Denial / repressed memory

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Hey there, just wanted to write this down to see if anyone has had any similar experiences.

About when I was 21 I developed a special interest in a political party, there was another autistic member in the area and he made constant attempts to convince me that I was like him, often angering me in the process. I didn't believe that I was like him.

My theory is that I had already started this process of denial, not long before I met him I had gone through a period where I had changed all my clothes, fashion sense, haircut, sensibilities, composure and poise so that I felt that I fitted in more. I recognised that I was like him when I was younger, but now I felt I fitted in and that was just a phase I had gone through/or I was some kind of 'late-bloomer'.

Other NTs made much more subtle attempts to convince me that I was different, but it always frustrated and angered me, I wouldn't believe it.

That was about 7 years ago and now that I have realised that I am on the spectrum, these memories of people trying to talk to me about it have only just come back. I am not sure when they left my memory, but my belief is that I had repressed them. Anyone got any similar issues?

Other stuff that has come back: A teacher at school tried to talk to me about it, but I must have been denying it even then (about 16.) The stuff that I remember is fairly detailed and I can remember the exact conversation etc.

Someone at university made coded attempts to convince me that I was like him.

I was so unaware I never got any of this.

I think you probably just dismissed them as irrelevant. It's not "repression" so much as receiving information that didn't fit with your current beliefs and consequently ignoring it.

Yes that could be so, do you think it could have been a coping strategy?

I suppose so, if you were very frightened of being "abnormal", it could've been. Of course, you could just have been matching yourself up with the idea of "disabled", and not seen a resemblance between you and the most likely ridiculous stereotype held by whatever culture you're a part of; so dismissed the idea... Our society has a really stereotyped idea of what "disability" means, on account of the media always picking the most obvious and dramatic cases; so people don't understand that disability can be subtle or even invisible. It's like all your life believing that a dog looks like a German shepherd, and then meeting a teacup poodle; you might easily deny the poodle was a dog at all. (Not that you'd be too far wrong. Heh. )... Similarly, you might refuse to believe you were disabled, if all your life you had been told disability was always severe and obvious and totally incapacitating... which, if you think about it, it really isn't!

Yes that's exactly what I felt. At school there was one or two severely handicapped children who I could semi-relate to, but as you said because that was the stereotype of disability I couldn't consider myself one of them.