New Aspie Girl

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Heya. Just checking in. I was diagnosed about four years ago when I was seventeen, but I didn't believe or start coming to terms with it until sometime last year. It's been rough, but reading about other peoples' experiences has always helped me cope and realize that I'm not alone. That aside, I'm in college aspiring to be a high school English teacher. I live alone in a tiny apartment with my cat because having roommates has always been a nightmarish experience. My family doesn't know about my diagnosis, but there is a lot of mental illness and extremely poor education in my family, so I haven't felt that telling them would benefit anyone in any way. So basically I've been dealing with things on my own and doing pretty darn well in my opinion, though there are still struggles.

Yep yep. How is life with everyone else?

I think you are very lucky about this. That way, no one in your family will babysit you. This also means you can deal with Asperger in honest and productive way, since you don't have this link in your mind between your Asperger and your family's opinion.

I've had room mates and it wasn't too bad, we basically ignored each other. The problem is then my family complains because I didn't make friends.

My mum knows I have AS but not what it is and if I try to explain she jumps to the conclusion "I don't even want to have friends", "I totally don't give a damn about others and would like to talk just about my interests".

I cope quite well to other extents (I am a good student and I have decent self help skills), so I definitely do not need to be baby-sat.

When I was undergraduate it wasn't too bad either. I simply ignored all the other students. My family complained I had no friends, which I ignored for the most part. But then, as a graduate student, my mom got me to go to Jewish club to "make friends". When I went there, I was hurt massively due to ppl ignoring my Asperger. Ever since then I became obsessed about the idea of manufacturing friends, which ruined my academic career. So this adds up to basically my mom ruining my career for me. And yet, I managed to "prove her right". I happened to move away from home right before then (which was why she made me go to the Jewish club to begin with), so this lead her to say "the day my baby moved away from home things went wrong, so it is better for him to live at home with me".



Whenever I hear aspies complain about things of that type I can't help but to feel jealous. In my case the problem is the opposite: my parents would NEVER say anything like that; they always view me as a victim. They think I really want friends and deserve a lot but due to my "disability" I can't communicate it to other people and therefore I am in so much trouble that I need to be babysitted out of it.

So when I read all the other aspies saying that their parents deny they have disability and stuff like that I just feel jealous. But I guess grass is greener on the other side. Whatever I have to experience on a daily basis is always "worse" than anything else. So who knows which situation is actually worse.



I was also coping well back at the time when I was 100% focused on physics and not on "what do others think". But when my mom perswaded me to go to Jewish club, which drew my attention to the social part of things, I started to slide downhill real fast. So it is not Asperger itself that held me back. It is the reaction of people to Asperger, as well as my reaction to their reaction.

I think I'd need more understanding, because if you expect me to be normal you are disappointed, get mad at me and it hurts. Anyway I think it is far better than being pitied. I couldn't deal with that. I don't want to be treated as disabled, but I'd like to have my difference acknowledged, instead of being treated as "evil". But I ask too much .



That is really tiring. I'd be doing well if just allowed to do my things, instead of receiving pressure to be "more social", which sucks all my energy. It's not that I don't want friends, but trying friendship in "Homework mode" is tough and depressing, and hinders my motivation in all the other things.

Welcome!

Welcome!

Thank you! I also believe that I'm lucky. For not being diagnosed until I was seventeen, I feel like I've made pretty big steps all on my own. Sometimes, though, I wonder what would have happened if I had been diagnosed at a younger age and had all the social skills training and such. My school experience was pretty miserable, and once school was over each day I rarely left my house. But there's no point in wondering what could have been. I made it this far, and I've figured out a lot of things that are helping.

As for the roommate issue, I would agree that maybe my word choice wasn't all that great. The only 'nightmarish' thing about the experience was that each of my roommates left me for another roommate. In my opinion, I was very good about appearing 'normal'--I was very careful not to ever disturb my roommates or inconvenience them, even if that meant being perfectly silent when they were sleeping and I wasn't--but I guess they didn't like the fact that I didn't talk much. We more or less ignored each other until they found someone much more fun to room with, and I remember it being very hard because I didn't know about my diagnosis yet, so each time they left I would cry and wonder what was WRONG with me. I thought that I'd done everything right. That was one of the main problems that led me to seek a psychiatric evaluation on my college campus. But I digress.

Anyway, I'm toying around with the idea of starting a support group in my area, but the idea is kind of intimidating. Does anyone else have any words of wisdom if you've had experiences with support groups at all?

as time goes on, you learn to cope better. i personally find having as to be a good thing. hope this sight helps raise your self esteem about it want what not.

I know I completely digress here. But since you got your diagnosis at 17 and you "had roommates" when you "didn't know your diagnosis yet", I conclude you started college at 16 or earlier? That is wonderful!

I, myself, have been ahead in mathematics and physics. I learned calculus on my own back when I was 13 years old and then, throughout high school, I was taking college level mathematics and physics. What held me back, though, is that I weren't ahead in other courses (like English, history, or what not), so I had to stay in high school in order to fulfill their requirenments.

However, I know that there are ways to pass out of high school if parents really want it. So this brings me to the issue I talked about in the preious response. My mom really DIDN"T want me to take as many math and physics college courses as I did. She wanted me to take only one college level couse per semester, and whenever I took two math courses at a time there was always a big fight while she wanted me to drop one of them.

I really suspect that the reason for this is that she wanted my development to be "more even". Since being too advanced in mathematics and physics is an "aspie trait", she probably wanted to undo it. Now, what would have happened if she had a totally different attitude? Probably she would have found a way for me to start college at 16, just like you did.

I don't get why NTs are bothered by GOOD aspie traits. I mean I understand one doesn't like my social mistakes, but if I am smarter than the average, would you get rid of that just because it is "AS-like"? Such a nonsense. Nevertheless it is not the first time I hear it.

In my mom's case she believes things are "in a package". So she thinks that the "good" aspie traits have to somehow magically be linked to the bad ones and if one go away the other will magically also go away.

Here is another example. Few years later, when I was 26, when I was BEHIND academically, my mom also decided it is due to Asperger (after all, since I have Asperger, all of my problems are related to it). So she wanted me to go to speach therapy to cure my Asperger, and that presumably would make me do better in school.

It's good that you've now been diagnosed, at least. I was diagnosed aged 40 and it was astonishing for someone to finally say "We know what's wrong - here's what it is".

To WrongPlanet!! !