Is there any Aspie who wish they are born normal?

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Joe90 has stated what I feel is a distinguishing division between those of us happy with our autism and those that are not happy---it's the socializing thing. I believe there are introverted autistics and extroverted autistics. Introverted autistics, like myself, do not desire friends because for me they get in the way of my special intense interests and my world. But extroverted autistics want to be around people and socialize---and I can see why that would be frustrating for them.

I have tried to study this introverted issue with me. Was it because of the awkwardness that made me not want to be around others? I don't really know because I have always felt awkward around others beyond my family (except for a close friend), and I have always been happy by myself. Even in grade school teachers stated that I needed to socialize more. I could never understand why that was so important. I didn't need to have all these friends in order to function in a successful manner and be happy.

I am not afraid of people. But when I happen to be amongst a group of people that are interacting around me, I just find it incredibly awkward to try to interact with them. I feel like I am in a room looking through a window at these people. I just don't feel like a belong with them. And I don't desire to be with them. It could be the many years of the awkwardness that has made me this way. But I am happiest with only my family and no outside people. I really have no friends in the common sense---just colleagues at work. And that is fine with me.

Wait for my social interaction and mind reading skills which I will post this year. I acquired them late last year since I do a lot of retrospection and always had that uncanny ability to understand some of the social interactions albeit late.

Last edited by daspie on 18 Feb 2011, 11:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I cannot describe my loneliness in words. Everyone describes college as the time of your life. I am 22 now and I look at my life...and I didn't realize how much worse things would be than high school. No one ever says hello to me, I have no friends. I am dying to have a real friend, someone to ask me how I am and care about the answer, wants to hang out with me and inititates contact. In high school I had a few friends, but they all forgot about me even though most of them went to the same school. I still see their updates on facebook and it is a knife to the heart how they all interact and are making a life for themselves and five years later what do I have to show? A facebook account with people who wouldn't recognize me it has been so long since they've seen me

I mean, I write facebook status updates just to try to get someone to say something to me. I join a billion forums seeking someone, anyone. But even online I can feel the invisble walls of Asperger's isolating me. When I had a group project class last semester I tried to form connections with my groupmates (we all seemed to get along fine), not just talking when talked to, and still I am on the outside. Then my Asperger's kicks in and I get obsessed withh that person is just polite to me since so rarely do I even feel others know I'm alive. And I'm not even romantically obsessed, I just want a friend. I can't stop thinking about us hanging out together, I create fantasies in my mind where they think I am an interesting and nice person, but unfortenatly I'm not delusional. I know it's not real. So I crash back down to reality, that person is just being polite, they are not my friend.

The loneliness is crushing me, I don't need someone who 100% understands, but I need someone to listen, to have fun with. All people ever see me as is the smart girl. No one ever thinks of interacting with me outside the walls of a classroom.

I don't think anyone gets it.

Hi Joe

It's only recently I've found I probably have AS, and I'm struggling hard with it. I now have an appointment with my doctor in just under 3 weeks (the first available). Yesterday's suicidal crisis seems to be over.

I'm one of these people who instinctively likes to have friends, but I have very few. Most of these people are also involved with one or other interest groups. I now suspect that the twitcher community has far more than its fair share of aspies, but most of them wouldn't do parties. Then again, you're not expected to make eye contact when you're peering through a scope, looking at a bird's backside (the feathered kind!), trying to decide if it's a bar-tailed or black-tailed godwit! At this point, everyone is at least interested, if not obsessed, with birds.

As for holidays, I have a travel bug, and this can be really interesting in terms of how you get along with people:
At one end of the scale, the USA. Hell. I am not going back there. I have several horror stories to tell from that country. I mean, some nice people but, on the whole, a country to be avoided.
Canada was easier, but I did spend most of my time in the forests or mountains, and a lot of the human contact I did have really screwed up, including losing one friend who I'd been penpals with for years. My fond memories were really of Algonquin Forest, early in the season. 5 days with no humans! It was great! I'd go back to Canada.
France was mixed. My French leaves a lot to be desired. I mean, I can communicate, but most French people would rather speak English than listen to me maul French. The French are, on the whole, more physically expressive than are, say, most Scots or English. I found this made them easier to read than people from around here. The gestures tend to be bigger. One day, the wetland reserves at the Camargue!
India is a country I've been to and then been back to. No, really. India has its downsides, and many of them would be things even an NT would struggle with. It's noisy, smelly and overcrowded. You'd think it would be Aspie hell again, and to a point that's true. On the other hand, westerners are expected to be a bit "odd". I made friends there. A lot of Indians approached me because I look different - in this case I have white skin and blond (! !!) hair. A barber I went to said he'd never touched blond hair before. I suspect it would be different in tourist traps like Colaba in Mumbai or Goa.

I think it's possible the same might apply to much of Asia, and I have plans to try to find out.

I hope this helps.

Niall

I get it. Some of it, anyway. I wish I could help, but I can't even help myself.

Short Answer: No
(Not that it makes any difference, since the question is so theoretical)

Has anyone considered that if society were more tolerant, then you would not be marginalized as much. I have noticed that the people that like me the most seem to be open-minded tolerant people. Maybe society just needs to be more open-minded about each others differences. I think that is one of the problems. Society needs to try harder to accommodate AS people.
If this were combined with some early social skills training taught formally, than I don't think things would be so bad.

I think my problems stem from the fact that I didn't know why the world seemed like a strange place. I did not know that I had AS. I also had to fumble through people interaction without knowing what to do. If someone would have taught me people skills when I was young I would probably have fewer problems.

As far as sensory issues are concerned, if society were more tolerant to people stimming, then sensory issues would be a little easier to deal with. Sensory issues will always be a problem though, although I have learned some coping skills.

Ultimately, you have to learn to be happy with yourself. You have to like yourself.
Come on cheer up everyone, this thread is depressing.

Well, on the bright side, I was never bullied in school. I feel so sorry for those of you who were bullied. How horrible it must have been.

Is there any other Aspies who didn't get bullied in school?

Perhaps it is bad for me to say this, but many time, yes, I wish I was born "normal."

I've come to accept my life as it now is, but I feel this deep sense of loss when I think of all the negative ways I've been affected by my condition, and I can't help but wonder "if only...."

When you say "if only...", I am assuming you are referring to things you may have done had you not been born with autism? By any chance, do you enjoy writing?

To be honest, I don't think there is a 'normal', and I don't think the happiness of aspies and NT's can be compared. There is certainly nothing wrong with being an aspie, indeed, it's just a label, and I suppose everyones a bit aspie really.

Of course, this is just my opinion, but happiness is found within yourself, and you should always be happy with yourself. No-ones perfect, everyone has flaws, but everyone has gifts too, and its up to you to realise your own. Whether or not you're an aspie or an NT doesn't change this.

You do have a point there. I'd rather be me than the boy next door to me who socialises normally but has done some really strange things in the past few years as he's become a young adult. I won't say what he's done on the internet, but if you knew you would be disgusted.

Since I've left school I've met some really strange people, and it's really made me think that just because you're NT doesn't mean you're lucky. I just wish I didn't have the sensory issues.

You may be the lucky one. For me, it was frustrating. For nearly 50 years of my life, I never knew I had asperger, only thing was, I knew I was different than other people. But how different, I was not sure. I just knew something's not right.

Just imagine, you have asperger but did not know it yet. Your age keeps going year after year, and you wonder why you seemed so lost, so different, so difficult to mix around like others can. You feel you are handsome/pretty, you're a good person, caring, loyal, but you find it so difficult to mix around, you wonder why. The frustration causes you to sometimes show your anger, though you don't mean to cause anyone any trouble. But the anger makes it even more difficult to mix around - again.

This was how my life had been - not knowing what I had was called asperger. If I had known at my younger age, like you guys/girls know at such a young age, I'm sure I could be feeling better many, many times today than how I had been feeling.

Good news is, ever since I knew I have asperger, about one and a half years ago, I can feel I have taken the steps necessary to better myself. I should say thanks to my wife who had taught me many things before. She passed away about a year before I was diagnosed to have asperger.

I just don't like the way I let myself get shitted upon by other people.
But each time I have ever retaliated in my life, I still got off worse.

Also, I feel awkward all the time. I'm always in the way. Each time I try to help someone trying to move furniture or something like that, I don't help, I get in the way. Or when I'm in shops I'm always standing right in the way, looking awkward and unconfident. I wish I wasn't like this, but I don't know how not to be like it. I've got to be in a really, really, unusually good mood to be able to have some confidence in me when I'm in shops, but like I said, me being in a really good mood when out in public is very unusual for me.

Also, I'm a 20 year old female but I don't like anything what most 20 year old females like. I am not interested, and it's hard to make yourself interested in something you don't want to be, unless you can give in to peer pressure, which I struggle with anyway. I don't like putting on make-up, or dressing up, or clothes shopping, or TV shows like the x-factor, or having a fancy hairstyle.....it's just too much effort for me, and I haven't got a large amount of friends and men to show it off to anyway (and besides, the men who I like me like the way I am anyway). My mum says it's probably because I'm stuck in a rut with myself, and she's right. I mean, I'd rather have an extra hour in bed than having to get up early to groom myself and mess around with make-up and so on. I mean, life's a struggle as it is for me, without adding extra tasks to my routine!
I just wish I was someone who didn't get myself into a rut all the time and who just followed peer pressure naturally. But because I'm not, I can't be arsed to care!

I wish I had been born.

Only before I was diagnosed. When I was a teenager, I kept thinking that I was really "normal," but for some reason, most of the others just rejected me. When I found out I had Asperger's Syndrome all along, I had a reason for being who I am and ways to make life easier for me. Thankfully, I am able to go to therapy and get the help I need, so that also makes having Asperger's easier for me.

Well said - I always say (to a select 2 or 3 ppl ofc) that due to autism, no 'me' was ever born; autism prevented a person (in the usual sense of the word) from taking shape - from the womb onwards - in my body