You're not autistic!

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NTs say that stuff ALL THE TIME. I'm only just starting to talk to people about myself, but having a (diagnosed) aspie partner and having worked with people with autism for 4 years I can't tell you how many times I've had these conversations with people about it.

At the weekend I was talking to a friend of a friend who works in mental health. She was reading 'The Reason I Jump'. We were talking about one of her clients and it sounded very much like she could be on the spectrum. I mentioned that and this woman said 'No, she has empathy and she has a sense of humour, so she can't be autistic'. I managed to give a calm response but I wanted to punch her in the face. It worries me when people who work in mental health know nothing about autism.

No one has said I do not look autistic. Occasionally, a person would ask if I have a disability.

My aunt worked with an autistic person (He has Asperger's Syndrome), my aunt has said to me that I could be autistic and I believe her as she has talked to a worker who works with people with autism and Asperger's Syndrome who agreed with my aunt with the symptoms that I could have Asperger's.

This is a bit of the email she sent me:

Once, a psychologist thought I had nonverbal learning disability instead of ASD, she was wrong after a evaluation showed great strength in nonverbal and spatial processing and verbal processing was poor

Ah, Callista, you just described me. My husband tells me I can talk to anyone, anywhere, as long as they start it, or it is a common interest (usually babywearing related). But he also yells at me because I tell people way too much about myself.

Oops.

I am also baffled by the waiting room thing. It doesn't make sense. You are all stuck there. Some require your phones to be off. What else would you do?

I get this all the time! It's either "You seem normal to me", or "I'd have never guessed you had Autism/Aspergers - you're not anything like the others!".

I understand it's meant as a compliment, or at very least a timid response to an uncomfortable subject...so when conversing with people I try to understand that their intent is not to offend, but gee whiz can it feel condescending to be compared in such a way!

A paramedic I met didn't seem to know what Asperger's was, even though when he was notified of this fact he simply said 'Okay', as if he was trying to convince everyone that he knew what it was. Then, when I showed him my 'Autism Card', he said 'You have Autism too?' *Picard face palm*

I don't remember any time that someone has said that to me, but that's probably because I actually do act quite autistic most of the time and it's quite apparent that something is wrong with me to the casual observer. I am also careful to tell only people who know me fairly well and at that point they are well aware of how weird I am and have probably wondered at some point what's wrong with me, so when I tell them about my autism they are probably thinking something like "that explains a lot" even if they don't know much about it.

I often do the stereotypical autistic behavior of humming while rocking back and forth and I also often stim by waving my hands around like I just walked into a spider web. This is probably why I have never gotten the "but there's nothing wrong with you" or "but you seem so normal" lines.

I've had people treat me as feeble minded once I made any disclosures. No more of that. It's no ones beez wax!

Yes, my mom does it. While i never have spoken out my suspicion of beeing autistic to her directly, everything is "my own fault". She says "You want to be this way", "You chose this yourself" wich in my understanding means "You dont have anything, you're just a lazy malingerer". Like i want to be a complete social and general failure, like a WANT to be depressed. I often think about that i might be wrong. "Am i making this all up?", "No you can do this and that, you cant be autistic", "What the f**k is wrong with me?" But im not making this all up. I had alot of problems dating back to at least kindergarten days and last week when i had some kind of skill evaluation a psychologist told me he thinks i might be autistic without me even telling him anything of my suspicion. And even then i still ask myself if i have just gone crazy and "talked" myself into it.

I am so confused and so angry. Wich kid gets tantrums his entire childhood? Wich 4-5 year olds parents get daily kindergarten reports if he was "behaving bad today"? Wich 6 year old gets expelled from school on first day for biting his teachers hand in an unclear situation? Wich 8 year old kid spends most of his time disassembling all the household electronics to understand how they work? Wich normal 10 year old sits on the backseat of moms car with this really ugly blue-red dotted seat-decor, asking why he is so different than anybody else? Wich 11 year old is really good at school, in some parts even "too good" for his grade, but still gets expelled for beeing "socially inappropriate"? Wich 13 year old spends almost his entire time building computers out of scrap hardware and reading an entire 10 years archive on computer magazines but is unable to form just a "simple" friendship? And wich pretty intelligent 22 year young man gets absolutly NOTHING done in his life because he doesnt know how to approach the world?

If i really just made this autism thing up, then there is an actual metric shit-ton wrong with me! Sorry if i have gone offtopic a little bit but i just cannot understand. She has been with me my entire life and had to deal with my problems too. How can she even say something like that? Whatever it is, it is quite obvious that "something" is and allways was different with me, and i NEVER wanted it to be this way...

Peace
TK