I'm autistic, but i'm not!

Post Reply New Topic

Hi I'm new on this board and apologize for making this long post, but I need some opinion on my life right now and whats going on.
-
I was dignosed with normal inteligent*- unspecific-asberger syndrome (I think this is called high-funtional but english is not my native languarge so I dont know what its called).
This happent when I was around 4-6 years old but I have no memories of it.

My parents told me they tested me because when I was a child I went to a kindergarden outside the city so I would take a buss every morning. Unlike the other kids I would usunally cry and be a mess when I where to get in the buss on the way to the kindergarden not to leave my mom and when I was in the kindergarden I would not want to go home. Aparently I was the only kid which felt like this, so I was tested at the hospital and they said I had unspecific-asberger and sended me to a special school for autistic people.

For 10 years I was in special school and surounded by autistic people and people which knew about it. I did not questionate it at all. After I gratuated school I was sent to a "normal" or neurotypical school for the first time.
To my surprize I noticed that it wasn't as I had thought. When I was in special school I thought that those "normal schools" where better, and people was way smarter and it would be hard, but I had no problem follow the education, No problem being in a classroom with 20 people or more, and no problem with taking a test without extra help. In general I was doing fine, but for the first time I started to questionate life between being autistic and non-autistic. like if I really had no problems with being on this school socially or in the education then why would I be autistic?

For the first time I started asking myself questions about being autistic and other people started asking me as well. I would have to answer questions on what a special school was like and such things. I started to wonder if I really was truely autistic or had just been placed there because of other issues they had no idea of. Exemple I got dyscalculia and im transgender which sure have made my life difficult in many ways and both made me depressive and anxious. I have always been diffrent in some ways but would that nessesarry make me autistic? I feel I dont have many typical autistic traits. exept that I dont do much eye contact, I like comics, and I need to be just myself listen to music once in a while otherwise I get very exhausted emotionally.

around that time I was looking for an apartment and tried to get homones for being transgender.
First I went to the gender therapy section which refused me because I had been in a special school and was dignosed. Then later on I went to find the apartment but the man I where to speaking to in the handicap center told me that I was "not autistic enough" to apply for those apartments my friends had.

I was sad and angry and without notice I had became lost in this Gray-area of both being autistic-enough to put me down, but also not autistic-enough to take me seriously.

I did not felt I belonged in the label anymore. I didn't fit the stereotype of an autistic person. I am social, don't mind big classes, like varientions, use alot of sarcasm, I hate order, systems, tecnology and so on, so me saying I was autism would always make people confussed and led me nowhere other than frustations.
I felt no help, no inspiration or no suport from the autistic enviroment anymore, even there I felt I did not fit in anymore, yet the neurotypicals would use my dignose as an excuse when there was something they did not like about me. "oh I see you have too much absense maybe its due to your autism, maybe you shouldn't be here in the first place" I was told that in one of my school when I said I had problem showing up in class do to stress, and by that my dignose just became people could abuse and I shouldn't be too open about.

I quick noticed that I could not use my dignose anymore, and I always felt a dignose without use are rubbish so I trew it away. I could not trew off my papers which feel like an ugly reminder of a label I can never could get off, but I did stop identifying as an autistic person and insteed said that I had grew up in a special school but was probably misdignosed, when the topic came up.
--
Now times have passed and laterly I started to feel bad and questionate it all. When I first started to give up on identifying as an autistic person, I worried if I would be a traitor for my friends and the comunity to say I did no longer feel autistic. However my friends are still my friends and my comunity dosent exist for me anymore so this is not my biggest concern.

Still it have felt wrong, I did not want people to think autism was shamefull so I tried to speak of my friends and so in positive manners, but even so I was still in a box of "normal" where nerotypical people would join the debat with "yes I have worked with autistic people I know bla bla" or "my cousin is autistic his not like you bla bla" or parents talking about there autistic children but only mention there autism when speaking of problems.
Even if I where suposed to speak with an "suportive person" the whole thing felt fake and I feel fake. I feel this idea of normal which I wanted to become when I was a kid, which was the goal that we as autistic people could become so normal that we would simple fit in sociaty. all this was fake. Normal was so limited and while I felt I used to hate autism for the dignose itself, I now felt I hated the sociatys boxes.

I wonder how its damage me being in those boxes. To be told you are not as good as "those people over there in the other box" and later being told that. "now you are too good to be here, go over to the other box but dont tell anyone you ever been here, it would only bring you troubles"

it have all started to feel fake. I may or may not be autistic I do not know, but I wonder if its matter, I dont want to be put in a box anymore but I am always put in either one and each time the debate comes up I feel its going to take a wrong turn cause most people cant understand what I had been going though. They dont understand that while I love all my autistic friend and did not had a harsh time growing up Autism is still not a positive thing its a thing I learned was "less" than anyone ells, and a thing I had learned I needed to hide or fake, or simple not talk about because nobody will understand it anyway even if they seams suportive.

still even when I cant talk about it, its hurts me. It hurts me when I am put into this debates and people either say. "sure you are autistic because" or "no you are not autistic" it hurts me when I talk as an outside perspective and with other outsides perspectives how autism people are. It hurts when I have an agument and someone call me immature or stupid or anything like this and it reminds me on how people would think less of me as autistic. it all hurts but I cant talk about it cause people dont understand.

Now thanks for reading all this. Can anyone relate to my experiences?

have you thought about a revaluation?

If you haven't read it, read the book "The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome" by Dr. Tony Attwood. Then you'll know for yourself if you fit the description. Also, you don't need to tell others & thus they can't judge you for it. Sure, people might make comments that you know are due to ASD symptoms, but you don't need to explain that to them. Just know it for yourself and take their critical feedback for what it is and use it to adjust your behaviour accordingly as best you can in order to fit into the world. Also, forgive them instantly for any harshness they use for they don't know the intricate details of ASD nor that whatever it is they're criticizing is beyond your conscious control sometimes. No sense in getting yourself worked up about others' feedback as it doesn't serve you in any positive way.

Do not rely on stereotypes, hearsay, and/or comorbidity to determine whether or not you are autistic. The only 100% reliable standards are the diagnostic criteria.

Yes but I don't have the money to do so, also I am rather scared of psycologist since I been misdignosed before with some very strange dignose just because I said I was bisexual.

Hi. I just sent you a pm

Thanks,
unfortunately I haven't received your message, do you mind sending it again? =/

Autism doesn't mean what all those people think it means. It's just a different way of thinking, neither better nor worse. But unfortunately many people see it as a bad thing, and are prejudiced against it.

Whether your diagnosis was accurate or not, you are not what people keep putting on you.

I can relate to a lot of how you feel, because it's how I used to feel about ADHD. My teachers wanted me diagnosed with ADHD so that I could be given a 'magic pill' to make me a compliant little cookie-cutter kid. (Never mind that Ritalin doesn't actually do that, especially when given to a child with other conditions besides ADHD.) I didn't get diagnosed, because no psychologists thought I had it (which I don't), but I grew up with the pressure of thinking ADHD was nothing but an excuse to oppress kids, and I had to reject the condition as much as possible.

As I got older, I discovered autism and self-diagnosed as it, then got my diagnosis confirmed by a psychologist. Meanwhile, in reading about neurodiversity, I kept running into talk about ADHD. At first I just kept thinking 'yeah, but ADHD isn't a proper diagnosis'. But more and more, I found people with ADHD describing real difficulties, but also real strengths, and I started thinking maybe ADHD is a real thing and it's not necessarily bad. Meanwhile, I was still thinking it was totally different from me, because I was afraid of the label.

It came as an epiphany one day when I imagined a child who actually had ADHD dealing with the teachers I'd had, and realized they would have suffered just as much as I did in that school, and that ADHD in no way justified what my teachers were doing to me. In fact, I thought it would have been worse if I actually had ADHD, because then it would have been that much harder for me to use the label that fits me in a positive way. I didn't have the negative associations with autism, so I could say to myself 'I think I'm autistic' and use that to understand why noises and rough textures bother me and why I found my classmates so confusing and why I get so passionately obsessed with anything that interests me, without feeling the threat of the bad associations. If I'd had ADHD, it would have been a lot harder to use that label to help myself.

I will tell you that whether or not you're autistic, the way you've been treated is not the way autistic people want to or should be treated. Many autistic people have talked about those sorts of things as injustices and protested against them. Just like people with mental retardation hate being patronized just as much as anyone else does. The fact that people think 'this is how you treat X kind of people' does not mean that such treatment automatically has to follow from being 'X kind of person'.

If you are autistic, I hope you can see past the misuse of the label and find the benefits of self-understanding that I and many others have found. If you are not autistic, I hope you can be an ally to autistic people and be open to how you are similar and different from us. I don't have ADHD, but I do have similar traits in many ways, and coming to recognize and be open to that has helped me immensely.

OK. I was just asking you, if you by any chance should be from DK. (your name and language could look like it). If so, I could give you the name of a very good clinical psychologist, who can spot things at once.

yes I am.
I will try to send you a PM which you can reply to and see if I can receive the message then.

Did you get it now? The PM

[quote="Ettina"][/quote]

Thanks for your reply.

I do believe autism is real and theres real stuggle connected to it. But I sure also believe there are bad psyciatris which misdignose people and I have came across and heard about this a couple of times. As mention above I have been misdignosed before simple because I said I was bisexual, another friend I once knew where close to be dignosed with ADHD because she did not want to be social with her classmates (which bullied her).

I know in general its not okay threatment whenever your neurotypical or autistic. I had some friends which been thought the same experience, from my obsevation they still identify as autistic but they are even more angry of the system than me, to be honest it was probably because of them I started to questionate such things as system and opression of neurodiversaty people.

I am neurodiversaty no matter what and i'm okay with that. I am sure to have anxiouty and dyscalculia even thought neither have been dignosed. I seriously want more awareness because in general there is a huge taboo and so much going on with neurodiversaty people, but I find it really difficult to be an ally to autistim in paticular. I think its because I feel so vulnarable and scared, I live in a small country and the autism comunity isnt that big, its an everyone-knows-everyone kind of thing and I already felt I left the comunity long time ago with no reason to get back so I dont feel safe in the enviroment there is and I cant really relate to many of the struggles and ways things are done + the annoying fact when either people have told me or where I felt I was "too neurotypical for this" which made me feel like an outsider. .
So I dont really feel confortable being an ally in the comunity.

being and ally outside the comunity for neurotypical people are what I so far had tried to do but failed to do.

even when I speak positive of "yeah autism is cool, I love my autistic friends, bla bla" then i'm still in a box of "well im not that autistic", and I feel neurotypicals are really difficult to talk with when its about autism. often its feels horrible, the say horrible things without realising it which make my skin crawl. and then I also feel I am making mixed signals when I in one hand say "autism is so awsome I love my autistic friends" but at the same time being honest that I dont feel very autistic and my experience with autism haven't always been good I feel like they cant understand it and im not a proffesor speaking of high knowlegde what autism is I can only speak out from experiences which they cant relate to or which they can only relate to in a very narrow way.

I guess if I said I was autistic I may also had got crap from people when educating, or in fact I already got that when I said I was dignosed so it may not make a huge diffrence what I say to be an ally but its diffently hard. I am also in multiply minorities so I am never in a space where I can be 100% free of discrimination and somethimes I have to choose my struggles. I don't know what ells I can do than tell people how autism is normal, how much I love my friends with autism and how its not a bad thing which should be cured and the school system should be more wide for them. But I still feel I don't do enough and when I do I get really unconfortable specially if its people who had worked with autistic people or mental ill people.

yes I got it,
I send you a short message back I hope you'll get it.

New PM about psychologist. Hope you got it.
If not - mail me your "real" mail adress.