"identifying too much with autism"

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I started school at the turn of the millennium.

I started out in the groups that were given the most attention (and remembering who else was in this group, I have since massively outperformed them). I was fairly quickly moved up to a middling group, then the next year I was moved to the highest streams for English and Maths. The following year, I was diagnosed with AS... and I carried on being treated as a gifted pupil, being set more advanced work than others, even though I needed special help with my handwriting and social skills.

Throughout my school life, I have been given challenging work where appropriate, and I have also been given the additional support I need. It wasn't assumed that because I occasionally need time out from lessons that I should be moved to the lowest set for Maths or anything like that, nor was it assumed that because I was one of the highest performers in my year that I wouldn't be having social problems, issues with anxiety, and so forth.

I don't think there is anything wrong with identifying with autism, Sounds like Temple Gradin is just tired of speaking about autism and has some preconceived notion that young adults are focusing to much on it. Maybe she should give up public speaking then. I don't like the tone "well back in my day..." well... congratulations for living in a less informed time.

Who cares, autism conferences are for autism. If I wanted to talk about astronomy I would go to an astronomy conference and I am sure they would be confused if all I talked about was autism.

I do not think there is anything wrong with talking about it. I talk about it here and I finally discussed it at home (wether this was good or bad in the long run I am still debating about) and I enjoy reading and studying about it, but I think the problem lies with individuals who are like "no one understands me and the only reason I have no friends is because they are nt and I am not and they dont get me bs"

imho, the problem isn't that they are being labeled as having an ASD, but that it is being seen as being "wrong" or a defect, instead of being seen as a difference that is ok, but means some things are done differently than with NT children. ASD kids hit milestones on a different schedule -- this is not a defect, but merely a difference that needs to be acknowledged. ASD kids often learn differently than NT children, and this too needs to be embraced by all involved in the education of any ASD child.

The assumption that focusing on autism is not something that one might truly love to do. It's not "either you focus on what you truly love or you focus on autism." It is possible to focus on autism because it is something you truly love to do.

Last edited by Verdandi on 20 Jan 2013, 4:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I didn't attack you. I disagreed with you. I wrote what I did because you said you'd know better than the people who have particular stims whether or not they actually have those stims.



I have never said it's bad being HFA or any other label in the spectrum.



I did not go off on you. You said things that I disagreed with. You say now that I am not in your head and have no idea what you meant, but you made sweeping statements about who supposedly really does or does not have particular stims, and that is what I was responding to.

I will keep in mind that you describe disagreement as an "attack" and as "going off." and other hyperbolic descriptions that have nothing to do with what was said.

I'll see if I can clarify my point:

I do not believe people are competing to see who has the most stims. I do not think people are claiming to have stims they do not have. I do not believe that some stims are strictly present in one part of the autistic spectrum, and I think that the perception that stims should be associated with particular labels is mostly due to stereotypes about autism.

Telling people that they have the wrong stims for their diagnosis can be taken as condescending and potentially antagonistic. Telling people that they shouldn't be focusing on their diagnosis is a rather negative perspective to take, as if the idea of acknowledging and understanding how one functions is somehow a bad thing.

I do not know what you are thinking, I only know what you wrote, and I only responded to what you wrote.

Agreed. I was considered smart as a child and everyone expected great things from me. I disappointed them. I even disappointed myself because I didn't understand why life seemed so difficult. I burned out easily. It happened in high school and it happened in my first job, which was full time. I've worked casually and part time since then. People around me couldn't understand why I wasn't the typical picture of success. I was accused of being lazy, and without a diagnosis or even an inkling that I might have Asperger's, I feared they were right, even though I was barely keeping my head above water. I thought everyone must feel like this, only they had found a better way to deal with it than I had.

Being diagnosed has allowed me to understand my difficulties and, as I said in a previous post, it's allowed me to forgive myself. I am hoping it will help me make more intelligent decisions in the future and that maybe I will find some success, on my own terms.

Indeed. I see nothing bad about wanting to discuss it because you want to learn more about yourself and/or you find the topic fascinating (I am guilty on both counts). Where I see it becoming problematic is when it gets used as an excuse.

What does "using it as an excuse" mean, though? I often see this advised against as a warning, but it often seems to mean "Do not use it to explain that you cannot do something" even if it is the reason that one cannot do something. I don't see the point of focusing on that possibility.

The way I see it...if you can't do something, you can't do it, and there's no shame in that. Certain things you just can't change. But if you are capable of doing something but use a diagnosis as a reason to not do it, then it becomes an issue, I think. I think it's a matter of knowing your limits, improving where you can, and accepting the things you can't change. I hope I'm expressing this clearly enough...

This is such a good description.

I remember being completely confused for such a long time about why when I was so gifted that nothing worked in terms of my attempts at doing several different things(like trying to get a job, attending university, et cetera).

It was only learning about autism that enabled me to understand the nature of differences in my perception versus the expectations of other people. Finding and reading this site is the major thing which helped me learn that my own perceptions were drastically different from what is common, and that is what made me convinced that I would be able to get a job. This site is one of the primary reasons that I was able to get my first job, and reading it has given me a greater understanding of other people than I ever had before.

I no longer feel like I am totally unique and like there is something inherently "wrong" about me. I have been able to use knowledge about the extent of such differences to create possibilities for myself. I think it has helped.

What I think was harmful was spending so many years trying and failing to act normal, but only doing so when I was forced into situations in which I had to interact with people. I had such an inadequate concept of what "normal" was. It was like expecting to play basketball in the NBA, but only doing so one day a year, barely understanding the rules of the game, and never practicing or really caring much about it.

Focusing on understanding what is common between autistic people and what is different between autistics overall versus neurotypicals overall has been overwhelmingly positive and helpful for me.

Thank you for the clarification.

I do agree a diagnosis is not a reason to not do something you can do. I do think that sometimes a diagnosis can be a reason not to do something you can do because it may make doing something else difficult or impossible and you essentially have to pick which one is more important.

It is fine to discuss and identify with AS but you can also overdo things.
When people are comparing stims as if they were baseball cards, it is probably too much. When people say that they are devastated because they have gotten an AS diagnosis and now they can never become what they wanted to become, it is definitely too much.
If you let your diagnosis keep you from struggling to use your full potential and follow your dreams, you may be 'identifying too much'.

What is wrong with comparing stims? I talked a lot about stims for my first few months here because I wanted to know what was a stim and what wasn't. It seems people are reading a lot more into this than is really there.

When people say they are devastated, that is often part of the process of receiving a diagnosis like autism. It happens, people need to be able to process it.

That last one does not seem quite so likely. It seems to me that it is more typical for people to try to hard instead of not trying hard enough. However, it does seem relatively common for people to assume that people with disabilities don't try hard enough.

After being diagnosed, I had to come to terms with the fact that there were certain things I probably wasn't going to be able to do, and many others that I was going to struggle with more so than the average person.

It's about accepting reality, not about "identifying too much with Aspergers."

Attempting to force myself to do things my brain can't handle isn't healthy, nor does it prove anything. I'm not sure why admitting you have limitations is so taboo in our society.

I don't see a problem with this sort of thing. As someone who is a relative newcomer to the ASD community--I didn't realize I might have AS until last April--such discussions are helpful because it gives me a clearer idea of what others experience, even if it's about something as mundane as whether you rock or bounce your legs or pace.