Being Normal

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I am 78. In the afternoon I went out and I was taken by panic. It was difficult to walk because of the crowds in the streets and the shops. I realized that Xmas was near. I didn't think of it until now. It has been this way all my life. I always spent yuletide alone, Xmas and all its fetive appendages. So nothing new. But this time I see tha matter with an aweful clearmindedness. It's like in Kafka fable of the man before the door (the door of life of course) and the guardian who says: "now I close it".
I knew before that I was different. though until a few years ago I knew nothing about ASD. Even now nearly nobody knows anything about this mattters. I tried to rise the question here (in WP) often: how is ASD for old people? And ho do theu feel in the holidays? But generally old people don't read WP and don't know why they are alone this way. Which is a different way of being alone.
I am assailed by my little dog who wants me to give her the food. May be something will follow later.
Yes I have a little dog.

I am never sure these days! There are times I have thought things would not be offensive but apparently they have been to various people and vice versa. I tend to err on the side of caution just in case.

Not quite all there... Yep.
Different... Of course.
Weird... In a good way.
Odd... In a good way.
In a world of my own... All the time.
Strange.... It's an artform.

Yep. I never felt normal... or I might have when I was young, but before I turned 10 I solidly didn't feel normal.



I thought I wasn't normal because I cared about being myself rather than pretending to like things that others pretended to like so they could fit in. The fact that people actually liked things that were popular was something I almost completely missed. I thought they were just faking because they wanted to fit in rather than be themselves.



I actively didn't want to be normal. My friends in high school didn't have ASDs and had the same viewpoint. Being normal was overrated, why would you want to be normal?



Relieved that I got my diagnosis and that I was right in my self-diagnosis, but as it came to being normal or not, it was completely irrelevant. All I wanted was to be myself. If myself happened to qualify as "normal" in some group, then so be it, but I didn't expect that to happen. If myself never qualified as "normal", then so be it.

My 10 year old daughter felt different from the time she was 5 or so. At first she felt bad about herself. I've worked with her ever since to know that it's ok to be different. One day a bully boy (nasty child) called her a nerd. She came home crying. So, I let her watch Revenge of the Nerds and I told her that the next time someone calls her a nerd she should say, "Thank you, nerds have all the money when they grow up." She did, and he shut up.

Today she was watching a kids' show in which the main characters are nerdish. She told me she's a nerd at heart. When I asked if that was good she said yes. She'd never want to be like the popular kids. Hah! Success.

I want her to be able to negotiate the world without losing the beauty of who she is. That's not going to be easy, but I hope it will be better for her than it was for me.

Well I don't know for sure if I do have ASD. Whether I do or not I sure have a lot of autistic traits. Yes I always knew I was different but I couldn't figure out what it was exactly until now. I always knew what my obvious differences were but I thought those explained it, and it turns out they didn't. Over the years I've gradually I've checked them off one by one as not being the real issue.

I used to think I was just born in the wrong place. I live in the Bible Belt, in redneck country. While I was growing up things were still extremely backwards here, and it is a little better now but not much. I would not have fit in here no matter what.

The biggest difference that bothered me growing up, is I did not agree with the religious beliefs I was taught. I was always interested in metaphysics and the paranormal. I thought when I found people with beliefs more like my own, I would feel more comfortable. Wrong! Turned out I clashed with those people too.

The other major difference was my giftedness and my love of classical music. In high school I was told, oh things will be different when you go to college, that I would be with people more like me. Well college was a huge mistake, from day one, I was completely miserable. I didn't find too many people who were "like me" (whatever that is). I found out I had a distaste for intellectuals and classical music people in particular were too snobby for my comfort. I couldn't stand living in the dorms and being around all those people, and sharing a room with someone was just torture. I went on a downward spiral and dropped out third semester.

All these years I've kept thinking, things would be different if I could find people who are more like me, who could understand me and I've racked my brain trying to figure out where in the world they might be hiding. And yet at every point I've encountered people I had something in common with, I've only felt more and more alienated.



Yes. I read medical enyclopedias and psychology textbooks trying to figure out what was wrong with me. When I was 7 I was convinced I had a brain tumor. I knew my brain didn't work the way it was supposed to.



No early on I didn't try to be normal at all. I looked down on normal people, to be honest. I thought they were quite dull and stupid. I didn't exactly try to go around flaunting my weirdness but I couldn't help it.

What started bothering me about it, was when I was 15, my so called "best friend" started telling her mother how weird I was and blabbed all the things I told her about myself. Her mother freaked and called the school and they insisted I go for counseling (religious counseling, of course). This was a huge turning point for me because I had trusted her, I had been myself around her and let my guard down. I had no reason whatsoever to think she didn't accept me that way, until she ratted me out.

So I guess that was the first time I realized I had better put up a facade with people, apparently that was what my "friend" had been doing with me. I realized that anyone, even my "best friend" could set other people in motion against me, that if one person thinks the way I am is wrong they would tell someone else about it, and that person would tell someone else, and it would pass on down the line until all these people would be coming down on me telling me to change. I realized that appearing normal to others, ironically, was the only way I could have the freedom to be myself on my own time. Otherwise I would nosy, judgemental people constantly interfering in my life.



Well again, I have not been diagnosed with ASD. I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 18 and that was ONLY because I figured that one out myself and told my doctor I thought I had it. No one else got it, they were too busy trying to label me with everything else you could think of. Getting diagnosed was a bad experience and I wouldn't want to go through that again. I didn't feel good about getting the diagnosis, I didn't feel scared, it just felt kind of like it was too little, too late. Knowing didn't make school any easier, teachers didn't want to give accomodations and treated me suspiciously anytime I mentioned it. After college I learned the hard way not to mention it to anyone at work. So for the most part, for the last 15 years I've put it out of my mind that I even have it.

I always thought I had some traits of autism, but for the longest time I didn't know you could have it and still be able to function. Then I heard things here and there about Asperger's but again I had some misconceptions about it. It was not until I came here a few weeks ago and really seriously started reading about it, that I saw how much it fits me. It explains things I was never able to understand about myself before.

I have a lot of emotional trauma from the things I've experienced in life so I know I have some other issues related to that...but I think if you peel all that away, the fundamental issue I have is that I just do not understand social language. And pretty much everything else that happened to me along the way was triggered by that. I feel relieved to finally know this but I'm also angry no one ever understood this about me, no one ever saw it. I'm grieving for the way my life might have been different.

I was frequent reminded at home:
"You need to stop blinking and be normal for once."
"Stop being weird and be normal."
"..."
"Why is this [socializing or being NT]so hard for you?"
"Don't you consider what I want?"
"Why won't you f***ing answer me?!"
Most of these lines can from my parents and they were your typical Asian parents. They want you to be perfect and do nothing other than such. In Japanese culture, it's considered malignant to your family when you can't control your body or conform to society and that's mainly what I feel out of my life. My grades weren't exactly the best (As & B+s) but this also made me question who my parents see me as.
I think I was better off in school than I was at home because my dad wanted to know exactly every detail of what happened to me or what I did. When they caught me ticcing after a bad day at school, they yelled at me but I couldn't stop. I did all my homework at school, (30 mins tops) and then just talk to someone or goof off on my computer.
My younger brother acts like I'm inconsiderate. To me he sometimes acts spoiled. We made up mostly, but he probably doesn't forgive me for humiliating him in front of his friends. My older sister is the person I have the best relationship to, we would still argue a lot, but we would at least share our feelings with each other. When she went to college and I was junior in HS, I felt sad when she left, because home was now a hostile place, more hostile than before.
It was even worse when I was over-stimulated at one of their "oh-so-important" parties. I would leave the room, just to let out my tics or stim on my way out of the room. (Here comes the line: "Why can't you be normal?!") I think that their punishment was sending me to a psychiatrist for an hour and 1/2 and I would lie to her because I knew she would tell my parents exactly what I said there. In elementary + middle school, the teachers treat you like you're NT but not when special-ed teachers pull you out to waste time on things I already knew how to do, (write a "5-point paragraph", or organize my homework) When I convinced my parents to stop the special-ed training, my grades actually got better and they were surprised and stopped for good.
My parents claim they're Christian, but I really question that. Like most atheists, I always ask quietly "Why don't you act Christian?" I suppose my faith felt kind of lost, but I try to acknowledge a God because how could such a complex world be created by chance? (Watchmaker Theology ) Yet this always makes me ask, why am I considered impure?
I still feel really separate from my parents, but honestly, I think my parent's harsh torments vs. my outside family relationships, shaped into who I am now.

Yes. I think I was a pretty typical aspie child in primary school: Clumsy, socially oblivious, talking at people, unable to form friendships, meltdowns, rocking my head from side to side, felt like a complete outcast but just couldn't understand why. Then, as I bacame a teenager I started to comprehend the enormity of my differences. I struggled for years to understand why I had no ability to do all the social stuff that came so naturally to my peers, I felt like I was missing some cruicial part of what made someone human. I became seriously depressed and even suicidal at times as I saw myself as 'broken' or some sort of monster. I slef-harmed and tried to end it all. I felt these feelings that engulfed my entire body but could not even understand them so never ever sought help or discussed them with anyone. [/quote]


At 18 I left for university and made a pact with myself. I knew deep down that, despite still not being able to fully understand it, I was not a normal person. But, uni was a fresh start where nobody would know anything about who I was so I would act confident, act normal, act like other people and, maybe, eventually, I would 'get over this' and become like other people. In some ways it worked but in others is failed. I now have a wife and a few friends (none very close) who I met while at uni. I am now quite good at flicking a switch and (for a limited ammount of time) acting confident and outgoing. I am reasonably good at fitting in to the point that poeple who don't spend loads of time with me might see me as simply a bit eccentric. On the other hand, it was hard work and I completely failed accedemically since I was trying so hard with the social side (and my relative success was a major distraction). Also, I am not totally sure that, as an aspie, putting yourself into willfull denial and telling yourself that you are normal and any evidence to the contrary is your imagination, is completely healthy. Slef-harm crept back a few times, a few years ago my 'im normal' protection broke down and I became convinced that I must be a phsycopath, sociopath or schizophrenic (didnt understand ASDs at the time).


Another side-effect of this 12-year self-delusion was the nervous breakdown I gave myself a few months ago when I finally realised AS explains everything. You pretend to be normal for long enough and you become seriously invested. You want to believe the lie so you become very good at editing your own thoughts and memory to fit: You don't let yourself ever think about who you were before age 11 until you stop actually being able to remember any of it. 5 years of on-off self-loathing, suicide attempts, depression and self-harm become 'OTT teen angst', clear ASD traits become 'little personality quirks' or you just refuse to let yourself conciously acknowledge they happen. If your wife is emotional when we argue, there is 'clearly something wrong with her' - not you. ...so, yeah, taking the red pill and jumping down the rabbit hole sort of exploded my carefully constructed personal world and I am still trying to rebuild. I am sure that, in the long-run, knowing is for the best but I am glad I have the support of my wife and family at the minute as this is far from easy.

I've always felt different from other people, and people in general find me to be quite different from the norm. When I was a kid I tried fitting in but never could conceal my weirdness so the other kids noticed anyways. Now I don't really care about being normal, and considering what seems to be normal according to this society is not anything I want much part in even if I could pull off a normal act. I think maybe society as a whole should make a better effort to encourage accepting peoples differences not ostracizing them for it.

I have never felt normal. Ever since I started K4. I have been called eccentric, artistic, weird, overly babied, stubborn, hard to get along with, spoiled, aloof and naive.

All the time.

When I was a kid, at first I felt ashamed or even scared that I was so different from everyone else. I even hated myself at times, asking myself "Why was I even born?"

At some point I got used to all that and started to accept being different. I began to understand it better, until one day it dawned on me that I am very likely to be an aspie. That actually made me feel good - at least I had a good reason to be weird.

Very, very relieved.

Naming it and finding out that I'm not the only one is like finally coming home to the right planet.

I dont even know what is normal

To me, normal is a setting on a washing machine.

I never felt normal when I was young and still don't today. When I was a little kid, I always wondered why I got pulled out of my normal classes for special ed. I also felt as if there was a gain gap between "them"(classmates) and me. I always tried to imitate their actions, and even opinions. This was all before I knew anything about AS.

When I was 10 years old, I found about AS, which made no sense at first, but after a while it explained a lot of my social issues. Even today, I never feel like I can be myself anywhere. I never developed or hit milestones at the right times wither. I knew my alphabet and how to count to 10 in three languages(at around age 2) years before I was toilet trained(nearly age 4). Now, I am taking college classes meant for people 2-3 years older than me, while I've never even had a boyfriend or a driver's license. That backwardness in itself makes me feel like a freak.

Sometimes I wish there was a way to feel human, but it seems impossible. I have always felt connected with animals, and people have told me that I have a way with them. A lot of times, animals will even act differently around me than with other people. I have seen some cats and dogs that love me for some weird reason. I guess animals can tell that I'm not normal either. I am also an artist who can draw most things but humans. Since I fail at drawing people, I even draw myself as a she-wolf with colors similar to my hair, skin, and eye colors. Being normal is seemingly impossible.

my story is kind of similar to yours. when i was in elementary school I always just assumed I was mentally ret*d because I kept getting pulled away from classes for special ed and the people who worked with me always spoke in a tone that sounded as if they were talking to their cat and whenever one of my classmates found out, they would eather start bullying me or talk to me as if i were a ret*d (just like spec eds :C). Two of my teachers insisted I had potential and if I applied myself i can achieve great things. I had very low self esteem at this point so I assumed they were just saying that to make me feel better about being ret*d. Then sometime this year I started researching ways I can rid myself of this curse which is when I finally found out the true nature of this condition and that i'm not actually ret*d! I am now in grade 11 science (1 year ahead of my peers) and planning on going back to public school.