A different 4 Stages of Aspergers – Where are You?

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This isnt a 12 step program - not everone follows the same "steps". I have never told anyone I have been diagnosed with Asperger's. If someone doesnt understand why I am "different" - I won't let them know because well, thats just too personal. I went through different phases. Diagnosed at 16- I experienced stage 1: "relief-i actually have a cool label- yay"-lasted a few days. Then my parents made it seem more serious than I thought and it quickly turned to stage 2 "depression- aspergers means I will be unlikely to ever....". Then came stage 3 - a seemingly contradictory phase of simultaneous denial and acceptance where i started to believe: " to accept the label means to accept that I am disabled- which I do not consider myself- however I do have the Asperger's "mind type" and would not consider myself neurotypical or aspergers- but something in between". I am transitioning into stage 3 now.

By the time i got the diagnosis, i already knew because i had been reading up on Psychology. So the relieved phase never entered me.

Has to be a 5th stage, probably the "I'm getting on with my life"-stage.

I never got past validation, primarily because at my diagnosis it was suggested that I didnt disclose my condition for fear of prejudice and judgmental attitudes..The relief is the best part.

For me finding out simply happened too late in life to make much of a difference. It does explain a lot of things but its not a condition I would discuss with co-workers or the women I date (sugar dating). Sort of like the CIA knowing what caused a disaster but keeping it secret from the public for national security reasons. Its like finding out what caused a plane to crash and that it was not 100% pilot error.

As a site financial manager I would not want my AS to be known or suspected by people at work. Consequently things like "need to know" and positive spin are important.

Validation, but also Getting on with life. As long as it all makes sense to me I don't really care what others are thinking about me, and right now it doesn't adversely effect my employment (SAHM) or lifestyle. I am glad that I know, but most others don't need to.

I think I'm still in Stage 0 Grief-- really confronting an coming to terms with the fact that I'm not neurotypical, and that it means certain things that I took for granted assuming they would just happen one day never will. Namely I've come to the decision that I will not allow myself to become a father, because in my case I'm unable to provide for another persons emotional needs (which I personally consider one of the most important task of parenthood) as well as some other issues.

I just can't ethically justify it (and I hold ethical ideals higher than biological imperatives). I never really wanted kids, but the fact that I never will has put me in an unexpected depression.

I'm not sure I'm at any particular stage. I'm fully diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder, and sometimes I'm aware of it, but then other times I convince myself that I'm not. And then I find a list of symptoms, or my wife calls b.s., and then I'm full in the face with it again. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I find it wholly depressing.

I'm still mixed.

Doesn't seem to fit me much at all:

Relief: I didn't realise I had ASD in a flash, I just slowly became more and more convinced as more evidence came in. And things began to make sense very gradually too, in fact I'm still working on that. So there wasn't any well-defined stage of relief.

Validation: I didn't hold out much hope that anybody would particularly believe me or understand my condition, DX or not. I'd already seen on WP how the world tends to say "no you haven't got that" or to stigmatise us. I handed in my DX at work, but nobody validated me or apologised for misunderstanding me, and I never expected they would. As for friends and family, it mostly went in one ear and out of the other. I wasn't surprised at all. ASD is a pretty complex thing, it makes their heads hurt even more than it makes mine hurt.

Momentum: "assistance, accommodations, treatment, medication" ? I neither expected nor received any of those things apart from job adjustments, which as I expected were done with little enthusiasm or initiative. They never even wrote them down, I just found myself unofficially exempted from some of the things I'd whinged about during diagnosis. I always felt they'd only do it because they were scared of being sued, and that if they ever thought they might get away with it, they'd start rolling them back. These are employers, right? I didn't expect or receive any help from the National Health Service, and I sure wasn't going to buy it without a money back warranty, which I didn't notice anybody offering. The NHS GP offered me cut-price sedatives and antidepressants - what, drug me up so I can work harder for my employer without throwing a wobbly? No thanks.

Camaraderie: Well, I came to feel some camaraderie on WP, albeit gradual. But long before WP and my DX I'd found people in real life who I related to - oddballs, misfits, hippies, nonconformists, dropouts, anarchists, bohemians, musicians - so it wasn't the first time I'd felt a sense of belonging, and although I came to have a high regard for many of the folks I've talked with on WP, at the end of the day its online nature limits its social power, though its power is admittedly considerable. And there's been a lot of practical help here for me, in tracking down some of the mysteries of ASD.

Validation. "I knew I wasn't broken! I'm just different!! !"

Am still at stage 1: it all makes sense now. And with "it all" I mean my whole 71 years. Reading these posts helps. Now I understand for example why I left my "comfortable" life in Europe to live with a group of bohemians, anarchists, musicians and non-conformists in Ireland. I was 50, and although I was considered aloof, I was accepted for who I was.

Do they blend into each other from top to bottom? Because if they do I'm in the Relief Stage, cause I'm not getting a diagnosis.