aspergers and denial

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Hi guys, wondering if anyone else is stuck in my situation. I am an undiagnosed aspergic - I know in my heart of hearts that this is true yet I have struggled to find suitable avenues to explore this. Now I have been in several serious relationships and my self disclosure is an important part of this. I have been met with disgust and denial by many partners. They seem to consider it as something that is very unappealing and not very nice to have. Of course I have tried to repell such comments using myself as an example but then I am met with pure denial that I don't have aspergers and that I function perfectly well. I hate to drone on about all my difficulties in life and how I learned social interactions by practicing talking to people at night whilst everyone else slept etc etc, I could go on. Anyway - my current partner doesn't believe I have aspergers because he says they are weird etc and has almost persuaded me that I don't have it either. I feel kinda lost because denying aspergers means I am just plain lazy and stupid. I have a high IQ can ace any test etc but don't have the same motivations as others and phase out into my own world most of the time. Luckily for me I can sorta rewind the noise around me whilst I am phased out and replay it in my mind to figure out what people around me just said. I took the AS test and scored scarily high. I even put that down now to just a personality type rather than aspergers. So.... do I assume I don't have aspergers and forget this forum ever existed and carry on as 'normal' or do I get diagnosed even though I feel it is only to trumpet my own cause when such an action is purely only to vindicate my life troubles? I don't want to harp on about my troubles when I have pretty much resolved them to the degree I am happy with and my partner is very happy that I require my own space and time to be alone and understands that I get a bit out of it sometimes. I just wish he were more aware of aspergers. I think the television is to blame, they find the most extreme example of aspergers that shows someone who could even be high functioning austistic speaking in a really really funny voice and moving around in a strange manner. I don't envy their situation but I also feel this gives a really poor example about the rest of us who look normal, speak normal and can pass for normal yet suffer just as gladly.

I once was told I didn't seem to have any of the social deficits of Asperger's, by someone whose greetings I rarely respond to and who I speak to every other month or so, yet whom I considered a close friend. This person told me later on that they have ADD.

Wow! I was in your shoes just a couple of months ago dwight. Wow. Yeah. Hmmm...I'll tell ya. Getting my official diagnosis was the best decision I made. I was very anxious about the whole thing but for me. It settled everything for me. It gave me my final piece of the puzzle. I got the assessment that said, yes...THIS is why you are the way you are.

The questions you need to ask yourself is do you want to keep struggling with doubt and uncertainty which alone will drive you batty or do you want to know for sure to give yourself some peace. There is nothing wrong with wanting to vindicate what you think or feel. It seems that you are happy and have managed to fake it well. But, I found out that I could only fake it so long before my body gave out with anxiety and just things got really bad for me. My first thought to you would be say, yes...explore lol.

One of the reasons I wanted the diagnosis was to pretty much shove it in the face of people who told me I was full of BS and kept telling me excuse after excuse of why I was having problems. Course, I'll never do that but for me in my mind I took great comfort in knowing that I was right and NOT crazy. Now, getting an official diagnosis is a double edged sword. For me, the good outweighs the negative and I have no problem telling people otherwise that the negatives aren't negatives and that they are only negatives because that is how they choose to view it.

If you have any questions...feel free to drop a pm or need to chat, I wouldn't mind chatting. Always trying to make a friend (which I suck at by the way but at least i try lol).

Take care.
Upo.

edit:

PS... I was gladly suffering as well until I couldn't do it any longer. It was just all too tiring and now...I can rest and be me and find a way to work with my asperger's and try to form relationships and better my life and enjoy it.

I find that it's often not useful to tell someone you have AS because they don't know what it is, so they jump to the wrong conclusions. It might be more useful instead to talk about the specific issues you have that they need to know about so that you can function around them. For instance, saying you are sensitive to loud noises or that being with a group of people makes you anxious, etc.

Or you could bring up famous people with AS, like Einstein (I'm not sure if he really had it or not), who don't fit the stereotype of being weird. You could research famous Aspies, I'm drawing a blank.

As far as denying the DX to yourself, it seems to me you feel fairly certain that you have AS, and you almost wish you didn't so you wouldn't have to deal with other people's ignorance about it.

i was sort of in your position about 10 years ago when I first heard of Aspergers. I couldn't get the Rain Man image out of my head, so I never bothered to bring it to anyone's attention. Knowing what I know now, I could have saved myself a decade of pain and suffering, and not be in my mid-30's trying to start life over again. trying to cope, relearn, & retrain in my mid-20's doesn't seem as daunting as it is now, having no education, no career goals, no family, no kids, etc.

Dwightser, I know what you're talking about, but only from friends and acquaintances. I've had some people tell me, "Don't talk about mental health. It turns people off."

My response was, "It's not about mental health. It's about who I am."

The only reason I ever bring it up at all is if I think I should, and usually due to either a miss-communication, or because my AS traits are causing some sort of interaction difficulties.

I don't have your problem when it comes to close relationships, and never have, for two reasons. One, in past relationships I had never heard of AS, and so never mentioned it. Two, the fifteen year marriage I am now involved with, includes mutual knowledge of AS due to investigating our son's behavior, learning of AS, then later having him and one brother diagnosed with it. I have since become fully aware that I have had it all of my life (and will be soon seeking a full evaluation), and my wife also now strongly believes she has AS.

So basically with close relationships, it has never been an issue. We talk about it all the time.

That said, IMHO, the surest way to avoid this problem in close relationships is to, well, date an Aspie! I know, I know. That's much easier said then done, and could lead to some really sticky problems.

I do though, honestly believe that there is something about "wavelengths" and those on the Autistic spectrum somehow being attracted to one another, even with no knowledge of Autism. I met my wife long before I ever heard of AS. She never heard of it either. Since then, two of our sons have been dx'd, we suspect she and our oldest son have it, and I know positively I have it. We also learned here brother had been dx'd before we ever met.

I think there's a some sort of comforting wavelengths we pick up on from each other. Oh! I almost forgot! We also discovered my oldest son's best friend was diagnosed, after the two had met.

I think our experiences along these lines are far from coincidences.

My point isn't really to go out and find an Aspie really. It's more about just being who you are, and gravitating toward those who accept it, and away from those who don't.

I need to talk about AS with some people, even if they don't want to hear it. It's part of who I am. I don't use it as an excuse for anything, but it's too integral to me to ignore it all the time.

Some people DON'T want to hear it. Well, to them I say, "Tough! If that's the case, then you don't really want to deal with me as I am, but me as you think I am, and the two are not the same."

Doing so becomes a proactive filter, through which those who are understanding get trough, and those who are close minded, don't.

And I have no problem with that!

If you filter your relationships like that, you just may discover, as I did, you're suddenly surrounded by Aspies!

If it happened to me before I even KNEW about AS, I bet it's even more likely to happen after knowing about it.

There are TONS of people who don't believe there is anything at all going on with me other than that I am stubborn, lazy, stupid, and a blow hard.

So what? I don't care. I know what the truth is (finally!). Opinions are like [fill in the blank], and usually come from [fill in the blank] and if that's your opinion of me, then you can just stick that opinion right where it came from [fill in the blank!].

Of course, by "you," I don't mean you, dwightser.

Ever hear of the "Law of Attracion?"

It applies as much to us as it does to anyone. It just applies with slightly different rules.

If you feel you need to talk about it, then by all means do it. Too bad for those who find it "uncomfortable." The truth isn't always comfortable, but avoiding it doesn't change what it is. Avoidance never improves anything.

The answer isn't to quit talking about it. The answer is to quit talking to people who won't listen, and START talking to those who will.

Just my twenty bucks worth.

i went through this very recently. i was dx'd with BPII, ADD, and PTSD (with a bit of schizo-afftective thrown in to just add that something special). i've been on the increasingly unafordable psych drugs. so, first went the seroquel (super-duper expensive for me) and now the oxcarbazepine...see ya in hell drugs!

Now i just smoke weed and it's so much easier to tolerate and for now it's my mental tea to transition through the "mental case" with no hope to a happy autistic person who is absolutely fabulous and amazing to his friends and i don't give a flying monkey turds time at the whacky bat if i can share this with all my drugged friends suffering in cluelessness and despair. that was me and this shift in my own self awareness has relieved all the external faking hell i endearvored to master knowing it would never happen on my terms. Now the life i'm living is in sync with my body and my external world. my partner is rejuvenating his own life because mine is settling into the "real" world for both of us.

I don't think those are the only two choices.

It strikes me that your friends don't have a problem with who you are; they just have misconceptions about Asperger's in general. Plus, Asperger's just isn't that important to them - they're neurotypical after all - so they're not really interested in learning more about it.

Unfortunately, there's no way to force people to see the truth. People only learn when they are ready for it. I'd suggest trying to live with the fact that your friends may have some misconceptions about the world. If you bring it up, try to bring it up in a "fun" way - "hey, this test says I'm an Aspie - what does it say about you?"

I was in denial for 10 years after it was first suggested I have AS. Now I am seeking a diagnosis because I think it could make my life easier with friends and family. It will totally screw up my career I know but I am sick of getting into problems because of my interactions with people. But yes I still think it is just my personality and not an illness or disorder.

I sometimes wonder if these things are made up by the medical profession. But I think Hans Asperger must have been on to something because he identified it in children and not adults.

One day I hope society accepts and values our differences and there are mechanisms in place to help everyone reach their full potential. Perhaps if we stop this ridiculous and short sighted pursuit of profit then we can make a more efficiently run society.

After a massive breakdown at the end of 2007, I found myself in therapy yet again. 1 year ago my Psychologist mentioned AS to me. I laughed and said it was ridiculous. She did not mention it again for a few months, but therapy became "different". She started to test me in a very confrontational way. I was not angry with her, but curious as to why it had gone in such a strange and "emotional" direction. "Feelings" were constantly brought up and despite my best efforts to contribute I felt like just holding my head in my hands and begging her to stop, shaking my head and saying "I don't know, I don't know" over and over. Then she asked me if I have autism in my family and I said "Yes, most definitely. Why?"

She brought it up again with more info this time.......and the structure returned. I was dx 4 months ago but she sent me off to a specialist to be absolutely sure. It is official. And I struggle.

I am not ashamed or particularly surprised, but I feel betrayed. I lived a life of inhumanity for this? I will get used to it and embrace it I am sure, but I am very, very tired and after a life of scary psychiatric intervention, I am angry this got missed.

There are 2 sides to it.......everyday.

Mics

In my experience:

Item - generally, people don't even hear you talking about yourself.

Item - If they hear, they don't want to know about your problems.

Item - if you have problems, you need to get over it or get help and likely it is not real.

Item - help them have fun OR listen to THEIR problems or get lost.

Whatever. None of this changes reality. And ample evidence says, all the diagnoses in the world MAY be useful to you - but don't expect most people to change POSITIVELY toward you. After all - idf you REALLY have a probldem that is just embarrassing.

Diagnosis and self acceptance was the best thing to happen to me!

peace j

Haha, I'm beginning to understand this as well.

Looking back on my life before the diagnosis is horrifying though; the struggle to be normal seems all for naught. 26 years of my life were influenced by such a powerful syndrome and the stress of coping made life unlivable at times. The worst part of it is knowing now that I could have somehow prevented all that struggle.

The best way I could put it is spending your entire life swimming upstream and the diagnosis is just letting you know that all along you could have just gotten out of the water and walked along the shoreline to reach the same point.