Do people tell you you're normal?

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I hear it all the time, particularly from my parents. I get angry because there's the implication that I am trying to find "excuses" and it completely belittles the challenges I've faced my entire life. On the other hand, there's a guilt thing, I think, going on with my family. They've always known I was different and they've actually called me "socially ret*d" in my hearing but now that there's an actual name to go with it they want to say it isn't real. I think they feel bad because even though they did the best for me they knew how, they now know how truly pitiful their best was. I'm as capable as I am because I worked on it, knowing what I needed to try and master, not because they were able to meet my needs.

One point that you might want to remember is that you don't "grow out" of Asperger's or Autism. They're about the way your brain is wired and how it functions and there aren't a lot of changes that can be made in those two areas. What you've done, however, is learn some good coping techniques (good for you!) that mask your challenges with others. This is nice because life goes a bit more smoothly when people aren't looking at you and scratching their heads. So even if your Mom fondly hopes that you've grown out of your diagnosis you know that you still struggle it's just not as visible.

To be fair, I'm sure some of your mother's wishful thinking is on your behalf too. What mother doesn't want their child to have as "normal" and effortless of a life as possible?

Close friends and family: Yes.
They accept me as normal.

Other people: No.

It's all very confusing. I sometimes get conflicting messages from the same person. I've been called "rude, but charming" and "naive and knowledgable". I've been called "stupid" and been told that I have a "brilliant brain".

Now I don't really know what to think or what's really going on.
I hate offending people without meaning to. I feel awful when this happens and always apologise.

I've been told that I was great at sports and scoring points, but that I looked "strange" while playing. I thought that the idea was not to get injured and play well, both of which I've done. This "strangeness" probably isn't voluntary as I haven't really noticed it yet.

So basically I've been told:
"You try really hard, you play really well, you're physically fit, but you look weird."

And people wonder why I get paranoid sometimes .

My parents have always told me I'm normal. Maybe you can start asking them to define 'normal?' Everyone seems to have their own definition of it.

My mother says "What's normal?" and "If normal meant having nothing wrong with you, then there be no normal people in the world."

You know, no one has actually called me "normal" before.

I mean, my mother has always called me "special" due to my various abilities (my memory for one thing), as well as my perceived level of intelligence. She also has always seen me as an odd and quirky individual with all of the little funny things I did and do. Never normal.

Now, my peers, I don't think they've said anything nice to me when I was growing up.

I think my friends find me normal and an online friend once said he would not have known I had Asperger's if I didn't tell him.
Other than that people see me as different. It is very noticeable.

Until a year or so ago I have insisted that I am normal, and certain people I know who know about this stuff, and who don't have a reason to deceive me, tell me I'm not. I've been saying "I can't be autistic! I can drive, I can perceive normally and I could talk when I was a kid, so the DX doesn't fit!"

During my teen years, people would ask me, how could I be so smart and so stupid at the same time? What did they mean by that and why did they say that? Were they jealous of my academic success or did they feel some strange need to somehow equalize things, and was that the best they could come up with?

OK so I'm usually quiet and I tend to freeze up when asked something emotionally charged, and quality of interaction goes up when quantity goes down, and I can't always tell when people like me, I call people back on the phone after a long delay when they leave messages, and I'm not sure what to do with my apparent gain in popularity since finishing my PhD, but that's all normal, right?

People don't tell me those exact words but I get on "normally" with most people and can hold my own in 95% of conversations now. I don't know what people really think of me though in terms of normal and what not. Sometimes I suspect they think I'm a bit wierd but that's alright 'cause they know me pretty well now anyway and are at least used to me.

well wen i told my friends that i had aspergers most of them sed they didnt even notice. only one of them knew in advance and that was only because a girl i was friends wiv at the time knew about it and spitefully told her whole class wen i was going through depression. I know it was spitefully because the friend i have from that class told me her exact words which were 'Ali is going through depression but its only because of her f****d up mind. Did u know ali has aspergers thats like border line ret*d.'

I was so lucky that my friend decided to find out wot aspergers was by researching it and most importantly asking me how it affected me personally.

He is now my best friend and we're closer than ever now.

yeah!! when i tell people im an aspie they think im just doing it for attention...

Yes. I think I get angry because they have no idea what it's like to have AS or something similar and when I'm told that I'm normal it's kind of the equivalent of them saying "get over it" or that none of my problems matter, in my mind. But not many say I'm normal upon meeting me in person. =] ha

Or when I explain that my other younger sister has autism to someone they usually say, "Well all kids do things like that" or "She'll grow out of it". I feel like punching a wall then. They have no idea how many vacations and outings and how many times I've had to stay home or miss things or not have my parents present at events or having my mom stressed out all the time because of my younger sister being autistic.

Thank you, Sunshower, for starting this thread! I can definitely relate, and reading all the answers has been very helpful.

I was a child in the time when children weren´t being diagnosed for AS- (although my various problems were recognized singly). I am still not officially diagnosed, as I have only found out about AS kind of recently. However, I felt that it finally answered all my questions about myself, and I was very emotional when I made this discovery! Last summer, while visiting my parents, I told them I was sure that I´m on the spectrum. Silly me, I somehow thought that they would be as happy as I was, and that they would finally understood more about me. Unfortunately, they had the opposite reaction from what I expected. We got into an argument about it! Every time I would try to tell them why, they would override me, and say "well, everyone has that problem!" (Of course, I could only tell them about 1 trait at a time, and AS is not about 1 trait, it´s the whole collection of traits). Anyway, I could barely talk and they kept interrupting me, not listening. In this situation, my powers of communication (ha!) get weaker, so I just sort of gave up and thought "why bother"? They kept trying to tell me I was "normal", and they used words like "you´re alright". I kept trying to explain that I actually WANT to have AS, and I know I´m not "normal", but I guess most people don´t understand this...

Anyway, this incident also really upset me, and I´ve been trying to figure out why too. I felt like for much of my life my parents brought to my attention what was "weird" about me, and I often felt insecure about myself; in other words, maybe I don´t quite feel accepted because they haven´t realized who I am? Of course, part of it could be the pressure of people expecting me to act "normal". I guess since I discovered AS, and since it´s an explanation for my personality and the being I am, I don´t really want to go back to feeling pressured to act like someone I´m not...I want to finally be myself.

I guess, in thinking it through, this is probably the main explanation for our feelings and reasons for our reaction: I guess, autism is such an innate part of who we are, that we want to be our authentic selves. (Forgive me, I guess that´s a current "catch all" psychological phrase, but it does seem to fit best what I´m trying to say).

Anyway, at least I want you to know that I can relate.

I don't think I've ever been told that I am normal.... but I don't go around telling people about AS either or they might. When I first mentioned it to my mom she said naah but I read her the diagnostic criteria and she was like "well...."

That was a long time ago and I've learned much more about it since then.

The only thing I've done that can relate to this is I did mention to a 'friend' once that I was thinking I was mildly autistic and she said "Why do you think that?" and I told her breifly and clumsily about not relating to people and she had no idea what I meant.

Ah well.

I hope you're not religious Morgana, but OMG - "Death is the road to awe." is my all time favourite quote of all quotes. I actually posted it as my favourite quote in the quotes thread in Random Discussion.

Anyway, I particularly wanted to respond to a part of your post. Btw, thanks everybody, the comments in this topic have been really eye-opening and also really comforting - I will make an extra comment about some conclusions I've drawn at the end of this post.

The bold parts I could have said myself word for word. Something in particular my mum says when she starts arguing with me about it, is the whole "well everybody has that problem!" "you think you're unique, but you're really not", and she always tries to ask me *exactly* what makes me different from everyone else, and I can never come up with an exact answer. I try to discuss mental processes, logical thought, and get bogged down and confused. I *know* I think differently, but I can't describe what is different about me in a single sentence, like "I have a broken leg". So when I can't answer, she doesn't say anything but just gives me this sort of look like I've proven her right.

She always tells me that to her my aspergers means (and this seems to be its only meaning to her lately) that I cannot think about more than one thing at once. It is this simple to her. Thus, it doesn't really affect my daily life at all mostly, and it's reasonably easy to get around. Thus, I am comparing everything that happens to me in relation to my having AS because I am being a primadonna.

To everybody: Something in particular that I have realized after reading your comments, is that a lot of people might not accept AS as a genuine mental difference (note that I am not using the word 'disorder' here, as whether or not it is a disorder and how it can be disabling is irrelevant to this particular line of thought) because we aspies cannot actually explain what exactly makes us different in concise terms.

If AS was a disorder like bi-polar we'd say; "massive emotional highs and lows." Schizophrenia; having multiple personalities. Tourettes; being unable to control spontaneous words and movements.

As for AS, the only thing they can seem to use to lump us into any sort of category is "social difficulties". This criteria is a problem in itself, for too many reasons to list in a single post (although if anyone would like to elaborate further, please do). "Social difficulties" CAN be (note I didn't say 'is') a problem experienced by people with AS. 'Social difficulties' in itself do not *directly* result from AS itself (as AS, and autism in general, are actual mental differences, not outward social problems - outward social problems can be had by anybody, for any number of reasons).

When people define AS under the criteria of having "social difficulties" (as it seems to be the main focus point for society when considering AS), people automatically assume that once these "social difficulties" are resolved, AS ceases to exist.

I have been called normal by people who don't know me very well, and also by an NT who was referring to the way I am in comparison to NT's who often have their own array of complicated and neurotic issues...

Nobody ever tells me I'm normal. Most the time I don't feel like I am a human being.

The only difference between us aspies is that some of us learned to blend in and others didn't. Underneath, we're all the same, only the ones who blend in get all the "normal" BS.

Sorry, sounding a bit agro, maybe I should go eat something.