New to forum. Question and a bit of an autistic viewpoint

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Hi there. I'm a long term professionally diagnosed aspie. Although I'm new to the forum I have been reading this forum for quite a while, especially over in the parenting section as my initial aim was to discover what the cause of problems are between my parents and my self and see if I can grasp it from a parents perspective.

So I finally signed up today to ask a question that's been burning on my mind for ages and i guess, to offer my view to anyone who has contact with people with autism. My question would be does anyone else find that NT parents (or actually, just any NT that happens to know you have AS/autism) always use your autism as a way of explaining everything?

I wont give any examples directly from this forum but to better understand what I mean here are a few examples from my own life:

When I was first diagnosed my mother initially went through a phase of telling anyone that would listen that I had autism (I'm sure most of you know that to a NT, autism = ret*d, mentally slow, unable to wipe their own behind type of image in their heads). Because of this I went totally berserk as she was telling them. My mother would then turn back to the person she was telling it to and say "you see, that's because of the autism, he can't control his anger" to which the listener would just nod and agree.

The the fact that I had autism eventually got back to my school and spread like wildfire amongst the students. I returned back to school having been off for a while (I knew fully well I could play the whole psychiatrist visits as a reason to stay off school for a few weeks, and I did) i was confronted with 250 pupils all questioning me about being brain damaged, which is what my mother told the mother of another pupil at the school, which in turn is how it got back to school. I went home that day and never could bring my self to face them again, not because I found the social interaction with them difficult or anything, I was good friends with each and every single one of them and very comfortable with them. Two things came from this. The first is the fact that I never attended school again and the second is that I failed all my exams. Both of these were explained away with "that's because he has autism". I later reset my exams at a college where no one knew I was autistic and got nothing lower than an A grade and yet again it was proclaimed the reason for that is because I "have autism which must mean I have some super IQ" and isn't anything to do with the 1000's of hours I put in learning it all"

The last example is the type that angers me the most because the fact that i put in A LOT of effort and man hours to pull that off was not even considered to be even remotely be the cause of my grades. To me it feels like the non autistic me does all the work, and the autistic me steals all the achievements for it.

There were also long term side effects on our relationship as a result of these type of situations happening. For example, in order for me to return to college and actually have a chance at sitting my exams, I had to wait until i was 17 so I could drive to a far away college each day and I had to keep it secret from my mother which college I was attending. I had already wasted another year trying to resit them at a local college, but she took it upon her self to tell the staff I had autism and I had to leave again. When it came time for me to move on and sit my A-levels, I couldn't tell her what subjects I sat (maths and science subjects) or what grades I obtained since I didn't want that to be attributed to my autism. As it stands today I tell no one in my family nothing that happens in my life and when I graduate next year my family will miss out on joining everyone else parents at the ceremony to see their childs graduation. This hurts me as much as it will hurt them.

I hope my post was clear as its a very complex subject to describe, I tried to show how a very simple thing can escalate into what appears to very erratic behavior from an aspie.

Welcome!

It sounds like you have had and continue to have some painful experiences. I hope you find the answers you seek. Sorry I don't have any great insights....my own family situation is kind of weird too.

First, that is f*****g horrendous, to embarass you like that, to take away your control. It's one thing in private one-to-one moments - bad, but at least showing some discretion - but to share it like that is awful, and you have my sympathies. I'm wary of speaking ill of her, but it really seems your mother needs some form of post-diagnosis counselling.

I am self-estranged from my mother (we were a single parent family) for ten years now. I'm fairly sure if my diagnosis (Asperger's) got back to them, there would be a 'that explains everything' moment. I'm sure it would explain some things, but it wouldn't change the crappiness of a lot of her behaviour and the way she treated me or my sister.

In school, I was good at maths and pretty much average at everything else. Every six months my teachers would tell me - or get my mom to tell me - to just apply myself, put more effort in. I didn't have a clue how to. After my diagnosis, I wondered if things would have been different if I'd had it back then. But after reading this, I'm sure it would have just been a name under which to group what was wrong with me.

That autistics are supposed to be the mind-blind ones, the lack of psychological acuity and sheer small-mindedness from NTs is often stunning. The way a label is a thing that supposedly removes any sort of agency, a prism to see each and every action and achievement.

Just wanted to give my perspective and suggestions.

*Perhaps your mum is a very talkative NT who is the type that tells people too much generally, not just about the autism?
*Perhaps your mum has a few autism genes of her own and therefore does not realise that it's inappropriate to go around telling people something like that and is lacking the empathy to see it from your perspective?
*Perhaps as a parent (I am a parent) she has an underlying worry/embarassment due to certain autism behaviours (meltdowns and other things) that might seem odd to others and is quick to explain the autism to save you or her (in her mind) from being judged unfairly? (even though we know people knowing the label often doesn't stop that anyway)

I don't make any excuses for her going round telling people, I would hate it too. In parents' minds, their children are always their babies no matter what age, and perhaps she has trouble accepting you are a young adult and she doesn't have the right to go round explaining things on your behalf. So there could be an element of protection in there.

I know with my youngest (age 7), who has bad meltdowns, and behaviours that don't look normal to others, I have felt on occasions I've had no choice but to explain to people we've been with that she's on the spectrum even though she hasn't started assessment yet, because the behaviour is too anti-social to not say something. I don't want people to think she's just naughty and avoid us. Even if you don't have that issue now, your mum may have memories of it and still go into auto-pilot by telling people.

It's sad that you are having to keep things a secret, you must be proud of your results and it would be nice to talk to your family about it. Have you ever tried talking to your mum and explaining that it's unfair and inappropriate that she's telling everyone without your permission? Told her how it makes you feel?

That is a sickeningly good way to describe it. I'll be sure to write that one down.

The public disclosure of my medal records issue has been resolved with my mother for some time now, the reason I brought it up in my examples was because it shows the basic problem of everything an aspie does being attributed to their condition while allowing me to follow on to the issue of the damage it causes in the aspies personal achievements and family relations, without providing further examples and lengthening the post unnecessarily .

I actually feel the opposite way about my diagnosis and school. I feel if I was not diagnosed I would have done OK-ish. The entire reason I was taken for a diagnosis was because I was going to school and then mitching from class to be with the boys, so I was never going to get top grades, but I always knew that pretty soon this gig is going to be up and I will have to put in all the work I missed. This was taken to be anti social and trying to escape the social interactions in class (c'mon, I was never going to give the boys up and say "yeah I was mitching with so and so").