How to deal with friends who don't understand

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How do you deal with friends who don't understand how it is for people with Aspergers or Autisim?
I have a friend who insists that I just need to try harder and i'll get ahead. He doesn't seem to understand that
even if I could get a job i'd overload and head straight for the loony bin in a matter of weeks.

I just end up feeling really bad after being subject to this type of thing and want to cut off contact with him.
How can you deal with this in less drastic ways. Sometimes people just don't want to understand.

*sigh* It's a tricky one. I had difficulty getting across to people that there is a difference between meltdowns and tantrums. What I found helped is trying to put it across in a way that makes sense to them. For example, in explaining to a person who has a continence problem, I said that calling meltdowns a tantrum would be like saying someone with bladder incontinence isn't toilet trained.

Needless to say, they haven't so much as suggested that I throw tantrums since! Still, it's hard to hit on something that they can relate with. Have you explained to them that you are actually acting with self awareness and exercising knowledge of your own personal limits? Sometimes people think we are just slacking off, so perhaps if you can tell him other areas that you are working on, for example, if you find it hard to do the food shopping because of people anxiety, tell him about that, and explain to him that this on top of working would become too much, and that you have to exercise self care to prevent that.

Does he understand that Aspergers is actually a disorder, not just something you have come up with to excuse yourself?

I've had the same problem with a few people. It just makes me not want to bother with them because it makes me so angry.

I don't know how to deal with it, to be honest. It makes me see people in a different light, a light of complete ignorance.



What part of NZ are you from?

EGmaria,

I beleive you can do anything you put your mind to. It doesn't matter what disability even with autism you can still find a way to manage to be successful. My advice is keep reaching for your goals and NEVER give up.

I think your friends might have a bigger understanding than you think (consiering they really are your friends) but they do beleive you can compensate for your disability and be successful.


Take me for example when I was first diagnosed as a toddler the doctors told my parents i would have to be in instiuition. I wasn't talking, and was having frequent meltdowns.


But now at the age of 22, Im getting ready to graduate college soon, keeping a reasonably high GPA while working 20-30 hours a week as a dishwasher at a very busy and noisy restaruant. The job can be very demanding physically, emotionally, and sensory wise. But I learned to deal simply because I had to and I knew I can do it.

Im also starting an internship as a network administrator for a school district and I am very excited and confident about that.

So as you can see from my story you can have an ASD and still be successful


Don't sit around and make excuses, these speculations you're making could lead to a self fullfiling prophecy. Beleive me you don't want to fall in that trap!

Don't listen to professionals, society, and other people's experience do whatever you want to do DESPITE your disability.


Good luck with everything. : D

I agree with this in principle, but there are people who simply refuse to account for the stress that certain situations can put on a person on the spectrum. There are people who've known me closely for years, to whom I've tried over and over to explain, have seen me in full overload, and still think I ought to just "get over it". I do believe cutting off contact is the best route. But if you really don't want to do that, I would suggest taking a job despite your worries, seeing if you really do end up in overload, and then if you do - making no attempt to hide the effect it's having on you. If the job turns out to be easier on you than you expected - great. If it doesn't, and this person honestly cares about you, they won't want to see you in pain and will maybe make a better attempt at understanding. If they still tell you you're not trying hard enough... that's the time to re-evaluate the friendship.

I have the problem of people not understanding as well Whenever I try to explain, they don't get it and butt in with their opinions before I've finished... or they just tell me "You can't do that" and I'm already doing it so I don't see why I couldn't.. It annoys me because they expect me to just do what they say I can do and leave it at that, when if I'm feeling really bad about something, what they're telling me to do could act in opposite ways.

I can agree with that, no matter how many times you attempt to say what your problem with smething is and why something won't work they ignore it and continue to emphasise a sometimes completely useless point.
I don't think I helped you out at all, but I can understand where you're coming from.

Try to find at least one NT who understands. Thankfully, I have a few NT friends who understand. One has been my best friend for about four or five years and is the most compassionate and understanding person I know. Another has an older brother who has AS, so she also understands what it's like.

Try this: When a friend gives you advice, don't obsess over your friend's words too much. Just find the meaning of your friend's words then decide whether it's the best course of action for yourself. If it doesn't apply to you, however, then scrap every detail of the conversation from your mind.

How's that?

I tend to agree with everyone here. there is something in every post I hold true.
Being undx'd for so long I explained things in terms of people finding their own little bubble of "orthodoxy" to live in. For friends who could't/wouldn't see what was obvious, you have to take their frailties into account as well. If your friend believes that hard work and persistence will apy off no matter what, you will find you are arguing with a belief system that is very hard to overcome. I worked for a telecom company and was regularly held up as as example of good "compliance" with the legal constraints imposed on the company, I had negative sales figures, but people could not / would not see that compliance caused the "problem" When they "let me go" I worked for a low cost airline and the issues they had with disability and even basic customer care were huge, but people were focused on the goal the company set them and would not try to comprehend the problems of wheelchair access, diabetics and others taking hypodermics onto the flight, etc. I've always been rule based, but have also been aware of the problems that causes, so HAVE to look at both sides of things. I'd say in the case of your friend who has the "positive thinking" problem, point out that you do want to be more successful, but its going to take time to build up resistance to many things they take for granted (I still hate going on the tube because of the rush of noise when a train aproaches and don't like the cinema for similar reasons). Use examples they relate to, likes/dislikes, fears, etc as examples for comparison of your behaviour to theirs. It's not just a case of them not wanting to understand, they relate everything to their own way of thinking and if they don't have a similar problem they often can't see yours. Silly as it might sound, you have to be more understanding of your non-understanding friends and accept that their outlook and lack of comprehension is something you should have to indulge them in while gently educating them. Sometimes gentle can involve using an extreme example just to provoke thought, or you can laugh at them to convey the impossibility of their stance, but not to the extent where you totally alienate them, because you are acting as a tool for others in a similar situation to your own.
Got that off my chest.

They are incapable of understanding it. Simply try not to discuss it with them, or otherwise be prepared to discuss it at length and to spell out just how stressful life is for you (but this still may not work, they'll just think you're being pessimistic and negative).



I think you should give yourself more credit. I thought this once. I'm now one of the better, more valued employees in my department. And I did overload, a LOT...over and over again. They were days when I had anxiety/panic attacks for hours and still had to try to work and function. Gradually these bad times became less frequent and less severe...there were days upon end when I had to force myself to go to work or not to quit....it took a LOT of effort. It also took my employers a lto of patience, because I took longer to learn thigns, to be able to multitask, and not to get too obsessed with perfectionism (I still struggle with that, but it's also a strength).

So I say, try it, and give it your absolute best try. You will have better self esteem and it will be worth all the effort it took and more.

And if all else fails, a good piece of advice is "Don't worry about what other people think. They don't do it very often." This might be more humourous than helpful, however, but I hope you find it as both.

I am fortunate enough to have freinds that understand,although some of the recent friends I made don't.One of them called me insane!~(although he said he loved me anyway)

-SpaceCase

PhoenixKitten,
You hit the nail on the head with this one. AS is a disorder that we all know we have but can't control. We have to live with it and find its positive aspects and work with them.


EGMaria and hale_bopp,
Sometimes you just have to decide whether or not you want to continue to keep the company of those types who can't (or won't) get their heads out from under the sand and see it for what it is. Goons like that are often a sourse of more stress in our lives than what they are worth.


jman,
I like your attitude

pyraxis,
Your perspective and your experiences mirror a lot of my own. You already are implementing the same solutions as I.

Astarael,
I too come across your problem when trying to educate people about AS. When I try to say my piece and they cut me off, I end the conversation with the words: "Call it whatever you want to call it, I won't argue with you".

Namiko,
You've proven that there are some very fine NT's out there who are open-minded enough to understand and even empathise with our condition. It helps too if the NT has another Aspie in the entourage and the rapport with the same is a good one.

thepeaguy,
I get the impression your technique involves trying to "read" the advisor's intentions. And yes, ther are lots of fine folks around who only want to help out those they see as being disadvantaged, even if their solution is not the ideal answer for the recipient. Sometimes we Aspies have to brush up on tact and diplomacy when encountering this sort of thing, myself included.

chamoisee,
You seem to have a lot more patience that I with those ostriches. Verbally, my only solution with them is: GOOGLE IT

Aww! I didn't mean to! I'm sorry nail! I'm sorryyyyyyy!! !

I find it almost impossible to explain to people who don't suffer what it actually means to have AS.

I can explain it to people, but they seem to ignore what I say and retort something along the lines of "But you're not a freak", "you seem alright to me", "you're just paranoid!", "You just want the world to think you're special (no one has actually said this one, but I read it somewhere )