You Don't Act Like You Have It

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Have you ever gotten close enough to someone or a family member and told them about having Asperger's Syndrome and then you get the following. "You act like you don't have it!" or "I don't think your autistic." I know people try and use it like it's a good thing but especially if your diagnosed it actually hurts when people say that. (To me at least) Everyone on the spectrum is different. Then when I try explaining what Asperger's is and autism in general and they still return to that statement; "You don't act like you have it." I have no words anymore and I need to go and shut down. When I use examples of instances where my Asperger's shines I usually get things like "Oh that's because your 'different'." This also another one that I get a lot. "That's because you haven't grown up yet you need to be an adult."

If people are doing it to be genuinely nice I usually understand that and I'm okay with it and try and explain politely why I don't like when people say I'm not autistic. A lot of the time though when people say that they just can't accept that I have it and want to act like I said something bad.

How do you deal with people who tell you that you don't have Asperger's and treat it like it's bad thing if you've ever been told that?

Yeah....it can get frustrating.

But think of it this way: at least you could go out in the street, and not assume somebody thinks you're autistic.

1) I learn not to tell people I'm autistic ... with very, very rare exceptions.

2) I learn that that particular person's judgement is to be respected less, and my own judgement is to be respected more, when I am in their presence. They've just shown me that they don't take me seriously ... so in turn, they don't deserve to be taken so seriously by me.

I like it when Phoenix emerges from the Ashes!

She was in a place with lots of perfume!

I thought I was going to hear this a lot from the people I told, but I tend to get, "Oh, that explains it." Lol

I want to try doing what Pheniox does and keep saying to myself that it doesn't matter what others think because I know I have it.

Some people have a level of behavior that needs an explanation. Like "there's definitely something wrong with this person, but I don't know what". So when they are finally told it's autism, it makes sense to them and mystery solved.

But if someone does not have that level of observable behavior, then there's probably no point in telling anyone about it.

I would tend to agree with Ezra.

This is a question I have for those with late diagnosis. Before you learned about Aspergers, if someone you knew who did not appear to have a neurological disorder, seemed basically ordinary and normal, told you they were autistic, would you have believed them?

I admit that I am prone to this type of thinking myself. I don't understand how an autistic person can seem to blend in and act perfectly normally socially. But I know autism is more complicated than that.

I think it could help to have a stand-by phrase to use in these situations, OP. Possibly something like: "You know, that's a very invalidating thing to say; there is no one way that autism looks, would you like me to suggest some reliable references?"

(If they say yes, then something like Tony Attwood's "Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome" book, or websites like the Autistic Women's Network are reliable sources of information to suggest). There are various lists of resources on WP, some are stickied for ease of reference.

Thank you. Another thought I had was that most probably view having autism as an extraordinary claim and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evedence in their way of thinking.

But I understand the frustration of not being believed. It sucks.

Before I discovered I had Aspergers, I read a newspaper article about it. And concluded from the article that I must not have it, because I would never consider coming home from work everyday and going to sit inside a cardboard box to decompress and relieve stress ... that was just so weird! However, up until that point in the newspaper article, I was thinking, hey, this could be me.

So after finishing that newspaper article, I figured I would simply continue thinking of myself as eccentric.

In my country AS is rarely used word. At first I thought that was bad, but later on I realized that's very good thing. All people are less or more different, and one dose not need diagnose for that. Surely there are people who need help and support and diagnose, but I see that lot of people who DON'T really NEED diagnose for AS nowadays get diagnose. Also when one get's official diagnose, he get's official excuses for most of the things. Also people will think that you have right when you say:,, It's not my fault, it's my AS".
I also noticed that people who don't know anything about AS (but they do have it) will tend to make far more progress then dose who have official diagnose.

This is a very fair point, my understanding of autism was very limited until I had my own means/reasons of researching it. I did my high-school biology project on autism/vaccination links (concluding that there was no link), and although I can't remember exactly what I found out about autism for that essay, it obviously wasn't anything that I identified strongly with myself. It's a broad spectrum, and the higher functioning end is under publicised for the most part.

Hell, I even doubt myself on a bad day. If I can pretend to function, then am I really autistic? Maybe everyone is pretending to function, and I'm the only one creating about it! But (for the most part) I know that's not the case.

Yes, I was once told "I don't think you have that" by my mother even after being diagnosed.
But there were just too many things I saw in common among the list of traits. It does hurt when someone says that without realizing what experiences you've had and continue to have.

I think there are at least 3 possible reasons for this type of denial.

1. They genuinely don't know that autism is a very broad spectrum and their denial is out of total incredulity. Many people still assume "Rain Man" is autism in every case.

2. In some sense they see being autistic as "wrong" or lesser, and don't want you thinking you're a "wrong" or lesser person, so they outright deny the diagnosis.

3. They're jerks. It's... probably not this one.

Anyway, don't take it personally. You know your own experiences and you have an official diagnosis as well. These things are helpful for perspective, understanding yourself and moving forward. And if they're curious, there are tons of videos on YouTube by other "invisible" people on the spectrum.