Are you 100% okay with it?

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I'm not especially proud, but not ashamed either. But I can get ashamed if I eg. get something said that I consider as rude, things I get said because of my aspie logic. Or if I don't get a thing done even though I know it's because of executive dysfunction. Some things I have been used to be ashamed of because I didn't know the reason, and it's not always easy to break that habit.
But that's not the same as being ashamed of the condition as such. I mean, there are bad things in life in general too, but it doesn't mean that I think life is bad as such.
I accept it and am not afraid to tell people.

Not proud but I accept it.
I am too embarrassed to say I have it.
Not really.

I wouldnt say im proud of it but im certaintly not ashamed of it.

Nope its me and if some one has a problem with it, well good for them, i dont care.

No im not emmbaressed, in fact my mom is tired of hearing me say anything related to it.

Yes, and yes, but I'm not diagnosed yet. Coming soon...

I feel being proud and accepting of who I am is critical to self esteem. I don't have any problem with the concept of "Aspie Pride." But I do think it's prudent to also accept that it does mean I do have certain handicaps others do not have. I don't care if others attach a stigma to the word handicap. I don't. Golfers who start a game with a handicap often win tournaments. "Handicap" doesn't equate to failure in my mind.




Yes, I am not embarrassed to say I have it, though it does occasionally embarrass others when I bring it up. Tough for them.




See above. Yes I do, but I don't make it a point to tell everyone. I only bring it up with those who need to know. I'll also bring it up if I think it might be the source of a problem I'm having with someone. In those cases, I make the call as to whether I think they need to know. That means I'm really deciding I need for them to know. It's up to them what to do with it. If they don't agree they needed to know, that when it tends to make them uncomfortable. Too bad for them. If they want to get along with me, they need to understand certain things about me. I look at those situations as: "They really DO need to know, but just don't want to."




Doing fine! Thanks for the sentiment.

100% okay.

Not proud, not ashamed, it's just who I am.

Thanks for sharing your opinions as well was answering the questions. Much appreciated!

it's funny you should ask this...cause when I was first diagnosed with it, I was told that it's hard for a lot of people to handle hearing that they have it.

I remember telling my psychiatrist "I'm relieved to hear it, cause I think it explains everything!"

Sadly a lot of people are very uncomfortable with hearing it, to which I must then inquire "would you instead then prefer to go your whole life with everyone calling you a freak, and you yelling back 'I'm perfectly normal! Leave me alone!' I don't think so".

I am 100% ok with it. I am not proud of it, namely because I don't understand pride. But I do tell people about it. One of the managers where I work said I probably just had dyslexia, and then told the entire store I had dyslexia. One of my co-workers thought it was hilarious to deliberately confuse the words autistic and artistic. And my other two co-workers accept me for it, and kind of tolerate my talking about it!

But my supervisor doesn't understand it and thinks it's acceptable to call me an idiot a dozen or so times a shift. And one of my co-workers snorted that I couldn't be autistic because I wasn't stupid.

For me, the best thing about being aspie is the advantages. It galls my co-workers when I tell them that reading a book for a while more or less replaces my field of vision with an immersive daydream and that I am barely even consciously reading the words at that stage.

I am not formally diagnosed, and I've only recently become aware that there is a pretty good chance that I have Asperger's.

While a self diagnosis certainly does not carry the same weight as an official one, I am cautiously confident that mine is correct. I AM still learning, of course, but the more I learn the more it fits.

I've been looking for an answer to "WTF is wrong with me" for a long time. I'm pretty darn sure I've finally found an answer.

I am very happy - overjoyed, even! - to have an answer. That does not mean I like the answer, itself.

I apologize in advance if my next comments are offensive. They are not meant that way.

Asperger's = Autism. Having never had a reason to educate myself about Autism, all I have had to go on is the depiction of Autism presented, occasionally, on TV - and that's not a very nice picture. My prior understanding of Autism was that it referred to strictly "LFA". I'm trying to wrap my head around how wrong that understanding is, but my gut reaction to the idea that *I* may be Autisic? *ME*, the "gifted" student with the high IQ? Quite frankly, horror.

I'm going to have to make peace with myself on this, somehow, but right now . . . I'm not sure how to do so.

Any suggestions? I'm open to ideas.

I am not generally ashamed of my AS but I also have bipolar disorder and random psychotic episodes that make people uncomfortable being around me. I have pretty much accepted it and am just trying to move on with my life. Luckily I have extremely high functioning so I am now in the process of getting my BS in psychology. I think it did provide some comfort in at least having some kind of answer .

For myself, on that aspect, I don't see intelligence as being specifically related to ASDs. It's like being female - there are females with very high IQs and females with very low IQs and all sorts in between, but that doesn't relate to what it means to be female nor does it make me feel horror about being female.

I don't even think that all LFA people actually have a low IQ - I think IQ is quite an inaccurate measure of intelligence, and doing well in the test involves understanding and appreciating the context and the point of it. I see ASDs as being about difficulties and differences in the brain regarding neural connections - and that involves seeing the wider context. And plenty of LFA people can't talk, maybe because of the difficulties connecting the physical act of talking with the message in the head, but when given appropriate support are able to write and demonstrate a level of intelligence people never dreamed they possessed. This makes sense to me. Although I am high functioning and able to talk, I do find it a lot easier to communicate in writing.

And take Temple Grandin and Donna Williams - they have classic autism but have received appropriate support to demonstrate intelligence. I think with autism the problem is not necessarily one of intelligence, but in the ability to demonstrate one's intelligence to others. And as another thread here showed, there are plenty of highly intelligent people with Aspergers whom people consider to be stupid.

Thanks for your thoughtful response. I was very much afraid I had phrased myself poorly, and would be taken as attempting to demean people on the spectrum. When I posted, I had already learned that "horror" was not an appropriate response, and that it was largely due to my misconceptions. I am trying hard to replace those misconceptions with accurate information.

Your analogy regarding the (lack of) relationship between intelligence and gender seems like a very good one, and I think I will find that useful in my quest to understand this better.

I must confess my ignorance of who Temple Grandin and Donna Williams are, but as they say, "Google is your friend," and I'll be finding out about them this evening.

I am quite proud of having AS, and I'm not embarrased to tell other people about it.