Did a diagnosis help to stop putting yourself down?

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Quadratura,

Do you have special interests? I didn't really, but wanted to help with SOMETHING. I was pretty introverted while in university until I experienced hypomania (blessing and curse). With that I started checking out all sorts of groups. I got in over my head, but I met some random interesting people. During hypomania I lost my inhibition so I said whatever came to my mind and I guess I was lucky that a few people were on the same wavelength.
Some of the most fun I had though was connecting with a few misfits, well a couple seemed normal. Anyway, one night we got together and used chalk to write positive quotes all over the university sidewalks. We only did it once, I didn't even stay in touch with all of them (and now, none of them), but it is something I can look back on with pride. I hope that you can find something, however random, to make a crack in your shell once in a while.

By some people's standards maybe I didn't make the most of the college social scene, but I challenged myself sometimes and a few times it paid off. Life is an experiment....and I can get too preachy, sorry.

Also, there is no harm in checking out a group of disabled (differently abled) people---you might meet some really nice peeps ) Not to sound stuck on myself, but you may meet someone like me, or any of the other cool people in here. Best wishes.

Yes, to a certain extent. I've never enjoyed discussing them, though. Lecturing about them or writing about them is great, however I always think: "why would I do that exhausting thing in conjunction with something I love?" So, that's why I don't spend time with groups of people. I feel very awkward around "NT energy," even if I am not very visibly AS-ified. It makes me feel kind of scared, because I know I'm supposed to engage with it but I feel pretty subdued, and like I don't really know what to do.

So... I don't know, really. I tried to join a social skills group but they told me I wasn't good enough and I needed therapy twice a week. I got therapy twice a month (and then once a month, and then not at all) with a woman who would always say "It's like you're speaking a different language! This is so fascinating!" all the time and wouldn't help me with socializing at all. She wanted to talk about my relationship with my mom. Then they sent me to a social worker, who wanted me to go with the schizophrenics, but I still wasn't good enough to be with them. She couldn't explain what she meant by various pieces of information she was trying to teach me, either, so that was that.

My diagnosis was at age 19 because I was always very well-behaved and basically didn't talk or cause any trouble, since I didn't interact with anyone and was always quiet when I cried, with only shutdowns instead of meltdowns. So there aren't really resources, and I'm on my own. I can't tell my parents because they don't believe there's anything wrong with me at all--rather, nothing that needs helping and can't just be dealt with.

And that's how it's gone thus far. I'm doing well in university because my first interest was reading, which lasted some seven or eight years, for 12 or more hours a day, and I taught myself to think in words to supplement my pictures, as well as a bunch of body language things from information and patterns in fiction books. So I didn't really come off as "behind," just overwhelmingly shy with an odd habit of crying around museum lights or whenever anyone tried to whisper in my ear.

I guess I shouldn't complain that it's hard. It could be worse. At the very least I can just pretend that I'm shy, anxious, and eccentric. All my work on my facial expressions have moved me from complaints that my face is always perfectly blank to compliments for my eagerness, honesty, and extraordinarily clear body language--because if I want to show something then I show it, and if I don't want to it doesn't appear at all. When I'm overloaded, I can usually get away with just sitting extremely still and hoping it will go away. I do have my hearing cut out at inopportune moments, so that whatever someone's saying gets turned into garbage, but I can usually guess the right word pretty well, and I suppose the instances when I have to ask someone to repeat three or four times just come off as a bit of deafness.

And that's why I don't join groups for the differently abled. Because I don't look it, and I'm what is probably known as "extremely high-functioning" despite my apparent inability to reciprocate socially, and lack of friends. I'm okay just as I am, to a certain extent. I'm not really failing.

Still, I guess I'm somewhat miffed about how all of this has gone. I should probably do something about it. But right now, I'm just struggling to keep myself fed, washed, and my dishes clean. I can worry about socializing later, when I can do those basic things I need to feel even marginally okay. I guess that's one of the reasons why I don't want to get close to anyone right now. My past isn't exactly illustrious, and my present is embarrassing to me as well. Like my mother says, I talk about everything with more energy than anyone has to listen to what I'm saying.

See, as I said: stubborn =)

Quadratura

Stubborn= you know what is important to you at the moment. That will have to do for now.

Understandable, I feel like I made a decision not to get close with people, particularly the opposite sex right now because I feel I have so much work to do on myself before I can share myself with anyone else. And I'm trusting them less and less, but there has to be a better fit out there.

I joined livingsocial recently. I purchased two things so far -$15 for a 3 hour scuba lesson and 10 "bootcamp" workout sessions for $20. I haven't used them yet, but it is something I'm looking forward to- no relationships, but should be positive experiences. Hmm, I should get to bed. I've been enthralled with this website the last few days-I've been going to bed late or not at all. Night!

No formal diagnosis, but there are no doubts about my condition.

Knowing about it is sometimes comforting, and has helped me to not be so hard on myself for failures. At the very least, simply understanding what exactly is going on upstairs has been helpful.

But conversely, before my awareness of AS, I didn't often conceptualize my everyday social miscues and bizarre sensory experiences as failures, or problems at all. I was blissfully ignorant before that.

I don't think of AS as being some kind of gift. I see how for some people in certain situations, it could somehow be beneficial. But having a social dysfunction when you are the member of an inherently social species is only a problem, as I see it.

Now it only serves to highlight my isolation.
My hope is that the knowledge of this condition will enable me to eventually fully cope with it and find ways of making life a bit happier again.

I don't have a formal diagnosis, but my self diagnosis really has had only a small effect on my tendency to self criticism. Even before I heard of AS, I realized that there was something fundamentally different about me, something that I couldn't change, and that was beyond what psychology could handle. I have understood for a long time that unreasonable self criticism does me no good. I have to change what I can, but I have to accept my failures as part of my humanity.

I wonder, though not officially an Aspie, if my relief and understanding is going to give way to frustrations and disappointment. So many times these great feelings come and then go after I have sudden clarity... Oh well, I keep coming to this forum and finding the encouragement through other people's successes or comfort in their similar challenges.

Thank you for the responses and insight. Keep posting )

Actually, learning the basics of human psychology is probably what kept me out of an insane asylum. Even at present, I can be mercurial and at the same time flaky on a good day. I am grossly territorial, defensive, willful and stubborn to a degree that is almost seizure-like in the sense that it is involuntary to a large extent and also somewhat disturbing on my part. Being equipped with a knowledge of psychology has helped me steer clear of the road to self-destruction, and I honestly believe that I am better off with that armament than without.

Knowing that I have Asperger's Syndrome only gives me the sense that there is a context for understanding and controlling these issues. It gives me the sense that somebody else out there besides me realizes that I don't set out to be an obnoxious jerk on purpose or out of spite. In fact, knowing that I have Aspergers has perhaps prevented me from developing a belief that related behaviors are an actual part of my personality, which could have rendered me sociopathic and even potentially dangerous.

By separating these troublesome aspects from me from the core of who I am, the diagnosis of Asperger's Syndrome has enabled me to take the hard, painful road of becoming instead a nicer, happier, more patient person. I am actually quite thankful for it, and I think that more people should consider recognizing and mending aspects of themselves that they don't really want to be that way forever. There might be fewer Donald Trumps in the world.

Definitely not. The way I see it, if the diagnosis is being used as a means of explanation for my behavior, it's kind of like saying, "Well, the autism made me do it." But autism doesn't make me do anything. I make me do it, not autism.