Denial

Post Reply New Topic

Were any of you in denial when you were first diagnosed, and was there anything that helped you get through it?

I ask because, though he hasn't got an official diagnosis, my friend has nearly all the symptoms of Asperger's and I don't doubt for a moment that he has it. A couple of people have mentioned it to him lately and at first he seemed convinced, but later he decided he'd be insulted that someone had implied he was autistic. He's been saying that he wouldn't be bad at social interaction if he didn't enjoy startling people. That he doesn't have a syndrome, he's just plain selfish and rude (which I don't believe, because he never intends to be selfish and rude).

I'm worried about him, because he's trying to deal with the symptoms of both this and very bad depression without any support at all. He's very miserable and brittle right now and I don't think he should have to feel this way.

I used to be in denial when I was diagnosed, but only because I was ignorant and uneducated about the condition. I associated Autism and Asperger's to "Rain Man" and all the stuff I saw on tv.

My mom is still in denial, for that exact same reason. But as I gathered extensive information on the subject (as it became one of my obsessions. ), I now know that it is a spectrum disorder, and that the severity greatly varies with each individual. After finding this forum, I was finally convinced that my diagnosis is very accurate, because everyone here seems to have the exact same thought processes as I do! It's so exciting and relieving to participate in a forum where everyone actually understands your point of view.

Perhaps you should refer your friend to this forum, so he can have some people online to talk to.

Nope. Always knew I had it.
Told mundies who doubted me where to stick it too.

For about a year and a bit I said to myself that everything which pointed to an ASD was just overlapping with the OCD; this was after I took the AQ test by chance. 'I can socialize, I just don't want to,' said I. I tried to go out of my way to talk to someone at the young age of 24 (the first time in my life); it didn't go well.

I'm still not sure over the Autism diagnosis, even though I was the one who pursued such (I'm a stickler for accuracy after all). I sometimes think that the Asperger's one that I was also given [by a diagnostician that saw me for 30 minutes] is the correct one, as I can't be as severe as someone with Autism (this is if one equates Asperger's to "mild" Autism, rather than just Autism with well developed speech and a relatively normal cognitive pattern).

I never considered myself to be in denial over this. I've been socially sensitive my entire life. Being diagnosed was more of a relief than any kind of hindrance for me.

I still find myself in the old hard-to-break habits when in public, though. But now I'm a little more sensitive to that. Once I realize what I'm doing, I stop. That's my way of handling the situation.

My condition is something I just have to accept and handle, but in my own way.

Cognitively, I know I have AS. Deep down, though, something's always saying, "But you're just saying you have Asperger's so you have an excuse to stay away from boring social activities!" Feelings just don't listen to logic.

The depression is a bigger problem than the Asperger's... AS just means being weird; depression can kill you... but they probably do interact quite a bit. Mine did. I only ended up beating depression after I learned and understood how Asperger's figured into it--especially because AS was the source of a great deal of stress that was just feeding the depression like throwing gas on a fire...

I denied it for a while when I was 16 because my family wouldn't let me have my way. I thought I was supposed to have my way because I was AS and kids got their way in my class when I was 6 and 7 because of their disability and what I saw on the internet, autistic kids were having their way too because the parents didn't want to deal with their breakdowns and anxiety. I was stunned when my mother told me I still wouldn't have gotten my way if I had autism. Even my shrink said it was wrong of them to let their autistic kids have their way because what does it teach them?
And also the fact that I saw other kids weren't doing eye contact when the teacher be talking, I also noticed they needed some help with their school work, also the fact kids didn't like my jokes, etc. so if that was all AS behavior then AS wasn't real then so for a bit yeah I thought AS was a fake disability. At 17 I learned to accept the label and the fact my shrink told me everyone shows symptoms of it yes but some people show them more often than others so that's why there is a name for it, Aspergers.


At 12 and in my early teens, I didn't understand the condition to even deny it. I didn't even know what AS was until my mother decided to pull out a bunch of printed off information on AS when I kept asking about it.

I denied it for over a year. At the time I was looking for answers though as to why I did things the way that I did, because it was causing problems in my marriage.

But it was like following a bread trail in the forest...I kept finding crumbs that kept leading me back to the same thing over and over again. I'd say give him time...your friendship, your support...if he's read anything about it, and he is an aspie as you say...he already "knows", trust me.

I "knew"...it wasn't denial, as much as it was the inability to accept it at the time.

no.

but no one ever asked.

Yes, I denied it for about a year. My thought process was complicated, but the major factor went something like this: People keep saying there's something wrong with me, and they come up with labels like depression and AD/HD. This is another one of those labels. The other labels were probably wrong, so why should I put more stock in this one? I thought I was just me--there wasn't any "disorder" involved. Now, I still think I'm just me, but acceptance of the diagnois allows people to understand me better, and it's also allowed me to connect to similar people. Could you perhaps suggest that he visit this site?

i'm not officially diagnosed but
giving a name to this malady gave
me relief coz i've lived this all my life,.
what i can't stand is being called
the term "autistic", i still cringe when
i think of being that word.