having trouble coping

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For yrs, I was diagnosed w/ an anxiety disorder, but therapy and what not did not work in all situations. Now, that I realize I have autism, it makes sense, but now I'm re-evaluating everything, coming up w/ coping mechanisms, etc.

I'm going through a rediscovery of myself. I've tried so hard to pretend to be normal for so long, that I don't know who I am? Has anyone else gone through this?

There's no way at all you're alone in this. I'd come post here more often if I were you; post something specific that you've experienced, and it's almost guaranteed that someone else has experienced it too.

I can SOO understand the "not knowing who you are"
Everything from your past you realize was just a mask or a facade to help you fit in.

But you know it can't ALL have been just a facade. Some of it had to be you. But what parts were you, and what parts were the facade?

What do you want now? Do you really want it, or are you so used to wanting it just because you think it will help you fit in better?

Heh.. bleh... cry...

That's my mental issues in a nutshell... So, nope you're not alone!

When I first found out about Asperger's, I had a very, very tough time coping with the knowledge. Because it felt like there was no HOPE. There was no cure, I'd always make social mistakes and always risk being ostracized.

But the truth is that we can LEARN, and improve. And wrong planet is a great place for you to do that. ...

"When I first found out about Asperger's, I had a very, very tough time coping with the knowledge. Because it felt like there was no HOPE. There was no cure, I'd always make social mistakes and always risk being ostracized. "

Me, I came in the back door. Years wondering why everyone else was crazy. Then a relativerly brief period where I felt I was doomed [by genetics, if you looked at my family history you would feel doomed too]. Then years to getting through to acceptance - let them be strange, fine, let me be different, fine - I have my ingroup and pretty much all i need.

And only THEN the aha moment of checklisting me against Asperger.

I know it sounds cliche, but you are not alone. We pretty much all feel, or have at one point felt, this. I know at times I will feel this in the future. Still, this forum is a great place to have a community of friends and people who are just like you.

*hugs* You'll be okay.

When I found out I had AS it was the moment I realized why things had been going wrong over the years. It therefore wasn't a tough time because at last I had answers.

Vanilla_Slice

Think about it. You've probably been told your whole life to be and think a certain way. Spending every day just trying and trying to interact with people and be normal.

This exact scenario really hit me, a feeling of complete loss of "Self"

I'd always been told I was just philosophical and obsessed with being complicated and difficult. not caring, etc, etc.

No one ever gave me permission to be me, so I didn't either.

As I grew older, I was more and more in rebellion of anything I'd ever been "expected" to be, and through that process of discovering "me" I've begun to understand, finally.

I can see you saying you had explanations.
But where are the "answers"?
All i'm really getting is a new way to frame old questions... Though they do seem like they might be easier to answer over time, given the new perspective.

Yes - I no longer feel so clear about who I am as I did before my DX a year ago. So many of my once strong beliefs about the shortcomings of what I called "straight society" or "the capitalist system" now have to be revisited, because there's often good reason to think that the impossible expectations of people from these groups are something to do with my AS traits. Everything has become so much more complicated than it used to be.

I also lost a lot of confidence at first - the list of AS impairments made me feel that there were many things I could never really do. I became more afraid of socialising and of making mistakes. I lost faith in my own sense of humour, at least in realtime situations. I used to think I had an attractive personality until I looked at the way Aspies are supposed to put most people off with weird eye-contact etc.

But in my case it's begun to get better. Whatever the new label says, I can still do everything well that I used to do well. Information is a double-edged sword - the logician in me needs to know the truth so I can use it to work out better ways of dealing with the world, but sometimes the emotional impact of information can outweigh its practical value, at least for a time.

AS is very complicated....there are so many facets and caveats to ponder. My only advice is to give it lots of time, to try not to worry about the "identity crisis" thing too much, and to keep pushing the envelope and finding out whether or not you really can't do this or that. I'm sure that in the long run, it's better to know than not to know. And don't push yourself into the Aspie stereotype, don't imagine that you can't do this or that just because some book tells you that you can't. Because if you believe you can't do a thing, then you can't, even if the basic ability is there.

I agree wholeheartedly... Ideologically speaking... one figures that if they are capable/incapable of something, so must be (at least a large portion anyways) society.

I can do best being independent, ergo, the rest of the world should be the same.
Not true of poor NT's for the most part though.

So, yes.. entire philosophical and economic and political ideologies have to be reexamined, not that they necessarily have to change, but they may need tweaking to adjust for this. And.. moreover the way one relates those theories and ideologies to others has to change, because what you take for granted, and always have, may not be taken for granted by NT's or even other Aspies.

I'm just starting that learning process. And its a long way to go. I love the philo/religion/politics forum here.. I put my foot in my mouth all the time, but I can understand why, because a lot of my beliefs are REALLY SERIOUSLY changing... and not just because I want them to either... it's because I can see things from a new perspective, that is more representative of reality as a whole.

If you think philo isn't for you... you're wrong.. because nothing else CAN make sense until you have a philosophy... And it doesn't matter what that philosophy is... it's just important that you have one.
(that's paraphrasing the sentiments of a favourite author/philosopher, Ayn Rand... I don't agree with her philosophy 100%.. but that is the truest truism she ever uttered or wrote about)

I had a very rough time at it, when I found out, at the age of 15. I wish that I would have known, when I was 10. I would have made myself more desirable to my parents, not looking at that atlas, or rambling on about the US, all the time. Maybe I wouldn't have such bad memories, of that time, in my childhood.

Oh, I wanted to add ... you may find some benefit in attending Asperger's groups if you have any near you. I've been to 3 different groups (1 as far as 2 hours away), but they are GREAT in terms of giving you someone you can speak with who truly understands.

can relate big time, however with age I guess i've come to know myself alot better by being myself more (entertaining my obsessions, enjoying my time alone, lots of long car drives)

highschool was very tough and my lack of understanding of how normal people work made me very confused, sad, angry, disapointed, and even hateful towards alot of people. to try and fix the problem I did some really dumb things...

when I was a kid I used to wonder if everyone else was a robot because of how they seem to behave

in finding out that I have aspergers, it has in some ways help solidify who I am/was because I can more easily identify where I was me and where I was simply trying to fit in. I know why the many attempts at being "normal" always ended badly now, and many of the difficulties I have had and continue to have can be attributed to aspergers.

While it might sound depressing to be an "outsider" the rest of your life, I can tell just by reading through these forums that aspergers people experience things that a normal person will never get to experience and I enjoy that uniqueness. Plus if your an aspie being an "outsider" isn't really something new....

That rings true......certainly for me, I feel a strong need to know what my relationship is with the rest of the world, the nature of my filters that screen some people out and let others in, and why those filters are what they are. It would be hard to find a person more defended and impervious to the world than I, but even so, my personality is somehow meaningless unless I know how it relates to others. It's a scary thing when travelling if your compass doesn't know which way to point.

there is a book written by a woman with AS called Pretending to Be Normal.

that should tell you that (especially as a woman - allegedly we are more adept at hiding our AS by mimicking others to fit into social situations) what you are feeling is common.

(moved the rest of this post to the haven)

Last edited by katzefrau on 29 May 2010, 11:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.