Being AS only in certain environments...

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This is a thread for people to ponder and hopefully respond if you recognise anything...

I think my son is only AS in certain circumstances. Like it seems to switch on like a light switch the moment he sets foot in school. He was not diagnosed for two years because he did not present with AS in the home environment whereas at school they had him down as AS from day one. The head teacher spoke the other day about my son being a "classic case". I was like, what??? And I'm NOT in denial, honest, pretty much every other person who knows my son is surprised that he has been diagnosed...

So is it possible to be only AS at school? Does his behaviour only come out because he is stressed and under pressure there as he is not at home?

Also - this is really just thinking aloud so feel free to ignore..

I think I am Asperger's but only online... what I mean is, I once posted on a parenting forum full of women who were at first aquaintance superficially friendly. I made myself hugely unpopular by being 100 per cent honest and also by being open about my religion... if someone annoyed me I would make it plain that I was upset by what they said... meanwhile a lot of nasty stuff was going on behind the scenes, people making alliances in private message conversations, ganging up, people making subtle digs at each other, playing politics, acting like school yard bullies, doing all the things I found intolerable when I really was at school and I like to think I have grown out of it now. It came to a head when one or two of the really popular ones decided it was time to get rid of me and then every person who had up till then treated me politely, decided to let rip with exactly how much they hated me, and the site had about two hundred posts from people telling me what a terrible person I was... I think my main crime was in being honest, being real with people, saying when I was upset rather than hiding it and laughing it off. And not caring to run with the crowd.

I have read a few posts here and have seen a few AS people describing the way that they do not like people playing politics and would rather be blunt and honest, which are AS traits. So I wonder if I am AS and only online? Also I find I get on much better with men online than I do with women. I like their humour, I like the way they don't bear grudges, I like their honesty, the way they can say how they feel and it doesn't matter the next day rather than people who will act one way and lie in wait for you to do something wrong and then attack you for it.

If I have said anything here that offends anyone please ignore. I have no intention of naming the website I am talking about. If you think you know the one I am talking about please don't broadcast it. I'm in enough trouble over there.

Interesting ideas.

Just thinking about my own learning disability...its always there but gets much worse under stress. Very noticably worse. I have no idea why that is.

I would think with AS, and this is just a guess, that it would come out more under stress. I know D has learned social roles...and I do mean learn. He has to think about things that NTs do automatically. Sooooo in a situation where an NT is gliding alone, D is already working. Toss in a stressor and the NT starts to work but D goes into overload. He can deal with the stressor (say a test at school) or he can continue to work on the indivisible skills. If he works on the test, the AS "traits" are no longer being hid.

I'm not sure I'm explaining it well.

Also, a home enviroment is more relexed, quirky behavior more acceptable, maybe not even notice.

As for AS on line, I think that might relate to simply not knowing the rules of a particular board. Women are socialized to act certain ways in real life. It sounds like they brought that socialized behavior on line but you, perhaps seeing online as a new enviroment, did not.

Dunno. Just thinking out loud here.

BeeBee

Good points. I had not thought of it that way.

I thought about homeschooling but my husband is against the idea. I feel like I can cope with my son's behaviour whereas his teachers have treated his nonconformity as a personal affront to them. I can see why, they want 30 biddable youngsters who are docile and quiet and easy to teach in a group, but my son's not able to be like that.

As for online, you're right I think. There's also the contrast between people who treat messageboards very seriously and those who don't. I didn't take that one seriously enough. They hated that.

I think that the AS becomes much more of a problem in certain settings and can be almost non-existent (in a problem sense) in settings where I am comfortable and not stressed.

I also think it is easy to get accustomed to our children and the way that they are. Not blindness, just....well...we are used to them, and other people are not.

both my hubby's and my son's "aspie-ness" shows up more dramatically in stressful settings... that is, whenever they are feeling anxious their coping skills seem to be less effective. They still work on their coping skills, and things have gotten much better than they used to be. as far as homeschooling goes, i know the frustration of having my son not be accepted by his teachers....but in the end, i want my son to be able to socialize appropriately~ part of socializing appropriately is knowing what to do when you are faced with a difficult person
( ie; the teacher).

when my son was young and even now who am i kidding i love the summer and hate the school year. i can cope with my son's little quirks but when those little quirks at school become such a big deal, then the phone calls, I just want to yell and can't wait until the school year is done. I think school has just so much pressure for some aspies, some will be able to deal and cope and some just take abit longer or some can't cope with it at all. I would have loved to home school my son but it wouldn't be his best interest, we would have our relationship jeopardized. Being on the spectrum too I too am ridgid with certain things and we would clash. Now if i had money to throw i would have hired private tutors to teach him at home and let him go to 1 class in a school setting that would have been the ideal for both of us. But then again that would only give him the academics without any interaction with students and socializing. He hates group activities, wouldn't join anything so he would be isolated which is not good for him. So school is the only option and I have to advocate for him on a daily basis. I probably went off on a tangent, sorry.
As for the messageboards, I don't really know. I know I feel more comfortable at this message board, then other ones, I don't know why really but I like everyone here that responds even if they have different views. It's more relaxed, the others I re-read everything I write to try to make sure I'm not stepping on anyones toes (which I end up) then I decided to just read not post, I was just getting to stressed out and I didn't need anymore stress then I already have.
Thanks for letting me ramble.

Homeschooling was the best thing I could have done for my son. I didn't know he was aspie at the time I just could not handle how unhappy he was. There were no phone calls home until a month before I decided to take him out of public school. He decided to fight back. He got tired of being teased and bullied.

We are very happy. I do agree about stressful situations. As far as socializing is concerned, he is a musician and every Saturday he goes to a music studio where teens work together as band members. They rotate every 3 weeks working with new groups each time if at all possible. He has had only 1 concern with a kid which he wanted to work out himself. He tried and couldn't and has asked for help and has no interest in stopping this activity. There was a time when he would have just wanted to quit and would have been angry for months. This is growth and I am very proud of him.

Much success to all.

I'm afraid we get a lot of phone calls from school too.

I have caller ID and it is so tempting to not pick up school calls. It only means another problem.

I thought I was the only one that felt that way.

I have noticed that I am much more obviously Aspie in three situations: when under stress, when impaired by alcohol, cough syrup, etc., and when I forget my ADHD meds (or after they wear off when it's too late to take more). In each case, my ability to divert mental energy to the task of maintaining an NT-style interaction with people is compromised. The effects are cumulative - the higher functions like verbal and non-verbal communication skills are the first to go, followed by coherent linear thought and then finally the lower functions like the will/ability to limit stimming in public places (which I usually avoid at all costs). For example, I had sudden and unexpected problems getting home after a late-night drinking party last summer and ended up sitting on the sidewalk rocking for an hour while thousands of people walked by.... It was a terrifying experience.

My mother used to get a lot of phone calls (and letters) from the school. My brother had much more violent anti-social behavior than I did, but we both racked up our share of detentions, visits to the principal's office, etc. We weren't angels at home, but I think the school environment exposed us to unique stresses that made our problems worse.

I would have probably preferred private tutoring or independent study, so I wouldn't have to deal with all the stuff schools, both public and private, dish out.

Schools are very conformist institutions. There are teachers out there who will admit a student does great work, but they think they should fail the student because of "bad attitude," whatever that means. When teachers ridicule students, it just adds to the bullying problems those students may already have. One guy I knew in high school, who was overweight, told me of how students in his 8th grade class all called him Butterball and how one day a teacher was reading grades to the class, the teacher said "Butterball" instead of his name and the whole class laughed at him. This was a private school he was attending and this was allowed to go on.

I grades 8-12, in both a public and a private school, I got harassed by both students and school officials because of my lack of interest in ball games, school dances, dating, and other school activities. They didn't like the fact I had my own activities which I thought were none of their business. Isn't the school's job to teach the "3 R's" and not all this other nonsense? If schools would get back to strictly academic education, and stop trying to force socialization, conformity, etc., maybe we wouldn't have the crisis in education we have now.

Hi Prisoner Six,

How did you feel about being different from the others in school and not into the things they were into? Did you wish you were more like them or did you treat them with scorn? I ask because my Dad handled being different by looking down on everyone not as intelligent as him and treating people like he thinks they are sub-human scum for not being as intelligent as him. My sister does the same thing (neither are diagnosed but I think they are AS or have traits anyway). My son is 5 and has been diagnosed and I think he is very insensitive, he doesn't seem aware at this point that he is different from anyone else and does not refer negatively to his class members.

I don't want him to go down the same path as my dad and sister of thinking in terms of extreme intellectual snobbery and prejudice... but I can see for my dad and sister it's probably a defence mechanism. I'm trying to think how I can raise him to have a healthy respect for these people who will probably ridicule and bully him in his school years.

I didn't look down on them at all. I just wanted the right to be who I was. The things I liked caused trouble for anyone, so why should anyone have an issue with what I liked to do? I never understood this. I still remember when I wrote a paper on shortwave radio and my teacher read it allowed and as a result, I was ridiculed for liking shortwave radio. I never understood why.

My sister did often treat others, including me, like sub humans. I think alot of it was the fact she was spoiled and allowed to get away with murder. My mother had a big concern for her fragile self esteem, so nobody was allowed to do or say anything to her. She'd mistreat me in front of them and if I fought back, I was in the wrong. In schools if she got a bad grade, it was the school's fault, not her's. If she didn't like reading assignments the school gave, my parents would complain but if I didn't like them, it was too bad. There were times in my life I felt like I had 3 parents, mom,dad, sis, since they would at times consult with her on what to do with me.



What about the way others treat him? If they treat him badly, does he not have a right to fight back? I have no respect for those who bullied me, and never will. Respect has to be earned, and bullying someone is no way to earn it in my book. He may never respect these people who treat him badly, and that is how it should be.

You sound like you don't want to be on your son's side. That won't do him any good, I've been there and I know. If you want him to make it through those years, you'll have to support him all the way. You'll have to let him know home is a safe place to get away from it all, don't make it a battlefield just like school.

I am on my son's side, and I do want to be.

But my sister is still angry with the people who bullied her and she is in her thirties... chances are the bullies have matured and have realised their behaviour was wrong, or they have forgotten who my sister is and have gotten on with their lives... so my sister hanging onto her anger as if the bullying went on yesterday is not good for her, it's not productive, it doesn't make her happy being so angry over stuff that happened twenty years ago. It's not right that bullies get away with things, it's not right and it's not fair, but then being angry about it just makes the angry person unhappy rather than making anything better. It doesn't resolve anything.

I am sorry to hear your family treated you badly and that your sister was favoured over you. I had a similar situation in that my sister was everything to my Dad whereas I was just "the other one" and that was hard to take.

I do not agree that respect has to be earned. I do not believe in writing anyone off, even if they are a horrible bully. People are capable of change and have the potential to be good guys as well as being bad guys. I used to be a pretty nasty teenager, and now I'm not so bad, so there you go, people can evolve and change. I believe that everyone deserves respect on the basis that they are created by God in his image and everyone deserves respect. And I believe that forgiveness is the key to a happy and peaceful life. I believe this, it doesn't mean I manage, I am full of bitterness about various things in my past, but I know *intellectually* if not in my heart that the only person suffering from my bitterness is me, not the person who did me wrong.

If you are, that's great. It was just from your post you want your son to accept that these kids treat him badly for no good reason. If he's forced to accept it, maybe he'll start thinking he deserves it because he is bad or has something wrong with him. He doesn't deserve to go down that path.



I'm no longer angry with the kids who bullied me. I've moved on from that. It does anger me to hear that these bullies run the schools and the administration allows it. They are supposed to provide a safe enviornment for kids to get educated and they blatantly don't do it. That is what angers me. That's one reason I do believe in some form of school choice. If parents could easily put their kid in another school, the school would be forced to address the issues but since there is no choice, they think "so what."



For a long time afterwards they still did. My mother is still upset about how in 8th grade, one teacher out of 6 wouldn't sign the papers for a gifted program and labeled me uncooperative because I didn't participate in an optional project. My mother still says that about me 23 years later.

I think they punished me for the whole summer that year, not making it clear what I was guilty of, just so they could force me to be my sister's slave, cram swimming down my throat, and again, just for the sake of punishing me. I really think they enjoyed punishing me and would like to see me punished forever. My mother once flat out said to me of how wrong it is to punish girls and how only boys are bad. That made even less sense because I have 3 brothers older than my sister and they were never subjected to the treatment I was.

If she wants forgiveness, don't come here. If anyone wants tears when she dies, don't come to me. We haven't spoken in almost 5 years, and those years have been much better than any others. Now if the rest of the family would back off it would be even better. My wife wants me to have a relationship with them though, I guess she's going to have to learn the hard way what they really are.



I always tried to get along and be a nice guy, but always got harassed all the same and couldn't figure out why. The only times I was ever really nasty is when I was treated badly, I gave it right back. If everyone deserves respect, why didn't I get any in spite of what I did? I did not deserve the poor treatment I got at home or at school, so why should I respect the people who did it? If they have changed great, but I seriously doubt they ever have or ever will.

Well, for one thing, my son seems very insensitive, which I consider a great thing, if he can let it all wash over him then great. He seems uninterested in other children unless they try and stop him playing with something he's into at the time. I have to shout at him to get his attention. His male cousin, on the other hand, if I even *look* at him with a certain expression on my face he might burst into tears and the cousin is always aware of what everyone in his class thinks of him and will lie rather than have them ridicule him. I am glad my son is not like that. He just drifts along doing his own thing and doesn't really seem to care much (so far) about the others being unkind. I hope this continues but I am aware it might not.



I agree. I have heard a lot of bad things about the way my son's school treats children with special needs and I am thinking about moving him to another school, but it would be hard unless we lived near the other school, and we don't.



That must be hard for you, I'm not surprised you resent them.


Well, you know, I struggle with this sort of thing myself--- you have to think, is it better to try and try with these people or let self-preservation rule? If someone is so negative in their impact on your self-worth and self-esteem and you can afford to not have them in your life, then it's better than trying and facing yet more heartache. Why does your wife want to get on with these people if you don't? In my husband's family there are a set of uncles nobody talks to and I wouldn't go out of my way to track them down and befriend them - I respect my husband's family's peculiar foibles. (It all goes back to a feud begun in 1959!! !)



Giving violence for violence just begets more violence and ill-feeling.




I don't know, I don't know you. I think that people are ver threatened by anyone who is different from them. Some of the really ignorant ones act as if your difference is a personal affront to them. They project onto you all these negative emotions. Or, like sheep, an alpha male might decide to ridicule you and all the lesser males will do the same out of an attempt to bond with the rest of the group, to define "self" by rejecting that which is "other". It might be fun for them but it's not much fun for you.



Er, well, all I can say is influenced by my belief in God, that people deserve respect and love even when they are persecuting you. It's a hard teaching and especially if you don't believe in God yourself.

YOu cannot change any other person or what they think or how they think. All you have power over is how you will respond to their treatment. You can forgive them and feel free of your past or you can hold onto your hostility, negativity and ill-feeling and always be dominated by it. I say this to myself as much as to you, as I am very bitter about my own childhood.