WP is filling my head with BS

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According to my mother. In her eyes I just use what I learn here to rationalize being selfish and unreliable. When I said it is a spectrum after she mentioned someone else having traits she said 'how do you know those other people have Aspergers'? I said they'd sure have to go through a lot of trouble to fake something like this, she then trotted out the tired old statement about the bad stuff people do when they pretend to be something else online. So there's that, and there was her favorite arrow to the head about me purposely having angry facial expressions. She knows I can smile when I want to smile, therefore I'm being very 1-sided since I started reading about AS, then I don't talk to anyone enough (when the TV and radio aren't playing, nobody's on Barfbook, or talking on the phone, or gone out, AND Venus is in retrograde) , not that I can really trust my heart with anything I tell them . What IS it with this (metaphorical) mirror that people don't comprehend they're looking right into?

How good was it for YOU to be told you've gotten 'worse' since you found WP?

Who are those 4 guys in your avatar? Sweet? Quicksilver Messenger Service? Blue Cheer?

Barfbook?

I've never told anybody in my family about WP, so I can't answer that question.

Hey, I know it can be difficult when your parents don't support you. Just hang in there. Your mom may be more scared than anything else. That's how mine is. She's scared of disability, she thinks it means you're absolutely incapable, an object of pity, an eternal child... She doesn't understand how it really is. I tell her it's a normal part of life for me, that being different is okay, that disability doesn't have to be severe and obvious... She still doesn't listen. I think she just can't get over the idea that I really do have problems. She still blames my autism on "rebellion" (even though I'm one of the least rebellious people I know)... I think it comforts her to think that I am deliberately doing things like stimming or being slow on the uptake socially, because if she can rationalize it as deliberate, that means I'm not disabled. I dunno if your mom's like that at all, but fear of disability and of labels seems to be at the root of a lot of this sort of thing; or else stereotypes--the idea that if a person can do one thing, he must be able to do all related things; that if a person can do something once, then he must be able to do it whenever he likes; that any failure to do so is willful.

Give her time. Remind yourself of the facts you know, so that you don't get influenced by the biases in your family.

By the way, angry facial expressions--and anger in general--are perfectly okay. Anger is an emotion, not a sin. It's how you handle your anger that matters--whether you hurt people with it or not. You are allowed to be angry.

There may be a grain of truth to what your mother is saying. Part of the process of figuring out you have an autistic spectrum disorder is learning how people with it behave. Many times, people who start obsessively researching it pick up some of the traits they may not have otherwise had purely for psychosomatic reasons. I have seen myself do it too, so you are not alone in this. Usually it goes away in time since these things are not natural for the person doing them, or at least that's what I read in an article somewhere...

But that's harmless. It can even be beneficial. Experimenting with letting go of some of the "act" and letting your more natural behavior come out is healthy and normal for people who have just been diagnosed. You have to discover your own mix of "normal act" and natural self--how much effort you make to communicate versus how much you're willing to look atypical in exchange for comfort and function.

Anyway, the idea that people with autism have to try to "look normal" is not something that everybody agrees with, especially not autistic people. It's better, at least from my perspective, to focus on what's effective. You have to communicate, get along in the world--but you don't have to blend in. Being "normal" shouldn't be your goal because there are many things that are "normal" to the rest of the world but completely unnatural for you. Sometimes it is just more effective to do things your own way. So long as it hurts nobody, it is perfectly acceptable--and don't let anybody tell you different.

I started bathing less..

I heard all these stories about aspies and hygiene, so I figured it was okay....[true bro]

This is an obvious example of WP causing unwanted behaviours.... plain and simple

Much of the NT world is about 'pulling your socks up.....'

here we can slob out without guilt or shame

guilt and shame motivate many of us

I dunno if I have ever changed since I have been here. I know I have changed alright but I mean in life such as moving locations, been through one relationship and then met my husband, got married, had a child, went through three jobs. Been unemployed for months. Been on Social Security and off it.

Nobody's told me I got worse because of WP, and I don't tell many people about the exact site I go on, but I have mentioned that I go on an AS site to my mum, which she said is good, but sometimes I tell her some of the incredible things that pop up on this forum, like about physical deformities in Aspies, and being convinced that murderers and paedophiles and other diabolical people are classed as ''normal people'' and Aspies aren't, and my mum's like, ''where the hell have you heard that from?'' and I said it was an AS site and my mum was like, ''well just don't believe everything you read otherwise you will turn yourself into a nervous wreck or even a hypercondriac.''

She didn't mean any disrespect to this site or anyone here, she was just saying that it sounds like some things here sound a little far-fetched.

If anything, I've gotten better and learned a lot of things from WP... It sounds to me like your mother may be in a bit of denial about your condition, or she really hasn't taken the time to learn as much about it as you have here on WP. My mother really isn't very supportive either, so I can relate.