Hello everyone! I'm Artife and I'm happy to be here.
The reason I'm here? My father, now deceased, very likely had Asperger's. Two years ago, a year after my father passed, it suddenly occured to me: what if I have Asperger's too?
But pretty much everyone has straight out invalidated this idea and told me it's not possible, even mental health professionals, though I have yet to see an Asperger's specialist. In the meantime, though, I'm still having interpersonal difficulties and losing friends left and right because people think I'm rude or an *sshole and refuse to see that I might just be neurologically different. The metaphor I always give is, it's like everyone's yelling at me for bumping into the furniture and knocking things over, but I keep yelling "Guys, I'm blind! I can't see the furniture!" but no one believes me.
The last friend who straight up decided they couldn't deal with me anymore, when I tried to explain that I just don't understand social things sometimes, his response was "You're a hypochondriac, so I don't believe you."
BUT!
I have a new friend, who got a little frustrated with me the other day for a situation where I didn't see a certain social boundary, and I was really upset and crying and said "I'm sorry, but my dad had Asperger's and I probably do too," and instead of invalidating me, this new friend said "Oh, yeah, you definitely have Asperger's. I knew it the second I met you." And I immediately stopped crying because I was SOOO happy that somebody finally didn't invalidate what I really do know about myself.
Anyone have problems like these? Either losing friends from making social mistakes or not being formally being diagnosed and having people refusing to believe that you might have Asperger's? Would be great to know I'm not alone.
Thanks, everyone!
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RAADS-R Score: 152
05 Jul 2016, 6:57 am
