Frustrated - Not NT enough, Not AS enough

Post Reply New Topic

I'm feeling down and hoping I can turn to you guys for some enlightenment. On another message board I'm being attacked for not getting that AS is a disability and that I'm "not Asperger enough". I had no reply other than to get angry and lock up, thinking how dare you say I'm not AS enough. After all the crap I've been through and the things I deal with every day......

I do understand that autism is a disability and it's such a wide spectrum that one set of symptoms are entirely different from another. So one person may be actually disabled (unable to function) but another may be able to function okay, or quite well, or just get by. But to say ALL Aspies are disabled just isn't so.

I get angry when I hear some people wear a disorder like a badge or award or something and spend their lives making others feel guilty and playing victim. Most of you know what I mean - it seems to me that it's usually the ones who are the least impaired but are just trying to get over and have an easy life or get people to give them shortcuts so they use the fact that they have something wrong with them.

I know people who are much lower functioning than I am, but they don't seem to know or care and just plow on through life with confidence, feeling that they are as good as or better than the next person (and they are). These seem to be the most happy and well adjusted human beings. No matter if you have a label or have been diagnosed with anything, having a confident attitude and a desire to make the best out of what you have can take you far.

When one of those Poor Me I Can't Do Anything mothers has children with 1500 disorders I just cringe. They seem to be teaching the kids to just give up and not even try and to blame the fact that they can't try on the disorder.

I'm just deflated - if I don't fit in anyplace because I'm not NT, it sucks even worse to not fit in as AS either. Not being enough of either? Where does that leave you - freakin no man's land?

--- frustrated and rambling

I am sure some people would consider as a disability but i don`t think it is...i really think it is everybody elses problem not mine Yeah ok i get a bit down about things sometimes but i didn`t realise why that might be until very recently . It all depends on your view point on life and if i am not mistaken isn`t part of the issue a lack of insight. Personally i think NT is a bit of a disability because i find them so strange...for god sake why would i worry about not wearing heels for work? (a recent discussion with one of our receptionists). Have to say though i am a lot happier working with a team of Aspies (undiagnosed but once you know it is not hard to miss) makes life so much easier for me. Personally i think it is down to tolerance, a disability on the whole is is only a disability if the society around the person treat it as such. What i am trying to say in a rambling way is that a person in a wheelchair may have disabled legs but his brain may be more able than a lot of peoples....it is only society who judge him as disabled and apply the label.
I suppose you could say it is the label that is the disability....stick with your views on this

Seems that way, at least to me. I've been told I can't possibly have AS because I am too smart, I can hold a job, I function reasonably well, I live independently, etc. What no one sees or understands is how HARD all that is for me. I do it all, but just barely, and struggle with it every $%@#$%$#! !! day. I was just diagnosed a few months ago - at 46.

I have accepted that the struggling is due to the AS. I've also accepted that no amount of "what if" will ever change the past, so I have to go on from now. Yes, I could have been something exceptional if I had been accepted and encouraged rather than told I was ret*d and stupid and forbidden to try many things. But I can't fix or change any of that. Grieving over it doesn't help things. I have to go one from NOW and do the best I can to make the most of my gifts.

I have many gifts and I am just now learning to use some of them. So, my AS life starts now and just gets better. Because when I struggle with things or can't do something, I can say "Oh, well, it's the AS - too bad, so sad" and go on. Before, it was like a personal failure because I should be able to do anything. "If I am so damn smart, why can't I <fill in the blank> like everyone else?" Well, now I know there are things I will always struggle with and to just get over it and go on.

I hope you find some folks who are loving and accepting and encouraging to help you get thru life. I don't knwo what I would do without my congregational family. My biological family has tossed me out long ago.

Thank you.

I would love to help, but i am not good and end up upsetting people even online The people moaning at you probably have more intense symtoms and that is why they do it i guess?

BTW what is NT?

liberty,

You have me in tears by the end of your post. That doesn't happen often.

I was diagnosed last year - at 46. I hear you loud and clear. My biological family tossed me out a long time ago as well and then when they tried to make some kind of contact I reinforced the distance by saying No Thanks. Stay Away.

I do have a very understanding husband. Usually I would be venting to him and he would help me get perspective. He's working right now. I'm happy to have WP to come to!

YES I have heard I don't seem to be AS - until I do something exceptionally weird or odd. I'm torn between being happy that I give the outer appearance of being somewhat normal, and between knowing, like you, how hard I have to work for that appearance. It is hard work, stressful and completely exhausting. I always think of it as my force field. I can keep it up for a bit of time but it drains all of my resources and soon I will fail if I can't let it down.

Right now I work for myself but when I worked for others I was sick nearly all the time. I had so many things - migraines at least once a week, high blood pressure, asthma, one flu after another. And it was all from stress. Not what NTs call stress - like losing a loved one or some major life thing happening, it was the stress from keeping up the appearance of being NT. It was sapping my life energy on a daily basis and weakening me.

It's been 3 years of working for myself at home and miraculously I have not been sick yet. All of the above mentioned illnesses went away. Isn't that interesting?

I hope you continue to post here. I find that there are alot of people and alot of different names all over the place. I haven't really connected with anyone in particular and I don't remember who I talked with because they seem to vanish.

Hearing from another 40 something is great.

Thanks for responding.

NT = "Neuro Typical", daniel.

The "normal" people.

It's okay, I usually end up in some kind of problem with people too. Online is better because of the buffer zone - not face to face and a bit of time to think before responding.

Hang out here, daniel, and you'll learn alot.

I already feel better after the few responses here. I am so thankful for this forum.

Same here. Since I've been tele-working on projects from home rather than hideous offices nearly all of my health issues have disappeared. I'm late to an AS diagnosis too (I'm now 34) but was picked up as 'different' aged 3. Now I understand all my triggers and can control my work and environment I'm feeling the most balanced I've ever been. It's taken a lot of hard work and some days are still difficult, but it's up to me to make my own happiness not other people.

That's what I like about WP, there are enough people from across the spectrum here to find a niche group of like minded people. You're definitely Aspie enough for us here earthmom. Ignore the radicals and hang out with the chilled people

My AS was very noticeable as a child but now I am nearly fifty and it doesn't show that much at all as long as I don't spend too much time with others and I am careful.

People don't know I am an Aspie at first, after some meetings though, it starts to show because I say the wrong thing or laugh at things NT's get upset about.

It is a 'No Mans Land' though because of what goes on inside of me though, the wondering if what I said is alright and knowing that my reactions are sometimes not quite right. Over the years, I have come to know that I am a little bit different because of the comments people have made. I have also come to see that most NT's cannot cope with difference and so Aspies have to try hard to fit in or there are bad outcomes like being bullied, ostracised, getting sacked or not being treated like everyone else.

I was completely unaware of my difference nearly all my life and it is hard coming to an understanding that you will never be quite perfectly one kind of person or another when you are older. I always wish I had known earlier in my life.

Same thing with the illness disappearing - isn't that amazing? It just shows you what was causing it. No question.

Congratulations on coming into your own. When I learned about AS everything went CLICK and I was giddy with relief. I was so happy to just know what this was and it seemed like my whole life suddenly made sense! I have to agree that I've been the most happy and the most comfortable inside my own skin now, but then I don't have the real test of dealing with/working with other humans day in and day out like I used to. I wonder at times how that would be different now, knowing all about AS.

Honestly I don't even want to find out.

Thank you for the kind words, Ms.

You hit the nail on the head about not being able to spend much time with people - that's perfect. I'm the same way. I even have to work to join many different online groups that deal with different interests so I don't overly focus on any one group. If I stay in one place too long or post too much, it all goes sour.

I agree that NTs are unable to cope with differences, and they seem as a whole to be getting more and more picky and less tolerant. Remember the days when everyone had one odd cousin, or uncle Bob ate the same thing for lunch every day for 30 years and never talked much, but everyone just said Oh Well, that's just him. It seems like as a society we're getting more and more narrowly focused. Every germ in the house must be killed, every surface must be sterile, every person must function the same.

It's not a good trend.

I totally agree with you.

When I was a child and even as a little older in church, we were all encouraged to "celebrate" our differences. One boy or girl would be good at art or do things differently and it would be enjoyed or another would be an original thinker in some other way and it was all fine, now on television everyone is encouraged to have wooden floors, magnolia walls, white bathrooms and every house must have no personal things in it - that is just one example I can see that it is 'bad' to be different. I know that they are trying to sell their houses but the message is the same as far as I can see: Don't be an individual.

It all reminds me of Hitler, he wanted perfection, in society too, if you make a mistake in your job, you are likely to be sacked. Imperfection and difference seems to be intolerable and yet there are no perfect people as far as I can see.

What you said made people doubt it should have made them suspect it!

Ha ha, very true

I have ALWAYS known, it seems. I have known forever that I was different. I just could never figure out why or how. My parents took me to doctors and shrinks, trying to discover what was "wrong" with me. Now that I know, it's SO MUCH EASIER to deal with. Before, I just felt like a freak.

It sounds like your parents at least came to terms with the fact that you were different and tried to find some help (?). Mine chose to just deny there was anything wrong. They thought if there was anything wrong with me, it would reflect badly on them. Truth is, there is a whole LOT wrong with them, from disorders to alcoholism, but if no one admits to that then the problems don't really exist.

So most of my childhood I was scolded, beaten up and grounded. I never could get things right so they punished, punished and punished some more. There were times when I was already grounded for so many months in advance and they wanted to add more to it but the calendar ran out for the year. It just became meaningless. I ducked every time my dad reached for the salt at the dinner table because I seriously had NO Idea when I was going to get slapped (and many times no idea what for when it happened).

Of course he beat my mother when he was drunk and angry and he hit my older 3 brothers and sisters at times, but I got the brunt of it for being weird, and they all got to leave home 4 or 5 years earlier and left me alone in that mess with the two parents who hated each other and me. When I turned 16 I started running away and by 17 I was gone for good. The police stopped bringing me back at that point.

I've read about other Aspies who had a great deal of encouragement from loving families and I wonder alot how different things might have been if I'd had that. Who knows, we certainly can't change any of it so I guess it's wasted effort to even wonder.

As a teenager they did take me to a shrink and told him to "FIX ME". LOL He interveiwed me, then them without me, and told them I seemed to be fine and they should consider marriage counseling. His recommendation beyond that was that I should have absolutely no contact of any kind with my father, he should not speak to me or anything. We should say things to my mother and have her pass them on to the other person if we had to communicate. They actually tried that for awhile but it was nuts.

In fairness, the shrinks back then didn't have a single clue so even if we did get dragged in to one, they didn't know what the disorder was or what to do about it.