Were you beter off,not knowing you had AS?

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Two years back I came to know I had AS.I was 35 years old then,before that I had never heard of AS.My daughter is unusually shy and I always had difficulty socializing,through i never accepted that at that point of time.one day after a particularly difficult social experience I just googled " socially awkard" and oops I got the answer but not the solution for all the troubles and humilations I had faced through out my life.
Initially I was in denial mode now I am trying to come to terms with it.Knowing I have AS has made me more self conscious,more detached,more worrying and last but not the least knowing it has taken away hope from my life.when I was ignorant about AS I used to think that one day I will become mentally stronger and socially I would become more tactful.now I can no longer live in a fool's paradise because there is no cure for AS.
How do other Aspie feels after being aware of their As.Has life turned better or has life taken a turn for worse?.please let me know your thoughts.

Last edited by survivor on 30 Nov 2009, 12:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

Knowing that I'm experiencing things a little differently and potentially missing some queues during social encounters helps me analyze situations better and compensate better.

Were you beter off,not knowing you had AS?


No. But that is my answer now, not my answer when I first learned about it. I was 56 and just the week before I had ever heard of Asperger's Syndrome I was skipping down the hall at work wondering why I had never seemed to 'grow up', why older women didn't relate to me and didn't discuss 'adult' issues with me. A week later I learned about AS symptoms, immediately identified and I knew beyond a doubt that my life long mystery had been answered. I was embarassed, terrified that someone would 'find out.'

Actually, everyone already knew, oh, maybe not specifically, but I realized it was pretty obvious to others that "something was up" with me.

I have found, after three full years
<---------------- see my start date, a month after I 'knew'.
I have grown into the diagnosis. I am still growing.

Merle

I feel better off knowing. My confidence is better because I know that I'm not bad or lacking intelligence, I'm just different.

No. Knowing oneself empowers oneself!

Autscape 2010
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Were you beter off, not knowing you had AS?

My answer is also: no.

I think it's good to know, so you can better understand yourself, and sometimes explain about yourself to others, and you can take it into account by avoiding too much stress.

And concerning the fact that AS can't be cured:
It can't be cured, no, but there are therapies that can help, e.g. psychotherapy (my psychiatrist said I might get that in the future), and social interaction training (I'm having that now), and I think they are helpful.

For me it didn't take long to accept that I have it.

Last edited by Scientist on 29 Nov 2009, 3:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

As a whole, I am better for knowing. Some things are difficult to accept or comprehend, but for the first time I have a starting point for understanging who I am and why I react the ways I do.


M.

no

Better off not knowing? No, because it explains so much about my whole life. I was much worse off not understanding this about myself. I always thought it was some failure on my part. I felt guilty about not keeping friends, not dealing better with family situations, not making more money or having more ability to handle social situations in my career. I was told at times that I was selfish, lazy, a dreamer (and not as a compliment), self-absorbed, too quiet, anti-social, sharp-tongued, temperamental, stupid, and so forth -- all my life. Not by people who cared about me, but by others who saw only one side of me and didn't understand. I actually have a high IQ, but when you're quiet and don't interact some people assume you're stupid.

I felt like an outcast, an alien. I didn't belong. I couldn't completely explain this by definitions of introvert, INFP, social phobia, or anything else I came across that I thought for a moment might explain it.

Now I realize I do belong, that the world needs people like me. I'm normal for me, not a failure. I have always known I liked people, that I'm not anti-social. I just didn't understand why it was so hard for me to relate to people. Now I know. I can work with this knowledge and be a happier person.

It doesn't change who I am, but it helps me explain and understand who I am. It's an immense relief to know this!

One thing that I've come up against is people thinking it's bad to label myself. Both the therapist I saw and a couple family members asked me why I feel a need to label myself that way.

Well, to me it's a much better label than the ones I mentioned above! It's not something I'm going to run around telling people, or use it as an excuse. But the definition and explanation the autism/HFA/AS (whichever applies to me -- I don't have a dx) provides is priceless to me personally. This label I can work with, and build on my strengths instead of constantly banging my head against my weaknesses.

I'm very happy to know.

I feel better off knowing, because I don't feel defective.

Were you better off, not knowing you had AS?

Personally, no. I'll admit, i was diagnosed in Nov. 2008 along with a case of depression, but the DX allowed me to finally understand myself. Now, im not one for labels, but at least knowing what makes one different is a huge help in understanding shortcomings (and/or random bullying from school). We could be associated with "The Ugly Duckling,"and just had to figure out that we were meant to swim with a different group of birds .

You still believed at the age of 35, that you would one day magically change and become better at socializing and coping as an adult? Hello?? At 35, you hadn't accepted yet that you are what you are and it wasn't likely to get much better?

Who's living in a what??


Man, I knew in high school I was never gonna be anything other than the geek I was. By my early twenties, I had actually improved somewhat, but I was basically okay with it. I don't mind being thought of as unusual, f**k 'em, I'm smarter than they are. If they can't appreciate me, that's their loss. If I thought I was sinking to the level of the common human, I'd eat a bullet rather than become just another mindless bag of protoplasm.

Am I better off than before I knew my oddness had a name? Well, psychologically I don't think there's a lot of difference. It's been a bit of an adjustment, finding that my eccentricities actually place me in a categorical group, but so far I like the group here. I have a distaste for the casual lumping-in with 'mental disorders'. I'm not stupid or insane or even particularly volatile, I just walk with a social limp. No big whup. I've seen humans, I've talked with them, socializing is overrated.

In many ways I am better off, yes indeedy. I had a special interest career that never served me very well and finally crapped out on me at the age of 45, leaving me with nothing I could do to earn a living and stay sane. Within five years I'd accidentally learned about AS, accidentally fell into a diagnosis and ultimately was able to get help because of a disability I'd had all my life and had never before known it had a name. That was a tremendous relief - a literal life saver.

Mostly, I have stopped feeling like such a loser because of the things I can't do. When parents, teachers or bosses used to insist that I do something and I felt that invisible magnetic force field standing between me and successful accomplishment, THEY always thought I was an obstinate, lazy, insubordinate, stubborn ass. I thought I was a worthless worm, but no amount of pressure ever made me any more able to do the things expected of me. Now I get it. It actually is not my fault - its an alternate wiring schematic in my brain, that has given me weaknesses in many common tasks, but exceptional abilities in some other areas instead.

I'm not a multi-purpose human, I'm a specialized model. The problem was and always will be that I can only be useful when I'm put to one of a few specialized purposes. You don't use a precision surgical instrument to pound nails and pry open sticky drawers. Society just hasn't realized yet how best to utilize us, and we're not very good at telling them. Hopefully that will change over a few generations, now that autism is being more closely studied.

Yes, I do get down, due to the frustrations AS throws into my path, not the least of which, for me, has been bullying at the hands of people who can't abide anything that's different than what they're used to and feel threatened by what they don't understand. Sometimes that even includes those close to me, who still have a hard time wrapping their heads around an invisible handicap. Its really hard for them to accept the depth of my challenges when I appear perfectly healthy on the surface. It still makes me feel like a loser sometimes. Sometimes I don't think I can stand it another minute.

Yet, even when I'm being pushed and pressured and admonished for things I simply have no control over - for being who and what I can't help being - even when I'm bashed with statements like "And you can't blame THAT on Ass Burgers" (like they could possibly know what goes on inside my brain), I am better off now. Because now I know why these things happen. Even if I can't make them disappear, at least I don't have to feel like I'm the only human on the planet that can't just pick up the phone and make a call without a second thought, or answer the door when someone sets off a panic attack by pounding on it unexpectedly, or navigate a shopping trip without bumping into strangers and knocking over mannequins. There's a little comfort in being 'one of those people', rather than being 'that guy'.

Absolutely not. I think that if you're worse off knowing, you might want to examine whether or not you're sure that AS would be an accurate diagnosis. If before you found out about AS, you thought you were just a bit awkward, chances are that you are just a bit awkward. Most people who have had a diagnosis confirmed by a professional have had serious problems before the diagnosis. It's not just being awkward. It's having trouble all the time. Feeling stupid, defective, alien, horrible. It's constantly wondering why you can't be like everybody else, constantly trying to fit in and failing, seeing professionals, getting all kinds of bizarre diagnoses and then being told that you're just not trying when the professional gets frustrated with you. If you didn't already believe, before learning about AS, that there was something seriously wrong with you, then you're probably just a bit awkward. The fact that you share characteristics with people who have AS doesn't mean that you have it. If you're worse off knowing about it than you were not knowing about it, then it must not have been affecting your life too much before you found out about it.. which would indicate that you probably don't have it. When you have a disorder, it ruins your life even before you find out that it has a name.

Better, because then I found WrongPlanet and also read "The Complete Guide to Aspergers Syndrome" by Tony Attwood. I learned a lot of useful stuff from both.

For instance, I learned from WP that there are different kinds of smiles, and my big grins actually probably make people think I'm mad. I've started practising little smiles and noticing other people's different kinds of smiles.

Better? No. I made the same mistakes over and over and never understood WHY. If I got better, it was by a painful and long process of trial and error to learn what worked and what did not.

However, now that I know, I have to be careful not to start using AS as an excuse. Yes, I must accept that AS puts limits on me and I'm smarter to work where AS benefits me (or at least doesn't hold me back), but it's easy to get into a pattern of not trying because you presume AS cuts off your options. Before I knew about AS, I always assumed I was normal like everyone else, and I didn't fail to try because I presumed if I worked hard, I would get what I was working for (rarely happened, though).

Since I know that I have AS, I don't feel guilty anymore, but I also lost the hope that life will ever turn better.