Anyone mourning NT status?
bigNYC
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Joined: 10 Jan 2021
Gender: Male
Posts: 55
Location: NYC/Dominican Republic
it is what it is we may as well stick together and start socializing among ourselves outside of the computer
CockneyRebel
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Joined: 17 Jul 2004
Age: 50
Gender: Male
Posts: 116,753
Location: In my little Olympic World of peace and love
I understand the OP, as personally I've been having a long and difficult adjustment period following the recognition that I was never going to be able to change myself enough to achieve what I had considered appropriate life goals. In some ways, I'm still struggling to get over a long-established internalised ableism that I am not going to achieve success in areas that I once had thought I might.
I'm speaking as one late-diagnosed, so my experience came from many years of assuming I was NT and of working hard all my life to satisfy normal NT expectations. It was only in the last decade and following burn-outs that it really hit home that my hard-wired limitations were not going to allow me to continue along the path of striving to be successful in the NT sense.
I was already part of the way along this journey of realisation of my hard-wired limitations when I discovered that my issues arose from AS. I think getting the diagnosis led to a period of more intense retrospection, a certain regret, and a harder adjustment in some ways. But I think in the long term the diagnosis will be beneficial in helping me alter my life course to something more sustainable for my neurotype, even of it has brought a more intense adjustment period than I was expecting.
Yes. Majorly. I had nervous breakdowns and hyper focus phases in my life where I picked fights with my family and after burn out ended up alienating people at work majorly. People now resent me, call me a jerk, weird, not well, etc. and I am pretty much alone. I always hoped I would get enough experience with people so I could learn to date, have friendship experiences, closeness with people, fun, marriage even, jobs, etc., but after ten years of trying, the floor came crumbling from under my feet and it all crashed.
Despite being content with my Autism, I felt upset that my family and teachers hadn't been more active at seeking professional support or diagnosis when I was younger. They knew I was struggling and that I was very different from my peers, but I had no accommodations except for speech therapy.
MsJustice,
It's OK to feel how you do. Everyone processes their emotions differently and the path to total self-acceptance isn't always easy. I hope you're familiar with the many wonderful books written by and for women on the spectrum. They might help you to navigate the days when you feel a sense of loss. It will get easier, the more you connect with others and explore your unique style of Neurodiversity. Wrong Planet will certainly help. Welcome to the site!
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Thank you for the encouragement, IsabellaLinton. I have read some by Sarah Hendrickx which was wonderfully validating. I too am frustrated I was not diagnosed much younger, even though all of the warning signs, even by male standards were there for me. I think that contributes to my feelings of mourning; it was constantly reinforced that I wasn't trying hard enough and that if I just tried a little harder I would somehow be "normal". I definitely internalized that, and self-acceptance is tough with or without a diagnosis of anything to complicate it!
For everyone else: "NT-status" was just the easiest way to phrase my previous ill advised fantasy I could somehow be "normal" with enough effort. I do not mean it to sound like NT is better or that I regret being neurodiverse. I had an expectation for myself which I was constantly falling short of and I now know I cannot achieve. I hold myself to my standards very strictly, so this is a goal for all of my life I have to adjust to now. I am in mourning for that dream of fitting in, not for any social status. Just to be clear.
The fantasy was that I could gain access to all the wonderful socializing I saw people do and have the same experiences, as well as not disappointing or being judged by people for not having the same social status. Trying eventually made me hurt and alienate people.
Perhaps I mourn everyone else's NT status. Based upon my experience, the world might be better off it wasn't so full of NTs.
Totally agreed.
NTs are so dysfunctional.
Simply look at their history and the state of the world today.
Horror movie right there on my TV
Horror movie and it's blown a fuse
Horror movie, it's the six-thirty news
The public's waitin
For the killin and the hatin
Switch on the station - oh yeah
I wouldn't say that 'mourning' is the right word for how I felt about my diagnosis, but I wasn't exactly happy about it for two reasons.
The first being that I went to a therapist and later for diagnosis because of problems I had and I hoped they would be curable. And the answer was no, they're not. If it was a physical health problem no one would be like 'Congratulations. Your condition is incurable. Now be happy.' But somehow that's the expected reaction to an autism diagnosis.
The second reason was that I knew I also had another psychological problem that had a bigger negative effect on my life than autism - growing up with selective mutism (although I didn't know that's what it's called) that later decreased to a severe social anxiety disorder but no longer made me mute. And I wasn't getting any help for it because the therapist didn't believe me and wanted to focus exclusively on autism. Because apparently - according to the therapist - I don't know what's going on in my mind and am wrong when I say that I couldn't speak because I was too anxious and my mind could neither form words nor find a connection to my vocal cords. No, it must have been because I'm autistic and my brain was empty because I didn't have enough social intelligence to figure out what I should say.
I mourned at first when I was 12. I would forget about the label and move on but every time I was reminded of it, I felt like a failure because it meant I would never be normal so I wanted to prove they were wrong by still trying to be normal.
Sometimes I still wish I was never told about it and I was better off thinking I was just different. I'm not mad I wasn't diagnosed sooner. The autism spectrum wasn't known then but I feel rather frustrated my symptoms were ignored and over looked. It was like they were black and white, if I didn't fit into classic autism, I didn't have any of it at all. So I was labeled as an unusual child as if I didn't exist and they were basically saying "this is not possible, you can't be autistic and have some of the behavior." But by 5th grade it was my speech therapist that finally brought up Asperger's and said even if I may not have it, I could still have symptoms that are impairing. But I do wonder why wasn't PDD diagnosed then. I was labeled as being developmentally delayed and being multi handicapped as well in my IEP.
But same happened to my aspie friend in Ohio, his aunt thought he might be sort of autistic so his parents got him tested in 1987 and they said he had ADHD, not autism. So for years he didn't get proper help and his parents did their best to help him and he understands they didn't know about Asperger's then so it wasn't anyone's fault.
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Son: Diagnosed w/anxiety and ADHD. Also academic delayed and ASD lv 1.
Daughter: NT, no diagnoses. Possibly OCD. Is very private about herself.
The first being that I went to a therapist and later for diagnosis because of problems I had and I hoped they would be curable. And the answer was no, they're not. If it was a physical health problem no one would be like 'Congratulations. Your condition is incurable. Now be happy.' But somehow that's the expected reaction to an autism diagnosis.
Getting rid of the confusion of why I was the way I was, was extremely beneficial.
It allowed me to see my limitations and strengths.
Realising a have a very bad case of ADD 'soothed' me also, strangley.
The first being that I went to a therapist and later for diagnosis because of problems I had and I hoped they would be curable. And the answer was no, they're not. If it was a physical health problem no one would be like 'Congratulations. Your condition is incurable. Now be happy.' But somehow that's the expected reaction to an autism diagnosis.
Getting rid of the confusion of why I was the way I was, was extremely beneficial.
It allowed me to see my limitations and strengths.
Realising a have a very bad case of ADD 'soothed' me also, strangley.
To some extent getting my diagnosis was also beneficial to me. It helped me understand some of my symptoms better. But initially I wasn't happy about it.
I'm speaking as one late-diagnosed, so my experience came from many years of assuming I was NT and of working hard all my life to satisfy normal NT expectations. It was only in the last decade and following burn-outs that it really hit home that my hard-wired limitations were not going to allow me to continue along the path of striving to be successful in the NT sense.
I was already part of the way along this journey of realisation of my hard-wired limitations when I discovered that my issues arose from AS. I think getting the diagnosis led to a period of more intense retrospection, a certain regret, and a harder adjustment in some ways. But I think in the long term the diagnosis will be beneficial in helping me alter my life course to something more sustainable for my neurotype, even of it has brought a more intense adjustment period than I was expecting.
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Exactly! You said it better than I could. I don't think I was as far along in the realization as it sounds like you were, it came up almost by accident in therapy when I talked about being overwhelmed and getting sensory overload at the grocery store but suddenly I know exactly why I am always burned out at work and not promoted, despite my expertise, due to being perceived as rude and blunt. I always wanted to move up the ranks, and it is sad knowing that no, despite what I was told as a child, I cannot do anything I set my mind to; I am not good with people or "office politics" and I will advance no further. That is a lot to get over.
I also appreciate North Wind's point regarding how people expect you to be happy about a diagnosis. I am trying actively to work on my internalized ableism but having someone tell you that you have neurological limitations is tough. I would posit the hypothesis that Aspie women might get my point because we are often expected to "work through" and mask our Aspie traits as children to fit behavior expected of well-behaved little girls so we internalize an intense desire to try to be as "normal" as possible, which is eventually what leads to burnout and maybe a diagnosis.
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Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. - Aristotle
dragonsanddemons
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Joined: 19 Mar 2011
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Can’t mourn something I never had, I’ve always known I’m fundamentally “different” and that nothing will ever change that. Only thing that changed when I was diagnosed was that I got some sort of explanation for a part of it (but not all, I still feel very out-of-place and fundamentally “different” from other people on the autism spectrum, just in different ways).
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Yet in my new wildness and freedom I almost welcome the bitterness of alienage. For although nepenthe has calmed me, I know always that I am an outsider; a stranger in this century and among those who are still men.
-H. P. Lovecraft, "The Outsider"
I spent almost all of my life mourning and depressed and suicidal because I was not a good NT and could do nothing right. I was a failure as an NT. I felt the failure every day and was punished, had self hate, because no matter how hard I tried I could not get things right.
It actually came as a huge relief to know and understand my autism. I sometimes wonder what life would have been like as NT but I have accepted that is just another thing I will never know. I will never know what it is to be a lot of other things or experience a lot of other things as well.
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https://oldladywithautism.blog/
"Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.” Samuel Johnson
Not really, I like being different. I stopped like other humans years ago because they are too obsessed with their own self hatred. They stopped being fun to hang out with given that I don't like to spend all of a friday night out talking about their self loathing.
It killed my compassion for them stone dead because they drove me mad with their narcissism.