Hi, I've been in denial...

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I've perused this site and I haven't found any experiences that match my post-high school ones. While I was in high school, I was very anti-social and only talked with a few people. I figured it was just the heirarchy of high school. I had friends that were popular but I never went to parties. I had been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome early on but I had been diagnosed with so many things and so many people I knew had been diagnosed with all sorts of things that I discarded it in my mind. I was willing to admit I had a learning disability but I wasn't accepting of having Aspergers, even when I was put in the school's Autism/Asperger's program.

When I hit college, there was alot of drama. I got in arguments with people on the school newspaper but then they would be friendly the next day. I was really confused. A girl I was going out with accused a guy at the school of rape, and I pulled a weapon on him. (My family has a history of violence, and I've been hardwired for violence and anxiety since I was a kid.) I was in so much anxiety and stress over it that I didn't know what I was doing.

I didn't get in any trouble for it because they all thought I was just an angry boyfriend but it worries me every day that I'm going to become some sort of murderer or monster.

I went on a date with a girl who also went to my high school and we got along well. She was beautiful and seemed to want to be around me. There was a cafe I knew she hung out at, and I stopped by thinking I might run into her. She thought I was stalking her and she stopped talking to me.

I got invited back onto the paper by the advisor and was placed in a high ranking position. A homeless man who hung around the paper burst into the room and started swearing at me, calling me every name in the book and then sent me frequent mean emails.

I never thought I'd say it, but being in the special ed program in high school was what was best for me. I wanted so bad to be normal that I denied having a disability in my head. I look normal and talk normally, so everyone thinks I'm normal until problems arrise.

I keep going over in my mind how I should have just accepted that I had a disability and told people, and I'm stuck in a constant "What if?" mode.

Ah, well it's good to meet you Gildersleeve. Welcome to WP and I hope you find the answers you're looking for. But of course, I know what you mean about high school being kind of hard for children with AS. Over all when I look back on my life I was in denial for awhile, but I just let myself accept it and moved on with my life. I hope you find this site to be a warm place to fall on once in awhile, as I have.

I think it's bad when we're diagnosed in our teenage years, because the hormones and everything are driving you. Hopefully more kids will be diagnosed when they're little.

Hi gildersleeve, my first introduction to Asperger's was when someone told me (as an insult) that my son had Asperger's and that this was "because of me." I read a lot about AS then but put it out of my mind, I purposefully avoided any reference to autism or AS, and assured myself that my son was an otherwise normal late talker. Eventually my son began having so many problems I finally sought out an evaluation. When going over the criteria for and descriptions of AS/ HFA I recognized myself and suddenly all my bizarre behavior as a child and still to the present day made sense.

There were other times before this, when a lightbulb went off concerning AS/ HFA, but then too I put it out of my mind. For instance, years ago, I saw a documentary about people with HFA and it showed a woman who wrote pages of music, robotically almost, and she didn't even know how it would sound. She just wrote it. I did that as a child constantly and still do sometimes.

So I too denied it completely at first, and tried my damnedest to be normal like I had been trying to be all my life, but like you, I kept finding myself in extremely unpleasant social situations (including being accused of stalking...). So I can understand.

Well, we don't get to pick when we're diagnosed, do we?? I mean, here I'm 50 and just found out ! ! I daydream of how I could have done things different in College, etc, if I had only known.
The point is that once we know, to accept that we have this baffling problem(?) and how can we have a decent life and deal with society at large.

I put a question after "problem", I need a better term for it. I, for one, wouldn't take a red or blue pill knowing it could completely eliminate this "condition" (that's not it either). In the immortal words of one of my favorite philosophers, "I yam what I yam."

Hi!

Welcome to Wrongplanet!

You shouldn't be in denial!

I hope you enjoy posting here!