What I most hate about Aspergers
It's invisible other people can not see it.
Normal people are normal classic Autism is disabled enough for people to give them a bit of space.
I work and I pass for normal 99% of the time.
No friends I don't drive and still live with parents.
Tomorrow I will go into work and get on with things I guess I just wanted to know if other people with Aspergers or high functioning autism felt like this too?
That's my biggest issue with it.
When people can't see your handicap, they automatically assume that either you're a whiner, faking or exaggerating your difficulties, or you're just a useless loser.
That's the attitude I've lived with from parents, teachers and employers all my life. I thought having an official diagnosis might change that some, but not so much.
When people can't see your handicap, they automatically assume that either you're a whiner, faking or exaggerating your difficulties, or you're just a useless loser.
That's the attitude I've lived with from parents, teachers and employers all my life. I thought having an official diagnosis might change that some, but not so much.
Yes my original post was wide of the mark you put it so much better.
Absolutely agreed. People assume that because you look like the average person that you have the capabilities of an average person.
And yes, a diagnosis can help people understand, but this is exactly why there needs to be more services and support for people with ASD everywhere. Most people with AS can drive, work, and live independently with the right supports. The problem is that there is either no supports or very minimal ones.
This is why we need to fight for these services...to prove everyone wrong and to prove that we are capable of achieving what other people can.
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Given a “tentative” diagnosis as a child as I needed services at school for what was later correctly discovered to be a major anxiety disorder.
This misdiagnosis caused me significant stress, which lessened upon finding out the truth about myself from my current and past long-term psychiatrists - that I am a highly sensitive person but do not have an autism spectrum disorder
My diagnoses - anxiety disorder, depression and traits of obsessive-compulsive disorder (all in remission).
I’m no longer involved with the ASD world.
Being able to live a life able to pass in society without having my stigma show is something I value greatly.
But it does show - it just doesn't appear serious enough to be a legitimate handicap in the eyes of neurotypical humans who cannot fathom what it actually feels like. No Aspie is ever passing for 100% normal. Anyone who is around me for more than a few hours can see I'm not like everyone else. They just can't see that I'm having to struggle to pretend I'm almost like everyone else.
NT's generally either ignore people who are different, have difficulties or disabilities, or go too far trying to help. They're human like us after all.
I get to see both sides of the picture, as my wife has cerebral palsy, and uses a wheelchair to get around.
I've been guilty on occasion of trying to do too much to help her, I've also been guilt of being impatient with her when she takes forever to get dressed, undressed, or shower, but that's the nature of a marriage, the things you experience day in day out do get under your skin from time to time, and you have to learn to deal with it.
For a time we worked for the same organisation, and I was really frustrated to see how she was treated differently to me.
Not special treatment, not extra help per se, but how she was accepted as equal to others.
At that stage I had only been diagnosed with anxiety and depression, having put the misdiagnosis of schizophrenia from my youth to the back of my mind.
I found that I was expected to multi task, to rapidly switch from one task to another, and to go from taking phone calls, to emailing to actively moving about with little understanding or concern for the difficulty I have in transitioning from one task to another.
My wife would be given more leeway for the same transitions, as it was visible that she was in a wheelchair, and may take some time to go from one task to another, yet if I had the same difficulty, as there was no physical evidence to see why (and I didn't understand this was the case), I was seen to be slow, lazy, or incompetent.
For this reason, my wife was able to move up the ranks and is now in a fairly senior role.
On the other hand, I changed branches and sections, had difficulty finding understanding and accepting supervisors, and in the end quit my job after 6 years, after never having gained a single permanent promotion. During the same period, my wife was promoted three times into increasingly senior permanent roles.
I sometimes wonder if I went back to my former employer with my diagnosis if I would be treated differently.
They went so far when I was there as to accept my request to work 4 days per week rather than 5, but this was at the cost of me accepting and unwritten and unspoken condition that I would not progress via promotion, nor would I be able to have as much choice about where I work as others working full time hours.
I'd like to think things would be different with a diagnosis, but I suspect the reality would be - because my disability is invisible - that I would still receive the same shabby treatment, but would perhaps have more grounds to complain and seek remedy, though of course in the work environment where I was - where the HR section were really only looking out for themselves - things would not be so different.
Sometimes I wish I had a visible disability like my wife, so at least people could see that I struggle, and I wouldn't have to pretend I was doing okay when I wasn't.
I learned pretty early that when people ask how you are they really don't want to know the answer if it isn't good.
When people can't see your handicap, they automatically assume that either you're a whiner, faking or exaggerating your difficulties, or you're just a useless loser.
That's the attitude I've lived with from parents, teachers and employers all my life. I thought having an official diagnosis might change that some, but not so much.
Too right I should make myself an Asperger's T shirt
loveturn
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Joined: 24 Jul 2013
Age: 33
Gender: Female
Posts: 60
Location: Netherlands
I know how you feel. People just generally see me as a freak. At worse they might try to run me down with their bikes like they did a few weeks ago. So therefore, i wont talk to the people who aren't worth it. Be who you are and do what you feel, for those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.
Most people have difficulty seeing the struggles that those of us with invisible disabilities have. This typically translates into the assumption that we can do anything if we just "try harder".
People also have a problem with presuming the competence of those who are more obviously affected.
In other words. It sucks either way.
Wow, benh72 you put that so well!
There IS more to it than people just knowing, visually there would be a constant reminder of the challenges and the dramatic successes of doing even better than NTs.
I'm so glad you joined benh72. I love reading your stuff except it leaves me nothing to write except: Ditto.
Which is kinda boring...
but anyway
Ditto.
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(14.01.b) cogito ergo sum confusus
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