I am on the verge of revealing my Asperger's on Facebook.

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ScottF
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18 Dec 2008, 10:21 pm

tlcoopi7 wrote:
I am in a few Autism/Asperger Facebook groups myself. In the About Me section, I put down that I am interested in the Autism Rights and Acceptance Movement and indicated that I am autistic. It is short and to the point. I have some autistics add me to their friends list because of it.


I like your avatar, is that starscream?


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27 Dec 2008, 6:03 am

I just wanted to say that I wrote a full page description of having AS and how it affects me on Facebook which I also posted on Myspace. People have said that it was good that I posted it and was so brave. It was not what I expected. Old friends showing their support, newer friends wanting to know if their sons have it too and even my ex showing his support.
My friends list is full of people that I actually know and only a few that I play applications with.



m91
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04 Jan 2009, 9:35 am

Just a little saying I've heard: "Those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."


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angelgirl1224
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05 Jan 2009, 7:05 pm

yeah i wouldnt announce it to 500 people on facebook either!! !!
just tell a couple of close friens you trust
but why announce it on facebook?
xxxx



EgaoNoGenki
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06 Jan 2009, 12:27 am

angelgirl1224 wrote:
yeah i wouldnt announce it to 500 people on facebook either!! !!
just tell a couple of close friens you trust
but why announce it on facebook?
xxxx


Okay fine, how about I announce it IN KOREAN:

"Official Admission, I have 아스퍼거_증후군"

Something tells me I'll feel more comfortable announcing it in a foreign language. But what is your take on this?


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Ligea_Seroua
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18 Jan 2009, 5:55 pm

I wouldn't. Not in such detail at least.

I'm on facebook- not many "friends" on there - I was co-erced into it to stay in touch with my Uni friends (who mostly, I genuinely like) They knew I was diagnosed, and fine about it (neuroscientists mostly, so they were better informed)

All I put to refer to it was "may contain traces of nuts"....it seemed funny to me. And at one point changed it to say "I don't own a blue polyester suit and can't win you a fortune in Vegas"

I took all these references off recently, as on a new course, and getting friend reqeusts from people simply because I see them most days. If I don't know them well enough to tell, I don't want them getting this info from facebook.

Be warned about FB Aspergers groups though, it tends to be religious people who want to befriend you from them. If you're fine with that....personally these are not who I would spend time with,can't communicate with and the only commonalities we share are ASD.



LadyKathleen
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20 Jan 2009, 9:01 pm

EgaoNoGenki wrote:
I've been telling some people that once I have 510 friends on there, I would reveal "a BIG part of what shapes my personality." I've even told one that just like race, creed, sexual orientation, religion, and other categories that make up who we are, I am going to reveal something that shapes who I am.
(Asperger's would fall under the "Disability" or "Handicap" category. If it's something we're born with, it's put on the same spectrum as race, religion, and the rest of that.)

I now have 506 friends. I must prepare the rest of my set of notes very soon.

Now, here's how I've written them so far. The notes are currently saved as private drafts and their bodies are up to 750 words each so they aren't too long a read.

Quote:
Title: Official Admission: I have Asperger's Syndrome (Part I)

<h1>Foreword</h1>
Some will think "TL;DR" if the note is too long, therefore I’ll limit each installment to 750 words, place the overflow in a "Part II" and beyond as necessary.

This note stayed private until I gained my <b>510th friend</b> on Facebook. I chose 510 as the threshold instead of 500 because now that I've surpassed such a wonderful milestone, I don't want to slip back below it.

<h2>Passive pruning of narrow-minded "friends"</h2>
I predict up to 10 friends will defriend me upon reading my admission that I have Asperger's. I have never rejected a friend request nor taken anyone off my friend list even once since I've had Facebook, but this note is a form of "passive friend pruning." I'll let narrow-minded individuals take me off of their list because I don't need narrow-minded people in my life; if they cannot accept me <i>especially</i> for what I was <u>born with</u>, they were more likely to be a hindrance all along anyway.

<h2>Date of Draft Creation</h2>
I started the entry on Monday morning, September 8, 2008, underwent revisions thereafter, and saved it as a "Draft" until somebody became my 510th friend here.

<h1>Onto the subject at hand</h1>
For quite a long time now, I've hesitated revealing my Asperger's Syndrome to other people save for psychologists, (some) family members, and very few friends. The reason why was because I've been bitten for it multiple times.

<h2>I'd often be treated worse for revealing it</h2>
Instead of cutting me slack, some peers would pick on me more, so I kept it under wraps until I knowing someone whom I thought I could trust with this information. Some of Those people still liked me less even though I was confident their stance toward me would either get better, or at least remain unchanged.

Therefore, I haven't revealed it to even some of my best friends, fearing being liked less by them as well. I had no idea how Kyle Baack and Jacob Holland would react to my coming forward with this "new development" so I kept it from them as well for a long time. Now that they'll have seen this note, I hope to hear from them their reactions.

<h2>Issues surrounding Asperger’s in Japan</h2>
Another set of guys helped me a lot back in Japan - Garrett Fine and Craig Henry. (It is quite likely that Garrett will have taken me off his friends list by the time I posted this. If so, he'll have missed out!) Every little inkling of rejection from anyone anywhere hurt still, so I kept it from them (Unsure about Garrett; maybe Armstrong told him while I wasn't present?) in case they were going to like me less.

I only told Andrew Armstrong (the guy with a shouldered chip) and Robert Hyde because I was drunk enough not to care one night. (Since Japan, drinking at parties isn’t so appealing now.) Hyde said Asperger’s was a "beautiful disease" and sounded quite accepting about it. He even said geniuses have Asperger’s too, and something about Asperger's makes them more academically intelligent than the norm, so I had hidden talents too. (Yes, I do.)

<h3>Hyde's "Tatemae"</h3>
Garrett warned me about the concept of "<i>Tatemae</i>" (outer, shown feelings) and "<i>Honne</i>," (inner, true feelings.) It turned out Hyde was only giving me good tatemae.

Robert even took me off his friends list in June for some reason; when I told him about my finding this out, he claimed that his sister called him (ALL THE WAY FROM BRITAIN?!) just to tell him to take another guy named "Christian" off of his list because the fiancé betrayed her, and since he was so drunk early in the morning, he deleted me by mistake. Robert even showed me what the other Christian was he talked about so sounded quite believable in the meantime.

Hyde also claimed to have realized the mistake a few minutes later, and thought, "Oh, if I send him a request to add him back now, he'll realize I took him off." After (apparently) clearing it up, I friended him again; he accepted.

Hyde took me off again on August 7th. He knew now that I've left Japan (and he stayed for 2-3 more weeks until heading back to the UK,) I couldn’t go face-to-face about it. I decided that he harbored some inner ill feeling of me, and since now he'd be on the other side of the world, I'd let him slide.

(Next Topic Continued on Part II)


I revealed it on myspace..because its a huge part of my identity and for many years my mom and a lot of other people told me it was a bad thing and the more they said it i almost believed it..now i love my aspergers. ya it has made conversation and eye contact akward for example i still get teased in class for asking questions and sometimes i do not understand what my parents say the first time they say it...they have to tell me lots of times lol and my friend adam would tell a joke that i would either take seriously or it would go over my head completely but i wouldnt trade it for anything.
good for you for coming out of the autism closet!! !



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20 Jan 2009, 9:48 pm

I find it so f*****g sad that some people seem to live their life through social networking sites. EqaoNoGeni - Get a life you dumbass. Sorry to flame here, but I have to. It makes me mad to think that you believe anyone is going to give a s**t what you write on facebook. The fact that you have AS makes it likely that you don't have a lot of friends, therefore you don't have a lot of people that care about you. Also, with AS you usually have a lack of social skills, so the people who are friends with you will probably be friends with you in a different way than they are with NT's. That means, you can't redeem yourself in social situations to reveal something like AS on facebook.

Advice to you: Realize that you don't have 510 friends, you have none by the sound of it.
Also, try to think of a facebook from someone elses point of view. NT's probably make up the majority of your 'friends' list, therefore they're only going to read in-depth notes about someone they care about, which probably isn't you I'm afraid.



zeppelin123
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29 Jan 2009, 1:58 am

I have a blog where I talk about my experiences with AS. It is a relatively low traffic site and I share my experiences with the purpose of helping other families going through similar experiences. It is a place that people are only likely to find if they are looking for information about ASD. You can find the link in my profile.

I do not reveal my AS on facebook other than the Asperger syndrome awareness ribbon I have with my awareness ribbons collection.



jacola
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22 Feb 2009, 6:26 pm

Dont do it as you may regret it later on.



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22 Feb 2009, 10:18 pm

EgaoNoGenki wrote:
I suppose I could leave it a bit more ambiguous by saying, "Even though winning interviews have been more difficult for me than others, and I haven't been employed lately, at least I still get an income and have an apartment to live in. It's a minimal way to live however, so hopefully an employer will be sympathetic to my plight and hire me anyway, so long as it isn't for anything janitorial, fast food, or any lowlife job."

Is this better or still harmful?


Ok, so you're a welfare leech because you're too high and mighty to do such "plebian" minimum-wage work? You're pathetic.



Katie_WPG
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23 Feb 2009, 8:44 pm

Even though I'm a bit late to the thread, I'm going to have to echo everyone. Chances are, the vast majority of these people won't care. They don't even know you in real life.

My best friend has over 800 people on his friend's list. You know what he does? He spends some evenings randomly adding guys on Facebook without even talking to them, dozens of them. Why? Because he thinks they're cute, or something. Some accept, some decline. Do that, and it's pretty damn easy to acquire huge amounts of Facebook friends. But are these people you're REAL friends? No. His numbers fluctuate because people eventually prune him off (when they want to look at the status updates of their REAL friends). So don't be surprised if the same thing happens to you, AS disclosure or no AS disclosure.



ShadowRanger
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05 Apr 2009, 11:21 pm

I found it very serene to read your story

I am going through something similar now, on facebook

I am at the dilemma of whether to tell everyone on my 250 strong friend list

Or whether first to delete all of the people I feel I can't trust or won't understand

And then just come out to the remaining friends

I totally feel for you about making enemies by fumbling in social situations

I thought I was the only one going through something like that

It feels great for me to hear you verbalise some of the feelings and fears that I thought only I suffered before

Such as behaving awkwardly, and causing people to think I have something to hide or that I am a coward

This is particularly hurtful to me since I feel I'm the most moral of all of my friends, yet I am often the one who seems to take the blame

Haha I have also thought about wearing a mask, sometimes I just want to walk around in complete traditional Italian fancy dress with a full mask over my face. I'd rather be a character in a play than me (in social scenes), that way all of my social mistakes can just be taken for a joke. I wish they wasn't so serious anyway!

Thanks for the post it cheered me up today

As for your future posts my opinion is that chronological order is the simplest way to write



Tractatus
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05 Apr 2009, 11:55 pm

Don't do it. Do you really want 500 or 200 people knowing that you have asperger's? What is it to them? A lot of people don't understand it; they'll look at you different. Why would anyone want to announce that to everyone they've ever known?

I'd keep it to your closest friends.



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06 Apr 2009, 7:57 am

Tractatus wrote:
Don't do it. Do you really want 500 or 200 people knowing that you have asperger's? What is it to them? A lot of people don't understand it; they'll look at you different. Why would anyone want to announce that to everyone they've ever known?

I'd keep it to your closest friends.

Yes but telling all your friends lets you know who your real friends are.
I wrote a note on Facebook, not very long at all but it explained everything. I wrote the same thing in my Myspace blog and the one person I thought would ignore it was first to comment with his words of support. I now know others on MySpace so I regularly update my blogs about AS.



Joshandspot
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19 May 2009, 8:49 pm

as far as disclosure goes with aspergers in college i just told two of the people with the biggest mouths i knew and let it spread like wildfire....that way I wouldn't so much have to admit it to people (because if i do i feel like i will than use it as an excuse) but they will be able to know about me and how to interact with me and i won't have to think about it every second of the day....least it worked for me than.