Does your diagnosis make you feel like a special snowflake?

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Dying one's hair is a good way to get people to think one is trying too hard to be special.

Throughout all of elementary school, I felt perpetually stupid, slow, and lost, because I could never keep up with what everyone else in class was doing (no time to adjust to a rapidly changing schedule), felt like I never knew what was going on, and was completely befuddled by the idea of making friends. In middle school, I felt special, because I was smart and loved school compared to my classmates and friend (singular). I was pleased when she would playfully call me a geek or a nerd, or tell me to stop working on my math homework during lunch; it just reaffirmed the feeling that I was smarter and more interested in school than anyone else. By high school, I became disdainful of, and disappointed by my peers, who I saw as immature and with poor priorities (friends, parties, drinking, school dances, etc.) They also started bullying me more (they did in middle school too, but considerably less). I'd hear girls whispering about me behind my back, laughing at things I did or said. Even in class, if I gave answers that others thought were strange, or asked "annoying" questions, I could see the sighs, the eye-rolls, hear the quiet snickering. I felt like a freak, and avoided them as best I could.

It wasn't until I finally learned about autism, and subsequently got my diagnosis last year, that all the pieces finally fell into place. Now I feel equal parts unique and freakish. People (even my own family, on occasion) still call me weird when I do things that throw them off, and not in a nice way either. At the same time, I'm proud of the abilities my autism gives me, like my excellent memory and insatiable love of facts and information, as well as my single-minded, goal-oriented drive. I pride myself on having known exactly what I wanted to do with my life from the time I was seventeen, while I watch my sister, who's close to starting college, bounce from idea to idea every week, with no solid plan for what her future will look like. I suppose I do feel like a "special snowflake", not in the "I'm better than everyone else" sense, but in the "I'm quite different (in both good and bad ways) from everyone else" sense.

I don't feel special, I feel different. My development is at a different pace than some people, and my maturity is different than my peers.

There's times when I feel like I'm in between being normal and having a disability. I know my limits, but sometimes it makes me feel embarrassed to not be as independent as my peers. I really do want to be a productive, law-abiding citizen of the United States of America, but sometimes I feel like I'm afraid I won't ever be independent. If not, then hopefully my boyfriend can be there to support me and vice versa.

It used to make me feel special as in the polite word for mentally handicapped but I don't really feel that way nowadays & I don't think of myself as in being very special either.

I remember when "special snowflake" was first popularized in mainstream culture. It was mostly seen on bumper stickers for Waldorf & other similar charter schools, as in, "My child is a special snowflake at XYZ charter school". I'd been an outsider my entire life, no matter how hard I tried to fit in or was forced to try to fit in. So the term to me seemed a bit...meaningless, like saying, "Good Job!! !" with too much enthusiasm after every normal, easy thing a child did. As a child, I was shamed into trying to hide everything different about myself, both the good and bad. Btw? Not good for long term emotional health.

Eventually we had kids. And our oldest is every bit as neurally atypical as I was/am. But she is being allowed to explore it and we're teaching her to find workarounds & celebrations for things like sensory issues, OCD, atypical gender, etc.. And in doing so, I discovered that it really is okay to be different, especially if you have some sort of strengths you enjoy (even if they seem stupid or weird to outsiders). And its good to learn to be proud of being different, despite the difficulties inherent to whatever makes you different. Especially if you can find a few other people who are likewise different. Just look at history; few if any of the truly stand out, amazing people have been NT.

So now my answer to those bumper stickers is,

"Your child may be a special snowflake, but mine's a freaking FIREBALL!"

I don't understand what is meant by special snowflake but no, I feel quite isolated and alone. My diagnosis makes me feel less than, inadequate, I don't get any good feeling about it. It's a disability and my life sucks.

On the contrary, I became aware of the giant target that was painted on my back for people to exploit. I became more skeptic and hardened, since I realized that a lot of people in the past took advantage of me. They would pretend to be my friend and made me do their work or give them money that I never got back.

Yes and no.
Dx was a huge relief. I´ve gone through heaps of self examining (after 60 years ) and "Aha-moments" - and I´m still at it on a more sophisticated level, - discovering, that my lingering doubt comes from not being able to see, that I´m different (Nope. Others are different!) - because of failing TOM/sense of social rules and why.

In this proces, the feeling of being special tends to become a wee bit exaggerated at times.

I was brought up like a special potatoe (not snowflake) - absolutely hating it and feeling like a creep, but now I want to recognize my difference and embrace it.

That being achieved, I´ll probably just BE

The special snowflake slur reminds one Russian, who today lives in Ireland, of his time growing up in the Soviet Union:

https://ramendik.wordpress.com/2013/07/ ... ns-people/