Embracing your diagnosis?

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Hello all, NT wife of an Aspie here

Recently my husband made some jokes about his own diagnosis and "embracing the weirdness" and "coping with quirks" and similar statements in front of a friend who has a son with Autism. She was horribly insulted because "people with autism aren't weird!" and she took it super personally, like we were calling her son a weirdo.

As an adult my husband has ONLY encountered "embracing the weirdness" type therapy, usually they work on stuff like getting your quirks to be in your favor, and that you have to have personal acceptance to deal with it. Our marriage counselor (specializes in NT-ASD marriages) often says that you can't "get away from the odd traits" of having an ASD, so you have to learn to work with them in a positive way. This seems to be very different from the type of therapy kids receive.

So my questions: If you have a diagnosis, do you "embrace the weirdness?" or do you find that an insulting statement? Do you think adults with ASD are treated much differently than children with it?

I "embrace the weirdness".

Adults are treated diffently then kids. Unlike where you live there are usually no treatments for adults never mind the positive treatments. For kids the treatments are intensive and vary widely from positive learning skills to negative where they try and get rid as much autism as possible

Yes I think I do but my NT husband isn't so keen. I think he wishes I could keeping struggling on pretending to be normal - he is supportive though.

I still need to keep up the mask (I work full time) so I think when it slips I'm stressed and tired and so he sees me at my worst.

Any tips on how to manage that as let's face it grumpy stressed wife is not fun ?

Dinner is always ready when I get home (I know I'm spoiled) but it means I go from work, often long drive home to family dinner "how was your day". Sometimes it's just too much

(Sorry don't mean to divert the thread )

I never have embraced "wierdness". I only embrace my uniqueness. I feel my SPD and HFA cause me to be special in a positive way, not negative. Infact I've gone out of my way to exhibit confidence in who I am to the pointe where I may possibly intimidate NT's who may judge or perceive me as "odd" to some degree. In other words, those who get to know me know I know I'm different from most, and will conclude I'm totally comfortable with myself and suspect that I might find certain NT ways "wierd" from my pointe of view.

FWIW Darcy, my NT spouse quit asking me stuff like, "how was your day?" as I come through the door years ago.
(The small talk was replaced with more manageable direct to-the-pointe questions like, "so, how bad was work?".)
Also I seldom have dinner waiting for me anymore since I became the superior cook of the house.

Last edited by Rockymtnchris on 23 Sep 2015, 3:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

Most definately; this is the healthiest way to cope with living in an NT world: i am different, might as well have some fun with it.

Now, there are times where i supress the weirdness, sometimes you just gotta be professional, but i embrace it whenever i can.

As an adult, I do not know how to not embrace the weirdness. I am weird and I am more than okay with that. Not an insult to me at all.

I was not diagnosed as a child, but I was weird back then as well, and also okay with that. From my own experience, yes, children are treated differently than adults. I had to have meetings when all I wanted to do was hide under a slide so I played on the swings to get around that... what I learned was solitary activity that was among the masses was acceptable, so I did that because I did not like meetings. People would fuss and fit when I forgot to swing my arms while walking... no one does that to me now. In my world, there was this occasional pressure to conform when I was young. It annoyed me and I rarely complied. It seemed like people trying to shove a circle block into the square hole. As a child you have little or no control over expectations people shove onto you... even if you ignore them, they still shove it in your face and you cannot make them stop. As an adult you can tell them to go to hell. Heh.

I don't know. I was not given an autism dx as a child, I do not have a child with an autism dx, so maybe I am wrong... but... it does seem to me that there is an unnecessary tendency to try to make people conform to norms. Some things I understand, such as toe walking not being so good for muscles and so on... but others really confuse me. I wish there was more emphasis on people accepting differences in others over making the others conform to these preset ideas of how we should all be. Weirdo would not be a bad word then.

When therapists are working with children, whose sense of self is still forming, they don't want to feed them ideas like "you are weird, and that's okay." They want or should want to minimize any negative self-image that the child may have developing.

If you are not diagnosed until adulthood, you have already experienced a great deal of bullying, isolation, self-blame, depression, and so on (unless you've been very lucky), so "embracing the weird" is a place to start.

But I can appreciate where the mom of an autistic child is coming from, too. So, yes, adults and children are treated differently, and that is appropriate.

What is wrong with "you are weird, and that's okay?"

It sounds like you are saying weird = negative.

Trying to be something you are not and feeling bad about not doing that well is destructive.
Doing what you can do very well and working around the rest is more likely to result in positive outcomes. Play to strengths, mitigate weaknesses and don't worry about seeming like people you are not like.

I dunno, anybody else find something wrong with a teacher telling a little kid "you are weird, and that's okay?"

To me, it's self-evidently negative. Most people use the word "weird" in an exclusionary manner - meaning "not like us" or "not of us."

I think we might have to embrace 'it' (aka, weirdness?) to successfully survive. Fighting it is impossibly, futilely exhaustive! Having a sense of humor, as your husband has expressed, is a plus too.

Sorry your friend was insulted. Your husband doesn't need to apologize though.

Related, I've encountered some ignorant individuals (e.g., abusive 'counselors') who sanctimoniously believe that we ought to be in a nursing home, or whatever silly nonsense! Obviously NOT understanding Asperger's. Seriously cannot deal with their shameful ignorance. Ignore them and move on. We're never obligated to justify or explain to anyone.

Interesting. I have always been weird. Anyone trying to tell me I wasn't would have been obviously false, something I never had time for.

Let your freak flag fly is more the spirit that set me free.

This discussion calls to mind the famous saying of Marcus Garvey: "Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds!"

I'm with you. Personally, I do not like this name-calling approach. A mean/misguided person once called me "weird" to purposefully hurt me. Yes, it's exclusionary....& can be downright belittling.

Now, if it's among understanding adults &/or friends who are genuine with good intentions, okay. But I don't think a child needs to be labelled "weird" by any teacher.

I do a lot of things that NTs can't or won't do. Some of them are quite useful--at least to me. I've learned to duck the question--how would you do that? I just posted about eliminating allergies by weeding ragweed--most NTs won't do that--but it works for me.

Somehow we got a long way away from the OP here. What "name calling" are we talking about? It seems to be entirely imaginary. The real incident was not a teacher saying "you are weird" but an atypical adult telling an atypical young person "embrace your weirdness" and an (it would seem) typical adult saying "how dare you!" to the adult.

I think the NT adult is in denial and understands little. I think the sad story of the abusive teacher is fiction and a diversion from the main point: is it better to pretend to be normal or embrace your peculiarities?

I think the answer is that it's good to know how to behave in ways that doesn't draw negative attention, at least enough to get by and otherwise make the most of your peculiar strengths.

I love that term and am totally "jacking it" and using it. I not only embrace it, I use it to my advantage. I have learned that if people know that I am Autistic (my preference) then they do not react as though I have grown a third eye and horns if I engage them differently, or react to my surroundings -- yep, all it takes is forgetting the earplugs. I also have found that I am still respected if during a conversation, or an interaction that one of my deficits peek through. I am an intelligent and educated adult; however, every now and then my "Autistic-ness" shines through at times and there is just no hiding it. It is better to educate and allow an individual to assist me rather than have them react and me to feel humiliated.

Let your husband "embrace the weird" and stand by him on it! Don't second guess his decision -- it is him who has to live day-to-day with being on the spectrum. It is you who must come to terms with how he interacts with the world and be alright with it, don't go around making apologies for him.

My personal opinion is that there are too many parents that are hung up on their children being perfect. I taught my children that it was perfectly okay to "march to the tune of your own drum" -- that was my term for, it is okay to be weird.

That's what they said about me when I was in kindergarten and elementary school: "he marches to the tune of his own drummer" or "a different drummer" there was no option not to be seen as different and weird.

The only question was did the institution to some degree protect and permit that or encourage it to be suppressed or beaten down?

Last edited by Adamantium on 27 Sep 2015, 12:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.