How did you deal with finding out you had Asperger's?

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I felt confused and isolated when I first got diagnosed. Although I was only 8 when I got diagnosed, my parents told me straight away, and I hated it. I kept asking, ''why have I got a disability and none of my cousins have? Am I adopted? Am I possessed? Am I from a test-tube? Am I a freak?'' I was so confused, and I did not like anybody to know that I had this disability. I used to give relatives a gentle slap on the arm if they mentioned it, and if teachers or other kids mentioned it to me, I went all hot inside and felt like running away crying (which I didn't do). I had such a big imagination that I sometimes got lost in my games and could play for hours on my own, in another world, and I always pretended I was a child who was highly social, pretending I was in a playground with lots of other highly social children. This was my only way of trying to forget that I had AS. I really hated it. I wanted to be like all the other children at my school. I could not deal with knowing that I had AS. Although I am more better at accepting it now, I still hate the word, and I still hate the disability, and I still wish I was never born with it. But I do try to talk about it more to close relatives, and I even enjoy talking about how I feel to counsellors.

But back when I was diagnosed, I felt like I was the only person in the world with AS, simply because I was at mainstream school and nobody else seemed to have AS. As I got to my teens, I started to realise that there are probably others out there who have AS too, although I still never knew anyone else with it. Now I definately know that there are more people than what I think out there with AS and similar conditions. Thank you, WP!

People from an American society write a book called DSM and label people depending on their criteria. These people are sponsored by drug companies and many other manor of corperate business. These people could decide that not being able to spell correctly is a pathology and then suddenly there are even more personality defects.

American society can shove their DSM.

^ ^ Aha, a controversial post (2 posts up). Please elaborate!!

Anyways, it was mainly a great relief. I'd known I was 'different' from an early age but I escaped diagnosis throughout most of school, because I compensated for my social difficulties by doing well academically, and not getting into any trouble with the teachers. I didn't hear about AS until I was 17 so I'd already learnt various coping strategies without realising what they were.

But yeah, finding out that I wasn't the *only* person like myself was encouraging and a massive relief, but at the same time, I knew I was going to have these same difficulties for life, and that was hard to accept. Actually, it still is. As someone else said, it was a Bittersweet Symphony

I'm currently dealing with it, the relief was immense, the dawning of it was horrible. I was shocked because I was on the school council as a prefect, had friends, a boyfriend etc but I still found life really difficult especially in school but I kept blocking it out, what Aspergers came into my life I finally made sense of it. It makes me sad sometimes, I wonder what I would have been like without these disabilities. I had a happy childhood but a sad and hard one too because of my problems due to aspergers. I was scared because suddenly the traits that I called my personality were now a disability,

I didn't know what was mine and what was the effects of the disability! I felt forgiveness to myself but a lot of anger because I had resource teachers and loads of people like that because of dyspraxia but they didn't notice it earlier. I felt like I could have had a much better shot at school if they had helped me more socially too. Don't go through it alone, you need to talk to people about it so it's good you came on here. My friends helped me deal with it alot. I keep trying to fix myself but I know it's not going to work, I just need to accept some things but never don't try something because you think you can't do it because of aspergers, you'd really surprise youself what we really are able to do.

I was very happy after finding out I had Asperger's. I used to think I must be the only person in the world like me---and now I realized I was not alone. I used to wonder why I was the way I was---and now I knew the reason. I have always enjoyed my life (sure, there are low points---but that's true for most everyone)---and Asperger's has been the reason for a lot of it. I love my special intense interests that Asperger's has given to me. And, my musical ability (able to play instruments I am fascinated with in little time and without instruction) has come from Asperger's (talent savant). I love planning things associated with my interests. Finding out I had Asperger's explained why socializing was always awkward, why I had sensory issues, why eye contact has always been challenging, etc. But---that's ok---I am fine with these challenges. I accept Asperger's with all of its positives and its challenges. I don't wish for anything about my Asperger's to be changed. After being diagnosed with Asperger's I adopted the motto, "My journey has just begun."

Relief. While I was investigating AS and it's symptoms I kept saying to myself "I did that as a child!" and I was glad that I finally had a reason for my behavior that wasn't "You're a freak".

I cried. I finally had to admit that the problem wasn't everyone else..... it was me. I don't know how to 'get along' and 'fit in' ... and all the trying in the world wasn't gonna ever make that happen. Also, the word 'Autism' is a scarey word. I still have a hard time with that part.

it caused me to have to deal with and annoying, sometimes destructive and always inefficient government system.

it got me to applying for disability.

it was bizarre to me because i never knew anything like that was wrong. I thought i was schizoid or something because some quack said i might be.

now i don't know what to think but i do enjoy the consideration it gets me for noise problems. that and if i get disability will be about the only useful outcomes of it.

I was happy and relieved!

I was first diagnosed ten months ago and pretty much in a state of denial until I started seeing a doctor who works specifically with patients with AS (not exclusively, but she was more knowledgable about it than my other doctors). I always liked being different, but I hated the idea of being clinically different. I'm less negative about it now but still pretty depressed about it at times. The reading about it helps, though; at first the only thing I read was the Wikipedia page, and then I deliberately didn't look for more information. More recently I read some better sources (Wikipedia's good on straight facts most of the time, especially if you follow source links, but it was hard for me to understand; TVtropes actually turned out to have one of the most reassuring and accurate sources of information explaining the basics of it to those who don't know much, and I only read that accidentally) and it's helped me feel a bit less depressed.

I guess I always felt that some day everything would "click" for me. I also didn't recognize most of the things I'm now being told I do that aren't typical. It didn't help, either, to have someone else who has poor social skills in my home — it was hard to hear that I was the atypical one, not my father. But he has at least gotten a little better recently, and although I did quite well in school socially, a part of me wishes I'd known sooner, so I could have gotten more understanding from my parents and made use of disability resources at my university to adjust better to college life, which was a huge problem for me.

It also might have resulted in him being more thoroughly educated about it, because that's been a bump in the road more than once. He once told me he was sure I'd never be able to drive, and has recently taken to criticizing the way I eat — my bites are too small and I look at my food too much — as though that's a major thing to deal with with regards to my Asperger's, and like I've never eaten in public before or any setting where people would point out if I was being wildly inappropriate. (I've been super conscious of how I eat in public for a while. I'm overweight, which makes me afraid people are going to say something about the way I eat anyway, and was often told when I was little that I ate too messily and too fast, so I've tried my hardest to fix that. I really don't think taking smaller than average bites is worth an argument.)

Seeing an Asperger's-specific doctor (covered by the insurance I'm still covered by, thankfully) has been a huge help, especially re: my family. She speaks to them when I see her as well, and can help me weed out what is an actual issue and what is them being overprotective or overcritical. Even if you don't have an issue like that with family I think that can be helpful, just so the realization that you have some or most of the symptoms doesn't mean you are an extreme version of every symptom. It also helped me realize what I wasn't doing quite the same as everybody else in a few places where I hadn't been able to see it myself.

Doctors aren't affordable for everyone and I know some who can afford them don't want to waste the time and money, but it did help me personally.

In high school I was told that I had "flavors" of Asperger's, but nothing got done to prove that or help me out. Several years later, I started talking to a therapist who said that the "flavors" thing was bogus and that she thought I definitely did have it.

At first I felt relieved, because a lot of what I read about it seemed to make sense. There were times where I would break down crying because I "wished I could be normal", but I was told that there really is no such thing. To this day I'm learning to cope with the diagnosis, but I'm doing better and I don't break down and cry over it as much. So, I'm kind of neutral.