Is it possilbe that my parents know but I don't?
Ok, I'm not 100% sure if I'm an aspie. I'm just self-diagnosed after reading tons of stuff on the web plus reading this forum, I'm 90% sure I have it. Is it possible that I have asperger's and that my parents know it and have not tell me? I remember this strange psychologist encounter. I was a childe, maybe 10 years old, when the school psychologists encounters me during break time, I was just watching some kids rehearse some dance or something, he says "do you feel you want more friends?" I thought, well, more friends won't hurt, why not, so I said yes. Next day my parents get called to talk to the psychologist, whatever they said on that meeting is still a mystery to me, I feel they haven't told me the whole story, they just said that he said I was disorganized and other stuff. Then watching my life, my obvious odd behaviour, my obvious odd way of thinking which I really just became aware of that not so long ago make me think that I'm an obvious authistic person but people just never mention it, because of sympathy? One day I became I was so convinced I was authistic that I have to ask some friends of mine, "Tell me the truth, do you think I'm authistic but never cared to tell me?" Obviously they said no. Maybe I don''t look authistic, maybe just odd, and that's "normal" I guess.
Buddha_Beast
Butterfly
Joined: 15 Jun 2008
Age: 51
Gender: Male
Posts: 11
Location: West Watch-A-Ka-Tella
It's possible that your parents know and are trying to protect you (or don't want you to use it as an excuse to stop learning what doesn't come naturally). It's also possible that the school shrink really didn't say much of anything. You only met once, and that was 11 years ago, before autism became the latest cause célèbre. ADD was all the rage back then, so if he said anything to your parents it was probably that. If you think you might be autistic then try to learn as much as you can about it. Even if you have something similar but different, the coping techniques you learn could still be applicable. You're already taking the first step. At least you're thinking about it. I was hit over the head with this information at your age and still I did everything I could to ignore it.
When I was 14, I had to see a psychologist for a year because of something that happened. I never really felt comfortable talking to her so our sessions were not very productive. It didn't help that she was constantly scribbling down notes as we talked. Sometimes after a visit she would talk to one or both of my parents. It made me feel like I was a suspect being interrogated. Eventually I convinced my parents to stop making me go. They never told me what she said to them, but I was just glad to be rid of the ordeal and the subject was never brought up again. I almost forgot the whole thing even happened...
... until 7 years later. I was living with a woman that was 10 years older than me. My family hated her. They tried, unsuccessfully, to convince me that she was a pure sociopath (of course they were right, but that's another story). During one particularly nasty confrontation between her and my mom when I wasn't around, my girlfriend told her that she was going to try to have a kid with me. I think that was partly true, but mostly she just wanted to piss my mom off. My mom, who can be a complete b***h even when people are being nice to her, lashed back by saying that if she did, the kid would be autistic because I was. It ran in my dad's side of the family and had been confirmed by a shrink. This little tidbit of information led to our first breakup (though unfortunately not the last).
I thought it was just some ridiculous comment my mom made in the heat of the moment to put her off wanting kids. It was true that Autism ran in my dad's side of the family, but theirs was very low functioning. Obviously I was a little weird (okay really weird), but I was nothing like that. The "confirmed by a shrink" part, however, did give me pause. So I got the medical records from the psychologist's office containing copies of the whole stack of notes she took. Right there on the first line of the first page were the words "lack of eye contact - poor social skills - likely AS".
I read the first few pages, but it was too painful. I was really shy and awkward at that age and I guess it showed. I had spent years trying to better myself, but instead of thinking, "Look how much I've improved!" it just reminded me of how much of a failure I had been and probably always would be. I kept the files for a few months. I meant to read them at some point, but ended up losing them when I moved. So then I just buried it. That's what I do when I have problems that I don't want to deal with. My mom tried to bring it up only once, and I snapped back that I didn't want to talk about it. And that was that ...
... until 11 years later. Last year, at 32, I had another relationship crisis. so I had a sort of breakdown and remembered what the psych had written. I started to research ASDs and eventually ended up here. I have never told a soul any of this up until now. I've never asked someone if they think I'm AS, and I don't ever plan to. I just don't see how it would help. What has helped, enormously, is telling this story (albeit anonymously). I still push to improve socially, but now I don't beat myself up as much when I fail (which I do most of the time).
In the end, it's only a label. It doesn't really matter. If you identify with the other people on this site and it helps you make sense of your own mind then that's all that counts.
Unless your friends are very well informed, they would know next to nothing about ASDs so asking was useless =P
But it could be possible, especially if there is more encounters than the one you remember. I was diagnosed when I was 4 (hence i remember nothing) and found out independently 14 years later. In hindsight all the time I spent with the shrink at high school was pointless because everyone but me would have been in on it, and this was the answer I was trying to find (but had no idea what was 'wrong' with me or where to look)
gina-ghettoprincess
Veteran
Joined: 8 Nov 2008
Age: 31
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Location: The Town That Time Forgot (UK)
kaitlyn_loves_music
Velociraptor
Joined: 17 Mar 2009
Age: 35
Gender: Female
Posts: 421
Location: Illinois
It certainl IS possible. I had a situation similar to what you described. The tests were even similar to what others here have said they had for AS. Alas, that was LONG before 1980, so they didn't know about AS. They diagnosed me as ADHD. BTW it happened at the request of my school when I was 6, and was due to the fact that I wasn't interacting with the other kids. Sounds like a symptom of AS, huh? BTW Autism is now defined as SO broad, that you need to have a few symptoms to separate it from being normal. Still, to have enough social problems that the SCHOOL is concerned sounds like a good clue. I mean it wasn't like I was beating people up, invading space, etc... I just wasn't interacting. People have their own cliques, and I wasn't in any of them.
