Breaking the subject with an adult child

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New here and first post.

I have a question. My 24 year old son, has not been diagnosed with AS. I stumbled upon AS because of my wife and I watching the show "Americas Top Model" and I wondered what Aspergers was? When I started to investigate it, all I could say was "Oh my God that is my son!" So I am new to AS and new to some of the nuances of AS.

My son doesn't display or did not display all of the conditions listed, only some of them. But I feel he leans towards AS tenancies, especially regarding social interfacing and mental abilities. He lives in an apartment now (near us), is a brilliant young man in many areas, works from his house (his world is computers), but socially is still somewhat isolated.

So my question is:

How can we best discuss this subject with him? It's my thought that this will be in his best interests. What can we expect? Anger? Confusion? Acceptance? Has anyone went through this with a young adult?

Many thanks

my 10 year old was releived that we could finally name her "differences" It meant she wasn't a total freak of nature as she would say. Others have this, deal with it and have ideas and suggestions for coping. Good luck

Anger, outrage, denial etc.

As my bf puts it, saying he has aspergers is taking all of his best traits and saying there is something wrong with him because of them.

I was originally selfdiagnosed and it was hard for me to deal with initially, because everything "great" about me was listed as an indication of aspergers. And there wasn't one aspect of my personality that wasn't listed. IT was as if aspergers was saying I didn't exist as a real person. It took me a few weeks to become comfortable with the idea.

My bf on the other hand was diagnose roughly 10 years ago and he's still not cool with it

Thank you Triangular_Trees for the post.

For me (non-AS) it has taken me back a few steps. It has also taken me a few weeks to digest clearly and understand the nuisances and shades of color associated with AS.
AS is Amazing actually.

So I don't want my son to ever feel that there is something wrong with him, because there isn't. His soul is different not diseased. Each person is different, unique.

We think he'll be a bit relieved actually. But if he isn't, then we are very patient parents who will always stand by him.

It's a confusing diagnosis to understand, whether one is in relationship with person w/ASD or is oneself a person dx'd as such. It doesn't inherently mean any single thing, how the commonalities (dx criteria) are expressed can be quite dissimilar, and span broad range from person to person & within each individual.

http://autism.about.com/od/inspirationi ... traits.htm
Has list of positive traits that often go hand in hand with the 'symptoms' (or however one wants to say it) of being person with an ASD.

It's reassuring to be told that someone wants to understand my preferences, needs, differences in order to possibly make things more bearable/tolerable for me. Can't help but worry that admitting/disclosing my flaws or imperfections will be used against me later...getting used to the dx takes time, as is case for any revelation/realization of info. about one's body/mind health.

I have a middle-aged friend who works at Intel. Now that we know what an asperger personality is, he and his coworkers happily acknowlege their aspiness. The whole place is overrun with aspy engineers. So maybe it's not such a shock. They feel a better sense of belonging.

I worked at Intel for awhile, and you're absolutely right about it being overrun with Aspie engineers.

I would just ask him if he has ever heard of it to bring it up.. My sister has it but she doesn't seem interested in doing any research on it. I just found out about all the new books and even this website.. hopefullyshe will join.

Oh yeah. Don't over do the research on it. My sister was originally trying to send me a ton of stuff on aspergers/ people with it.SO i replied with the link to the "Institute for the study of neurotypicals" and told her I preferred that over the organizations she was telling me about

Hahahaha! I like that.

I had the same reaction when I was diagnosed at age 23.

don't overwhelm him too much with your theories.....coud just drive him away.

Thank you - EVERYONE who has replied and contributed.

I feel much better about this now.

There is an old saying and it goes like this:

"An ounce of patience is worth a pound of brains"

So I will just breathe / relax and let it flow. Time is my best ally.

Knowing my son, like I do, he will need a few weeks to sort things out, but I believe he will be grateful in time that this subject came up. It sure explains a lot of history for both of us.

Thanks again!! !

TS