Convincing parent/parents that you have autism

Post Reply New Topic

Does anyone's parents or just one parent not believe that you have autism and think that you're just exaggerating?

My dad thinks that there's nothing wrong with me even though I'm a diagnosed aspie. He thinks I'm exaggerating
the symptoms and that if I just try harder the problems I'm having will fix themselves. Yes, they'll improve but I can't
just fake my way through social interactions all the time. It just seems like I'm an actor in a movie.

Because he doesn't think there's anything wrong with me he doesn't respect some of my needs.

For example:
He is hard of hearing and often watches television at a very high volume. When the television is on, it's so loud
that I can hear it in every single room in the entire house (and we have a pretty big house). This is extremely
stressful for me and I really can't get anything productive done until the television is off and even then I need
some time to calm down my nerves before I can do so. I often have to leave the house in order to feel normal
for a few minutes. My dad works a considerable number of hours (he has his own business) and when he's at
home he has the TV on about 90 percent of the time. I often have been leaving when the TV is on so he is
probably thinking that I'm leaving because I don't like him or something.

I have a 50/50 success rate. One parent believes, the other rejects. Then again, the parent who rejects my AS diagnosis also rejected the physical trauma I had to various body parts when I was growing up, believing only after I came home on crutches with doctor's reports in hand.

My solution: Ignore or avoid people who can't or don't understand, respect, or at least recognize who I am. This does mean I do not speak with some family members and people I grew up with, but that happens to many people for various reasons.

He can't use captions?...

Have you tried earplugs, headphones, or some other way to muffle the noise?

'Dad, it's way loud. Do you think we could look into headphones or something?'

Now, that may work, it may not.

As a conversational starter, brief, matter-of-fact, polite, respectful, it's a good opening. It's just that we human beings are so complex, family dynamics even more so, nothing's guaranteed to work. Maybe just the goal of a respectful conversation, I-thou, where both people are treated as worthwhile real people, and probably even a little on the brief side, at least the serious part of the conversation, and even the more relaxed part, letting it end a little bit early, not dragging it out, rather instead the vague, approximate goal of letting it stay short and sweet.

So the goal of a respectful, real conversation (usually brief), and maybe solving practical problems along the way as we can.

Unfortunately, many people deny violence and all kinds of abuse for the poor reason, "Oh, a good person like him [occasionally her ]wouldn't do something like that." When in fact, good people (let's amend that and say, an otherwise good people) commit all kinds of violence every day of the week. I wish it was otherwise, but it isn't.

A fair number of people are violent, and that's just the fact of the matter. Some people both have simmering anger and lack the skill in handling this any kind of constructive/neutral way. Other people are rather amoral and/or take pride in viewing others as less important and/or think bullying is justified for all kinds of poor reasons. And all kinds of other reasons.

Being as it was stuck there in between ear plugs and "some other way to muffle the noise" I'm guessing Callista was referring to you using noise cancelling headphones... ones that keep outside noise away, or at least reduce it. Though asking him if he could use headphones is also a idea worth considering.

Try growing up with it when nobody believes in it, nobody's ever heard of it, and you by-god better appear to be normal or get your @ss kicked every day of your life.

Not to be unsympathetic, but you'd be surprised what you can get used to when you have no other choice. The trick is learning to focus your mind in another direction. If the sound of the television in another room is grating on you, play some music that you do like and drown it out. Not a perfect solution, but better than going crazy from the racket.

You are always going to encounter insensitive @sses who will not take your handicap seriously because if they can't see it, it isn't real. That's not going to change until enough decent people learn about the condition and understand it well enough that the insensitive jerks will be treated like the louts that they are. When they become the minority, they'll at least learn to StFU and not be so abusive about it. That's probably another generation or two down the road.

In the meantime, you're just going to have to find methods of adjustment.

Sorry to hear that you are tired of "faking" social interactions. Being an actor is unfortunately the only way to smooth things out with "normal" people most of the time.. It is tiring, so only do this when the payback is worth it (at work for example).
In other circumstances, look for the people who will appreciate you the way you are, so you don't need to fake.



There is probably nothing "wrong" with you. Your dad just needs to realise that you make efforts every day to fit everybody else's way of being. So it is only fair he does a bit of effort to fit yours.

I do try listening to music often times but I can still hear the television. If I use earplugs I can still hear the television. It's that loud. I haven't yet invested in noise cancelling headphones. They're extremely expensive.

My dad will not use captions. He can't stand them. If I'm using them and I forget to turn them off he complains about it.

Don't get me wrong: my dad is a really good person but he's also a stubborn old curmudgeon.

My noise-cancelling headphones were only $110AUD including shipping from America to Australia, which is a fair amount, but not what I'd call extremely expensive. They are brilliant.
A much cheaper, but not quite as effective solution is those little yellow foam earplug thingies that you can buy from the chemist.

count yourself lucky. I grew up when women didn't get AS diagnoses and I had to look normal or else. Your tired of pretending? Well your going to have to do a lot of it as an adult. I suggest you buy earplugs and tell dad you need some time when the TV is quiet to do your homework and study. This is reasonable and makes sense. You can agree to a time and that way you appear responsible and he wanting you to succeed will compromise hopefully.

Certain times in my life, that would count as extremely expensive. Other times, not so much.

I'm not a great fan of the foam earplugs, as sometimes when you move your head they have a 'crinkling' noise I find distracting. I used to have a job in kind of a noisy place, and I found wax ear plugs more comfortable.

And I'm guessing probably a fair number of the shows are violent (makes for better drama that way, don't you see), or confrontational, or news shows that are a collection of all the horrors in the world, as well as all the silliness in the world. Yeah, very distracting, hard to concentrate on anything constructive while all this is going on.

Do noise-canceling headphones work to reduce TV sound, though? I thought they were primarily for steady-state noise like fans and such. I've found that mine (cheap ones, admittedly) tend to increase the TV's sound because they lower the ambient noise level.

To the OP, your dad sounds pretty inconsiderate. Due to ASC stuff and health problems I live my folks -- and my father is also hard of hearing. But as his hearing got worse and the TV volume went up and up he switched to closed captioning (on his own). Not sure what it might take to get you dad to consider it, except maybe an ally like someone else in the house who finds the volume is also bugging them. So, maybe it's loud to everybody (or will get that way eventually), and it isn't strictly an ASC issue.

Short of that, I found that those foam earplugs, sometimes combined with aircraft-ground-person-type-earmuffs block out almost everything. Or maybe listen to a lot of music or white noise with headphones. In college I lived next to a busy street which made it impossible to concentrate, so I did all my important work at the library.

Never had a problem with that since my parents were the ones that sought out the diagnosis. I was more low functning as a kid and didn't learn to make actual conversation until I was a teenager.