"I Don't Think You Are Autistic"

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IDK which insults you are referring to, but I'll take your word for it & thank my NT friends for their insult lessons.

I may be naive, but I figure anyone I'm talking with does not intend to insult me/belittle me/downgrade me intentionally. So if someone says something that could be taken in that manner, I pay it no mind normally. If I have more than a slight inkling that they may have intended it, I ask them without passion if that was their intention - 99% of the time they didn't realize it could be misinterpreted and apologize profusely, to which I assure them it wasn't taken wrong and I just wanted clarification. For the 1% that intended to hurt me, they're pretty much removed from my life at that point, so it becomes a non-issue.

I figure that could apply in this situation as well. Everyone is ignorant until they are educated on a subject.

I always get the following said to me when I tell some people that I have not seen for a while that I have Aspergers Syndrome.

You don't look ret*d.

You talk too much about a paticular subject most autistic people are mute.

Your just really shy that's why your alone all the time.

Your lack of eye contact is because of shyness.

A lot of people don't like to be touched that does not make them autistic.

You don't act like that guy in Rainman.

I know some people really mean well when they say, "Everyone ___ sometimes," and I've been able to figure out that there are times when I should say a similar thing. When I did first aid for a guy that fell during a hiking trip, he kept talking about feeling embarrassed. So, I told him it was okay and that everyone feels silly when they fall. This seemed to help, maybe because then he didn't feel so alone as someone who fell. But I also have bad associations with that kind of statement, due to other kinds of experiences.

When I came out as gay, at age 15, my father thought it was a phase. His belief that I would, as he put it, eventually discover that I was what most people would think of as normal, was not a comfort. It disregarded a truth I knew about myself and demeaned an aspect of my being. Likewise when others told me they hated to see me "limiting" myself that way.

When I mentioned being gay to someone I knew when I was 18, he said, "No, your not. You're too cute." He then proceeded to harass me for months after that, until I was able to change the circumstances so I wouldn't have to encounter him anymore. He was angry I wouldn't find him attractive and flirt with him, the way other women apparently did, not trying to reassure me about anything.

When I tell people my father's Jewish but my mother wasn't, it doesn't matter whether the person I'm telling is Jewish or not. People from both groups have said I'm Jewish, and people from both have said I'm not. It only sometimes has to do with Jewish law when it's Jews (there's a difference when it comes to what kind, though, and at least that makes sense), and different gentiles seem to make up their own minds whether or not to care about Jewish law, with not much pattern that I can really discern. Opinion also doesn't always seem to relate to whether or not they think being Jewish is okay, so are they reassuring me I'm "not so bad" or rejecting me because I'm "tainted"? In the end, what people think seems to have more to do with their wants and their agenda than anything else.

When I was 19, almost no one had heard of fibromyalgia (called "fibrositis" in those days). So, when I told people about it and explained the associated fatigue and pain, they just thought I was lazy, wimpy, and far too prone to complaining. I don't remember how often they actually said the words, but I knew their attitude was, "Everyone gets tired sometimes. Everyone gets sore muscles. You're just young and don't want to have to face life like a grown up." So, no, they weren't trying to make me feel better about myself by reassuring me I was "normal".

When I told a friend last summer that I was searching for a place to get properly assessed because I thought I might have some mild form of autism, and she responded by telling me I couldn't and then trying to explain to me what it was, with the inclusion of the fact that it's a spectrum and then the claim that everyone is somewhere on it, I felt disheartened by the lack of support. I was telling her I'd had some difficulties and was looking to increase my self understanding, as well as explain to her why some things were so hard for me (such as the very stressful sense of disarrangement and displacement I experience when she stays at our house, which I don't mean to cause any discomfort for her as our guest). It was very unhelpful for her to point out how unlike a client she'd worked with in the past at a residential facility I was in order to make her argument. I think she was trying to find a nice way to tell me my notion was silly, not trying to make me feel better. But I so often misunderstand others that I could be wrong on this one. She's still my friend, so I don't know. I don't see her often enough to work out what was really going on, and I've said no more to her since. She lives in another country, and she won't be back until after my assessment process is done. If I get a diagnosis, maybe I'll have my girlfriend explain things. She's on Facebook with her, and I can't deal with facebook. Also, they talk on the phone once a week or so, and I have a hard time with both foreign accents and bad phone connections, on top of kind of disliking phone conversations generally. We'll see what happens over time, but it may turn out okay in the end.

I have an older brother who thinks it's all in my head.

My aunt does this and from her it always seems very dismissive and with just a hint of disgust. Like maybe I'm looking for an excuse not to pull my act together.
I don't have a diagnosis so there's not much I can say back other than, this is my experience. For a while, she dated a man with an aspie daughter who was very aspergian indeed. So I can see how she would think that my quirks are just variations of normal.
Also, it could be a combination of a No Whining family dynamic and a general stoicism on my part. I tend to be kind of a closed system so it's entirely possible she has no idea how hard I work every day just to seem "eccentric" as opposed to the feral alien I was as a kid.
Turns out, quirky and eccentric are probably the best I can be (which I'm not sad about) and I'm about as pulled together as I'm going to get (I'm not sad about that either).

To be honest, the name "cozysweater" seems to imply a certain kind of emotional/neurotypical normalcy about you that suggests you really aren't that aspergian. You also seem to be able to see things from others' perspective and you seem to have a good imagination and the words you use seem to have emotional connotations that is not really aspergian. So, if you are aspergian, I'm going to guess it's fairly mild.

You're right, if I'm an aspie it's definitely mild. I doubt I could have navigated my younger years at all otherwise. I've actually worked really hard on verbalizing emotions and describing things, so that's a bit of a victory. I also mimic a lot, don't know if that's aspergian or not.

The handle is from a song. Been Afraid by P.O.S.
He says:
"Things are gettin' better now. cozy sweater now,
with her thumbs thorugh the holes in her sleeves worn down"

I guess it's ripped off from Biggie "However livin' better now, Gucci sweater now"
but it's a great song regardless and things ARE getting better now, so it's also apropriate.

My main grump is that I feel like I've worked so very very hard to get to this place and suddenly there's this possible explanation for all these things that I thought just made me a nutbar.
But I've been successful enough that I look like a hypochondriac or a whiner for bringing it up. There also aren't any reliable or consistantly present people from my childhood to question about my behaviors, so I only have my memory and experience. Obviously not reliable.

I do believe sometimes they are saying it, because they think it will make you feel better. As if your saying, "I'm different and don't belong." "No your not, you belong here."

I usually get the feeling though that people either cannot understand that anyone can be different than the norm, or they don't want to believe it is true. I've had a lot of conversations growing up that seemed to work that way to the point I do not discuss how I feel about things about myself/my opinions on myself with others in real life usually. Everything I said the other person would either say I felt that way too, I was just like you, etc.. etc.. when there was a lot of clear evidence that this wasn't true just by their actions while growing up compared to mine. This was even like that between me and my middle sister. Like my middle sister thought, well, when you are older you'll feel differently.. that's pretty much what she said about everything we talked about. She always played, I'm older than you so I know better card. I may very well have felt differently about things when I got older, but when there was already evidence that I went about/did/thought things differently than she did at the same age, what makes her think I will feel/do/think the same things as she when I'm older? I got the strong feeling when I was younger that everyone was just waiting until I grew up to finally be "normal". Like that shy kid that finally gets out of their shell.. I kept telling them I am not that shy kid, I like my shell. I used to think of comparisons, like the shy people that are just waiting to join in normal activities/make friends are like a hermit crab, they can leave their shell. I'm like a turtle, my shell is apart of me.

Examples:
If I developed normally or would turn out just like my sisters, then why:
Did I not like driving at 16+, when most people (including my sisters) did.
Why did I wait to get a license at 18, rather than 16?
Why did I not try to work for money to buy stuff like the others wanting to gain a sense of freedom?
Why did I not buy a car until I was 22 years old unlike most people/sisters?
My sisters moved out when they were 18, why didn't I if I feel/am the same way as they are?
Etc...

I just did not respond/act the same way or do the same things in most parts of my life. Even so people still thought of me as awkward/weird, but underneath it all normal, because I give off the I'm awkward/shy vibe. I almost even get the feeling that since people assume I should be normal/can be normal that I'm almost being lazy/uncaring if I act the way I do instead of acting the way everyone else does, because they believe that secretly I can and it's like I'm subordinate/difficult just to be difficult when if I was a better person to hire/etc.. then I would start acting correctly and stop being weird.

When I was younger I didn't care, and I was in the phase I'll be who I am and I don't care what you think. Once I got older, I realized you can't do that and still function in society and do what normal people do. So I started trying to be normal, even at points wishing I was. It never worked though and I can't just "be normal". I can change my clothes and try my best to not seem awkward, but there's not a lot I can do.

My very oldest sister for a long time thought I hated her, because I didn't talk to her much. I just didn't have much to say to her, I wasn't used to talking to her, because she always talked to me like a little kid before and not often. I even remember the day when she actually seemed like she was trying to talk to me like an equal human being and not a child, as if she was trying to create a sister bond and actually converse with me. It was weird/awkward in fact it still very much is when talking to her and I still don't know what to say a lot. I was polite and responded like I would a stranger, but it didn't go further than that. When she and whoever would come over, I'd retreat to my room and never really talked to her more than a hello. Once I finally realized she thought I hated her, I started making the effort to be out there and try to talk to her a little more even if it's uncomfortable for me. I think once I started coming around more she started realizing that I was just different and that it wasn't too personal. I did leave and lived in another state with someone for almost a year. I came back with a few more life skills, so once I came back I think my family sort of thought that maybe that was finally the time I became normal and would do what others do and I think she kind of started feeling like I was more like her. It was a short lived idea though and now I think she's fairly certain there is something off about me. In fact I think she's the only family member that really knows that there is something off about me rather than being in denial even though we have the least close relationship. I get the feeling that she knows I'm different, but I'm her sister and she will stand up for me to others.

My mom refuses to believe anything, except that I'm just different and that's the way people are. She's pretty happy that I drive now and do some things independently now. She acts impressed/surprised when I do. I understand why she'd be surprised, maybe I would be too if I was a younger version of myself looking at what I have done, but I don't really like when she acts that way even if I know it seemed like I never would, because most of the things I don't do isn't because I just refuse to do it/wont/can't at all, it's because it makes me uncomfortable/stressed. If it was something I did all the time I think I could do a lot of things, it just takes a lot of effort/practice and time.

But I think its because people see autistic people, they think of someone who is banging their head against the wall and screaming bloody murder. That's the interpretation that NTs get when they think of Autism. Most NTs don't understand the varying levels of the spectrum. So when you tell an NT friend, "I have autism". They're going to say those things because they see autism as being someone who can't communicate at all.

I am completely with you!

I remember back in February when I brought up that I was looking into getting an Asperger's diagnosis, my few close friends and family tried to talk me out of it. One friend said, "You're too smart to be autistic!" That reveals how much he knows about ASDs. When I got my diagnosis, I had a long conversation with him about how I owe my intellect to being on the spectrum.

Around the same time, my Father was trying to convince me to not seek a diagnosis. He even said, "If you have Asperger's, then may I be struck with it, too!" As if it was something that could be caught like a cold!

I also avoid smalltalk with classmates because it often leads to me saying that I am an aspie. Sometimes they do not know what that means, in which case I explain. But others immediately just lean back, stare me down and accuse me of lying or playing a joke.

I understand the idea that NTs want aspies/auties to feel included by dismissing difference, but there is a very real difference neurology. You do not solve the difficulties/challenges of difference by claiming they are inconsequential. If they were inconsequential then why would there need to be names for the different ways of thinking?

I will freely admit that I am strange. But when I describe myself like that to others, they say, "No. You're not!" But unlike them, I do not think being "strange" is negative. Like I said, there is a very real difference in thought (as if that needed repeating here).

Well, that's where your brain is, and Asperger's is a neurological variation. Perhaps next time your brother says that, you should reply with, "Of course it's all in my head. My brain isn't in my a**!

It's ironic to me that society would want us to work so hard to be like other people and then penalize us for the extent to which we succeed by calling us liars or saying we're deluded when we mention why we had to work so hard. I feel so much affinity for other posters in this thread.

If my assessment turns out to show I have it, I'm sure my case is also mild. But it's also true that I've learned, through a great deal of effort, over a very long period of time, to do a lot that comes to others naturally; that I've discovered how to compensate for a lot that I can't do; and that I've found ways to mask or partially mask a good deal of the rest. Aside from the mildness and being smart enough to figure some stuff out, there are also other reasons why I've done so well.

One is that it was survival. I don't recommend abuse for anyone, but being yelled at (sometimes at length, as my mother had terrible screaming fits sometimes) and occasionally smacked will certainly make you look for ways to protect yourself. It's easiest to want to hide, and I certainly did plenty of that, in one way or another. But I also saw that surviving meant looking outside myself whenever I could to try to solve the puzzle of what was going on and how to deal with it, because retreat was not always an option. A shell does no good if it gets smashed so that you have nowhere to go.

Later on, though, I lucked out and found myself in positive, supportive environments in which it was safe to peek out and try new things. There's no substitute for that, and I've come a long, long way because I've learned to seek out such environments, not just always fall into them by chance.

In the end, finally finding a girlfriend was a tremendous help. She's shy, too, for her own reasons. Together, we share enough mutual understanding in the right areas and help each other out by being each other's buffer whenever we go anywhere together. Not only does that make me seem more like the other people around me, it exposes me even more safely and frequently to opportunities to learn and adapt. It's still harder when I go places without her, but not as much as it would be if I'd never found her.

Also, the older I get, the more people excuse my oddities and look beyond them. In fact, sometimes they even seem to enjoy some of my quirks and appreciate my unusual perspective. I guess people feel more desire to shape young people by judging and pushing them, but they know you're not so likely to budge as you age. I can't relate at all to people who wish they could be children or young adults again. How awful!

I read through your post, MindWithoutWalls, and found it insightful. I have mentioned my older brother in a few other posts in the past couple days. I pretty much hate the guy. All he ever does when it comes to me is to complain about me non-stop as long as I remember him. Half the time, the guy only speaks to me through my mom even if I 'm in the same room as him, acting as though he's too good to actually talk to me. He also does this thing where if I say something he thought was stupid, he would whisper about it to the nearest person in the room while I'm in the same room and in hearing range. It also doesn't help me when mom thinks she has to speak on my behalf when my brother addresses a question to me (the whole speak on my behalf is an ongoing issue I have with my mom right now). I feel like I don't care about impressing my older brother or pleasing him or anything like that, but I still have to put up with his crap and resist the urge to initiate a meltdown in his face. He's gotten more tolerable since he's moved out (he hasn't lived at home now for a long time now thankfully), though I still don't like being in the same room with him and have to put up with him as long as I still live at home since he does come over to help my mom out with odd jobs ever now and then.

Last edited by MysteriousMrR on 13 Nov 2011, 7:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I don't get any comfort from people telling me that I'm not what I clearly am. besides would an NT get any comfort from being told that he or she isn't "normal"?

It's OK. Everyone's a little normal.

! !!LOVED that one!! !

MysteriousMrR, I had issues with my older sister for a long time. Much of that was contributed to by others. In time, though, circumstances changed, and she also did some growing up, I think. So, there's hope, though improvement may be long in coming. On the other hand, I felt really bad when my girlfriend couldn't resolve things with her mother the way I had with mine, so I know sometimes something like that just isn't in the offing. Everyone's situation is different. The main thing, in any case, is to live your own life, and to live it with honesty and integrity. Either your family members will wake up, or they won't. I can't predict. In the meantime, remember two things: 1) While not just anything may be possible, often more is than we might imagine. 2)You don't have to wait for them to come around before you can assert your right to be yourself and tell the truth of who you are. It may be hard to deal with them, especially the more you assert yourself, but don't let them make you sacrifice what matters for their sake.

Having gone ahead of you in this type of experience, I'm behind you in your efforts.