Pre-Diagnosis types: Do people you grew up with ..?

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I think one reason that many friends and family are in denial when told is ignorance. It is a complicated and nuanced subject. Most people are unaware of the concept of Neurodiversity, for example. Most people only see the disadvantages of AS or AD and think that they are giving you good news when they tell you that you aren't autistic.

I think families have an added reason to pretend denial - they don't want people outside the family to think of them as having faulty genes running in the family. They're not really in denial, but it's the best policy to avoid problems: never admit it. At least in my community, faulty genes running in a family is an extremely delicate matter that is usually handled with lots of silence, secrecy and lies. The family may outcast a member not for having inherited the faulty genes but for being outspoken about it. The member is seen as potentially dangerous to the reputation of the family.

(Faulty should go with lots of quotation marks, of course)

As I mentioned in another thread I bumped into an old class-mate the other day when I was down at the local nightclub, we haven't seen each others in a while (5-6 years or so. ^^), we talked a little and he gave me a very strange compliment (atleast I think it was a compliment. ) "It's nice to see you're still yourself.". Which atleast indicate that people viewed me as being an honest and strong person who could withstand the influense of others, and recognising that they weren't.

The fact it's called "Syndrome" isn't really helping.

I don't know what he meant by it, but if meant as I would've meant it, it's a huge compliment. At my age, if I meet someone from my younger years, they're usually changed into bourgeois, conventional, conformist, couch potato idiots, have betrayed anything they ever believed in, and spend their time at work using the internet to try and cheat on their spouses. All they talk about is their kids, they sound like they're the most devoted parents on Earth and that they couldn't fathom life without devoting it to one's kids - yet the Psychs' office are packed full with their offspring complaining about them.

And yes, I've said it before: if we want people to accept us as only different, then we're doing ourselves the worst disservice by calling it a "syndrome". I never use that dreary word.

Frankly, I think we're doing ourselves a disservice by calling it autism, Asperger's, or any other name in use. All of those are heavily associated with the disorder and not about differences.

If people can have a Type A Personality, why can't they have a Type B Neurology?

I have told a few old friends (people who knew me in high school & college.) Some, I told before my diagnosis (once I was 99% convinced that I had it) & some after. I must have either chosen them well, or they are just good people - because they all responded with kind words. Most of them said something to the effect of, "You definitely marched to the beat of a different drummer," - or similar sentiments. Their message seems to be that they are glad that I have found some answers about myself, but it really doesn't change the way they remember me. I'm not sure if it has changed the way they think of me now - I don't communicate very often with most of them.

A couple of the old friends whom I have told had a few questions for me about AS. Most of them just seemed to take what I said at face value. None of them tried to deny it - or tell me I'm mistaken.

I've also told one quite new friend, who had some good, thoughtful questions for me. We've actually discussed it at length.

I don't disclose to everyone (far from it) - and there are some family members whom I still haven't told (that's a completely different subject, in my mind - the difference between telling friends & telling family.)

I haven't actually come out and told anyone who knew me back then.

The closest I came was, tentatively, asking my sister-in-law - who's known me since I was six, and who also happens to be a special needs teacher - what I was like as a child. She described what I was like, with particular reference to my 'little adult' kind of persona, and then said that I was the 'typical child of older parents'.

Apart from the fact that I knew other kids with older parents and what I went through (basically being expected to be a 1930s child in the 1970s) was not typical, there seems to be a great reluctance for anyone to admit that there was anything at all different about me. I know that people did think that at the time, because I remember some of the meetings between my mother and various teachers, and nobody else I knew seemed to have all these discussions about them. But my mother is dead, and even when she was alive she just thought the one thing I always needed was 'discipline' (i.e. constant criticism and humiliation). She would no way have ever admitted to having a child that had something 'wrong' with them - she believed that if you had a child with any kind of disability, it was 'kinder' to have them put in a home. And denial is an art form in our family anyway.

I've often wondered what some of my teachers from back then would say if they met me as an adult, but I don't even know if most of them are still alive now. And I didn't really have enough childhood friends to have kept in touch with any of them (and some of those 'friends' I wouldn't want to meet again anyway, for my own reasons).

Well, I haven't lived as long as you have, so I've had less time to do that. ^^
You know what they say, a kid has everything their parents didn't.


Because it doesn't matter what we call it untill it's no longer considered a damage.

I tend to think of everyone as being on a larger (Global?) spectrum. I would use that terminology. Some of us are just closer to the end of the Global spectrum than others. I think those who we refer to as NT (on the center of the Global spectrum) would be less panic stricken about AS, AD, etc. if it were described in those terms. Some NT's are more "NT" than others. I recognize that there are significant differences for those who fall on certain parts of this Global Spectrum.

How about Neurologically Atypical? (NA)


By the way, I want to mention that I recognize the challenges imposed by being NA, especially in dealing with the majority NT society.

Rocky, I'm afraid that'd be like changing "n****r" into "Not White". I've been insisting in my local community for some time now that we must use types just like we use for blood: A+, B+.

Greentea-

How about "Neurological Minority?" "Aspergian?"

I don't see the implied derogatory nature of the term Neuro-Atypical.

I will be away from the keyboard for a while.

Last edited by Rocky on 10 Sep 2009, 5:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

As I drifted through high school and behaviour deterioated, less friends, studies went down, some people comment they thought I turned real strange after being knocked out in a Rugby league match.

The MRI showed no damage from my head injury, I was simply trying to find my place, act like everyone else and becoming more anxiour and down in mood.

The only person who knew me growing up outside of my family that I told about my diagnosis was a therapist I used to work with as a child. At the time I was working with her, only those with low-functioning autism got a diagnosis, since it wasn't seen as a spectrum just yet. She agreed with the diagnosis, and that I probably had it my whole life. I haven't seen most people I grew up with in many years, so they probably won't be told. My ex-husband said cruel things about my cousin who was born prematurely and had developmental delays as a result, so there's no way in hell I'll ever tell him my diagnosis as the divorce was final long before I got diagnosed.

Yes, definitely, but even back I think they were mild-ish. I never had any stereotypical stims (such as rocking back and forth), though I was very clumsy. I also wasn't eager to socialize too much back then. Perhaps I realized I simply wasn't good at it.

Everything changed for me in high school. I felt like I finally got a "grip" on myself and learned enough to get by. That was about the time my sensory issues went away, too.