Accepting life as an asperger

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I was diagnosed late, so for decades I wasn't saddled with this depressing "my brain wiring will never allow me to do x or y or z" thing. Maybe the late DX plays into my attitude towards "accepting" my ASD. And my Aspie score is only about halfway between NT and as Aspie as it gets, so although it's not mild, it's not severe, so I can afford to feel some confidence that I can do well.

For me, there's no such word as "can't" in the context of my autism. I don't mean I utterly refuse to accept my limitations as an Aspie, I mean I always feel hope that I can find workarounds to solve my problems, whatever they are. Or I might be able to turn my ASD to my advantage in some situations.

Take social anxiety for example. Years before DX, I was really lucky to find a friendly, tolerant district to live in, and the people there mostly shared a lot of my anarchist values and hippie standards. I was also a musician which was a big help socially. I felt like a fish in good water. I'd even go to parties and enjoy them, and if the crowd became a little tiring for me, I felt free to take a break, and they'd typically say "I know just how you feel, man, get yourself some space, no problem, come back when you like." They had this great thing about people needing to look after each other, co-operating instead of competing. Anyway, the result was that even after moving out of the area I knew for a fact that I'm perfectly capable of socialising wonderfully, as long as the environment is right, and I knew that such environments existed. I possibly hurt a lot of people's feelings a little with my bluntness, but I also made quite a few people happy. In the shared house where I lived, I overheard one lady say "he's like a father figure to us." Really I think a lot of the Aspie social problems come from the group they're in, and if you've never experienced the right group, you might be forgiven for thinking you're stuffed. Maybe you have to be an anarchist hippie type to fit in with anything, I really don't know.

I've never found anything quite as suitable since. My partner shares my anarchic tendencies, we have problems I didn't notice in the nice neighbourhood, but relationships are harder because of the closeness, we get scared and feel negative stuff from time to time when the communication gets messed up (she's very likely autistic too), and we get a lot of crap from external circumstances outside our control that can bring out the worst in us, but neither of us ever feels unloved for long. As for friends, I don't suppose I'll ever feel confident in a new group, especially if they're not particularly like-minded people, but the music breaks a lot of ice, and although these days I often feel anxious in company, it's not unknown for me to start feeling a calm sense of belonging and a sense of some kind of love for the folks I'm with, particularly if I'm getting used to them. Sure, sometimes I don't think I can survive a minute longer without making a big mistake and alienating the lot of them, but I'm learning to calm down and trust myself to be able to find a way of coping that's not going to be fatal. I've always had a feeling that there's something different and "magic" about me, and I felt the anarchists I lived among were magic too, and more recently I've started to think that everybody's magic, it's called being human.

So all in all, I can't see myself as especially disadvantaged, I don't feel that NTs and the mainstream have it any better, they just have different sets of strengths and weaknesses, so for example one of them might be able to sense other people's feelings well but be held back from helping them effectively by an over-competitive attitude or whatever. In the end, I don't feel any more doomed to wasting my life and being unhappy than they are, except on a bad day, and like the fabled irrepressible monkey, I've always bounced back, at least so far.

I believe I am going through the "acceptance" phase with my aspergers even though I was diagnosed about two years ago. I still see neurotypicals in conversation and how easy it is for them, and think if I were like that it would solve my feelings of loneliness and disconnection. Loneliness and feelings of disconnection are what I struggle with most. I am 39 now and have lived my whole life believing I was normal when interacting with people even though I had a tremendous amount of anxiety (due to having aspergers), which never really allowed me to be on the same "wave length." I have been told that if I can accept this difference and learn to be myself it would help with these feelings of loneliness and disconnection. It is definitely a process and helps to know others have had similar struggles and have worked through them.

ToughDiamond, I love your post here! It's so nice to know that I'm not the only one who found the right group of people - and even more beautiful that the groups are so totally different, I live among physicists and other nerds We are lucky.

I accepted that I'm different a long time ago. No point in a sparrow wishing to be a parrot, is how I put it.

In my 30s, I learned something. I can accept myself all I want. "Normal" is still the standard I will be judged against; when I don't measure up, I will still be accused of myriad crimes or at best found wanting and cast aside.

Self-love and self-acceptance don't do anything about the fact that I am "defective," "broken," "less" in the eyes of others.

Now it's a matter of accepting THAT, and still learning to find some value in my reduced life.

I accepted myself as an isolated alien freak by the second grade.

Never heard the word autism till I was 20, or the word Asperger till I was 40. I never had the luxury of even knowing there were a few others like me in the world. I thought it was just me being a habitual loser and screwup, because that's what my parents, teachers, peers and employers told me.

After a while, I not only accepted myself, I actually took pride in being different than the animalistic group-think herd. Most of them weren't very bright, even if they did have social skills I didn't. In fact, it often seemed that if not for their intuitive social skills, most of them would have been too stupid to survive. Besides, I had talents developed over years of isolation and hyperfocused repetition. At times, I rather fancied myself to be the superior being, pretending my reclusiveness was a merely a personal choice to remain "aloof" from the commoners.

In the long run, though, that theory never held water. In terms of both social success and business acumen, they were functional, I was not. They survived, even succeeded, where I repeatedly failed. It was quite a revelation at nearly 50, to finally be confronted with the idea that this wasn't an individual set of personality flaws after all, but a specific neurological dysfunction, a physical defect in my brain, over which I had never had any control. It was actually Cathartic, liberating, to finally have an answer to the interrogative I had been beaten with all my life: "What the F**k is WRONG with you!?"

A word of caution - Independent Thinking is not a quality highly valued in the Neurotypical world - they actually tend to fear it, like hysterical movie villagers fear the Frankenstein monster. I am neither exaggerating for laughs, nor overstating for drama, when I say, be very careful where and how you display that particular ability. It can get you physically assaulted, publicly reviled, shunned, banished, and even incarcerated. NTs tend to think and believe what they have been conditioned to think and believe by "News" and Entertainment Media, "Educational" Institutions, and Religious and Political leaders. It can be dangerous to challenge their programming. They literally "see" the world they have been conditioned to "see" and pointing out inconsistencies in their fantasy can cause violent reactions.

Hey, I know, have been living in this world for long enough to learn to keep most of my independent opinions to myself But in the R&D professions independent thinking is valued given it enabless you to solve actual problems. So there I went.

I'm grateful that you were able to relate so well to what I wrote It's very good to know that your physicists and nerds have been as helpful as my anarchist and hippies. I did work with scientists, and found some acceptance there, but not as much. I suppose it was at least partly because of the mainstream workplace environment which I think tends to spoil a lot of the social potential. I sometimes think another possibly "Aspie-friendly" group might be Zen people, but I've no experience of being with them, I just find their ideas curiously on my wavelength.

I see a lot of truth in Will@rd's warning that displaying independent thinking can invite a lot of contempt from the wider world, and that it can be very dangerous. That makes it all the more important to find people who practice tolerance and appreciate those who think the "unthinkable." It's often hard for Aspies to stay quiet when they hear something they don't agree with.

Wrong Planet helps

The longer it's been since the diagnosis, the easier it is to accept

Jealousy

Resentment

Contentment

Resignation



Apathy

Catatonia

Detached

Dissociated

Maybe merely being older helps too

It helps to be around accepting people

Or otherwise be alone



However, seriously doubt that I will ever completely accept autism

The social rejection was way too profound and powerful

My precious lil "parents" judged and misunderstood me

Doubt that I will ever get over it