Does your diagnosis make you feel like a special snowflake?

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Since I was diagnosed at a young age, I grew up being treated like a special snowflake. I have a hard time thinking of myself as normal or typical. Since there's a backlash against "special snowflakes", I notice that people tell me I'm not that special or different whenever I try to express myself. Maybe I'm secretly a normal person. I guess they think I'm trying to be different because I'm a 19 year old girl.

Yes, definitely. I knew pretty well I was not normal by like age 6, when prior to that in Kindergarten I was removed from the "normal" school and placed in "psychoed." I would be in special ed for most of school, mostly kept away from the "normal" kids, mainstreaming only briefly from time to time until finally in 10th grade I shook free of special ed for good (though I still had an IEP until I graduated).

When in school, I desperately wanted to be "normal." Still, even today, I have trouble thinking of myself as "normal," and consider myself to be fundamentally different from other people. The thought, though, is often not pleasant.

I happen to like snowflakes.

I don't feel special because of my diagnosis.

I love the term, Special Snowflake. It reminds me of Sid from Flushed Away. I like being a Sid for that very reason. :O)

I AM a special snowflake.

I am a special snowflake.

But what's up with the "special snowflake" idea? All snowflakes are special because when you look at them up close they all come in different sizes and many have beautiful shapes. Some just stand out more.

Even as a little kid, long before my diagnosis, people said I was talented and intelligent. My teachers and family members were very supportive and would call me a "future artist". When I became a teen, however, it seemed that my art was all I cared about, and then I was being told by teachers that I was *not* special, and there was no reason at all for me to be failing in school or not getting along with other students, and my mother would lecture me about taking up other interests. A therapist even told me that my only wanting to draw cartoons instead of moving on to "better" art like canvas painting was like a baby not learning to walk because they think they're just fine crawling around.

I guess you can understand why I might idolize my early childhood a little too much.

What a nice and interesting question. No, my diagnosis does not make me feel like a special snowflake. The key difference is I was diagnosed only a few years ago. I'm 56. Since the first grade, I just knew something was different about me. As I got older, I questioned if that difference was a positive or negative force. Was I talented or smart, or stupid and self involved because I could not connect with people. Everything make sense with the diagnosis.

I like that you were made to feel like a special snowflake. Everyone should feel like that at some point in their life.

"Special snowflake" is a derogatory term for people who think/wish/hope they are special in some way for psychological gratification.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... +snowflake

It was the complete opposite for me.

I always had severe suspicion for the whole field of psychology and "labels" believing it all to be pseudoscience nonsense. I didnn't think the complexity of human personalities could be captured by psychology: disorders, personality types etc. I pursued my diagnosis myself after knowing I fit most of the common popular knowledge traits my whole life, but I never looked into the details of what it actually meant till about 1.5years after diagnosis. I originally thought the condition of Autism/aspergers was based on an extremely simple set of two dimensional symptoms. And even these, I thought I had grew out of them.

But when I learned more, especially reading Hans Asperger's original article, I was gobsmacked at the precise description of myself. I then found much more corroboration and detail in newer writing. I then started to look at other parts of psychology, personality types, disorders etc. The whole field is so much more accurate than I ever thought.

Makes me think that no one is a unique snowflake. But Aspies are the least unique of all, because we all fit the description so precisely!

I am also INTP-T (EXACTLY) on the myers briggs scale. I had the same doubt then utter blown mind with that too.
No uniqueness!

I grew up before autism awareness. As a child I thought I might be an alien, sent to observe humanity. It was the best explanation I could come up with, and it gave me hope that perhaps one day the mother ship would return and I'd be amongst my own kind.
Compared to that idea, autism seems rather mundane.

If by special snowflake, you mean feel like an outsider, an abnormality, an anomalous result? Then yes. I do. XD

Not really, it has helped certain things make more sense and provided some acknowledgement for struggles I've had that I knew most other kids/people were not experiencing. Now I have a better understanding of why I was/am more sensitive to noise, light and chaotic environments, why I've never been able to make myself approach people I don't know and initiate interaction, why I cannot make proper eye contact(though my eye contact is better with people I know well), why I've had that feeling of 'I just don't get it' when everyone else seems to. Why I was 'smart' in school yet still managed to get called 'ret*d' a lot.

So yeah my diagnoses has helped explain a lot of that to me, its also kind of helped me with some aspects of interaction...or at least understanding some of the barriers of communication and a few solutions to sort of diminish those, as well as not take it to heart if I get it wrong and someone points it out. Like if I say something that is taken as rude and I didn't mean it that way...it doesn't matter how I meant it, it matters that i acknowledge it hurt them and apologize...at least to me that is more important than being 'right'. So just little things like that which may not normally occur to me otherwise. But yeah I don't feel like a 'special snow flake' I mean still just as human as anyone else I feel identifying as a special snow flake could really go to my head and well no need for that.