Does anyone understand you at all?

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Even though I'm pretty much understood by many people in my family, I'm not understood by people outside the family unless I tell them. Even so, there are things about AS that neither the sociology or psychology textbooks would tell you. Not many people would understand me or even try to communicate with me. As I sit waiting for a true friend to appear, I continue to appear more and more invisible to others. Not only that, but I tend to sometimes be belittled by the misunderstanding people. At least my family cares. But as I see my brothers with their friends and the relationships that happen in my house, I tend to have an even greater craving for a relationship or a TRUE friendship.

Anyway, does ANYONE understand you AT ALL? If you have any thoughts, feel free to respond.

maybe my mom. but she doesnt know what AS is. She always talked to me in a calm voice and rarely ever lost her cool. I think i am lucky.

No one understands me.

After nearly seven years together my girlfriend is JUST starting to understand me. I'm a bit picky about food and a couple of times when we have been visiting friends she's had a quiet word with them to make sure that there's something reasonable (for me) on the table. Also, people knock the Wikipedia entry on AS but when I showed it to her for the first time about nine months ago I think that things finally clicked into place. There's a psychiatrist who lives in the same apartment block as us and I'm pretty sure that she's spoken with him a few times, he's a decent guy and would be quite willing to seperate rumour from fact.

Ed Almos

Nobody understands me either.. I mind as well just consider myself an alien because to everybody else around me because they act like I'm from a different planet literally..

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Being Normal Is Vastly Overrated

The people here and my job assessor. So far thats it.

I'm an alien.
Before I discovered AS I just thought I was REALLY weird, or everyone else was REALLY weird and I was the only sane one. Something must of went wrong because I didn't have the same skill set that all the other kids had. Weird huh..

I doubt it

Well, I have to ask...do we ever even really totally understand ourselves?
I mean, what is understanding? How would you define it? Humans tend to change over the years anyway as they learn new things, so surely the understanding would have to transcend that?


But to answer the question, no-one in my family understands me as I am at this time.
One person understands me on a spiritual level.
And one understands me...maybe.. on an emotional and mental level.
Besides that... no.

Nope.

I am not sure. Some people understand some facets of me.

Today I began and almost finished Living Your Best Life with Asperger's Syndrome by Karra Baker. It is written by a mother of a boy with AS. In the book she explained something she calls the "Get It Factor". She explained it in context with teachers understanding her boy, but I think we could apply it to people understanding us in general, as well.

There are four levels of the "Get It Factor" (paraphrased from the book)

Level One - These are the people who instinctively understand you.

Level Two - These are the people who don't "get it" but genuinely want to "get it." They truly want to learn more and are interested in your well-being. They will eventually achieve this, given enough time and friendship.

Level Three - These are people who don't "get it" and don't know they don't "get it" but they are sincere and try to identify with you on some level. They are harmless but usually not very helpful.

Level Four - These are the people who think they "get it" but actually have no idea. Unfortunately they don't "get it" at all and probably never will. In fact, they often misunderstand you and complicate issues. They give bad advice not at all suited to who you are. You are a square peg and they want to cram you in the round hole. This is not their fault--they truly think they can help. But they just don't.

I feel less alone now that I have WP. But I am perhaps unusually aware of the chasm that separates even the best and dearest of friends.

my family is a mix of stage 3 and 4

everytime someone say "how can you not know how to socialize?" i just ask back "how come you suck at math? it's so natural."

I don't think anyone really understands me.

Sometimes I think people here come close, but other times I don't even think I'm much like even those around here. I mean I relate to many here, but sometimes I just think I'm my own entity that doesn't really connect and interact with those here... not like others do...

The more I appreciate someone as a friend, the more I try to help them understand my world.

Some family, kind of gets me... barely. But I don't think they realize just how difficult many things are to me. They see the end result, and try to help me... but I don't think they understand the cause... and probably believe I'm just being difficult.