Do you blame things on your diagnosis?

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People know I have it, mainly because it's a special interest and I couldn't help myself talking about it. Other than explaining it to people, I try not to use it as an excuse. When I'm overloaded I say, "Sorry, a lot of people are talking to me at once and I'm getting confused." or when someone thinks I'm mad at them, "Sorry, I'm not mad at you or anyone, I'm just too tired to talk to people right now." Usually people understand the too tired one. The first one though sometimes provokes people to laugh or think I'm making it up. This is something NTs have trouble understanding; when too many people are talking to me, I can't concentrate and get confused and overloaded.

Sometimes it's hard not to. I only tell it to people that have a clue about AS, like road managers, medical people, etc.
Sometimes it's easier to say 'I have AS' instead of 'I have sensory problems' or 'I have a bad short term memory' because the latter is just describing symptoms of AS so in a way you are still blaming it.
I really hate describing my symptoms to people then just saying I have AS/autism because it's like I'm hiding myself from them.

I reffer to AS when I'm under the impression that I've unintentionally hurt someone, when someone points out a situation where my reaction did not conform to normality or when it's relevant to a conversation.

I never blame AS, as it's not something that can be blamed. It's a set of characteristics that are part of my personality. I do not appologise for being who I am.

I don't blame AS I blame God.

I do it rarely. In day-to-day life, I don't even mention it. But if I really need to for whatever reason, I will.

There's a massive difference between using it as a stupid excuse, and admitting you have a certain impairment when it's important that the fact be made known.

Sometimes I'd like to tell Every strange things I do are related to my AS. I see the world in the other way. If I do sth wrong it's not of my will, generally I don't want to be as rude as I seem.

But I know that people don't know what is AS. And if they know it's half-autism, they would call me ret*d or mentally sick. So it's better to say Oh, I don't recognize people because I see not well... but show me this paper, I am ultra-sighter! I have more fragile senses, this is why I react so... do you know I smell like Grenouille and I could work as perfume-maker? And I have parasomnia. I wear cable as a belt because I must be alternative, cables excite me sooo! I love to be so alternative, do you vant to read dictionaries with me? Or maybe new Statistical Yearbook? Have you heard about new album of Einstürzende Neubauten? I listen to it when I put in order my cd-collection... Oooh, WHAT A PRETTY PNEUMATICHAMMER behind the window, come and watch the building site with me!

And people see me just as strange, dissociable and rude. But they treat me like NT, so they're angry when I don't react as I should and I have their moods and gosspis deep inside

hmmm. I am not officially diagnosed. So I don't know how to answer this. I have tried to explain how I am to people sometimes when I am not making sense to them. People rarely care why though, they just want to label you weird and be done with it. I would encourage people who are officially diagnosed to educate people, I don't consider it 'blaming' the way you are on something, I consider it enlightening people that not all humans have the same mental processes. I have to 'come out' alot about being gay since people assume I am straight and I think it's kind of the same thing.

I don't blame things on my diagnosis. Everybody has their own little quirks, regardless of whether or not they have an ASD. I don't tell people I have AS though, because I don't want to be labelled.

No not even if I've done something blatantly obvious, from 2005-07 I had an obsession with the band tatu, I never stopped talking about it to my friends and it's all I could think about, even though it drove my friends round the bend and it might have made sense to say why I was so obsessive I didn't say a word. Also if I do something that my mum notices and tells me it's an aspie thing I deny it usually.
But I have hinted slightly here and there, but I'ver never used any labels. Recently I've developed a special interest in mental disorders like this one, and I'm not satisfied with conversations unless even a tiny smidge of my obsession is mentioned which gets awkward because I say things like "hey have you heard of that "adam"?" or "I took the emotional IQ test and only got 69" and I'm really embarassed about my diagnosis.
One time in 2006 I hinted because I was on a guide camp and I'd run out of social fuel as it were by the third day so I wasn't talking much and my friend thought I was blanking her, so on the thursday I told her about not knowing what to say and things like that and I told her I socialise better in short bursts and not throughout a whole week and I would run out eventually. She didn't know what the hell I was talking about because when she told the others what I said she sounded confused. We made up in the end though.

I'm not sure how to say this.

In a sense, I do "blame" many things on AS. After all, if I am autistic, I can't help how I am because it's just the way I am...it's not my choice.

Then again, I do have the power to own my choices. I might not ever fully integrate into NT society, but I can learn to better adapt and cope, and within that scope, AS isn't an excuse to fall back on.

I suppose I do a bit of both.

No. I do not want to have special treatment or allowances made for me.

My diagnosis helps, in that I understand myself why I am different and don't beat myself up as much as I used to, but I definitely don't want to go through life with a label.

I'd be reasonably happy to have special allowances made for me, in the sense that I don't want people expecting the impossible of me. So if I thought people would understand and be interested, I'd tell them what I can and can't do and then they could accept the situation and change the way they dealt with me accordingly, and that would be entirely appropriate. I do NOT appreciate being treated as if I were neurotypical any more than a lame person appreciates being expected to jump through a hoop.

But I'd also want the people who knew of my condition to support my wish to kick against the inpairments now and then, and to help me to push the envelope.

In a sense it would be unfair to treat an Aspie as fairly as that while most other people just have to knuckle under and take whatever the world dishes out.......it's asking a lot for the world to really notice my strange, individual strengths and weaknesses, to trust I'm telling the truth about it all and to tailor its approach to my specific traits. I think it would be a better world by far if people did that for each other as a matter of course. But in reality, most of them don't, not for Aspies or for anybody else.

What I don't want is to be cut a load of nonspecific slack based on some glib appraisal of me as some kind of "mental invalid" who just can't cope with life in general and is incapable of giving.

Well put. I agree with this; loads of other people aren't given slack for their difficulties, simply because they're not found in the DSM.



It really annoys me when this happens. Where I come from, people with ADHD are given ridiculous advantages due to spurious diagnoses, from laptops in class to extra points in their A levels.. One lecturer of mine actually boasted about the number of people he'd diagnosed who wouldn't have gotten into competitive courses without his letter of referral. So what about the poor old schmucks who worked their asses off but lost out on a place because of these other 'special' students?

As far as I am concerned, extra help should be available for whoever wants or needs it, in school and in life, but nobody should be given posiitive discrimination or extra points because of some 'condition'.

I try not to mention it. But if there seems to be no other explanation other than Asperger's, then I'll blame it on that.

It is far more healthy for your personal learning and development that you acknowledge your own short comings or mistakes you make and seek to learn them. When you blame a label that has been put upon you as the cause you then dis-empower yourself make out you are the victim of circumstances beyond your control (inadvertantly or intentionally) The world is simply not a forgiving place and regardless of what you have been given in life you have to make the best with the tools that are available to you. No hand outs or aid will ever substitute a drive to empower and make something out of your life even when all the odds are stacked against you.

I personally remind myself how fortunate my circumstances are and see how those in my family who would of had AS in the past had to cope and endure and eventually triumphed over their adversity. I never had to endure being born a refugee or know true poverty or experiance persecution for my beliefs. I look at such people in my family and see that it is possible to overcome the adversity that presents itself in my daily life. The struggle to achieve in education, the ability to hold down and maintain a job, to continue to live independently and to strife towards my own goals in life.

I can understand why people may have too much pain or have such crap self esteems that it is sometimes easier to project their problems outward onto a label or are unable to deal with the world around them and simply want the world to take the burden of responsibility away from them. But fundamentally speaking, it is completly counter productive to your development and it aids you in no way towards achieving your potential.

Afraid im not too sympathetic to people who induldge in victimisation. Theres a big differance between needing help and wanting your personal responsibilites to be transferred out to others as their burden they owe to you.