"Är jag mig själv? Eller är jag en tjej med Asperger?" : En kvalitativ studie av bloggar om vilken betydelse parrelationer har för unga kvinnor med Aspergers syndroms identitetskapande

Sammanfattning: Author: Julia Falk and Linnéa Linderoth Title: “Am I being me? Or am I being a girl with Asperger´s?” A qualitative study of the role relationships have for young women with Asperger´s syndrome identity [Translated title] Supervisor: Melker Labory Assessor: Ulf Drugge   During adolescence, relationships are important for young people and studies show that having a partner is something that becomes more important, especially for young women. Creating and maintaining good relationships can be problematic, but can this problem be different for a young woman with a neuropsychiatric disability as Aspergers syndrome? A person with Aspergers syndrome often has difficulties with communication and interaction with other people. But the syndrome is also characterized with special interests, different language management and difficulties with sudden changes. The aim of our study was to examine how young women with Aspergers syndrome experience the creation, maintenance or absence of couple relations. Furthermore, we wanted to see the significance these relationships have in the young women´s identity and how they are, based on their disability, managing any problems that may arise with this meaning. In our qualitative study we have followed three young women with Aspergers syndrome through their blogs, individual websites where they write down their thoughts and experience in the form of digital diaries. These three women are seen as three extremes: a young woman with a relationship, a young woman who is single but looking for love and a young woman who is single but not interested in being part of a relationship. Through a content analysis of their texts, we have been able to distinguish experiences, significance and managing. The data that we have collected, did we analyzed to three different theories: intersectionality, Svedberg´s ideas about group processes and symbolic interactionism. The experiences have permeated the whole analysis and what we can see after the completion of the study is that relationships are very important for the three young women. All three women write about thoughts and experiences related to couple relations in their blogs. By using Svedberg, we have come to the conclusion that relationships can be more or less important for the young women. Depending on their experience and whether the desire for a partner is a part of their inner world or not. How this picture is consistent with the external reality is in turn crucial to the creation of an identity, can the young woman´s desire get consistent with reality? And what happens when this connection does not exist? When we have read the blogs, we have seen examples of how the young women both choose to grab on to the idea of a partner or choose to be alone to maintain their identity. The meaning of the couple relations variates between the young women and the way they choose to handle the problems that follows with it. Furthermore, there are variations in both experiences, significance and managing and this can be understood from the extremes but also in terms of their personality, previous experience and the fact that they are divided into different groups in the society. Keywords: young, woman, adolescents, Aspergers syndrome, disability, identity, relationships, couple relations Nyckelord: ung, kvinna, ungdomar, Aspergers syndrom, funktionsnedsättning, identitet, relationer, parrelationer