Did you use to claim that you didn't really have Asperger's?

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I did. I'd get angry at my parents if they ever said I had it. I would tell them, no, I don't. I'm not handicapped. I'm not disabled. I don't have Asperger's. It's all a myth.

Yea, me too. I was in denial for several years. I think that was due to me being convinced that I was a collection of other issues.

My wife first mentioned it about 9-10 years ago. I blew it off. As various clients of mine asked what my deal was, I'd tell them it was Asperger's. It was easier to say that than explain my own hypothesis. Over the years I'd come to glean a few of Asperger's symptoms from reading articles about people in my field (IT). I figured it was close enough, and I didn't want to explain my own theory.

My first words when the psych. said "It's Autism. You have Autism" was (through tears) "I don't want to be broken."

Getting myself through that denial is the most important thing that's happened to me since marrying my wife.


Now it's a completely different story. "I'm not broken; my brain simply works differently than yours."

To most people I say that I had autism when I was younger. It's more about people not believing that adults could have it, than anything else, and their refusal to actually listen. Mind you, I can't pass as NT, most people think I'm "slow" and stuff. The point is that Autism and Asperger's is a difference, not necessarily a disability.

I don't identify as disabled. It's so important to promote that this is a difference and to increase the public's understanding of things. I've gotten many problems with law enforcement and school systems growing up because they didn't understand autism but unless you work twice as hard and redouble your efforts, they won't understand.

Doesn't mean I can't do the same stuff as everyone else, like work, car, my own place, investments etc. Doesn't mean I give myself a pass when I don't meet up to other people's standards. Doesn't mean I don't strategize and try to push myself to the breaking point.

I just redouble my efforts, it's like being black or Jewish in the '50s you had to work twice as hard to get half as far. You have to make up for your deficiencies whether it's believed (like society believed women and minorities couldn't make it) or actual. So I try to work 4 times as hard. Pain is weakness leaving the body. You can't give up. You have to be a credit to autistic people just Obama worked twice as hard to become president and therefore a credit to the African American community.

I see it like being in recovery, like Alcoholics Anonymous. You're always in recovery - which is an ongoing process. Just my $.02. BTW Housedays - it's about proving your worth to your family, and working to show, not simply tell, that it is a difference and not a disability. Just my $.02.

No, I never went through a 'denial' stage, but that was perhaps because there was no prolonged period of uncertainty in which such a reaction could have arisen.

In my case, I went from the subject first being raised in relation to me, to my reflection on its personal applicability, to my tentative self-identification as autistic, to my decision that it was important to get this confirmed or denied, to raising it with my GP, to getting referred to a diagnostic clinic, to actual diagnosis within the space of 12 months.

I sometimes go through moments of doubting that diagnosis, which I suppose could be a form of denial, but I know I'm not kidding anyone.

Besides, I did not pre-regard AS as being a 'negative' condition. With the benefit of hindsight, this was perhaps naïve of me, but it must have mitigated to quite a degree the possibility of such a 'denial/rejection'-type reaction arising within me at the time.

Yes. My initial diagnosis was on very dubious grounds (I didn't even talk to the guy!) and it didn't seem to fit that well, so I didn't accept it. I actually came on here after I was diagnosed hoping to find agreement that I was misdiagnosed. Everyone flamed me and told me I was in denial.

I still doubt it sometimes.

Heh, I do this to my mother. "No mom, there's no way I could be an 'aspie'". To be honest, I strongly suspect that I do have High Functioning Autism, but she certainly doesn't need to know that.

well i tried to in my head, trying to fit in, keeping a normal life job and what no. But it never worked. Finally after many years being so stressed out, had mental break down.

Believe it or not, but many people think its easy to accept when your sick or handicapped. Its not easy at all, its one of the hardest things to accept, at least it was for me.

I would rather be alone and who i am, than having fake friends and being someone who im not, just playing a role.

Both when my son and I were diagnosed, I was adamant in my refusal to believe it. For one reason, EVERYBODY knew that autistics had no empathy, limited ability to love, and were weird as heck. Well, i knew that I was weird as heck and was alright with that. BUT, I love deeply and have well developed empathy. If the experts were still spouting such nonsense on a regular basis, I would still be denying that I am autistic.

Yeah.

But I was just comparing myself to a heap of people who didn't actually have it.

Nope. Never. I knew it fit the minute I heard about it...

...but I heard about it from a very empathetic therapist who had an Aspie nephew she loved dearly.

I also accepted-- forced myself to accept-- all the stuff the experts said about it back around the turn of the century.

It's instinctive for me to accept the stuff Autism Speaks says today.

That's probably why I'm ready to write my son off, walk away from my kids for their own good, give up on my marriage no matter what my husband says (after all, he's attached, in love with an ideal, and in denial)...

...and that's probably why I'm giving up TWO days this week to see the damn therapist to try to do something about that attitude.

On both ends, it seems, it's pretty clear that the "broken" rhetoric needs to go away. Posthaste.

What's really sad?? ADHD has been around for 30 years now. You'd think maybe we'd have worked the negativism out of our systems about that one, right?? NOOOOOOOOO.

No wonder outcomes are so grim. You become what you believe yourself to be.

Never used to be in denial about it because when my mother first mentioned it to me because I didn't know what it was. And because of that I just handwaved it and moved on, and never really bothered to learn what it meant.

I did when was 16 and 17 but only because I was under the impression I could have special treatment and get my way because I had AS and it was a disability and that was the information I got online about autism and seeing disabled kids do bad behavior growing up so I thought the rules didn't apply to me. Also the fact I thought I had to be Asperger's because it was who I was. I took it all literal and my parents wouldn't let me do this and wouldn't let me have my way just so my life would be easier and calmer. Then I learned all this was wrong people were doing with autism and what other aspies were doing. I also learned it's all wrong what people do with other disabilities.