Do People Minimize Your Problems?

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Do any Aspies out there have the following experience: you try to explain to people (NTs) about the difficulties you experience due to AS- (social, cognitive, or other), and they answer by saying something like, "oh, everybody has that problem!" Or, they just don´t understand it in some way? If so- how did you react? Also- for those diagnosed- were people more understanding and tolerant after the diagnosis, or did it not make any difference?

When I talked to someone during a time of depression (NOT clinical, just emotional) I got the "feeling sorry for yourself." response.
Duh, that's the whole point of me talking to you about it...

It isn't just my situation with Aspie-ness that gets dismissed, it's my medical issues, my emotional issues, and my opinions and ideas that get dismissed by others. Maybe it's my Aspie attitude and behavior that inspire this reaction (flat affect, lack of emotional expression in my voice, et cetera).

Yes, people do that to me too. My sister used to do that to me too with ehr "awwwwwwwww poor baby" response, acting like my problems meant absolutely nothing, while everyone had to shut their lives down when she had a problem.

Get that frequently, along with "Oh, you're just shy, you'll get over that!" (I'm nearly 50).

What they can't comprehend is, while many or most may experience similar internal psychological reactions, NTs have the ability to 'push' through and do the difficult thing anyway, they can't get it through their heads that when I tell them "I can't do that" I don't mean "That's difficult and I'd rather not", I literally mean "I can't" - there's an invisible wall or force blocking me - sometimes it's as if I'm trying to force repelling poles of a magnet together, but try as I might, my mind simply will not allow me to do things the way NTs do them. My parents drubbed me constantly as a child with the folksy phrase "Can't never could". Didn't help. Sometimes can't just can't. That's why they call it a disability.

I have not had anyone dismiss my Aspie-related difficulties, but growing up, I had to endure my father's very favorite response whenever I had a problem, an upset, a disappoinment, a physical pain, or anything else remotely challenging: "You'll live."

There have been times in my life that I've been suicidal, just to prove him wrong. Fortunately, those times are long since past. Now I say to myself, "No, I won't just live. I'll thrive." Living well is the best revenge.

I get that with Tourette's. It's SO annoying

As if everyone spends the evening twisting their neck ever so slightly over and over again until it's really sore, for example

The problem is they're comparing your descriptions to their own very real experiences and they think its the same. They don't understand that there is a huge difference in degrees of magnitude.

That's the problem I'm having these days with work. Management wants me to "try harder" not realizing that I'm already putting forth superhuman levels of will and energy just to maintain an average level of functionality.

If I were normal my behavior would be considered being "lazy" though.

Having the things they take for granted require huge amounts of mental, emotional and spiritual resources to accomplish is something they've never experienced and can't imagine its not really their fault (though that doesn't make it any less frustrating when they think badly of you for not doing well the things they find to be simple and easy).

You said it.
I will not name names (because I can't bring myself to say the persons name) but here is a little example of what someone said to me:
"I don't think you're socially inept. I think you are capable of making friends but you just don't want to. I used to not have that many friends."
socially inept - yes that's me. Making new friends is impossible. There's also a difference between not having many friends and no friends. God, that person was a bastard.

Now how did I react? I was quite calm and explained in detail why I was that way. He ignored what I said of course.

I have heard that one so many times, I realized it is to minimize your differences so they can get you to shutup basically.

Ugh. "You'll live" "You'll get over it" "Be quiet or I'll really give you something to cry about" and "Well, life's not fair deal with it" were parental staples in my house.

I also very strongly relate to what Willard said. There are many things that I just can't do. I especially have a hard time doing anything new that hasn't been extremely thoroughly explained to me. My catch phrase as a child was "I don't know how" which basically means 'I can't even attempt to try until someone shows me how its supposed to be done' to which my mother always replied snarky/dismissively "Well, learn." meaning 'Figure it out on your own, dummy'


That being said, I think we can all do this at times. It's easy to dismiss something that you don't understand or isn't hard for you personally.

Yes. Most of the time.

When I told my friend I had AS, she thought I was lying. She's like," well, you always do that" or "that's just normal for a lot of people" [about lacking empathy]

well duh, I always do that...I've always have been and aspie. To this day, she still doesn't believe I'm an aspie. She thinks I'm lying, and just do weird things...

Haha! Oh well

I have gotten it before and it would confuse me. "If everyone has that problem, then why do they say it's part of AS? It must be fake then."
That's what I thought when I was in high school. It sure gave me a whole different perspective about the condition and myself. "I'm normal," "that happens to everybody," "we're no different."


Now it doesn't bother me if I get told "Everyone does that" or "that happens to everybody." "Lot of people feel nervous when they see someone new." It tells me they don't see me as anything else, they see me as normal, me.

"Everyone has that problem", but we have it to a rather extreme extent. You know how NTs always question themselves when they start to fall in love - "Should I have said that?" "Can I touch her like that without her thinking I'm a pervert", etc. etc. except for me/us, it happens ALL THE TIME. This is how I explain it: it's a difference in the intensity of such traits.

People tell me I'm overreacting all the time when I go into sensory defensive mode. I'll jump and fidget because someone is cracking nuts or picking their teeth and then spitting it out and making this horrible f*****g sound or clipping their toenails and they roll their eyes. I'll have to leave a room because a prof brought coffee for the class and they think I'm being a drama queen (I'm not... the smell seriously makes me throw up). I leave the house when someone brings a baby over and then I get yelled at.

Babies cry and they smell. Call me back in when they're old enough to be useful.