my dad says I had friends as a child.

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So I was recently talking to my dad (who still doesn't want to believe I'm on the autistic spectrum) and he said, " You were a happy kid. You had some friends, not a lot, but some. You never did anything weird."
So I said,".....really?.....I never did anything weird? Nothing out of the ordinary?"
He replied, "Well the biting yourself was kinda weird, and the things you always did with your hands, and the obsessions were weird."

So he's claiming that because I had a friend who lived across the street who was about 3 years younger than me, I'm normal. BTW this kid bossed me around a lot despite the fact I was older. Also, in middle school I became friends with the neighboors. This was after a year of them making fun of me every day at the bus stop in the morning. They hated me for a year and then when they actually got to know me, we became friends. This is normal? I forgot to mention one other friend...he was a boy who also was an outcast at school and like me, obsessed with video games. He became my best friend. We would talk about nothing but video games together. I don't think this is the behavior of a NT. If I didn't have a professional diagnosis my dad would still not admit that I'm probably right. To top it all off I learned my mom used to rock back and forth a lot as a child. She dislikes being around people and can't keep a job. What do you all think?

I know that for sometime before I started grade school, I was fairly normal. I acted a little strangely, did get along particularly well with others, but I didn't stick out. It was around that time that I learned people were fallible; even teachers could make mistakes. Then I learned some people were malicious, and I had know way of identifying them. So I withdrew, and I still have issues trusting people. I can't have any meaningful relationships with others, because that would mean giving my thoughts out, possibly inviting betrayal. Most people will claim these are actions of children, not adults. I say the only difference is that adults are not obvious about their bias towards others; it takes the form of gossip and whatnot.

I am convinced that I did not have 'full' AS until my psychology changed as a result of learning about people.

And no, friendship is not normal when it revolves around one subject.

he's not in a position to validate your being on the spectrum or not. I get this attitude from my family all the time. but that's more because they have a vested interest in making sure the earlier psychiatric misdiagnoses stick...they freely admit my brother is aspie material though, because he never really talked about abuse issues like I have.

Could it be that he knows you are an aspie and he simply lies to you that he doesn't believe that in order to make you feel better? My mom did that to me few years ago. I know she knows I am an aspie -- in fact she probably over-estimates the degree of my Asperger, judging by how overprotective she is. But few years ago she lied to me she doesn't think I was an aspie just to make me feel better.



Yeah that is exactly describes me. I also had few "friends" that were just trying to bully me for being different and/or bus me around. Sometimes it was obvious to my parents and teachers that these were bullies and they were telling them off as well as telling me to stay away from them. But then, in other situations, these very same people regarded them as my friends. I guess it is puzzling how they could change their mind from situation to situation but they did.



I also had one such friend. In my case, the special interst this friendship revolved around was advanced math and physics, as well as programming on pascal. We both knew calculus while still in 7-8 grades, and we talked about it all the time. We were also talking about the ways of writing weird pascal programs that would make computer do weird things. And as for physics it was mostly philosophy. That was it. We didn't talk about anything fun or about weather or anything like that. JUST these interests.

I believe that he might have been an aspie too -- he also never had any friends, his voice was monotone, and I often caught him talking about these subjects of interest to others -- not really TO others but AT them. They didn't care about these subjects at all but he talked anyway. However, I was the only one bullied, not him. Probably because he was very tall so may be that made him come across as tougher, even though he was not a sports person at all (in fact he missed all the PE classes).



Yeah this is telling. By the way have you suggested your mom gets diagnosis as well? There are treatments available for adults.

What was your previous diagnosis that they want to "stick"? Was it something along the lines of paranoia and they want to label you that in order not to take seriously what you have to say about abuse?

I am sorry you have to face this.

bi-polar. among other things. it's very common apparently for women on the spectrum to be misdiagnosed bipolar, according to a chart someone put on here. I think I took lithium for three months, about twenty years ago. I haven't had it since and have never experienced an manic phase or cycle. I am a depressive like everyone else in my family (I have been on antidepressants a few times, which according to the shrinks are supposed to put manic people over the moon but nothing happened...kind of a bummer since I am the kind of person that would have really enjoyed the manic part of the cycle, but it never happened). All of them have been off and on anti-depressants, anxiety meds, and sleeping pills, etc, but I am the only one they want to indict as 'crazy' because I have done so much work on abuse issues.

To the OP: it sounds like your Dad is locked into old assumptions about what being on the spectrum means. My AS, age 12, has friends. It isn't impossible, it is just a lot harder, in many different ways. The existence of friends, or lack thereof, isn't telling by itself. You are looking at a whole group of criteria and how they all add up, then beyond that you are looking to see if it has caused any difficulties in life so that support and/or a label is needed.

I was truly stunned when AS was first suggested for my son. He was the most outgoing baby, and he always seemed drawn to people. He loved (and still does) to hug and have physical contact. Seeing autism in that was a lot to wrap my brain around, given my understanding of autism at the time, and the same was true for most people I mentioned the then-theory to. But I knew something was going on, and with that in hand I did my research. The thing is, your dad doesn't have the same incentive I had to fit it together. You've grown up. It's all in the past to him; whatever gaps needed to be crossed and so on are now longer his immediate concern. For me, it was real and tangible and now, so I HAD to make sense of it.

I would give it time. Let him chew on it for a while. Maybe even for years. My mom has been chewing on my son's diagnosis for 5 years now and is just starting to ask the sorts of questions I went through long ago. But she is, now, asking. And adding valuable points. Your dad may decide to hide his head in the sand on it, or he may slowly progress with the idea, it depends on his personality. But you can't make him see what he has no need or desire to see today; you can just hope he'll see it tomorrow.

It's much easier to make friends when you're a kid, no matter how weird you are, simply because little kids don't give a crap. In primary school I was really weird, but had a few friends, some of who come to my school now and I still talk to from time to time.

I played with my sister as a kid; my mom says that's an indication I'm not autistic.

Anyway, OP, I think many autistic people have friends when they're little, but lose them once they get to elementary school, because little kids are a great deal more accepting. Having friends much younger or older is also rather common. You have to look at the whole picture when you're thinking about autism; I know, difficult for detail-brained people like we tend to be, but there you go.

Yes. My "friends" all outgrew me (predictably, as I now understand).

They matured, while I simply aged.

I understand somewhat some in my family just thought I was mentally ill and making excuses . Then I reminded them of my various strange behaviors like standing in doorways staring at guests because I couldn't bear to enter the room, my very limited wardrobe( 3 blue shirts 3 jeans). And my fish/ Betta obsession at age 8 had up to 12 tanks I cared for completely on my own and could tell you everything about each species especially the Bettas. Not to mention the fits and involuntary muscle movements and it was a light bulb moment, everyone is so accustomed to my being weird it just was.

I had one friend at my first primary school. And he was pretty odd as well.

Once I got to my second school (This was first grade) I made another friend. Then in Second grade I made three friends. Then that was it. I never really got any more and I lost three of the four friends anywayy. I met someone in seventh grade who I'm still friends with and two people at High School where I am now.

Currently I have four friends;

The one from second grade,
The one from seventh grade,
Two that I met in High School,

That's it.

You're right about young children though, they just don't care how weird you are. Although in Kindergarten a bully pushed my carefully constructed block castle down and I had a fit from a combination of the noise, and my creation being destroyed. I can't remember actually playing with the other children, I don't think I did...