Explaining yourself and being believed

Post Reply New Topic

She´s asking. Last time, she wanted to se an evaluation from a psychologist - to get a picture over my strengths and weaknesses.

Who is this person? She has absolutely no business looking at your medical documents!

I get the same comments. I try to explain this to people: one or two traits don't make you autistic, and yes, many people do a few things some autistic do, but what makes you autistic is a set of impairments in specific areas. You have to look at the general picture and draw your conclusions only when you've looked at the whole picture, not just one single trait anyone else can have.

Autism affects social skills, the five senses, communication, the way you process thoughts and information, the intensity of interests/obsessions, routines, etc.

You can't say you're autistic just because you have a hard time making friends, but you are very likely to be autistic if you:

-have a hard time making friends
-have sensory issues
-have obsessions and intense interests
-find it difficult to communicate
-get very anxious if your routine is disrupted
-stim
-when you're social you're "odd" and feel unnatural, or simply don't know how to communicate well or interpret people's emotions and feelings
-would rather stay home to focus on your special interests instead of going out to socialize

These are just examples. Try reading only one trait, for example getting anxious if your routine is disrupted...it makes no sense to analyze this trait alone as other people have that it too. Indeed, people tend to prefer routines. Now, read everything and put all these traits together, and think they're all in the same person and are linked to each other. Also, consider the intensity and the way they affect the life of that person.
Do most people (NTs) get meltdowns or shutdowns if their routine is disrupted? Not really. Do NTs stim? Sure, they do, but how often? Do they have very specific stims and do they feel like they have an important purpose? Not really. Do NTs feel the overwhelming need to run away when a tv is too loud and do they literally feel physical pain? No, they might feel bothered but they don't feel like they need to lock themselves up in a room for hours in order to get back to normal.

I feel bad so I can't talk/write very well now. I hope what I wrote made sense.

I have been officially dxéd three years ago - but I still need to point things out to myself, because I´ve only been me - and have to see, what I have to accept instead of blaming myself.
That´s the whole point.

Yes, been there done that.

I have not been believed by many, but my heart knows the truth. I know that everything that happened in my life, or did not happen in my life, was because of Aspergers that went undiagnosed and that now has been finally understood and half-diagnosed. I am an adult so I am not of importance to the doctors doing the diagnosis, because its is by far much more important to diagnosed young children apparently (according to the doctor it was not important to do the second part of the diagnosis right away, because "you have lived with this all your life and you know how to deal with it, so you can wait a little longer"....

I now do not share with everybody. I just share with my closest family (parents, spouse) and a few friends/coworkers) but others no, I have not shared. I wear the mask too well in public and many do not believe when I shared the story of my life and my diagnosis, which is the reason why I have stopped sharing about the diagnosis, because i know nobody gets it or believes it when I tell about it.

It is sad but true.

This is another reason why I feel like an alien on planet Earth despite it being my only home planet (I am obviously not an alien!).

Yeah, I just want to be able to distinguish mask from myself. It takes some time.