I get this too often, not so much people outright calling me "normal", but more of people denying that I could possibly be Autistic in any way. People often also deny that I have Tourette's Syndrome, or that I was ever in a total SPED school (not just select classes).
I used to have problems where I'd do very well at one subject in school, so it would be assumed that I'm just being lazy in others. like when I was able to hook up a wire to a battery and a light bulb in 4th grade science class. When the teachers saw that I could get the light bulb to come on, they would always mention that when I had a hard time in Math class. It was always "I've seen you do better, so you're not trying hard enough". The problem is that although math and science usually go well together, to me, the lightbulb, battery and wire were like a jigsaw puzzle. but math has always been a challenge. Unfortunately, my extremely hard time with math also leads people to deny that I could be Autistic thanks to the stereotype that we're all math wizards.
To this day I still have people see me do well at some things and thus assume that that means I'm good at everything, which thus leads to their disappointment in me to find out that I don't know everything.
I've also had this problem in online forums, I've been kicked out of at least 2 Asperger's myspace forums because the administrators thought I didn't meet their requirements for being Autistic. The fact that I do enjoy going to bars from time to time goes against the idea that all Aspies are complete shut-ins. The fact that I do like to smoke and drink goes against some Aspies beliefs that we're all straight edge. The fact that I can type in proper English was even enough to get me banned from a general Autism forum for "making fun of Autistics by impersonation".
07 Jan 2009, 11:12 pm
