People who don't believe you have autism

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When I first started to discover that aspergers "fit" me and my experiences, some of my "friends" first response was No, you do not have it.

They were just trying to be supportive, even though it was very un-supportive to me to have them discount my research and my relief that there is a reason for why I am the way that I am and have these challenges.

I chose just to not talk to them about it anymore because there are other supportive people who can deal with it.

I agree it is painful to be discounted this way. I asked my dr that I am seeing for a diagnosis if she would please give me a stamp or a note saying I have AS for situations like that (I was sort of joking, but there is a thread of truth in my request.)

What I want to say to those people who are going to be judgemental about it, or not understand the reality of the situation, is that having aspergers doesnt change WHO I am, I am the same person they knew, it only changes the WHY of my behaviors and difficulties.

Hope you get some answers that you need regarding your diagnosis.

The more I think about this the more I wish that I could get out of this little town. I think people who don't really know me would believe me. My relatives would probably say I'm too smart for that & that I'm using it as a cop out. I feel like if I were in a big city I wouldn't be so scared. My mother is always "accidentally" telling people things. I haven't been able to fully explain this thing to them but I'm working on a video presentation with clips. I think that it's possible that after she would watch it it'd be in her mind.

I live in a town where other children constantly picked on visibly handicapped children when I was a child so I highly doubt that they would have any remorse for what they put me through (when I was a teen). If anything I bet that they would say "Oh, you're ret*d, of course." or something & make fun of me again. I've decided to try to be less sensitive more often but something like that would hurt a lot.

I can usually fake it at a first meeting, particularly if there is a reasonable amount of intellectual (rather than purely 'social') content to the conversation(s).

People have commented that they 'would never have guessed' I have Asperger's (after I explain what Asperger's is)
- This has been the response from those that I am fairly recently acquainted with as well as those that I have known for some time
- But I am also very capable of 'clashing' with someone at a first 'social' meeting

Those who are more 'socially' inclined tend to know I am 'weird' (at the first meeting) and keep a safe distance from me
- particularly those who make limited intellectual contributions to discussions (although this may not necessarily correlate to their actual intelligence)

My occupation involves mostly intellectual communication, but for which I don't think I would be able to work in any meaningful way.

I'm developing the technique of talking less (and listening if I am actually interested) in 'social' settings (which are few and far between unless business related)
- This makes it easier to avoid making socially 'inappropriate' comments
- Although with some people I sometimes have to count to 20 or (much) longer to avoid blurting

The last 'social' event that I attended before I stopped drinking alcohol was with my NT wife (my seeing-eye dog)
- I spoke very little, other than responding to a few meaningless small-talk tit-bits.

I simply didn't belong - no one's fault - just oil and water.

The 'social' evening that I recently attended (after several months without alcohol), with my wife as always, was excruciatingly painful!
- It was with a group that I have spent time with on many occasions previously
- They were behaving (and drinking alcohol) as normal (verified intellectually, a few days later with one of the group)
- I tried to engage verbally but it just didn't work
- Without the anaesthetic of alcohol, it was a monumental task just feigning that I was even remotely interested in the 'conversation'

It was a huge relief when my wife and I closed the doors of our car and began the drive home.
- The thought of another repeat performance horrifies me!

Yesterday someone told me I didn't look like I have Asperger's Syndrome.

What are people with Asperger's Syndrome supposed to look like?

Why does anyone need to tell others about their disorder? I would just ignore those people. Lot of people still think autism means being handicapped where you need caregivers and you drool and screech and act inappropriate in public by touching everything and taking everything out of their cases and boxes and scooting around on the floor and banging your head or making funny sounds and screeching. Newsflash, no one has ever acted this way in any of the autism groups I have been to other than seeing a couple members there with caregivers but they didn't last long there. It's a spectrum for a reason.

There was a time, not so long ago, when you'd have been laughed at if you told a doctor he ought to wash his hands before performing an operation, because no one knew anything about invisible germs or bacteria.

The same type of ignorance is true of people who claim Autism or ADHD or OCD are just made-up pop-psychology fads. You can't convince them, because they're stupid.

I lived with autism for 20 years before I saw news stories that made me realize I had something related to it, but it was another 20 years before I ever heard the name "Asperger Syndrome" and another five before I found out what it was. The first time I began reading an article on AS, there was no question whether or not the disorder was "made up" - they were describing handicaps that had held me back my entire life - problems I'd always struggled with, but had no name for - not just one, but a dozen or more. There was no way that was some fantastic coincidence.

Anyone who believes High Functioning Autism isn't real, is just an ignoramus who hasn't kept up with the medical advancements of the past eighty years. Hans Asperger first identified it at the end of WWII, it wasn't made up yesterday, it just took several decades for the school systems to catch up with medical breakthroughs and start acknowledging it as a common neurological birth defect and learning disability.

I do wish though, that there was some drug you could slip in a NT person's drink that would cause them to experience autism for a month or so. I'd like to see how some of those skeptical NT jagoffs would deal with it if they woke up one morning stuck with our view of the world and forced to live with it for a while.