What an aspie would be like if...

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What would an Aspie be like if they did not know they have Asperger's syndrome and did not have a diagnosis done and they and everyone around them knew nothing about autism spectrum disorders and no one cared for them to get them help?

You're actually probably describing most aspies. How many people walk around oblivious to their condition? I know I did for years until I was diagnosed last year. People just thought I was some quirky nut, now they know it actually has a name.

Last edited by redrobin62 on 27 May 2013, 7:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I will copy this post and replace it with Schizophrenia!

I didn't know I had AS until I was 55. I just thought that I was intellectually gifted, but disadvantaged in the area of emotional intelligence.

That describes most of my life. It is why I got a Dx in my fifties: I was an unDx'd Aspie in my teens with anxiety and depression - and not much help. Of course, no one knew about AS back then. They just called you shy, reserved, quirky, "late bloomer" (in terms of social and emotional development), etc. They didn't recognise the signs of attempted suicide. No one understood sensory sensitivity - you were "obviously" making it up, or making a fuss about nothing if you spoke about it. After all, if other people were not bothered by sensations, why should you be? (This happened to me). This is how Aspies lived before the 1990s, and especially before the 1980s (when AS was first labeled as such and publicised in the English-speaking world).

AS symptoms were often repressed, and the unDx'd person was left to sink or swim - flounder emotionally, not achieving their potential, lonely, depressed, etc. This would all be put down to generic personality weaknesses, "immaturity", etc - not a specific Dx.

The same thing happened to large numbers of people with OCD before the 1980s - it was hidden, people suffered in silence, pretended that they were like everyone else while living a double life.

Even today, many unDx'd Aspies hide their symptoms, which is not always the same thing as adapting.

It would be like this:

Stabilizing Autism Project

That was the first 55 plus years of my life- and it was hell.

Knowing and being labeled as an aspie is liberating.

That was me for most of my life. People thought I was a "problem child" or, as an adult, "crazy", and I knew there was something different about me that stopped me from doing things that came easily to other people, but I had no idea what it was. I thought I was lazy, or stupid, or had a personality disorder or something.

Yes, this is me too. For 60 years, a bit wierd, can't sustain friendships, etc, etc.

John Robison is an example. He didn't even know he had it and he grew up without a label. Read Look Me In the Eye. He was forty before he found out.

Liane Holliday Willey is another example, she didn't find out until her youngest daughter was diagnosed.

In fact tons of aspies didn't know and never got help for it until they were adults and there are some that still don't get help for it and aren't diagnosed even though they know they have it.

This describes me as well. I wasn’t diagnosed until last month (at age 50). Prior to learning about Aspergers in December, 2012, I spent years trying to better understand who I was, why I was like I was and why I was so different than others.

During this time, I suffered through the pain of trying to live a neurotypical lifestyle with neurotypical aspirations. Bad idea.

Naturalplastic says it best, “Knowing and being labeled as an aspie is liberating”.

More ditto here. 50 years.

Funny, I think I described it best on my first record (Genius; Philosophic Collage) in 1981 (of all years) when I ranted, "There's some kind of brain activity going on with me that brings out the worst in the average w*ker's ego chemistry."

Only found out at 64, could not agree more with naturalplastic

A lot like me. Instead, I diagnosed myself with "rebellious, irresponsible, rude, generally nasty person" syndrome and beat myself up (sometimes literally) over not being able to do what everyone said I "should be able to do" because i was "obviously so smart". It was a relief to finally find out, but by then I had had multiple depressive episodes and PTSD and been hospitalized for it. Whether the undiagnosed autism had anything to do with it, or whether it just made me more vulnerable to nastiness from other people, is anybody's guess. But I think that if my family had not been abusive and/or neglectful, they would have gotten me evaluated, and even if I hadn't been diagnosed with autism specifically, I would have gotten some kind of assistance.

This is like my father's situation when he was younger.

According to what my grandmother said, his symptoms got worse after a meningitis he had when he was 6, even though he showed the symptoms even before the meningitis (exept for the tics; he didn't have them before that).
When he was a child and a teen AS wasn't diagnosed, no one knew about autism and there wasn't real help for those with issues.
He was put in a special class because he had attention issues in school.
He quit school when he was 13, and he immediately started working after that.
He had a lot of social issues when he was younger, and only had his first friends when he was 13.
He was diagnosed as a young adult with oppositional defiant disorder and schizoid features, but never with AS or ADHD.

He only came to know about AS when I was diagnosed, but he has never thought that he could have it, because he doesn't dwell much on such things.

My mother says he has many symptoms of AS, ADHD mostly inattentive/impulsive and Tourette's ( he mostly has vocal tics).

the diagnosis doesn't change a lot to a persons personality; the only real difference is knowing just why you are more quircky then those around you.