Aspergers is not just being socially awkward

Post Reply New Topic

I don't think of it as a disorder per se. I might be one of those annoying people who thinks it is part of who I was supposed to be.

Everything neurological is a tradeoff. If I want some of my talents, those cannot exist in a brain that is not sensitive to anything. The talents are closely connected to the hardships.

I really don't want to think all day long about how disabled I am. That would be extremely depressing. Those who say aspergers has no positives and is just a horrible disability probably hate themselves for some reason.

Sure I do dislike some traits, like how I never get finished and everything feels like it's piling up. I can feel extremely frustrated with my mind. But at the end of the day, my mind is me and I can do stuff NT:s can't. Not just the other way around.

I will never understand this wanting to be an NT thing. I'm not sure what I'll even do with an NT brain. I wonder what it is those people who want to be NT miss most in their lives. I have a guess it's to do with being in social situations a lot.

This is one reason why I never believed I was autistic for around three years after someone pointed out the possibility to me, I just filed it away as so I may be socially malfunctioning on top of this other mental stuff I'm doing therapy for... yay! I never looked into it more than a couple fleeting delves so I had no concept of the condition and had no energy to contemplate it at that particular period of my life, after several years in a meandering and tangled exile where I was analyzing my years in therapy I wondered what the heck was missing cause I worked my rear end off trying to reach some clarity every week and then I waded into the realm of autism amongst other possibilities. The more I read and grasped the closer to the bone it struck that autism reflected throughout.

I had very little understanding what it meant when it was first suggested to me, it is remarkably complex when you get beneath the surface. I think if I hadn't been through intensive therapy beforehand I would have thought 'nah that's too serious a thing for me to have going on' but knowing myself quite deeply and pondering my own experiences and filters and behaviour I went and pursued the possibility and discovered it was the pesky cloak flapping about and smothering things between and around, social awkwardness is just one component, it's a bad part sure but it's nowhere near the only debilitating part of it, it also depends what other mental stuff you have cause some things it don't interact particularly kindly with. I would not have had the rugged path through life I've had if I didn't struggle with this damn thing, and I certainly would have done anything to avoid it and I know that merely being socially awkward is not a viable reason, it is a fascinating unraveling to find structure and some kinda catharsis within, the impact the condition has when you're oblivious can be unbelievably cruel!

While Asperger's is a crippling disability, I have to wonder about those who argue it's just a difference and not a disability. That makes me question their condition. I have been reading lately and I read part of Back to Normal by Enrico Gnaulati and I am now reading The Difficult Child by Stanley Turecki. I am learning that being different than others does not always mean you have a disability and you are abnormal. So apparently even if your differences puts a strain on your life with your peers, you educational environment, your family, you are still not impaired, even if you are singled out and bullied and picked on by your peers and treated different by school staff?

So it gives me Imposter Syndrome and gives me a different perspective and I am thinking well if any aspie out there says it's not a disability and it's just a difference, just their personality, then they must not have it and they could have been misdiagnosed. Ordinary kids to get labeled as having a disorder and it depends on the doctor you take your kid to. Doctors are human so they also hold their own opinion and because they are human like the rest of us, it can be very confusing for the parents. One doctor says the kid has autism, the other says he just has a language delay, the other just says he has a language impairment, the other says he is just immature, the other says ADHD.

Even as a child my parents would tell me I was normal but I had a hard time believing it because I wasn't that gullible and I wasn't stupid and I was being pulled out of school to see doctors and also being forced to take pills and also how I was treated and the double standards. They were not in my head or with me 24/7 like in school to see how I am treated. But what if I was just a Belle or a Dumbo. There was nothing wrong with those characters and they were not abnormal, Dumbo just had over sized ears and Belle just liked to read and be in her own world and go in far off places in her head with books. They were not abnormal even though they were both singled out and treated bad. Then there is Ariel and there is nothing wrong with her either even though she is in her own world and focuses on her dream and collects human things and obsesses about humans spending lot of her time with it. She was different than her sisters and didn't conform to kingdom norms. So what if my mom was right and I am normal but I was just one of those kids who have been labeled? Then I feel like I am blaming my problems on others when I say it's other peoples fault, they cause me to have a disability because of how society is set up and people's intolerance of differences. That is just called being a victim. People who have that mentality never get anywhere in life so that thinking is dangerous. My first boyfriend is an example about it.


But this is all very confusing because when does something become a disorder even if your personality is impacting your life and your learning and how your brain works and giving you roadblocks?

But at least I don't have to feel like a narcissist anymore when I keep thinking there is something wrong with my son and then worrying about maybe I am just acting like a narcissist because he isn't acting the way I want him to act and I can't even make him conform to my standards and follow my rules, this is actually normal for lot of parents to think there is something going on with their child and they have something because of the anxiety and distress the child causes and fighting in marriages between two parents because of their child and stress on the siblings so of course the parent is going to think their is something wrong with their kid. But then again these two doctors here I mentioned are also one of those doctors who don't do labels. They would rather focus on the behavior and their whole environment. My mom has told me before she always knew I had something and that she knew I had more going on than ADD so that was why she also took me to my psychologist I saw in 5th and 6th grade because she didn't know what to do anymore and she needed to figure out how else to parent me because what she was doing with me wasn't working. And the fact I was being picked on in school and treated different all the time so something had to be going on.