Anyone get scoffs when talking about AS?

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First post... i'm 20 and undiagnosed. When I explain my condition to people they seem to naturally assume I'm a hypochondriac. I guess I just seem pretty normal on the outside. It doesn't help that I tell them I have Asperger's, Synesthesia and Haptodysphoria, so naturally they tell me I'm full of it. It's getting to the point where I'm seeking an assessment just to shut them up (I definitely have all three), but I don't really know where to go to get one. Anyone else have this problem (I would assume you do)?

For fear of being labeled a hypochondriac, I generally refrained from mentioning Asperger's until I had a formal diagnosis.

Definitely, and I get the, "But your so pretty..." excuse. I should have friends and a normal life because I look good. Talk about reasons why people ignore women's health issues sometime. "They look fine.... there can't be any issues there." They should see me when I'm crying- not so great looking.

I went to see a doctor a few months ago about my neck, with my mother. I only told him about my neck pain, and nothing else (there are actually more than that: recurring canker sores, mild eczema, bad left wrist, random pains recurring in same areas, AS problems). I wasn't about to mention anything about AS to him, or anything else, else I might be labeled as a hypochondriac.

My mother knew of my suspected AS as I had discussed it with her, and we let the doctor make his own assumption. She actually had approached doctors multiple times when I was a child (late eighties) about me having a mild autism (not officially announced in the US at the time as most here know), and they told her to go away. Anyways, this time, she asked the doctor if my neck pains and head aches might be associated with my stress from social problems, and he actually suggested Asperger's Syndrome, and even printed up some stuff for us to read (not that I needed it, I had countless hours of reading before that time anyways).

I certainly FEEL like a hypochondriac at times. I get the whole "don't look down" syndrome. My brain likes to go on an involuntarily intrusive fest. I was reading an article about autism and supposed muscle spasm relations, and while thinking if I had that problem or not, my pinky finger (and it's doing this right now) started to feel in the verge of twitching, and slightly did even! My brain is susceptible, and I know that!

I can get head aches and crap just thinking about them, so I had better stop this right here.

Well, I am diagnosed, was so in well-known and respected psychiatry even, and it's just the same.

Either people think I'm mentally 'deficient', all right. Since I can manage to talk more and more to people, this assumption is decreasing. I'm happy about that.

So what I'm not happy about is that people nowadays usually assume my dx just must have been a misdiagnosis.

People said so to my face several times already. Non-autistic people, autistic people, people with other disorders, people in higher positions, people who should know to keep their uneducated opinion to themselves.

People are more inclined to believe into shyness when I cannot talk and do not show body language, into stubbornness when I am inflexible and socially confused, that I'm whiny when I stop to function when my routines are broken and into a weak character when I have overloads, meltdowns and crying, freaking-out fits- That I'm just plain lying to myself and others because I'm over-dramatic by claiming I have a disorder that makes me different.

But it's good to know I'm hopelessly easy to spot as autistic by professionals and therapists. Though that's also very intimidating to be so obvious.

I get the 'oh, everybody feels like that from time to time". . .or "you aren't any different from anyone else, just stop trying to be so unique,. Or "You just try too hard, just relax and be yourself!" or "it's like you are always 'on stage' or something,relax and just be yourself! I won't even go into the ones that would succinctly say "what are you a 'retard'

it was even worse in AA because they told me "you are no different from any of us, you know, it is part of the disease of alcoholism that your ego tells you you are different from us." I worked on my ego again and again and again until I was sufficiently humble, but it did nothing for my 'different-ness'.

after almost 60 years of 'trying too hard' and 'trying to call attention to myself by being different' it was a relief to find out I was different. But it didn't stop people reacting to my different-ness.

Merle

Yes, lots of scoffs, lots of you're-just-making-up-excuses. Even from my own family.

And this even though I too am careful not to go overboard, not to make it sound like an excuse, and am VERY careful when I speak of self-diagnosis.

The 8 words that make a doctor cringe: I looked it up on the internet and...

With good reason - there really are a lot of hypochondriacs out there making paranoid, looking-for-an-excuse, self-diagnoses for themselves and worse, their kids. "My little Johnny can't a brat, he must have ADD or AS or something!" Maybe, or maybe little Johnny is really just a brat.


- Jo

At work once with one of those coworkers who is so into herself you don't know whether to b***h slap her or make her your new psychological case study. Every word anyone says, customer or coworker, invokes stories about how much schooling she has, how privileged she is, how much she knows, how great her kids are, how every aspect of her life is way more interesting and important than yours, and if there's peril in her life it's way more complicated and perilous than your perils.

So when she started talking about her son (grown I'm guessing?) with Asperger's, and just happened to catch my eye, I said, "Yeah, so do I." It only tripped her up for a second, then she composed herself and started going on about his grand struggles and grand accomplishments. "MY son has an IQ of 157! MY son is so oppressed and misunderstood by people around him! MY son is so talented if only people would just understand!"

To everything she said I'd as casually and matter-of-factly say, "Yup. Me too."

She finally went back into that pretend-you-weren't-really-there mode NTs go into around us.

I'm willing to bet that if my AS ever comes up again, she'll have forgotten that I mentioned it once before. But boy will we hear all about her kid!

-_-


- Jo; Wondering why life for some people has to be an I'm-more-interesting-than-you-are contest.

I have been scoffed at a couple of times.
One time was particularly painful...There was this really cool visiting solo-traveling musician girl, and she was hanging out with us and being our friend and whatnot..and she was talking about her mental health issues. She has schizophrenia she says..and she has also worked as a mental health advocate in San Francisco and all this other stuff...So I decide to open up to her about my issues...and I didn't even say i had Asperger's..I was not diagnosed or anything at the time...I just said that I related to people who were on the autistic spectrum...and she totally laughed in my face saying "You Don't REALLY think you're an ASPIE, DO You? I have worked with Aspies, and you are not an Aspie!" And then she and Flakey ganged up on me lecturing me about how I should not feel the need to lable myself..when that wasn't even what I was doing. And Flakey told her about how I was a hypochondriac and just had low self esteem.
It took me a while to get over that one.

I put up with this all day every day. Though it's not about how his son has AS, but rather how amazingly "gifted" and "tough" his son is. How his entire family is so awesome and such and how nothing I do can ever compare. He even brags about how awesome his dogs are, and how they're so much larger and more well-behaved than my "little bitty dogs". I have a Pitbull and a Doberman, for the record. And while they're good dogs and I love them very much, I do not feel the need to compare them to others' dogs. Just like I don't compare any other aspect of my life to others' either.

God I want to gouge my own eyeballs out every time he starts talking. And I, too, wonder why people have to be this way. I just consider him a narcissistic prick and block him out. It's the only thing I can do to keep my sanity around him.

Oh god I'm not alone!! ! :SOB: :SNIFF:

Well that's good to hear, I guess. I'm gonna have to go get diagnosed. I think you're right that even that won't be enough for a lot of people... self-proclaimed "skeptics" that decry the medical establishment. I'm the biggest skeptic I know and one of the few things I do accept is that I definitely have Asperger's.
As an aspie I get misunderstood enough as it is, but now Asperger's has become one of my "narrow, focused interests" so I can't help but want to talk about it. I'm just happy to have a physiological explanation for why whenever I'm invited to social functions, I'm mostly content to stay home, or why on some days I can seem to be a rude little punk unintentionally. Why hearing people "small talk" is repulsive and irritating to me. I feel like if the people I knew were aware of this, they wouldn't blame me so much for my shortcomings. They would know I don't do it intentionally. Maybe they would understand I'm wired this way and try to help me with it. I guess that's using it as an excuse but I think it's valid.
Growing up I was seen as lazy because I didn't want to go places (I can't ride in a vehicle without getting sick) or do outdoor work (I can't stick my hands in dirt). It's just been so frustrating my whole life not being able to explain It doesn't feel the same for me as it does them. Now I have an explanation, and I still get the same cynicism.

Last edited by Transplantman on 19 Jan 2009, 1:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Welcome to WP!

hey sinsboldly - my experience exaclty wtih 12 step prgrams..... ridiculous frigging adherence to the herd mentality there - even though there are some ok things about abstinence.
i relate very much.
it is good to read you are getting comfortable with your differentness now.

Alex, the WP developer did a video of a talk he gave addressing social issues at college. He said that it's better to play it off like you are an NT to people and then wait for a causal moment to slide in the AS part, and act like it's no big deal. Unfortunately, not everyone is as quick as Alex, or as comfortable with themselves, but he had his share of issues in high school. If people aren't your friends, then don't open up to them about it. I wish that everyone, including NT's could just all talk about their problems with each other all the time, so that all differences and issues could be constantly resolved, but people don't want to be brought down to a personal emotional level with others in social situations. I don't know why it brings people down so much in the first place. I love talking and hearing about serious issues, anytime.

Exact same problem here. (For the record, I also have synesthesia and haptodysphoria.) Eventually I just stopped telling people. If they must know, I keep my diagnostic sheet in my sketchbook, and only a few close people see the sketchbook anyway.

Talking about AS with the uneducated is useless and counterproductive. Having an official diagnosis is also useless. Who do you want making use of your AS - you or someone else?