Something I have noticed

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It seems like every time lot of kids and teens get diagnosed with AS or find out they have it after being diagnosed, they are unhappy about it. But when grown ups get diagnosed or find out about it, lot of them are happy and relieved about it. Why is that?


I figure it's because lot of kids want to fit in and they try and be like each other. Everyone wants to be "normal" and wants to be like everyone else, even aspie kids feel the same way, I felt that way but before I never gave it much thought until I was ten. I knew I was different but didn't seem to care that much because I didn't give it much thought until I was ten. That's when I really started trying to be normal and be like everyone else because I wanted to be normal. Before, I never did anything about my behavior or quirks. Lot of kids want to be like everyone else so the last thing they want to hear is they have a condition. I remember mom telling me in 6th grade what I had and I didn't like it. Took me several years to accept it. I realize it was three years because in December of 2000 I still wasn't happy about having it. Maybe it was early 2001 when I started to accept it.

But grown ups on the other hand, they are passed that stage of trying to be like everyone else and they had decided to just be themselves so finding out what they have isn't a big deal know what I mean? Instead they are happy because it answered their question on why they had been different their whole lives. I was 14 when I finally started to accept being different realizing what qualities it gave me thanks to it but hated the negative stuff about me. It was also when I decided to be myself and not be like everyone else. Just be me.


Thoughts?

It's because the kids think that without AS, they'd be "normal." It wasn't their decision to see a professional or get diagnosed. The didn't so much have that experience of living so long knowing that something was wrong, but not knowing what.
My whole life, I was caught up in this quandary of wishing I were somebody else, then getting all perplexed by the thought that if I were that somebody else, then either the "me" would show through and the somebody else that I was would be rejected too, or I'd actually be them and therefore it wouldn't be me being them but simply them being them. I spent a lot of time puzzling over this concept. If I'd known about AS, I could have simply wished not to have it.

It's upsetting to find out that there's something wrong with you. But the adults that get diagnosed aren't finding out that there's something wrong with them, because if they didn't already know that, they wouldn't be looking for a diagnosis in the first place! There's a big difference between finding out that there's something wrong with you, and finding out that the something wrong with you that you already knew about has a name.

Edit: Also for the adults, a lot of times finding out that it's AS means that it's not other things. Most adults with AS have been diagnosed with a zillion other things before, and gone through treatments that didn't help for those other things that they didn't really have. So it's also finding out that you don't have some things that you were afraid you had.

Yeah, I get the impression that the youngers often feel the diagnosis GAVE them Autism, or shined a spotlight on the differences they were already uncomfortable about.

Those of us who lived with the condition unnamed for years know better. If you're different, you're different and it's obvious to everyone whether you give it a name or not - the name just makes it explainable - without that diagnostic tag, you're just a freak. With it, there's an organic neurological CAUSE for those differences.

Also, adults who are in denial over their diagnosis probably aren't going to hang around on this site much.

It's because we've resigned ourselves to being different even if we didn't understand why. Once I got the diagnosis I was just finally so relieved to know why. It gave a much greater insight into my behavior and WHY I thought and did things the way I did and how it was so very different from NT thinking. It makes it easier to adapt to the outside world when I need to. When I don't need to adapt I wave my Aspie freak flag high and proud.

For me, growing up without the knowledge of AS meant being told (in many different ways) that there was no reason why I should act differently from the other kids, so just shape up & get with the program!

Over the years, I did manage to get along well enough to finish school & hold a job - but not quite well enough to make friends & form relationships.

So finally getting a Dx of Asperger's Syndrome meant validation for all those years of being told there was no reason for me to not socialize like "everyone else my age."

My attitude toward the diagnosis definitely changed as I got older, but not because I initially hadn't wanted to accept that there was something wrong with me - I'd known that since my early teens. I just didn't like the label itself for some reason, or how easily it was applied.

It was 7-8 years ago that I was told, so I can't remember exactly what was going through my head, but I think mostly it felt wrong that everything I'd struggled with over the years could be neatly summed up under one disorder, somehow dismissively, with relatively little input from me at all. I think in my angst I also had a hard time accepting the idea that all the inexplicable negativity I'd suffered from others was suddenly a natural, justified reaction to someone with AS, and more my fault than theirs.

For adults a diagnosis of AS often means they can put a bunch of other diagnoses into the rubbish bin. So on balance a diagnosis of AS reduces the number of diagnoses.

I'd assume that part of the discrepancy derives from the fact that kids are constantly told that they need to fit in or be normal. The diagnosis marks them as different and coupled with the standard admonitions to fit in, this tells them that they're failures. For adults, the diagnosis serves more as an explanation as to why, despite their best efforts, they've been a failure at fitting in.

Or to put it another way, for the child, the diagnosis characterises them as a "failure". For an adult, the diagnosis offers a reasonable explanation why they're not responsible for this "failure".

Oh yeah - exactly. I'm only self-diagnosed, but that's exactly how I started to feel when I came to WP and realized that I have so many AS qualities.

I've been very lucky to find a career I can succeed at, and I'm married to a wonderful woman. But there are areas of my life where I felt like, "I should have figured this out by now! What is going on?" I felt that, as an intelligent adult, I should NOT be having such a hard time with these things.

Now that I know the answer (I think), I can stop being so hard on myself.

But if I had been Dx-ed in junior high or high school, that would have been a huge social stigma. Instead of being a weird/geeky honors student, I would have been "officially" messed up and even more of an outsider. (Please note: I'm not saying that AS folks are messed up - I'm saying that would have been my classmates' perception of me.)

JSB

well, when I was younger, everyone was always telling me I had to try and be like the other kids--including my family and teachers( big shocker there...)

What I found really unbelievable, but now it makes perfect sense, is that no matter how much I "adapted"...apparently it was never good enough for anyone.

Well, whatever I've managed to "successfully" do on that end at this point, I'm just stickin' to that, and otherwise living my life enjoyably. I'm not trying to adapt anymore, cause there's no reason to.

I'm fine just the way I am.

"Normal" is boring, and people just want to relate to other mindless drones. Sorry, that ain't my scene.

Vance, never rationalize the behavior of a bully. That's akin to saying that a lynching victim deserved to be mobbed and hung by Klansmen - after all, he egged them on by being black right in front of them!

You don't deserve to be bullied and picked on just for being different and you should never feel like it's your fault when it happens. That's the way bullies and bigots think and they're morons.

I think it also has to do with the fact that a younger person's life is more likely to change after a diagnosis. It might mean a different school, remedial programs, segregated programs, one or more types of therapy, disclosure of the diagnosis to the entire staff (or even the entire school).

For an adult, there isn't really much that can be done (and even less that can be done against their will). Other than being made ineligible for health insurance in the US, I don't really think there are any negatives to an AS diagnosis in adulthood (then again, many of those with AS might have been denied for another reason anyways).

Willard, I think that what you said is true, but perhaps a bit misleading. For one, race and AS aren't the same thing.. AS sets people apart mainly behaviorally. When an aspie trains themselves (or gets help doing so) to behave in some certain situation exactly as an NT would behave in that same situation, you can't tell the aspie from the NT. Race is visible whether or not behavior is identical.
I think that Vance was wrong to use the word "fault," because it implies "deserved," and I think that's what you reacted so strongly to, because obviously he doesn't deserve to be bullies. However, that doesn't mean that there aren't elements of his own behavior that contribute to the situation. When someone is bullied repeatedly, it's usually because they're an easy target. Awkward, isolated, not able to easily defend themselves. While it is deplorable to take advantage of that and bully someone just because they're an easy target, if you take the stance that it's all the bully's fault, and don't teach the victim to alter their own behavior in order to be more able to defend themselves, then they're just going to be victimized over and over again. The fact that someone doesn't deserve to be bullied is immaterial if they're being bullied because they're obviously an easy target. It's not blaming the victim to say that the victim needs to learn what it is that they do that signals to bullies that they'll get away with treating them poorly, and change those things in themselves. Certainly, you want to blame the bully, not the victim, but you can't rely on all the bullies of the world to change their ways and stop victimizing others. Placing the blame on the bullies isn't enough. There needs to also be the ability to say "Yes, that person was at fault for victimizing you, now let's work on how you can keep yourself from being victimized next time." Otherwise it'll just keep happening. The fact that it's not the victim's fault is rather little comfort if they continue to be bullied.
(Um, I hope that came out right.. I kept writing and re-writing segments, the words weren't coming out well.)

Self-selection - only the adults who feel the need of a diagnosis are diagnosed; a child that thinks "I am perfectly OK; the problem is in the system, not in me" could be diagnosed with AS (his parents and/or teachers bring him to the doctor), an adult no (he don't seek theraphy).