Did you use to think you'd grow out of AS one day?

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I didn't know I had it until I was 10. At then I never had the thought that I'd grow out of it, and in a way I'm somewhat glad that I won't grow out of it as that would change my personality. I wouldn't want to get rid of my obsessions.

I always thought eventually, if I kept working at it, I would one day be like everyone else. Of course, I didn't even know I had AS then. Then one day I heard someone say the word "Asperger's" followed by a list of symptoms and traits that sounded like my diary.

I guess I still need to figure out which of my traits I can't change and which ones I can change given the proper support. But for now I'm still in a post-diagnostic oh-well-don't-care mode.

I'm a rebellious little teenage Kink who refuses to grow up, or out of anything, for that matter.

Hmm... well, I hadn't really known or even suspected AS until about a year ago, so I never had that thought... but I did think, at one point, I had "made it" in terms of being perceived as "normal" individual with friends. That was junior and senior year of college. Ultimately I don't know if I ever was perceived as normal, but I was at least accepted for who I was in a mainstream student organization. It was the first time in my life like I felt like I was truly in the "in crowd." But in many senses, they were a bit too "normal" for my tastes. Post college, I am friends with almost none of those people.

I have since moved on with life, having found an amazing subculture of accepting, quirky people I am completely comfortable around. Sure, there are some social rules, but it seems like they are relatively easy to understand.

I did, I thought I would become really popular and cool and be invited to all the parties by the time I entered highschool. I thought moving up from primary to highschool would instantly make me one of the cool, sociable teens you get on TV.

I can indeed confirm that that NEVER happened.

Infact, life became more of a farce as soon as I turned 12.

So weird...

I didn't know I had AS but I was aware that I was different from other people once other people started to become interested in relationships and I didn't when I was around 10/11.

I honestly did think I'd grow up to be normal...

I think when I got to about 28 and things were still going wrong despite my best efforts to stop it that I kinda realised I wasn't going to ever grow up to be normal...

I feel kinda destroyed that I won't ever be normal because my Mum, in particular, would tell me over and over and over and over that there was nothing wrong, she still tries to.

I was even more destroyed when I found out by accident what actually was wrong with me. I think it's quite hard to come to terms with

I found my diagnosis had to come to terms with too. I had never heard of AS until just before I turned 40 and I wasn't diagnosed until a couple of years later. Because I went for so long without being diagnosed with anything, my eventual diagnosis in 2003 still seems relatively recent. I had quite mixed feelings about it and it has been a long process of coming to terms.
For many, many years I just thought I was mentally ill. I put a lot of my difficulties down to depession, although I think I really knew there was more to it than that. I believed that somehow, somewhere along the way I must have got incredibly messed up psychologically although I couldn't really see how. I saw a lot of different counsellors over the years and I do think that counsellors/therapists encourage us to believe that, without thinking of other possibilities. The assumption everybody made was that I had been 'normal' once and that something had happened to change that, and that being the case, I could be 'normalised' again. I think there was also an assumption that I just wasn't trying hard enough. I did believe that if I self-analysed enough, if I looked deep enough inside myself, if I read enough books etc. I would eventually find the answer to why I am the way that I am and that I could eventually get better. None of the counsellors I saw picked up on what the problem actually was, neither did any of my teachers or any of the other adults who were involved with me as a child. I was the one who, quite by accident, stumbled on the possibility that I might have Asperger Syndrome. If I hadn't picked up on that, I'm not sure that anybody else ever would have.
The more I learned about AS, the more I found that things about me that had never made sense before suddenly made sense for the first time. I felt quite depressed when I first realised because it meant that I wasn't going to get better and that my difficulties would remain with me pretty much for the rest of my life. Although I do believe that we can find ways of dealing with the problems that autism causes. I am learning to enjoy my uniqueness, my creativity and my different ways of thinking although there are some things that will always be hard to accept. Finding out that I have AS meant having to let go of some dreams and ambitions. I always thought that if I ever got better enough I would like to be a counsellor or some kind of therapist. Now I'm not so sure that I would want that anyway, and I now know that it can never happen.
I had known since early childhood that I didn't fit in anywhere, had felt that I wasn't normal and that there was something wrong with me but I didn't know what. Getting a professional diagnosis told me that yes, there really is something different about me and I hadn't been deluded all my life.

Yes I did. Even after I found out I had it I thought I could get rid of it still if I keep trying. I even thought a few times already I had outgrown it and then I realized I still had it. I'm done thinking I have recovered from it, even if I feel none aspie.

Nope, never. One, I've only known about it for two years and Two, err I don't think I ever will grow out of it. I do still try to push myself though to be social and try new things.

it's funny but I used to be under the belief "if I just do what everyone's telling me to do, they'll finally accept me."

No, what happened instead was there was still another issue people had with me, yet still another one after that, then several more, etc, etc....

No matter what I tried to do to "improve" myself, everyone still saw a million flaws and criticized me for it.

Trust me when I tell you: if all you hear your life is criticism, and it never seems to improve, right there you know something's up.

You also stop caring what others think after a while.

and once I stopped caring....I started to like myself a lot more, and enjoying all the advantages there were to being me.

Basically, it was "they probably know something I don't". I've come to realize "they don't have a friggin' clue...."

1. Until I learned of AS, I thought I was "normal" and never understood why I was so out of step with everyone else. I presumed they were just like me.

2. Until I learned of AS, I figured I would just "grow out" of whatever kept me from fitting in with everyone else.

after a while, I just accepted jokingly that I wasn't normal, but didn't really know much beyond that.

Now I know it for a fact...and I'm glad I do.

no.
i never perceived myself to be in a way that was not appropriate to the way i see the world.
i do not feel "displaced" from some truer existence of myself.
i know that others are different to me, and i am different to others, but i do not feel like i am "out of sorts", because i behave appropriately to the way i sense reality.

i can not run as fast as a horse. i do not feel slow and ungainly because of that. i am not a horse and will never become a horse and i do not feel "displaced" because i am not a horse.

i am me and that is all i will ever be and that is all i ever was.

certainly quite the poet, good sir

Before I knew, I thought if I did enough "normal" stuff, I'd become normal. Like after I graduated college, I'd get a job and everything would fall into place and then when I didn't I blamed myself for not being good enough. I always knew I was messed up somehow, I just blamed myself and thought I was a bad person because I couldn't understand how everyone around me seems to adjust so well and I don't. Now that I know I'm still coming to terms with accepting that it's not going to go away and that it means that I'm most likely not going to be able to do some of the things that I expected from my life but it's nice to know that I'm not just a complete evil freak or something.

sorry i do not understand. did some of what i said rhyme? i can not see where it rhymed.

thanks for saying i am a "good sir"