Adult Newly Diagnosed with Aspergers

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Hi guys I am 26 and was just diagnosed. When I told my best friend for years about it, he railed on me and said I was just going into a "label" and that everyone has aspergers since the range is so wide. WTF. What the hell is with this attitude about aspergers?

Sorry for the lack of support your friend offered. That is not all uncommon. Well some people think that aspergers is not real...thinking it is just a cop-out from trying to be social. Your friend may be under that idea.

Could also be that the fact that he knows something about what qualifies a diagnosis, that he has looked it up for himself at some point. He may have some characteristics and is in denial about that, and your diagnosis is a threat to how he feels about himself. The thinking goes like this "if my friend whom I known for X amount of time is on the spectrum, what does that make me?" His attack on you about your diagnosis seems indeed personal and probably has nothing to do with you, but how he feels about himself.

Other than that, Welcome to WrongPlanet!! The great thing about getting a diagnosis is knowing why you do what you do, and coming to WrongPlanet and finding alot of other people that do the same thing. It makes me feel like I am not utterly alone, I hope the social network here does the same for you too.

Welcome, have a look around, we have much in common!

lol Just don't have an identity crisis like I did when I was diagnosed a week ago!

(BTW, I'm feeling much better now!)

It's complete ignorance, if your friend truly knew what Asperger's Syndrome was, I doubt he would have said such a stupid thing. It's just an example of society's incomprehension of Asperger's Syndrome.

Thanks guys I feel alot better. I couldn't sleep the first two nights I found out. My mind just kept replaying all these things from my childhood and even from recent events and all of it was so clearly obvious now that i clearly always had it. When I was a kid my family always laughed at my extensive vocabulary. They called me a little adult. When they laughed, however, I never got the joke, I never got why it was funny. I was pedantic with adults even as a 5 yr old and when people would say how cute I was, I always felt really offended, I didn't want anyone looking at me, much less cooing.

Then there was the whole issue i had with my mother calling me hateful and unloving for years because I cringed at affection.

Then with my significant others I would feel suffocated and even develop itching responses to being touched. I also have misophonia which really has caused terrible problems with people in my life. My SO and I have to eat apart or I have to wear ear phones. however lately I can hear it even over the head phones.

Then my friends, when I have managed to make friends, I have a very hard time keeping in touch. It's not that I don't want to, I just forget or never feel like its compelling enough. Some people take that the wrong way and decide I just stopped liking them.

I never got why people felt the need to hang out together. I never understood competitive sports. I always felt like an outsider looking in on a strange (and I believed stupid/less intelligent) culture. I always just wished I could box myself away from others and not in a morbid depressed way, just a peaceful relaxed way. Its like people around me just cause this annoying static that i want to CEASE.

Ive always felt years younger than I was. When i was 12 I remember I said God i still feel like I'm 8. The same for when I turned 18. I said how weird, I still feel 14. This continued to today. I am 26 which horrifies me because I feel 21.

I also have these fading yet all consuming obsessions. Without them I feel like I lack purpose. I have started two small companies, then left them when i got sick of it. Written two books and stopped at the last few chapters because I got tired of it. Now I am on a big restoring antiques kick...

I LOSE s**t ALL THE TIME. Drives me insane. I am known for destroying my condo in search of an item. I never give up and if I cant find it, my day is ruined.

I stim by skin picking (ew I know)

When I was a kid I had terrible handwriting. I had As in everything but Cs in handwriting and my teacher sat me away from all the other kids. They brought in various specialists, all who told me I held the pencil the wrong way, yet I never improved. I am also left handed which is what they blamed it on then.

Let's not even go into the horror of middle school. I didnt know any social cues, I didnt know how to talk and when I did I had a terrible stuttar. I didnt know how to dress. I came to middle school with sonic the hedgehog sneakers that glowed, a pair of decade old 1980s pants and side fro hairdo. I was tormented to the point that I would get sick before going to school and I would arrive an hour early just so I could go hide before all the kids came. Some kids even spat on me. I also just had no interest in dating or any of those teeny things.

I also never get expressions, I never get when people are joking, or when they are being serious. I always get them mixed up. Sometimes I laugh when ppl are serious bc i thought they were joking, and I get dirty looks--which I always took as me being really stupid. Other times I get very defensive when someone is just joking and I am told I take things too seriously.

Instructions drive me crazy, they have no qualifications, I find too many loop holes in them to find them instructive at all. This often happened in school and I would misinterpret an assignment

Don't worry about it--I think maybe your friend believed that the "label" meant you were giving up on solving your AS-related problems. Of course, it's the exact opposite--having a name for it will help you find solutions, because now they are known problems that other people face, too.

Often times the general public believes that a developmental disorder like autism means you will always, always be the exact same you are now. Nothing could be further from the truth, though; autistic people learn things practically inevitably as time passes, given that we're not being actively abused or stressed so badly that we burn out. (I think we've all had the experience of having our brains just refuse to think any more after a lot of stress, yeah? Stay away from that if you can... not only is it unpleasant; it keeps you from learning stuff.)

So if they're assuming that autism means no improvement is possible, and they're seeing you're diagnosed with a subtype of autism, then they might well believe that the diagnosis either means that you (or your doctors) are giving up on solving problems--or they might believe that the diagnosis is incorrect because obviously you can learn, and therefore couldn't possibly be autistic.

Anyway, you're the same person you were before the diagnosis. All the stuff you know about yourself hasn't changed. You probably have more context to it.

BTW, I don't feel 27... but, y'know, I don't think there's all that much wrong with feeling younger than you are. What is wrong with being young, anyway? So what if you learn things more slowly? You report that your estimate of what age you feel (presumably based on your estimate of your competence and maturity) keeps rising... well, that's progress, isn't it? Plus: Kids have a perspective adults don't have; the playfulness, the exploration, the fascination with the world around them. You probably kept that longer; and that is a benefit. Only artists (and like-minded artistic types) keep that child-like perspective nearly as long into adulthood as (grown, mature) autistics do.