Listening to Sarah Hendrickx is helping me understand my own

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Some of you have probably heard of her.
I've recently stumbled upon her videos on YouTube where she gives a speech about girls and women with Asperger's, and a lot of the things she said I could relate to and has answered a lot of my social rejection I've faced since my teens.

Yes I was diagnosed with Asperger's in childhood but it never gave me relief, and I've always been hanging on to the bit of the hope that I was misdiagnosed and have something else that isn't an ASD.

But since I've been watching Sarah Hendrickx, and the way she explained how making friends with NT females can be difficult, it has made me sort of understand my own diagnosis a bit more.
One thing she explained in one of her videos was about an Aspie female feeling left out of arrangements by her NT colleagues of the same sort of age, and then a new woman starts and after a few weeks she gets included in the other colleagues plans, even though the Aspie has been working with the same people for years, and then the Aspie asks herself, "what am I doing wrong? I'm friendly, I have a sense of humour, I make eye contact, I'm kind, etc". That's EXACTLY what happens to me and that's EXACTLY what I ask myself.
It's how she explained it what really got through to me, and instead of me asking myself all these why's, how's, ifs, buts and maybes and going around my diagnosis to try to find the answer, I feel I can now just jump straight to the answer and understand that I'm not excluded because I'm a bad person, it's because my Asperger's might sometimes make there be something a bit offish that makes most NTs only want to be acquainted and nothing much more.

I hope this is a start of a new self-image and frame of mind. I'm still not happy with having Asperger's, not by a long shot, and I'm still ashamed and closeted about it but I'm hoping this is a start to self-acceptance.

So thank you to Sarah Hendrickx. Usually when I read up or watch videos about women on the spectrum, the more I can relate the more I get depressed and try to deny it. But surprisingly I didn't feel like that while listening to Sarah Hendrickx.

I'm glad she's helping you, Joe90. I've watched all the Youtube videos of her I could find in the last year or so. I even emailed her about her tinted glasses after she mentioned in one video that they help her autism. Her partner (husband?) Keith I think his name is, emailed me back the same day and was very friendly. Sarah doesn't do emails so he does them for her. He gave me great information on the FL-41 tint that she uses and I've been wearing glasses with that same tint for a few months now as a result. I believe they've improved my life overall as well.

I usually reject people before they reject me, offense is the best defense, not that rejection has never happened to me. I guess I know my limits, even though Id like friends.

Re: offish comment. I agree. People might even like me. They just dont want to be 'trapped' with ne for too long, say coming round to stay or going for dinner because it would be awkward and they'd probably be bored, and I dont usually have enough social value to justify the time spent. Unless I was helping them out in some way.

Thank you for the replies, although I thought I'd get more replies, being so this is literally the first time in my whole life that I've ever actually attempted to understand myself. I'm hoping this is the start of self-acceptance which might help me with depression in the future.

Why not accept yourself?

You don’t harm people by being “different.”

Realize that people who reject you are the stupid ones.

It's great that you've found something than can help you with this.

As for why you didn't get more replies, my guess is that it takes time to watch those videos (and you didn't link to any particular one of them), so many people couldn't make a fully informed reply immediately.

Well, yes, that's true.
I didn't know how well known Sarah Hendrickx was among the autistic community but I assumed quite a few people here have seen her videos. But then again, she's British and most people on WP are from the US.