I do not want to have this. I don't feel gifted or special.

Post Reply New Topic

I just feel....incapable of coping. I am 47 years old and was diagnosed about 9-10 years ago but I didn't really understand the implications. Then I spent a year living in an isolated place where human interaction was basically unnecessary. Now I am back in a town, living with people and I just found out a few months ago to be honest that Asperger's is a form of autism. Seriously. I had no idea. I have always had issues with being touched. With co-ordination. With texture. With noise. Always. So when I was told I had all the signs of Asperger's, I simplified it in my mind to being a social issue. "So THAT'S why I don't like having people around."

But it's more than that. All those things that make it hard for me to deal with people and sensory things are part of it also and that...I didn't understand until about last month. Finally ended up looking it up online, something I put off for a long time.

I guess part of the problem is that I was convinced that I could just find the right medication and I would be able to live like everyone else. And that just isn't going to happen. It's forever. It's reality.

I look "normal" so even the people who know about it tend to forget. Until I behave in a way that isn't what they want or expect.

I'm just not coping very well with this knowledge.

*electronic, non-physical hug of sympathizing and trying to comfort*

Sensory issues are always hard. There are ways to manage them but sometimes it requires the cooperation of others. Looking normal on the outside makes it very easy for people to forget you are not normal on the inside. This happens sometimes to people with physical disabilities with hearing or seeing too. Most people with not know or care about your AS because they do not know you. People you interact with regularly with get used to it eventually and come to understand it over time. My Aikido sensei knows about my AS and has over time learned if I need a lesson explained differently, and when I need to use ear plugs for sound.

I can understand the not realizing what your diagnosis means. Before I was diagnosed I thought I was just nerdy and everyone else had trouble communicating, but I had a professor who asked if I was on the autism spectrum (this was asked as I was rocking back and forth, stimming on silly putty and explaining how I got 60's on my homework but 99's on my tests because of how I memorized his solutions to the homework and the tests were almost the same questions, this seemed to confuse everyone else as they did not see it that way). At the time I knew little about autism beyond the fact that it was associated with a speech delay and some people with it would rock back and forth. I rock regularly but I did not have a speech delay so I said no. Repeatedly, even when other professors would ask.

Hang in there. Things get better I hope.

I'm struggling with the finality of it as well. Some people say now I know what to work on as a positive. But the thing is I've known my entire life how difficult certain things are for me, and I thought it would get better and thought it was getting better. Before I was smart, capable, independent, and a good person who just had some quirks and some issues with being impatient with people. Now I see how much I can relate to aspergers and I'm accepting this is me. I'm seeing my life in a whole different light. How bizarre I must appear to other people now that I see just how different we are from NTs. Now I feel pathologized. I feel I'm an inability to do certain things and not my quirky, weird self with my own set of strengths and weaknesses. I feel everything will always be a struggle. The truth is everything was always a struggle, and its tough to face the fact it will always be like this. I will never fit in socially. I will forever be objectively watching myself and be disappointed with my inability to easily function before, during, and after social activities.

But then it is getting better. These are my thoughts and feelings as I think it through and adjust, and its taking me time to accept these things about myself. But I still want to leave society, and I'm jealous you were able to live for a while without interacting with people.

'I look normal until I behave in a way that people don't expect'. I can completely relate to that. I am no good at giving specific examples but I know completely what you mean. I spend my whole life freaking out and I think if it wasn't for my daughter I would be dead. I think that if you have survived until 47 you are doing something right.

I thought the same. I had my oldest son pretty young, and without keeping him in my focus I'd be dead by now. I'm in a better place now. We're still people with significant strengths and weaknesses. We just have to find our peace,work with them and make our way the best we are able.

When I was told at the age of 14-15 no one explained to me really how to cope with it or what I should do, I was kinda told ot just get on with it, that annoyed me more than anything, being told I had a condition with no real explanation of what that meant for me, I had to do my own research into it before I had a good understanding like you described I had that revelation of "Oh that's why I act like this."

I can understand this might of come as a shock to you, taking in a lot of information will clearly affect the way you look at this, but I would try not to worry and instead treat it as a self learning experience, we learn all the time about ourselves and others, this is just another one of those instances where you find out something new, only difference now is you might find better ways to deal with anything that may have caused you issues in the past.

OP,

I was diagnosed when I was in early elementary school. In fact, I was one of the very few kids with an autism spectrum disorder in a school district that had zero experience with it. My HFA/Asperger syndrome never has bothered me much, though. I don't let it define me as a person. People who slap labels on the entire lives of others due to some difference, like autism spectrum disorders, aren't exactly good judges of character.