"I Don't Think You Are Autistic"

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I've gotten that when people say that people with Asperger's Syndrome aren't autistic because its not really autism... that is frustrating.

I get that all the time. Granted, I consider my people skills as pretty good (even by NT standards), but I worked hard to get here.

Occasionally, I wonder if I'm autistic. Like the other night, I was watching the ceiling fan, thinking that its spinning doesn't fascinate me anymore. Then I remember 4th grade on the playground, when I couldn't tell the difference between sarcasm and sincerity, and all the kids knew it. Or when a plane passed overhead, and I'd cover my ears. That rests any question in my mind.

No one has ever told me in real life I wasn't autistic or aspie. I don't really tell people and back when I was open about it before I understood was it was, I still didn't get told I didn't have it. That's because kids didn't know what Asperger's was so I bet anything different about me or how I behave and act they assumed was AS.


I have been told in real life and online that I seem normal and I always took it as a compliment. That's because as a child, I was considered weird and called ret*d and kids could tell I was different so me seeming normal to someone meant they didn't think I was ret*d or weird and wouldn't treat me bad because they are open minded people who don't decide on what is normal and what isn't. The it would baffle me when I read on here that members on here didn't like that compliment. I would wonder why on earth do they want people to think they are ret*d just so they be a target for bullying and getting judged and be called weird or ret*d and be treated badly for it? Did they want to be different just for that? That was my thinking process back then.

I HATE it when someone says 'everyone gets that' or 'everyone is a little bit autistic'. Why? Because I struggle so hard in life. I am not one of those Aspies who has good camouflage skills, in fact I am quite disabled by my autism. When someone says this, it makes me feel like they are dismissing all the very real problems I am having.

It is the same with other conditions though. How many people have heard people say 'I'm a little bit OCD' when all they do is check that the door is locked twice? If people actually HAD these conditions, they wouldn't say things like this because it is so demeaning.

I think that too. I haven't been diagnosed cuz I am a 32 year old female and I just think it would be like jumping through hoops at this stage. I questioned this diagnosis for a long time, but I am 99% sure of it now. WP is the one place I've been where I can relate to almost all of the posters.

I still jump at loud noises and cover my ears. I thought everyone did until I noticed everyone else around me NOT doing that.

I'm 42 and I still cover my ears.

I have had people tell me all kids have short attention spans and get distracted easily. Well how many kids out there get so bored they have a meltdown or get anxiety they act up while their siblings are behaving better than them and don't act up the way the kid does? How many kids get tons of homework while others get less because they were able to finish more of it in school? The problem is I have a hard time explaining how my problems were different than other kids.

I have also been told that college is hard for everyone and everyone struggles and gets help. This doesn't help for someone who has learning difficulties.

Here was the ironic thing, my first ex had ADHD and he was telling me all second graders get distracted easily and can't focus in school. I always told him if that is so true, then why did so many of them get done with their school work in class they always got free time and I always had homework, tons of it and it was almost every single school assignment because I was too distracted to do my work because of all the chaos in class. So those kids obviously didn't get distracted easily and still got their work done and didn't get much homework. I would expect him to know better since he had that condition and he knew ADHD was real. Funny, he couldn't even give me an answer of this so I knew he was crap. His own logic came from his own experience so I suppose every single second grader in his second grade class got nothing done and none of them ever got free time and they all had homework and it was almost every single school assignment. I doubt that was true because I don't see how that's even possible that every single student would have that issue unless it was an ADHD class or just a class with lazy kids and didn't want to do it so they slacked off. He was full of BS anyway and this was probably one of them.

Yes. When I told my closest friend of my diagnosis he said "Oh, you don't have Asperger's!" and my favourite cousin (to whom I am very close) said "oh, puhleeeeeeeeeeze". My dad refuses to acknowledge my diagnosis. After that, I pretty much gave up telling people.

At work, I'm still fighting for reasonable adjustment - my employer sent me to an occupational health advisor whose idea of reasonable adjustment was telling me that I needed to have cognitive behavioural therapy for anxiety. In other words, I am broken and need to be 'fixed'. I am seeing a lawyer next week, having exhausted all avenues with my employer directly. If my employer (an organisation who holds a 'Two Tick' award for being positive about disability - what a farce) won't listen to me, maybe they'll listen to a lawyer.

I attribute these reactions to three things: (1) a lack of understanding about ASD. As was pointed out above, not all of us are idiot savants. (2) I have worked very hard over the years to develop masking strategies and mechanisms. It's very hard to explain to an NT just what kind of work that is on a day-to-day basis and what kind of cognitive load it is. (3) The pervasiveness of the medical model approach to ASD.

The only person who ever acknowledged it was the psychologist who diagnosed me and I profoundly grateful to her for this.

Alot of people don't realise just because we have Aspergers, doesn't mean we are all the same. Remember, no two aspies are the same

There are the reasons as to why they say it (to minimize the problem to us, so we don't feel different anymore, which they view as bad and would hate to feel about themselves, a bit of ignorance, and a bit of "stop whining and let's watch football" attitude)
There are also the reasons why we cannot accept this (a childhood full of "what you feel isn't real" as in "no that sweater is fine, no it's not that loud, no you're not going to throw up silly , finish your plate of immundice")

The two don't mix well. There is a school of psychology that encourages parents not to invalidate their children's feelings, this is done in couple's counselling also I believe, I'm not big on psychology so I can't really expand on this, but I think the way out of those situations, for us, would be to retaliate.
Asking "why do you think it is ok to invalidate my feelings about myself? or do you just not want to hear about it? if I've made you uncomfortable, I'm sorry. Let's watch football."
Or something like that. It's ok not to fight for the truth, sometimes, if it gives us a path to follow around a meltdown. Meltdowns are not cool. And witnessing our meltdown would make them think we are crazy. Not autistic, ever.

When I said to my mother "I think I'm autistic...", she was ehm... a bit shocked (obviously, people don't know that autism is a spectrum...), and then she accepted that.
When I said that to my grandmother, she just pissed me off with "you're not autistic, blablah". I never tried again... my friend(s?) are just 14, they certainly don't know about the spectrum, and they're just teenagers, they'll say the same thing...

NT think that austim is a... disease, so "you're not" etc... are supposed to cheer you up, but as said above, autistics don't like when someone say what they are or not. They think it's like say to someone "no, you're a good player"...

Could you please inform my father about this! He is ALWAYS comparing me to other people with AS, usually higher functioning people! It drives me INSANE!! ! He gets annoyed with me and says 'if that other kid with AS can cope with loud noise, why can't you?' Or says 'I know a lady who's got an autistic boy and he's completely recovered!' GAAAAAH!! ! Ongoing battle with my Dad is still ongoing...

I have a friend that said that whole stupid "everyone is a little like that" about social anxiety to me and another person that is nt but has a lot of social anxiety and takes medication and sees a therapist for it. She then went on to describe her "social anxiety" that she got over working a retail job that would probably have people with serious social anxiety problems mute and running to the bathroom to lock themself in and have a panic attack and/or cry.

Telling me "everyone is like that" or "you seem normal" to me is like saying "just act normal and stop faking" or "your problems aren't real and I don't take them seriously". Also your "you seem normal" isn't really going to change how I think or make me feel better after being told how strange I was my entire life, not just by bullies in school but by friends. I embraced my differences rather than futilely try to be something I'm not to please others.

Last edited by hanyo on 06 Nov 2011, 8:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

Yes get that all the time

Yeah and it's really annoying! When you say to someone that they have problem X, they get angry and say that you exaggerate and try to minimize the problem that they have, which is exactly by definition problem X. It's like most people always prefer to pretend they are perfectly normal with some small difficulties that are fixable easily even though they don't fix their issues and don't want to hear that they have a real psychological/physiological condition. Why hearing "disorder" or "issue" makes them angry? Why do they have such need to feel normal? I feel like they are completely wasting my time! I can't even help them because whatever I say, they'll be in denial! Yes you have a problem and no it won't be fixed instantly just because you say so!

And then on the other side when you tell them you have Asperger, they try to minimize it, they say that you exaggerate and they tell you that if you want something you can do it and that even if you were Asperger that wouldn't change anything because you can chose to be who you want to be anyways. Yeah right, I'll chose to force myself to stay in a overwhelming situation, I'll get a meltdown and then you'll tell me that I shouldn't react that way. So frustrating...

That drives me crazy about NTs. I always try to come up with potential solutions, but that's not what they seem to want, and sometimes they'll get all pissy because I'm not being "emotionally supportive" enough.

~Kate