Very high functioning AS in denial -no I dont have aspergers

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It's just considered good manners not to ah, what's a good way to say it, not to pathologize what a person (and his or her friends and family) may see as just their personality. Unless it's causing major issues in a work or social environment and you have authority/are close enough to make a call like that.

I've noticed some people who were clearly dyslexic, I didn't ask them if they were dyslexic. Once I got to know one of them a bit better I may have said something like "Y'know, you remind me of my sister. Really really smart and so driven, one of the smartest people I know just like you, but her handwriting's a mess like yours. Oh and she can't read that fast. I think that reading thing was dyslexia in her case though". I knew him well enough by now that this wasn't going to cause major issues. I compare him favorably with someone I value, mention a trait common to the two of them. Then mention that person has a condition contributing to a related disadvantage. This hints at something without outright saying to someone "So, I noticed this thing you do that's abnormal. Here's what I think is wrong with you..." - which yes, is quite offensive to do.

Because I didn't outright accuse him of something that was (in the place he lived) equated with being stupid and compared him favorably with someone I thought highly of, he mentioned he didn't read so fast either and we were able to discuss things on a friendly note. He did eventually say that yeah, he thought he was probably dyslexic now that I mentioned what my sister was like in more detail. I know that he appreciated that I didn't just say he was dyslexic. His friend mentioned to me in private the guy was really sensitive to anything 'being wrong with' him like that since he'd been called stupid and worthless his entire life and people in his area - including himself - had very incorrect assumptions about what dyslexia was and that the people with it were stupid, lazy or had other negative traits. I think he wouldn't have considered anything like that if it had been brought to him directly, no one likes being told there's something wrong with them.

People are far more likely to accept something if they discover it on their own - and through positive comparison to people who are valued or appreciated. You can put a crumb of information out and see if they follow the trail on their own, but dragging people down that trail very rarely ends well

Thank you for you logical non emotive post.

I agree with your above statement, which happens to be totally subjective. What is a major issue? What about issues that have been and gone and those yet to arrive? Does the unDX AS even know it, or has no understanding? Who is an authority apart from autism clinicians and some regular posters here.....? All the medical/pyche workers who have done nothing for me? (and the list is very long)

What is close enough? Maybe a stranger strolling past your life is not really such a bad thing.

'This idiot came up to me today and said I have AS traits! The nerve!'

Seed now planted, time to move on to the next unknowing aspie.....

I imagine this group is very large. I was one of them.

I wish someone had called me an aspie, I had to find out for myself,
BECAUSE EVERYONE WAS TREATING ME WITH SENSITIVITY INSTEAD OF BEING HONEST.
My life would have been better for knowing. So a big bowl of raspberries to all the dont mention it proponents

Be a clear mirror toward others. Manners schmanners

It can either be a good or bad thing. I've come across people who didn't seek the diagnoses but got one and they absolutely hated it. Then they may have thought that they had to act a certain way, and sometimes it's something that automatically happens. I'm not talking about everyone but I have witnessed it in some people. Then there are some that just give up and become depressed thinking they could never change. I've tried with many here to try and get those people to not give up hope. Some get even more anxiety over it. Actually the dx for me lessened my anxiety considerably. I finally had a reason for being so different and I embraced it. Of course I've been through many phases in many years since I learnt that I was autistic.

Then there are those who accept it and continue to learn about it and then not feel so bad about hiding their symptoms from other people. I think having a community like this helps people accept it more and actually start to find their strengths and worry less about their weaknesses.

It's like Schrödinger's cat; here opening the box is looking into if you have AS or not.


Agree. When I seem to lose a lot of weight I always get the anorexic comments or concern about me not eating enough. I'm on stimulant medication and it suppresses your appetite. Even on a low dose people still say I'm skinny. Even when I wasn't on meds and just kept to a healthy diet people said I was too skinny. And now that the roof out my mouth stings whenever I eat so I'm eating less I'm sure people are going to say I'm too skinny.

Actually, the most times people say I'm skinny is in a 'I hate you for being so skinny' kind of way.

Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy? When you tell people things they don't want to hear, you drive them away. We make friends, draw people into our lives by adding to their lives and making them happy. Telling people there is something wrong with them does the opposite

I've been thin and overweight. The two aren't really the same, although no one should be judging either way. The way I read the point anbuend was making wasn't that only fat people get body shamed, but that most "I am just being honest" type statements to fat people tend to be fairly demeaning, medically inaccurate, and at best involve stating the obvious.

And it is rude to tell people of any body weight that they look unhealthy.

It's kind of ridiculous when people illogically equate "emotional" with "wrong" or "illogical." Emotions do not somehow negate logic.



Actually, I've generally found it's better to mind my own business when it comes to other people's persistent or acute mental states. Let me just say that "being honest" in this regard has never, ever managed to get me anywhere, and while it was a hard lesson over a period of years (or, hey, decades) I've found ways to interact with people that don't piss them off nearly as much. Yeah, it still happens because of being autistic, but when I know a particular thing tends to piss people off I find some other way to deal with that thing. This is not because I just want to coddle people's feelings - I can be as straightforward and blunt as anyone. It is simply that I do care about the impact my words and actions have on other people.

This was a logical decision. If I want to get a particular result, I need to do things a particular way. Like I said above, I know this is not always successful, and it can add to the tiring load of socializing with other people, especially coupled with trying to bite back impulsive blurts. It's actually one of the social habits I think is worth it, though.

And hey, I got a friend of mine to look into her ADHD without actually telling her I think she has ADHD. So, it's not the only way.

And: I would not have wanted anyone to tell me that they thought I had AS or ADHD, but I would have appreciated being told what kind of difficulties they could perceive and the suggestion to see a therapist to get that looked at. I would not have wanted this because I know precisely how contrary I can get when someone diagnoses me with something, especially when I was particularly defensive about the difficulties I have. I may not be defensive now, but at the time, yeah. I didn't need to be told what I had I needed to understand how to get help for it at all.

Well, that's nearly true: In the months from August to December last year, I would not have minded if one of my friends who had perceived that I was autistic had suggested it to me, but I don't hold the fact that they didn't explicitly say so against them.



Yes, all true. My anxiety has lessened significantly since I found out and my depression has faded entirely, at least for the time being. But when I first found out three years ago, it caused me a lot of distress. No one had told me this at the time, I worked it out on my own, and there were other fairly stressful things going on at the time. Mostly my inability to handle it was my responsibility (given that there were a lot of people I could have approached, but didn't know how to).

I just wanted to let her know thin people do get judge negatively too, not just fat people.

Fat people= over eat and lazy and never work out and they sit around all day

Thin people=Lots of exercising, starves themselves and throws up their food when they do eat.

Right.

Actually, being overweight has an economic impact: Being paid less, less likely to be hired, more difficulty finding clothing that fits outside of specialty clothing stores that charge more money. On top of that, doctors are more likely to blame all of your medical problems on being overweight, whether they are or not.

My husband has been told his foot problems were caused by him being overweight but that was found out to be not true. He has birth defect in his feet so they hurt when he is on them too long and he has flat feet.

I have had a hard time finding clothes for mu husband that fit. He wears XXXL shirts and jeans are hard to find in his size. But I was happy mom found me a website that sells jeans in his size for inexpensive prices. But he got them from the Kmart website instead for under 20 bucks.

And more people are overweight these days, the majority of Americans are fat so companies are going to have hell of a good luck hiring.

Yes. I specifically was referring to thin people who have the habits that fat people are assumed to have. That is, thin people (by which I mean anyone who isn't fat, not just the super-thin people) who overeat and don't exercise, are not judged as lazy and (overeating-related)unhealthy in the same manner as fat people are. They can get away with that, while fat people who eat well and exercise a lot are still judged as "fat and lazy and unhealthy". I wasn't saying thin people are never judged in any way, just that on the subject of overeating and not exercising, thin people can get away with that even if they are doing it in a really unhealthy way, whereas fat people are always assumed to overeat and be lazy. The way that people on the extreme end of thin get judged as having other eating disorders didn't fall within the realm of what I was talking about, which was specifically overeating and failing to exercise (the things fat people are judged for even if we're not like that). I've been both thin and fat so I'm aware of the weird attitudes people can have to very thin people (when I was in school they even contacted my parents at one point thinking that I wasn't eating enough, and my parents had to write a note to the school about how I do and don't eat to get them to stop nagging me to eat more all the time).

Ah my bad then.

I'm curious why anyone would bother bringing up the possibility if someone is 'very high functioning' and seems to be doing well for themselves.

If they aren't having any significant problems, they don't need a diagnosis and it wouldn't be correct to say they should be diagnosed. But self-knowledge is still a useful thing. Explaining to them about the phenomenon about autistic traits in the general population and the broader autistic phenotype might give them some interesting information about themselves, if you made sure to explain that it was not a put-down to say it. I think if you started out explaining that the BAP is probably where we got the idea of "nerds", you might get the idea across.

It's still kind of touchy to talk about in a world where disability is still considered to be universally negative though.

Information is power. If you cant see the value in a VHFA becoming aware of autistic traits in themselves.... then I imagine you cant really see much at all, and like many on this thread, have bandied together in an act of online alpha poster bullying

The rise of fascism on WP

So anyone who dares to disagree with you is an Alpha poster/bully?

Ugh the black and white thinking, he's right and we're all wrong.