The higher I climb the quieter I get.

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Thought for the day when it comes to having AS. With success comes silence. When I first got the diagnosis back in 2006 I was at the bottom. I would talk to anybody about it who asked but now that has changed.

I was in a coffee shop tonight fiddling around with a deck of playing cards practicing some card tricks when I performed a couple of them for this one couple I started to have a conversation with them. We talked about pop culture, what eachother did for a living, started out plutonic but then it got personal. At one point they wanted to know how old I was and I told them I was 32. The guy guessed it right but the girl thought I was younger. I told them that I was graduating from college this year and they asked why so late. I told them that I was in the National Guard when Sept. 11th happened and I was called up twice for active duty. I then told them that I also had to take time out for medical reasons and the woman asked if it was because of Asperger Syndrome.......


It was at that point right there when I just started to develop a say nothing attitude. It was like I was embarassed to talk about it........I stopped and said, "wel you must have some kind of magic power. You got tell me how you did that." I let out a nervous laugh afterwards. Before that would not have been an issue but now it is.......hhmmm.

maybe you're over it, is what you are saying? meaning that you're more at peace these days with your AS lens than you were when you first realized you had that lens?

i understand. i tend to dislike getting into conversations that are too personal in nature. when that happens to me, i get quiet, but have learned to deflect the situation by directing the conversation to another topic. it takes practice.

that was rather candid and personal a comment to mention, in regards to her "noticing" you're an aspie. perhaps she's familiar with the characteristics of AS by working with other aspies or having someone close who is. either way, i would find it off-putting for someone to say such a thing to me during a casual conversation, unless they knew me rather well.

I don't know................maybe because I just want to be seen like everybody else.

Yeah.........but hey when alcohol flows so does the truth. She had some and I didn't.

this i go back and forth on. i value my uniqueness (although everyone is unique and dont let them tell you otherwise), but then it gets or i realize that it has gotten to the point where i am isolated or worse: people are fascinated by me and i just want to f'ing lay low and chill the hell out.

fitting in (being normal) has its pros and its cons. it seems like you are saying that when fitting in is going your way (success), you wont talk about AS and when it seems like things are getting unsuccessful, youll talk about it.

i did get drunk and tell an ex-girlfriend that i had autism. whoops. looking back, i may have done it to 'explain' why things went so badly. this is a slippery slope. i could use way more self-understanding and acceptance (success), which it sounds like you have?

@ muff: Oh yeah you hit the hammer right on the nail. Its like the more successful I get the less I want to talk about it but when something goes wrong I want to tell people that yes I have this and it is hard.

It's never too late to graduate from college, especially given all of your circumstances. Congratulations to you.