When did you or have you accepted your Aspieness?

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^^^ I'm kinda the same

I knew I had AS long before I was diagnosed. I was afraid to be tested to find out. My first two assesements had me pegged as "NLD with AS traits." It wasn't until psychologists and psychiatrists delved deeper that they realized I'm completely AS, with NLD.

I was 37 when first diagnosed. My last assessment showed me to have Asperger's, moderate. So, for the past three years, I've really been coming to terms with it, learning about it and beginning to accept it.

My father has been in denial about it since the beginning, so I learned to use my aunt as a contact person for assessments, which resulted in my being diagnosed accurately for a change. My father has just begun to come around and see the AS in me.

I have been able to identify with suspected aspies I never met, sometimes I see someone and feel he's a bit like me. In real life all the aspies I've met are people I would like to punch in the face until they learn to develop the same level of theory of mind as myself.

I abused one aspie verbally a lot, a person who stalked me for years. Nothing seemed to affect him. No matter what I said he had 0 theory of mind and was locked in his own little world with dead, empty eyes staring out into nowhere and an ugly smirk on his stupid face directed at no one in particular. If I had hit him with a hammer over the head he would still have that smirk and ask the same questions, over and over, "Do you have many friends? Do you have a driver license? What would you do if I came to your house? What would you do if I was in your house when you came home?" in a slow monotone voice. People like that have no existential rights in my eyes.

No joke! I'm still in the adjustment phase, having recently been identified as AS. On the one hand, it's a blow, on the other it's affirmation and liberation.

It's great because it clarifies the qualities and talents I can really develop.
It sucks because it means I'll have some NT going off and verbally abusing me for the rest of my life because I couldn't read or respond to the 'Secret NT Language'.

Acceptance level... I'm seriously considering some denial right now... unfortunately I also need to get my skills up to speed... dither, dither, dither.

I have to a degree
i still have issues with it because after i accepted it and started acting like myself
everyone thought i was putting on a show
because i was too insecure to show it before
they thought they had always seen the real me
except my best friend who helped me come out of my shell
because he is the same as me but he always accepted it

I paid for my diagnosis - it was my 40th birthday present to myself, and I accepted it straight away with an enormous sense of relief. I just wish I could get my family to accept it but that's another thread...

I would have been saved so much pain if my family hadn't accepted the diagnosis when I was a child. I envy those who have families which refuse to accept it.

I still think i am more likely PDD-NOS...though not sure how to cope with my AS message board addiction...

You can certainy do what you please. Maybe you are not an aspie. You are hateful towards them and sound like a bit of a bully. Aspies are more naive and even if they did deny they had AS, they wouldn't know how to deny it so well (as you do) and then be so hateful and angry at those that are aspies. That's what I think. If you know how to deny you have this thing, and flat out refuse to accept it, then maybe you have resentment towards those that attempted to categorize you as this thing you knew you weren't. ???? Or maybe my son will end up like you.

He is nine is heading in the same direction. He despises kids on the spectrum. When I make a certain face, he thinks I'm making a face like a kid at school (he most likely has AS) and he becomes very angry. Also, he hated Spock, instantly, and thought he was the weirdest man he ever met. He seemed to disturb my son. I think it scares him, or he fights hard to not be that way. Not sure.

quite funny I showed AS all my life many of it's trates and what not, but everyone thought I was just weird, however I have it and when I found out I did it was some what of a releif, because I knew exactly what to tell people when they questioned me and my ways

I think there's a part of the spectrum which isn't fully explored and researched yet.

I can only speak for myself but if you want to turn your son into a hateful sociopath/narcissist whatever, the best way is to speak to him in a soft, patronizing voice and explain nicely that he has AS and is like a little pet for all the special AS teachers at school to take care of. This will be like a rape on his self-image and feel more humiliating than a physical assault. If he's like me, that is.

[sarcasm]Also, please feel free to inform all the NT children at school about his "special needs" to make them "understand" better. This kind of mental public lashing is extremely constructive in terms of strengthening the self image of an intelligent child with a high degree of theory of mind. I'm sure he will grow up to love other humans that way.[sarcasm]

[sarcasm]Putting him in a special class with drooling people who just stare blankly into space and denying him the right to be with his NT friends is just brilliant as well. Modern child psychology at its best.[sarcasm] The ultimate and final violation will be when his (former) friends, who accepted his quirkyness just fine up until that point, start distancing themselves because of the concern the teachers showed when "informing" about his "special needs". After that he's marked for life.

Last edited by Zoonic on 17 May 2009, 8:56 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Yeesh, Equinn, not every Aspie has to like Spock. I'm pretty certain it's not in the DSM IV.

A lot of Aspies don't like other Aspies... Zoonic's not alone in that. Maybe more vocal in her hostility towards the whole human race, and I think she made a misdiagnosis of her stalker (sounds more psychotic on psycho-active drugs to me). I am certainly frequently wounded by rude, thoughtless Aspie comments and can't stand how some go on and on and on.... I can recognize the weirdness in other's, I'm clueless about my own.

I'd be interested in finding out WHY he doesn't like that other kid... is that kid tormenting him somehow? Is he loud, rude, a bully, smells... ?

I think you might want to look into your own hostility. It reeks.

The stalker was diagnosed with asperger's and we first met when I was forcefully put in a specially designed AS class (which I soon dropped out of) in the 8th grade. Years later he started stalking me. Of course the teachers as well as the mother of this guy had told him what a typical "aspie" I was, so he believed that we were the same. He wanted to reflect himself in me and know who I met, what I did every second of the day etc.

I was mentally raped and had my self image thrashed during my teens, by the asperger diagnosis and how the teachers, doctors and my parents acted. The anger and humiliation have scarred me and enhanced any personality disorders I might have had.

When I was around 14-16 I had so much supressed rage, as a result of having my social life ripped from me by teachers who "just wanted to help by informing everyone", having my parents threatening me with being hospitalized if I did anything they didn't like etc. I was mentally slapped, spat at, humiliated and I wasn't allowed to vent so all this anger and humiliation combined with being a developing teenager resulted in violent outbursts. Several times my parents called the police and had me locked up in child psychiatry ward for two weeks or so at a time. When I was locked up I was put on medication against everything from depression to schizophrenia, was further humiliated and had my humanity stolen from me by arrogant doctors. I was in a clear state of mind, completely sane but locked up as punishment and denied access to the outside world. One of the medications was Risperdal and I was on it a few months and the medicine made me paranoid, oversensitive to sounds, afraid of the dark in the middle of the day etc and gave me feelings of anxiety I never experienced before in my life. My stress tolerance was completey abolished. These are symptoms for when a non-psychotic person is medicated with anti-psychosis medicine, it backlashes. In the end all medications failed and psychiatry gave up after my 16th birthday but by then I was already well beyond traumatized.

After this, I've felt like a subhumanized chained dog who is expected to humbly accept the ignorant and maybe even misdiagnosed verdict placed on me by an entire society. The only way I could find harmony was through complete withdrawal from society. I think it's a survival mechanism in order to keep me sane. I'm still the master of my own mind, I've never been psychotic. As soon as I'm faced with the ignorance of society, the feeling of being slapped and labeled strikes me. People won't ever know the truth and my chances of finding harmony within the normal system are non existant.

Ah well, so much for my psychic diagnostic skills.

I figured you were justified in your hostility, Zoonic. A lot of folks here carry a lot of hostility. You just type yours more, that's all.

I still think Equinn needs to check the source of her own hostility... not every parent is a good parent, and she took something pretty D*** personal in your statement about your family it seems to me. Wonder why.

I think she's just worried because she don't know what to think. Psychiatrists say one thing, others say something else. AS is a controversial matter and not everyone diagnosed with it benefits from a diagnosis, the opposite could very well be true.

With this as a background I think it's natural to react with anger. No parent of a 9 year old with antisocial tendencies can claim they know they are making the right decisions for their child. That sort of insecurity causes stress which manifests in the form of anger. Aditionally, people who are deep down insecure about their decisions can use anger as a way of supressing the doubts when faced with a reality conflicting the path they have chosen to follow themselves.

Exactly.