Have you over compensated adapted / ?

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I was formally diagnosed with HFA in 2007.

I have received excellent post diagnosis support since, including being helped in the autism unit at the Maudsley hospital.

What became crystal clear from the start, was that I had not suffered because I had autism, but I had suffered because I had over adapted, hidden and concealed expressions of being different.

It has been a very long journey for me to accept my limitations, partly because so much of my life has been devoted to unconsciously dening their pressence behind a persona of 'normality'

In the early days of trying to accept being in the spectrum, I would have to put up with staggering ignorance of those in and out the spectrum who could not but project their own limited and extremely narrow perceptions of autism.

Here are some of the ways in which I over compensate:-

Overly tidy - to compensate for my natural tendency to be messy.

Over organise- to compensate for my natural tendantcy to be disorganised due to executive functioning difficulties.
Cultivation of 'normal' persona to counter - ACT my natural quirky, intense and at times unusual ways of expression.

Obsessively punctual, to compensate for my compulsive absorption in things which can so easily result in loosing tract of time.

Excessively routined in order to compensate for my wild imagination.

The list could go on and on. However, the good news is that as I integrate more and more the understanding of myself in the autistic spectrum, these extremes become less and less. I am, in
short, learning to dance with my shadow and become more whole and ultimately become more gentle and forgiving of myself.

In many ways I feel too autistic to enjoy large social groups of non autistic people. And yet I feel way too socially skilled to get anything but irritated in asperger support groups.

What I would appreciate is members who can relate to the title of this post sharing their experiences.

In gratitude.

Q

Does alcoholism count?
I'm half-serious there, I think I overcompensated for the feeling of disconnection with alcohol and drugs. Sobriety has shown me that I'm meant to be like that, for better or for worse

My husband says I do the same thing.

CONSTANTLY worried about being clean enough, organized enough, pretty enough, successful enough, engaged enough, happy enough (but not too happy), calm enough, in general NORMAL ENOUGH. It's not just me, either; I am constantly worried about whether or not I'm helping my kids turn out "good enough." Evidence of "good enough" is successful friendships, excellent behavior, and straight A's. THEY are not the ones who have failed if they don't achieve those things; it is always because I have not supported them enough, worked with them enough, corrected them enough...

CONSTANTLY. CONSTANTLY. It's the last thing I think about (my prayers at night end with, "And please God take this disease away, or at least help me keep hiding it, please and thank You, Amen") at night, and I run into it like a speeding dump truck as soon as my eyes open in the morning.

I'm FRIED. COMPLETELY EFFING FRIED.

Yes, I think many people in the spectrum
drink for the very reasons you have outlined. And yes it can be a sorrowful way of surviving. I never took that route, but I sure have taken some serious 'wrong' turnings. .......all grist for the mill.

Your response moved me enormously.

So many of us all feel so unworthy, perhaps too overwhelmed with being in the trance of unworthiness to even see it.

Sending you my love from London.

Yes, yes, yes!

I was teased and bullied a fair bit from the start but it only got unbearable when I tried to follow the terrible advice I was given to "act like everyone else". I must have seemed like a robot and it was obvious how awkward, naïve, etc I was. I MAY have been at least partially accepted had I not been told as a Dog to learn to meow. I was also forced to hide that I preferred the company of women to men because that meant I "must" be gay and that was a mortal sin in school. As a result, instead of gradually being accepted all it meant was that EVERYONE avoided me in school. I am told all the time that I "try too hard" and I still don't know what that means since it is so deeply ingrained in me.


Yes, I totally relate. While I have never been to a real life autism group, I tried one virtually and once hung around with the "geeks" at school. Both times I was irritated beyond belief. I hate nightclubs, loud noise etc but I love to talk and share stories. I also used to be obsessively clean, organized, perfectionist, etc at work to the irritation of my coworkers. As time goes on I have gradually been able to moderate these behaviours.

I've recently started attending asperger support groups after being officially diagnosed with Asperger's in september. However I had been already convinced that I have Asperger's for more than two years before the official diagnosis.

My experience in the support group is similar. I find some of the fellow aspies somewhat clueless and tedious. It's like truly they can't see how odd their behaviour looks to other people, even though some of them are way older than me. I am not saying this to ridicule them, it's just the way I feel. They are all good-hearted people yet I really don't feel that they are my peers.

Then again I also feel a disconnect with most neurotypicals.

If I had met these fellow aspies say two years ago I would have probably felt more connection with them, but ever since my self-diagnosis, I have started to improve dramatically. The key for me has really been that I identify strongly with The Intense World Syndrome theory of asperger's. Through this understanding I have had multiple life changing experiences in the last 1.5 years.

I got into my first relationship, we lived together for awhile, then broke up. After that I have had to learn how to make friends, how neurotypical mating works, confronting many of my fears like going to a night club, re-learning to drive a car etc.

As a consequence I feel more capable than ever, and I expect my learning to continue since I have started to get some positive experiences (like making out with a woman on the dance floor of a club), and this is really fueling my belief that I can achieve socially so much more than I thought previously possible.

Sometimes it kinda feels like I can't learn that much from these aspies I'm interacting with. Nevertheless I will keep on meeting them, since it keeps me grounded in my aspieness. Because if I only interacted with NTs I might forget who I really am, and burn myself out.

There is this pervasive feeling that I am too advanced in my understanding of my own asperger's. Sometimes it saddens me that I have had no one to look up to or ask for advice. I have done it all by myself. I can only feel gratitude towards the internet and all the oddball bloggers and forumists who have contributed their wacky ideas and which I have then applied in my life.

I've been hardcore minimalist OCD. I can't own more than one pen, more than a few ponytail holders, and a laptop and charger for phone, and a few clothes, one pair of pants than I wash in the shower.

It has gotten worse, but I've been going to the VA and get some more meds.

Thank you everyone who has posted so far. It is really good to hear from you and I have found what you have shared of great value.

I can really relate to the intense world theory too.

With respect to OCD, I have found enormous relief from working within the principle of "what resists persists" in the context of when I feel any sense of feeling powerlessness, to simply tend tenderly and lovingly to myself.

My habitual response to memories and life's events that trigger or evoke early trauma of feeling completely powerless is to engage with OCD as OCD gives me the illusion of control when I feel I am loosing my mind with the fear and terror that powerlessness evokes in me.

To be awake to how my mind operates and to respond mindfully offers me a way out of the darkness and into a new relationship with myself whereby I am no longer engaging in a civil war within myself.

Wishing you all well.

Same here, though it seems like I've learned more from my neurodiverse children than from diagnosed Aspies. Still, I can test some really wacky ideas on forums first to see if they are any good or not.

I compensate all the time

You know, i think this is one reason why I feel so comfortable around youth and have poured myself into youth ministry - I don't know if it's overcompensating, I think to me it's finding areas where I feel like those I'm working with are comfortable with me and relate to me well; not just the youth but other workers.

I think it's because they accept that not everyone functions in this perfect environment where everyone knows exactly what cues are what a little better. Things are very simple to me - be nice, help others, forgive as Christ forgave you, and so on, and they are for them, too.

I told a few of our youth a few years back, when ir ealized that it was a cue I'd missed, about our Speech coach introducing me to a friend and asking me not only to help mentor him but to "include him in stuff with friends." I thanked the 11-13 year olds who told me that, yes, that request would have sent up red flags to them (and I was 16 when told this) because it was confirmation that i was missing things, but also helped me to figure out where I did overcompensate - one of the big areas was acting like I did know what I was doing in situations where I didn't back then.

And the neat thing is, these kids accepted that, yeah, he missed some cues but that's okay because we're all different. Yet in telling them I knew I'd missed something I also told them that now, I would know that was red flag - though I might have to consult with others as to what to do about it specifically I would have general knowledge. (And would probably go overboard too much in trying to be nice and help.)

But, I'm comfortable with adults, too, of course - I reveal a few things to them about specific things. Things like tidyness, etc. I never really thought about - I think being legally blind I just naturally always picked up my toys and had a clean room so I'd know where everything was. Dusting, sweeping, yeah, now that I've lived on my own a long while that happens maybe half as often as it does for most people, 1-2 tiems a month versus once a week my parents do it, but when I need to know where something is, I put it there.

The biggest overcompensation, then, for me is that when I know certain things can indicate problems, I'm overly worried/concerned. That friend I told you a teacher/coach asked me to mentor, there's a number of cues that I missed before that - now that I know I missed them - made me go from thinking he had a perfectly loving family to making me think he was horribly mistreated. Well, maybe, maybe not, he sayshis parents were great but that an aunt did mistreat some of his cousins, so he could have been merely emotionally abused by her, traumatized at seeing the results of that but not hurt physically, adopted out of something like that (though he didn't say he was adopted), etc..

I think that all gets back to confusion we have when some cues can mean something one time and other things another, and until we have context we don't know what to think. Personally, since I can't read cues, I keep all sorts of facts in my mind about people I know so I know based on those facts/incidents/etc. what to expect. But, without context some of those thigns can be misleading or flat out wrong.

But, maybe having all those facts itself is overcompensating.

I've recently been diagnosed HFA.

I guess I've always lacked the skills necessary to over-compensate as you have, especially in areas of organization, timeliness, and follow through.

In short, I really have trouble maintaining the motivation.

What I have done is to rely very heavily on things that I can do and do quite well to show the world that I am normal, I just can't let anybody get too close to see the real me. This led to a very limited yet tolerable life in terms of relationships and socializing.

I am in a long term relationship now, together for 12 years and I still have trouble showing the real me. And the expectations that I think come with a relationship caused me to over sell myself in terms of my capabilities. Most of that charade has been exposed now, it has happened slowly over time, revealing so many ways in which over compensation and denial of my limitations has led me down a difficult path.

I hope I've begun the process of acceptance and forgiveness of self.