Son in denial about having Asperger's

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16 year old embraced it, because she knows she's different, and is proud to have a disability that comes along with many super abilities. It has also helped her understand how some of her more..um...interesting behaviors are not "crazy".

Her older siblings refuse to be evaluated and get very upset, even when I mention their sister's diagnosis. One sibling is even much more willing to believe that she is bi-polar (this is her self-diagnosis).

I was in denial for a bit too when diagnosed. I was pushing away help and still trying to be normal as possible. I would always feel uncomfortable when my mother mention AS to me and when she talk about how I think different and see things different and how I have a different learning style. Then when I was 13 I started to accept the extra help when I was seeing other kids getting it so I decided I wouldn't be abnormal if I got help too. It took me a while to have AS get stuck in my brain for me to remember I have it. Then when I was almost 15, I started to discuss it because I didn't know what it was and I wanted to know how I had it very little because it seemed like I had it a lot. Telling me this was part of AS or that was part of AS wasn't very helpful because to me it seemed like what I was doing was normal. Plus I didn't really have that good self awareness then of myself. I had enough to know I felt younger than my peers and I felt ret*d because I always needed help with my school work and could never finish it alone and I couldn't understand the different between sarcasm and teasing and joking. I always felt stupid. I would interact with other kids but I still felt different. They would all reassure me I wasn't ret*d and I was very smart. After years of being told I was ret*d by other kids, I had started to believe it at age 14 that it was true so I wasn't happy that I had it. Then mom started to remind me I have Asperger's, not mental retardation. I had to get the image out of my head that I was ret*d and replace it with Asperger's. But when I found my school records and started reading them, I saw what IQ scores I got and they were not in the below average range so I then knew I wasn't ret*d. So that got me over that false fact. I learned you can still be smart and still struggle in areas.


I'd say it took me three years to accept it. Then I went into denial again because I thought AS meant have my way and be AS and if I wasn't allowed to be it nor have my way, then I didn't have it.

Any advice would be helpful. I have a 25 year old son who refuses to admit that he has Aspergers. He has no friends, struggles with dating, doesn't hold a job. He went to psychiatrists from the ages of 4 - 23 and refuses to ever go back. I can't blame him. My insurance and I have spent over a million dollars on therapy, medicine, etc. Nothing really helped. Suggestions?

The best (only?) therapy for Aspergers is parties/raves/clubs with MDMA, good music and beautiful people.

Well, 15 years old, he plays sports, tries to be normal. Let him try out having a normal life first. If he keeps at sports, he might be a "jock" and then be able to ride that. Make sure he keeps playing sports, I wish I did when I was younger. Other than that, there's nothing telling him he has AS can really do. Like it won't "do" anything. It's only useful for introspection, that's all. For me, my NVLD diagnosis helps a bit for figuring out ways to improve myself, but if he can't figure out ways to "improve" his person using the diagnosis, then he thinks it's pointless, and it's more or less right.

All the psychs I've talked to said basically there's nothing that can be done for adults with AS, you can only treat it early on really. Once you "grow up" you've been exposed to enough social skills or whatever that it's more or less unchangeable, and your personality is set in place.

To him probably, AS seems like a death sentence, and rightfully so. Look at this board, so many members with no hope in themselves, who just play video games all day. He doesn't want that in his life. I don't blame him.

For me, I denied my diagnosis, because I'd been misdiagnosed, and at the diagnosis, they misdiagnosed me (it was a court eval, so I think there's reasoning behind it) with schizoid, along with the NVLD. Then as I started struggling, I read up on NVLD, and everything fit, and I retook the verbal IQ and PIQ tests, and same results as my initial eval 3 years ago. I more or less had to "hit a wall" to realize it. However, the other problem too, because your son is probably "so smart" (f**k that phrase, I hate that) people probably expect a lot of him. Even if he were to walk around with a giant sign that was like "I HAVE ASPERGERS" people would expect the same of him. He just sees it as weakness.

So as long as it's in the back of his mind, you know, that's all you need imo. If/when he "hits the wall" due to it, then worry about it. The only caution I'd have for you is, make extra sure he's involved with good people, not doing drugs, that sorta stuff. The reason I say this, is regardless, people with Aspergers tend to get scapegoated for stuff, so make sure his moral compass is like, good, try to keep him involved in a church if you go to one, that sort of thing. The main thing I see that he'd have problems avoiding is getting taken advantage of, so just make sure you do everything in your power to not have that happen.

I don't know why I didn't remember this sooner, but maybe the story of a teen I chatted with years ago, who wanted to get her diagnosis reversed, would help.

When you are a teen, you want to believe you are in control of your future, that you can do everything better than your parents did. Shoot, everyone keeps telling you just that, don't they? "Your future is what you make it!" But what about when you are stuck with a label? Someone already threw a wet rag on those endless possibilities and you have NO CONTROL over it.

I think it is important for parents to understand how limiting that can feel to some teens. The one I'm thinking of clearly felt caged by it, and her best response was to deny it had ever been appropriate.

Her story and a few others were why I stopped the diagnosis process at a school use one. When my son is 18 he can leave it behind, and he's always known that. Not many people get that option, but since we did, we took it.

I think it could be important to tell your son in detail why you got the label, and what his options may be for reversing it as an adult should he find it important to him. Probably more than anything he needs to feel he has more control over his future.

Drop the subject until he brings it up

I imagine most 15 year olds especially the ones who are into fitting in and playing sports and all that stuff don't take kindly to being told they have a mental disorder. I guess for me to really have an opinion I would need to know why you felt the need to tell him that, what symptoms he has and how they are interfering with things and basically why its beneficial for him to know/accept he has AS.

I mean it is possible he does not have it as well, there just is not a lot of info in the OP.......but yeah just in general people don't usually like being old they have a mental disorder because it implies you're telling them 'there's something wrong with you.' so that would explain the not wanting to talk about it or acknowledge it.

Here's the problem: sometimes our kids don't want to hear things that help them or will make them feel better. It is very, very difficult to find the line between respecting their wishes and their autonomy, and making sure they have the tools they need to survive.

My son was adamant that he didn't want to know. He refused to believe that there was anything different about him, despite being so handicapped by tic-like behaviors that he could barely walk down a hall. Finally, at the suggestion of a poster here, we bought "All Cats Have Asperger's Syndrome" and left it for him to find. It took him about 4 pages until he realized that he had Aspergers (and, since he was 9, we were able to point out that if it was OK for cats, it should be OK for him, too.)

Until making the connection between his struggles and his diagnosis, DS was totally unable to do anything about it and we were helpless to help him. Now, he's grudgingly taking social skills classes and having great success - he spent the beginning of last year nearly totally friendless and now has several friends; he's able to manage his tics to the point that they're almost nonexistent. He also learned that with appropriate diagnosis comes professionals who know what to do; he'd had years of bad experiences with social workers and counselors who expected him to "talk through" his problems (not helpful if you have a communication disorder.)

I think a lot of people get stuck in the "I'm NOT disabled" rut: I see it with parents all the time, who deflect their own shortcomings onto their kids. There are kids I know who aren't being helped appropriately because their parents refuse to remove their NT-colored-glasses and see their kids' behavior as a mirror to their own. We have taken the approach at our house that our son is the same as we were when we grew up (but even though we aren't them, and even considering those who "protest too much," there are NT parents of AS kids, fraac.) If he needs to learn something, we all try to learn it together. If you are a parent, and you have qualities of the spectrum that affect your life negatively, I think the best thing you can do for your child is to model addressing your weaknesses and building your strengths - and point out exactly what you are doing and how it helps.

Unfortunately, "All Cats" may not work for a 15-year-old (though it's worth a shot - it's a very clear, friendly book) - but you might try "Look Me In The Eye" or another book with an autistic main character. Fortunately for us, there are many people whose relationship with the autism spectrum has been largely positive. I'd say that adults and teens who deny their autism need to be reminded of the positives autism brings: focus, clear thinking, inventiveness, etc.

My 13 year old won't accept the AS but he's already had to accept ADHD/Anxiety/OCD and TS. Also, the hard part is that he doesn't have an official AS dx. The autism clinic said he didn't have it when he was 8 and I have been unable to afford an official second opinion and stuck with current insurance which is pathetic in terms of psychiatric help. I don't understand how you can have ADHD/Social Anxiety and GAD/OCD and Tics and not be on the spectrum. Is it me or is that crazy?

I have decided to not push too much with him. Fitting in for him is everything now that he is in middle school. I wish he could feel how much acceptance his family has for him and that would help him find self acceptance but it hasn't. He says he is happy at school. He has a few girl firends there and a couple of male friends outside of school that accept him and they hang out at the mall, play video games together and stuff like that.

I just hope that some day he can come to accept himself. I wish there was more I could do.as a parent. Some days I feel so powerless (which I guess is cuz I am).

OM

What kind of assistance is he refusing at school?

Just curious, as this seems to be the reason you want him to accept his diagnosis.