son requires some special education help; speech therapy, social therapy, occupational therapy. He takes a bit more time to read than others his age. But he is an extremely smart little boy.

I'm truly sorry you didn't mention any of the more beautiful points of Asperger's. Instead, you focused on the extreme negative.

Asperger's does not equal violence. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that people will now be afraid of people with Asperger's.

I wish you would have presented Asperger's from both sides. I wish you would have been more responsible in you representation of Asperger's Syndrome.

I'm an incredibly proud mom of an exceptional little boy that just happens to have Asperger's Syndrome.

Please take these thoughts to heart before you portray another disorder so unfairly.

Crystal Hanson

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Registered: 06-09-2005
Tue, 01-17-2006 - 6:53pm

Couldn't have said it better myself. YOU GO GIRL!

Kate

Avatar for kingalex
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Registered: 03-27-2003
Tue, 01-17-2006 - 7:47pm

VERY well-put. I do think that the gist of the whole show was that people with Asperger's (and other neurological disorders) usually have little or no control over their behavior at times. BUT, I agree wholeheartedly - he should have shown all the aspects of Asperger's; I agree that people that are unfamiliar with the disorder may now have a fear of people with Asperger's. I also wish he had something to say to those parents - while I understand their feelings of helplessness, I cringed when I heard them yelling at Alex. Obviously, they were unfamiliar with the term "sensory overload" that is so prevalent in Asperger's, and made me wonder how much of THEIR behavior contributed to his violent outbursts.

Thanks for sharing your letter. Let us know if you get a response!

Laurie

Laurie

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Registered: 01-15-2006
Tue, 01-17-2006 - 8:36pm

Way to go Crystal. I didn't catch the show, but it's good to know someone did and is willing to set the record straight. Thanks

Carol

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-24-2004
Tue, 01-17-2006 - 8:37pm

I haven’t posted here in a long while but after watching Dr. Phil tonight I had to check in to see what you guys thought.

I guess I was not the only one upset enough to send an e-mail. -(BTW yours was much nicer then mine was) I am hoping that they get enough letters to re-do the show right. Most aspies are not violent at all and the whole thing just upset me terribly.

My Aspie son is one of the sweetest, funniest, most caring and polite child a mother could ask for. As we sat down together to watch the show, hoping to see others with the same problems, we were horrified with the murderous start. We were crushed and my heart ached for my poor son who was only hoping for a little understanding and to see other kids like himself .

It really ticked me off. They don’t show spousal abuse or murder before every marriage problem show. I told them that maybe they should also show and obese person committing a crime before every diet show. It makes about as much sense.
All Dr. Phil did was hurt kids who are already misunderstood and hurting enough.

Makes me wonder how many of his other shows I have watched only to take away misinformation.
Guess I am now a former Phil watcher.

Thanks for sending your letter, I hope they get set straight and receive more angry letters then they know what to do with.

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Tue, 01-17-2006 - 8:43pm

I am trying to figure out how I saw something totally different when I watch the show. He said over and over that these were extreme cases of AS. Or maybe it is because I have an ASpie that has those rages. I thought Dr P did a good job. just my 2cents.

Liza

Avatar for manda28
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Tue, 01-17-2006 - 11:16pm

Hi I mostly lurk here but here is one thing that bugged me about the show....

It is the part where he had the Asperger's 'expert' on there and they showed the scans of the two different brains. He made a point of saying it was a brain-based disorder (which was fine). But then he said he would help the kid with "brain-based" therapy. I wanted to know specifically WHAT they would do.

Also, it would have been nice to see the other aspects of Asperger's, or even a couple of people with it. So many of us here have young kids and wonder how they will be when they are older.

Amanda, mom to Aaron, 5 PDD-NOS

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Registered: 02-24-2005
Tue, 01-17-2006 - 11:29pm
I sent Dr. Phil an email as well. The thing that has been really disappointing with the Dr. Phil show is that he sensationlizes any issue he covers. I know it's all about ratings but he seems to know very little about a bunch of things and this results in wasted air time and turns two very complicated conditions into a veritable freak show. Now everyone who watches shows like his will think that every kid with AS is potentially dangerous. It's the generalities that drive me up a wall. Yes there are kids with AS that rage but this is not, I'm pretty sure, listed in the DSM as diagnostic criteria. Moreover, it is not the prevailing characteristic of AS. My son also has Tourettes along with two of my brothers. Dr. Phil failed to mention that very few people with TS shout expletives. It is really very rare but couldn't you tell that Dr. Phil was just hoping the man on the show with TS would tic more and even shout the "n word." Please give us something we can use, Dr. Phil!!!
iVillage Member
Registered: 10-24-2004
Wed, 01-18-2006 - 12:58am

I may have had a more negative view just from the way they started the show. But I also didn’t see anything showing other sides of AS then the kid who really wasn’t doing much more screaming and acting up then the parents were. I have an AS kid who has acted up also. I know that the more I screamed the worse it got. I’ve been there!! I don't feel the melt down is caused by AS, they are caused by Aspies not being able to deal with things they can't understand. Having a melt down is not the worse part of AS (JMO). I think the perspective of how these kids need to be understood in social situations should of been covered and not to give the impression that AS kids are uncontrollable and are going to grow up to commit murder. Actually from research I have done they are less likely to.

I felt terrible for Alex He is screaming out for help and they are just screaming back
He was saying things like:
"I cannot believe how damn irresponsible I am!" "I know! I'm not an idiot, and I know I made a damn mistake!"
He just needs to be understood and the show didn’t do a darn thing to help people understand. When Alex said:
"It's sort of like a snowball effect. I try at first to blow off steam little by little. If I cannot do that, it's all just downhill from there. I just explode."
Dr. Phil should of spoke up and helped him find a tolerable why to blow off steam.

My DS would come home from school and be like that because of having to put up with kids and teachers at school that just wouldn’t let him alone. His way to cope was to take a big stick and beat on a tree till he had no energy left. That probably wouldn't even be needed if people would let these kids be who they are and not make them fit in. Their anxiety and stress which causes these tantrums are caused by their feeling of not being adequate. They know they are not the same as everyone else and they know they can’t be so they get frustrated and don’t know how to deal with it. You can’t force a square peg into a round hole no matter how much you scream!

When Alex's father said “You can't tell when we're mad or not!" why wasn’t it addressed that they need to teach him how to tell. People wonder why these kids are acting up. They don’t have a clue what’s going on around them and no one will explain it. People don’t realize that they have to start at the beginning. We started with a book of faces and explain what a happy face is, what a sad face is, what an angry face is etc. and went from there. My son was 13 at the time. Now at 20 he has it figured out and is basically normal. The only way you will know that he has AS is if he tells you.
Dr Phil covered none of that (that I heard but then we were pretty frustrated with the whole show). I felt bad for my DS, he was already to have a show explain AS to people and it did nothing to help people understand where these kids are coming from. I wish we would of never watched it.

Opps sorry I guess I got off on a tantrum of my own . . .




Edited 1/18/2006 1:02 am ET by yoopy
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-12-2003
Wed, 01-18-2006 - 8:00pm

Hi y'all haven't been here in a while. I watched Dr.Phil and was very disappointed
my son 13yrs also has AS and I'll tell you there is not one violent bone in his body
and he is so sweet. I feel Dr. Phil focused primarily on the negative part of this behaviour which in my opinion any kid with a mother or father who screams at them constantly will go insane.I feel so misrepresented to an already misunderstood disorder.
very poorly done I also sent an angry E-mail to good old Dr.Phil
hope he does a better job in the future before he does another show on extreme behaviors.

tammy

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Wed, 01-18-2006 - 9:03pm

Ok, now ya'll are all making me feeling like a bad parent because my son rages. And I related to that show so well. That mother could have been me on that stage. I thought he did a good job in explaining it was an extreme case and that not all As er's do this.

In the past few months I really haven't felt the supported here. I guess if you don't have an Aspie that is in the "norm" for aspie behavior you get ignored and disgarded.

Liza

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