"But you seem normal!"

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Happen to me all the time. My favourite: "You can't have autism! You can talk!"... No, I'm not talking, I'm just planning my replies for the whole day at night, then ask the leprechaun that lives in my butt to record them on MP3...

As a matter of fact this is exactly what I wanna hear from people. I hate being the aspie to everyone. My special skill is being able to publicly speak well and choose my words well. I guess social inability just doesn't happen for me. Sure I get shy or awkward, but nobody is gonna think I have aspergers syndrome just because of that.

I have found that explanations are usually not helpful, because people will believe what they believe and it's often impossible to sway them. If they want to think that you are difficult or whatever else, that is what they will choose to think (an exception would be the people who are close to you and hopefully care about your difficulties).

My AS is mild so I can pass, however I also have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and I often can't do normal things because I am exhausted. But still, there have been occasions when I have told people I have CFS and they just scoffed and were indignant. They treated me better when they thought I was just lazy and too flaky to make it to appointments.

I have gotten this a lot, online and in real life when I be meeting men. I always took it as a compliment.

As a child, kids could tell I was different so I was made fun of and called ret*d and I was also called weird which I took offense to then. Now as an adult, "normal" is a compliment for me. I take it as it means they don't pick out what is normal and what isn't so anyone is normal to them. They aren't discriminative towards differences.

The autism groups I go to, all of them seem normal to me but that doesn't mean I am dismissing their label or self diagnoses or suspected. What is normal anyway? I call my husband normal, I call people in wheelchairs normal or blind people or the deaf, people with AD/HD, people with mental retardation. After all they all have feelings and thoughts and they all get offended and embarrassed. They all have opinions and they're all capable of meanness. As my husband says, "everyone is normal for themselves" and my mother says "what's normal?"


I have told people I am shy and they tell me I can't be because I was talking to them. This was the label I was giving men on myself before we met because I didn't want them to misread me and think I didn't like them if I don't give them eye contact and in case they mis read my body language but instead we meet up and I wouldn't be shy at all simply because we've already talked online.

LOLL.

Same kind, of. People have always called me weird, and i've never said that I was autistic, but if I do imply that I think there *may* actually be something wrong with me, they give me the 'No way, you're fine" response.

I guess they're trying to be nice, but choose a stance and stick with it lol.

Maybe I'm just cynical, but to me NTs who say these things just "want" us to be able to change. If we're autistic, we can't change to suit them. If we're "just weird" then they can get on us to be different in a way that suits them.

I'm not in a very good mood. Can anyone tell?

~Kate

Ask them to define normal.

As every human being is an individual, normal just doesnt exist. Everyone is different.

I would respond with "I am normal" and leave it at that.

"You seem normal"

The operative word being seem, but no one who knows me well (exactly 3 people, two family, one therapist) have much doubt.

I much prefer these people to anyone else since people who know I'm am not "typical" let me do things like stim or talk to myself or arrange things in lines without making me feel bad about it, I find the worst people are not the ones who insist you're NT, but the ones who accept you're ASD and make you feel bad about some symptoms ("have you tried not being autistic?" )

or, case in point, therapist who knows me well see's me arranging things at right angles and was smiling knowingly at it, sister see's it and think's im simply trying to mess.

Sigh. In my 42 years of living, nobody has ever told me I seem normal. I'd like to hear it once.

Oh I never meant "pass as an NT" You sort of unintentionally implied that. I think there's a difference between being able to function in the real world and passing as an NT. I would never dream of trying to act like an NT, yet I have my own piano studio and I'm a college student, so I can still live a somewhat normal life. It's totally possible to still be an honest aspie, or be "weird," yet live in the normal world.

Also, you basically restated the second half of my original post in your own words after saying "this is only true some of the time."

Yes but that doesn't make the rest of your statement any less valid. I'm sick of people trying to change me to suit what they want me to be, too.

The same with me.............those closest to me don't question it .......................and I'm much more comfortable around those who know of my condition and have accepted it.................When I tell new people (like a professor) and they deny it I always think they just don't know me well enough


Someone actually said to you "have you ever tried not being autistic"? that's the most ignorant thing I ever heard.....so ignorant it's funny............I probably would have laughed in their face. I have had people say things like "you just need to go out more.........you just need more practice socializing"

About as ignorant as this: "Have You Tried Not Being A Monster?"

(And no, I am NOT equating having autism with "being a monster", but I think the metaphor fits, sadly enough.)

lol no someone didn't actually say this, it's a reference to how people sometimes say to homosexuals "have you tried not being gay?" or in X men the parents of a mutant say "have you tried not being a monster?", I just twisted it a bit

edit: conundrum recognised it, well done

This is my conclusion too. I knew someone (luckily not in my life any more) who would always say 'why don't you change?' and I was always so tempted to say 'why don't you grow?' because she was really short and looked like a weeble.

The best reply to that is "That's strange coz you seems really werid!"; makes them think if nothing else!