Still weirded out over being ASD

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Not sure why I felt the need to say this, but I guess I'm still really overwhelmed over discovering so late in life my place on the spectrum. Regardless of my level of disability or whatever, it is really really weird to post things about how I think, perceive, speak and interact and have other people UNDERSTAND it. It's never happened before. Since coming here and investigating ASDs I've had so many "holy s**t - THAT"S exactly it" moments it's become a bit surreal.

At times I feel like a whiny asshat for thinking how much this has hurt my life, especially considering that the impairments some others here at WP here are far more profound. Then somebody will post something and a light will go off and then I'll understand why so much as inexplicably passed me by, why it appears outwardly to others that I am just a weird loser waste of intellect and potential. Epic Fail at life. I'm supposed to be successful. I am required to be excellent. Anything less than that is because of character flaws and laziness.


It is amazing to me to read other's posts here and recognize that the very structures of their minds are DIFFERENT from the rest of the world and even more astonishing that I identify more with those differences than with anything any other thing I have ever encountered.

It's all very sobering.

I wish I could see where this is going.

I am right here with you my friend. In fact I am going through a PISSED OFF phase again... I can't help it.

This is extremely well put. I feel exactly the same way, and I figured things out (had my Aha! moment) last year, at age 42.

Again, now it's a matter of cataloguing everything, seeing whether my "impairments" are surmountable, just what they affect, etc.

Brother, I salute you!

I go through that, too, and then I get pissed off at my being pissed off!! !

LOL. Really. I laughed out loud at this. This is another "exactly that" moment.

Anyone who writes so elequently about such a complicated subject is not a failure. They might not own a boat, but they are not a failure. Bleah.

I'm going in between pissed off and Rosa Parks moments myself.

Seriously... And I totally get what you are saying about whining....

I have a better life than most NTs and am even considered succesful but I am pissed off as I can be. I said it to my shrink and I will say it here and I don't care who thinks I am whining...

"Who cried for me?"

My eyes are WIDE open now RE the struggles that this disorder has (and does) cause me. I get now why I bang my head on the same ceilings. I am mad as hell that all the people in my life who were supposed to care for me missed this elephant. I am pissed that I never received intervention. I am even mad that I got a dx when I went in for grief counseling. (I know it was unavoidable but still) I could go on and on....

Last night I beat up a wall. Tomorrow night is football practice and I get to beat up teammates. That will totally help me. Hopefully I pass through this phase and into a more accepting phase sometime before I destroy something or have some sort of meltdown...

Last edited by kfisherx on 15 Feb 2011, 1:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Heh. Thanks. But that's the rub. The frustrating wall of resistance I encountered all through my life has always been screaming "FAIL" at me. Part of this process is realizing how false that is, but also recognizing there is still a wall. The difference is I can see the wall for what it is and learn how to get around and over it.

It is a strange thing to find freedom in the discovery of intrinsic, and often limiting, differences in yourself.



I'm betting Rosa had a few pissed off moments, herself.

I had a lot of moments like that, I hate the term "aha moment" but I guess that's what they were.

Not diagnosed with an ASD, just ADHD and a few other *short term* diagnosis that the doctors never really stuck with because they didn't fit.

What were you diagnosed with, out of curiousity? PDD-NOS? Do you think you have a higher functional level than most? I only ask because you mentioned that you were relieved to know your place on the spectrum regardless of disability. I feel that way also. I don't feel very *impaired*, at all, because (almost) everyone has to learn compensate in some way but I am/was relieved to find an explanation and am weirded out at the same time.

Last edited by MotownDangerPants on 15 Feb 2011, 1:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I am undergoing a very similar phenomenon. For the most part i feel very positive about it. I came across the possibility of aspergers several years ago, but didnt give it too much thought because i figured when it came down to it how could i have gone this long and no one figured this out. Which i realize now is not necessarily the case as i am looking into it more now, and coming here is the first interface i have had with people like me. However i found out 55 days ago that i had a semi-formal diagnosis as an ASD when i was a child, which my parents have never told me about. So yeah that makes me a bit upset, i still dont know how to bring this up with them. But other than that it is overwhelmingly exciting to find people to relate to. I have known since early adolescence i was somehow a different breed in the way i saw the world, and thought i'd be lucky to ever find anyone slightly similar to me, now to find there is a name for my difference and an accessible community of people who share the difference. Its like an incredible loneliness i formerly presumed i would just have to live with forever, and now it is basically totally banished. Only a few things in my life have brought me this much happiness.

Asperger's/HFA. The psychologist is still documenting everything so the official DSM-IV number hasn't been assigned. I lean towards HFA as a strict interpretation of the criteria seem a better fit for that.



This is problematic for me. From a social services point of view I am very high functioning. I've always had a job of some sort. I'm married (for 27 years no less) with 3 kids. But life has always been on the edges of collapse both emotionally and financially. I've had very serious co-morbid depression. I have no social life. I consistently fail to recognize opportunities relevant to goals for both me and my family, to the point where it hurts them and creates huge amounts of stress.

What really hurts me is not my survival skills, but the vast disconnect between my internal self and my external life. There is a huge difference between what what I think and what I am able to express. Even what I write here at WP that seems to so clearly resonate with others is a condensation of where my head is really at. Anbuend puts it most elegantly. She relates how much of her experience of reality is simply NOT verbal or cognitive in any typical way, but her experience is JUST as valid and real. Most of "me" exists in a different cognitive space, one that is exceedingly hard to communicate from.



Disability as defined by this culture at this time is irrelevant to me. It is somewhat arbitrary and mostly related to the allocation of limited resources. I am not disabled in any outward way. Well. Maybe not at least significantly disabled. Certainly I do not need any special assistance even while still needing mental health services. But I am definitely impaired. I liken it to the difference between a tractor and a minivan. Put a tractor on a highway and it is next to useless. Put a minivan in a field and it will get stuck. I am a tractor on a highway, with minivans flying by, and everyone passing me is pissed off because I'm in the way, blocking traffic. I'll get where I'm going. But it's not particularly efficient.

I have the same concerns. What can you do?

I havent gotten pissed off yet. I already knew there was something wrong. This is just a name for it. But it did make me a little sad while I was on a trip. It was just an "oh, sh*t, this is real" moment. I still have some doubts but they are dwindling. My father and gf think its completely obvious and kid me when I doubt it.

Last edited by simon_says on 15 Feb 2011, 1:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.

THIS!! !

Maybe not totally banished, but an essential loneliness as been significantly diminished.

Uh, anyone who can draw as well as you definitely isn't a failure in my eyes.

It's a relief to know that there are others out there similar to you, now you're no longer alone.

I get frustrated with AS sometimes, as it has made finishing university seem impossibl for me, but maybe without it I would never have volunteered in the hospice, and I think that is something to be proud of.

I think you're on to something here. It appears that how we should measure success is as different as our neurology. It is something I am just coming to grips with.

Yeah baby! I have a marshal arts class tonight. Hopefully we get to put on the pads and have some sparring practice.



If knowledge is power, you are She-ra.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She-Ra:_Princess_of_Power