do you ever feel invisible ?

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I go regularly to a music and poetry event in Covent Garden, and the other day I sung my latest song, "Playgrounds as Battlefeilds", the song was all about my life with AS.

Towards the end of the song a woman came in and sat down and then asked me what was my song about. I proceeded to tell her, however, her face seemed to be expressing great uncomfortableness, so much so that I had to ask her what was going on for her.

She told be that she was a psychologist and no way did I have AS as my means of expression (by this I feel she meant emotional expression via lyrics) was beyond the ability of a person with AS.

It is very unusual for me to be rude or over-assert myself, but on this ocaision I told her to her face that I found her grossly ignorant and clearly inexperienced in her profession (she was I guess just starting out and rather fancied herself as a hot-shot)

Later, once I had calmed down somewhat, and contemplated very deeply on the evening, I found it a very useful experience for me.

My anger seemed to be about how she judged people with AS by such a crude measure. She went on to say,

"Why do you think you are different from the rest of us?"

"Why do you desire a label so much?"

I then told her that my father was autistic and that I have a formal dx (which I received last year) She then appologised to me.

Some might say that I should be so lucky that I can pass off so NT, but behind this very advanced adaptive skill there is great pain. The pain of not being seen. Thus my greatest triumph proving my greatest failure. My inability to express facial affectedness as well as human facial expression.

I very much relate to the artist Caiseal Mor

http://www.mahjee.com/

As a child Caiseal Mor was labeled mad and insane and suffered such trauma that he developed severe dissociative identity disorders, that proved so powerfully effective that as an adult he could just go into a role, perform and dazzle audiences, only to fall apart when he got close to others. His degree of autism and his difficulties seem so much like my own.

This has been the story of my life. And because I have spent 14 years in intense psychotherapy dealing with my dissociative disorders and traumatic past I have acquired and thus adopted a language that is not inherently my own, but has been adopted by me, and at times this confuses people no end.

After a lifetime of concealing my true nature, I am starting to now learn the wisdom of sharing my discoveries more discerningly.

I think what people don't realise is that its a developmental disorder to a greater or lesser extent and over the years we learn or rather learn to copy things like ways of expressing ourselves and conducting ourselves. I don't really know how different that is from the way a neurotypical learns because copying must be true for them too, but somewhere along the line for everyone there must be a time when the copying lessens and we start to form our own bits. I believe in people on the spectrum that it takes us longer but is by no means impossible to be able to express some things once you have been on the earth for a while, especially if you have been in therapy and trying very hard in personal development in one way or another. Its just what I think happens eventually for some of us, the curtains show chinks of light.

If there are people worth being mean to, she sounds like it.


I felt invisible a lot more before I found wrongplanet and realized that there were lots and lots of other people in the world who think like me. I'm lucky that my autism is pretty mild; I find it easy, if stressful, to "pass." In a way, I have the best of both worlds.

All the time, but I (usually) like it.
It means that if I start stimming for whatever reason, people won't give a crap. XD

She definitely sounds like she has an "us and them" view of AS. That's just not how it works. Some of us are very articulate. We're supposed to be unable to perceive NT cues and wonts - some of us adapt and become so good at it we can express NT emotions for them when they can't do it themselves. Every aspie is unique. Having AS doesn't disqualify us from that aspect of humanity.

Plus she sounds like a hosebag.

Yeah hosebag,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,I like that. Thankx

Complete s**t!
I know of several AS people who have said that they can express themselves better in writing [stories, poetry, songs, letters to others, emails etc] than they can verbally. Singing lyrics that you wrote is merely reading. This psychologist clearly has no idea about AS.

I write poetry and when I used to see a psychologist, she used to tell me that during the week I should write poems and then bring them in to the next session and we discuss them.
People express themselves in different ways, some can articulate more than others regardless of their diagnosis.

You had a right to be mad in my opinion.

Actually, thinking about it, I express myself quite well in poetry though what I am not sure of is if the emotions are correct.

I wouldn't call it feeling invisible exactly. It's more about feeling dead inside when you perceive that disconnect with other people. You can't simply leave, which is what you'd do if you could, so you just sit there. Normally this is when other people are talking, but if it is when I'm talking, it'll be because something clicked and I noticed that the other person isn't listening or even trying to fake it. This will normally lead to me trailing off and saying something like, "...so yeah," and then just shutting up. Normally this is when I just start listening to music play in my head and try and wish myself to another plane of existence. I've heard this referred to as a, "beam me up Scotty" moment.

-Frank

Yes I have felt it especially when someone I know was acting like I didn't exist. And when I was pretty mute.
But my whole life I have felt like I was invisible.
Like I was looking in. I have a hard time connecting and it is pretty rare when I connect with someone really good outside of my family. It happens every 10 yrs???

I'd like to know her name, so I don't ever make an appointment with her

Only when it works against me. :\