"Coming out" aspie

[whale_bone]

Hey so I just came out to my mom about my AS diagnosis.
IT WAS AWFUL.

Basically she dismissed it from the start. She used to work as a support in Special ed classes and she worked with a few young AS boys. So therefore she considers herself an authority.

When I asked her what she thought asperger's is she told me how it was a "lack of empathy".
ARGHHH
But I don't really blame her. that whole "lack of empathy" thing is very misleading. but AS does not equal psychopathy. Get it right world, seriously.

I was a shy & careful kid. If I didn't know what to do I would do nothing. or i'd make an excuse and run away. I faked sick a lot to avoid having to do stuff that was totally beyond me. I was brilliant at being invisible.

Ugh so I tried to explain how I think: noticing details, finding patterns connections & contingencies, and then drawing on my knowledge of these to come up with hypotheses to test. Nice and scientific. But i also get absurd bursts of emotion that are totally inappropriate to the setting... And I have to find ways to handle that.

I used to throw tantrums regularly. Now I just try to dissect my rage or Sadness or whatever.

But the empathy thing-- It's not that I don't care about people. I do! It's just that I can't intuitively 'feel' what others are feeling while they are feeling it. But I can figure it out in the same way I figure everything else out. And I do it because I care. Because I like them and want to be there to support them.

I wish she would/ could do that for me.

But she wasn't even trying...
I was crying. It was out of the frustration of not being able to communicate so that she could understand. I explained this, but she seemed attached to the idea that it was because i was "sad" that i was diagnosed AS...And her response was to dismiss the diagnosis. I think it was with the intention of making me feel better. BUT OBVIOUSLY IT DIDN'T.

I told her how awesome it was getting a diagnosis that made sense.. and understanding so much more about myself. It has been amazing getting to know other people (like you guys!) that are different in ways that are similar to me.
Why is that so difficult to fathom?

 

[eon]

In my opinion it's difficult for them because of social thinking. We're basically the opposite of socially thinking people. The way social thinking works, is they have to try to "figure out" what you are thinking based on feeling sense and a variety of your cues. So, its almost effectively impossible to have an accurate conversation over such a serious and complex topic whilst this social thinking is trampling on everything. They are going to be making a lot of assumptions from things that don't fully amount to cues for us the way they do for most people. They assume our thoughts and feelings are x just by looking and its almost always wrong.

Then there's also a lot of influence if the person doesn't want to deal with what they view to be a negative "defect" so they are sort of in denial... it's super frustrating. Maybe the intent was to try make you feel better, or maybe it was some form of internal denial. The only thing I've ever gotten is similarly being doubted. By the time the person starts reacting that way, it kind of sweeps me along in this way that I can't quite re-assert against that standpoint effectively. I blame half of it on the monumental amount of difficulty I have in converting the rhythm of my thoughts into the rhythm demanded by conversation.

In a way, the assessment of the impaired empathy is a basic way to describe one of the biggest components, in that just like you said we don't intuitively sense a taste of the feeling that another person is experiencing

One last thought- this is from a social thinking book I'm reading--
I wonder if the reaction might have been kind of a response of being overwhelmed. I read that people do "small-talk" as a way to ease in to a social exchange. If you try to start explaining something serious almost right from the start, it can have an impact on how the person feels and you might get an overreaction because they feel uncomfortable. Maybe that had something to do with it.

 

[psychedelica]

Aw.. good luck :/
My dad seems to think there's no such thing as autism or adhd, except for the really bad cases, he has adhd but denies it. And he told me the only thing that's wrong with me is that I'm lazy. My mom didn't believe it when I got diagnosed and didn't tell me for years, and I guess she never really read more about it and tried to understand me, she still gets mad at me all the time because of things I can't do anything about, and starts screaming, and when I try to get away from it, she says I'm isolating myself in my room and should be with the family

Anyway sorry I'm talking about my own problems, the topic was yours. (A few days ago.. (online) friend: you're not the only one with problems! .. ouch >.>)

 

[Firnafth]

I'm sorry to hear about that, whale_bone. I think other people do not understand because they don't know what it's like to feel very different from other people. I've been thinking about this lately, and I realize that for a long time I've had this "us and them" mentality because other people are not like me. I see them as alien to some degree.

Like you, I found that being diagnosed with AS explained a lot about why I felt this way, and researching it showed me that 1) other people experience the world differently than I do and 2) there are people who are more like me out there. [I guess the first one should be a no-brainer, but I can be so clueless sometimes).

When I was grappling with the diagnosis, I found it difficult to discuss it with my friends especially, but also with my family. When I brought it up, it was often dismissed or ignored or people changed the subject. The only person who seemed to temporarily take it seriously was my dad, who is the most similar to me in temperament.

 

[eon]

I think other people do not understand because they don't know what it's like to feel very different from other people. I've been thinking about this lately, and I realize that for a long time I've had this "us and them" mentality because other people are not like me. I see them as alien to some degree.

Very well put, this is the exact thought I've been having in reflection on this today. They just have an impossible time trying to imagine that someone can be so enormously different than themselves. This may well be the best card to have up your sleeve in those types of conversations with people in your life that you want to involve in knowing the real you. That though it may be difficult to understand, we are very different to the core, and that this isn't a bad thing. I'd probably recommend the discovery criteria for Aspie by Attwood and Gray as a followup. I posted it here a bit ago because I think it's wonderful.

I was realizing today with these thoughts, that though I've sensed being different throughout life, I based it on will. That's where I was missing some of the big picture. I felt I was choosing to be different from others since they were irrational and self-oblivious. I felt I was living the examined life.. In a way, I was, but I've so far transcended the micro-focus on components of myself with this new perspective and access to network of people so much more similar to me than I ever felt another person could be.

 

[MissConstrue]

Since I was diagnosed many family members not including my mom or dad treat me differently.

Recently my cousin has been diagnosed with it. My aunt is in denial and while she's always treated me like a "special person" she thinks he's just one of those eccentric geniuses....

 

[whale_bone]

thanks for all the feedback guys
I think you're right about the denial thing eon...
AND she has aspie traits too (which I probably shouldn't have pointed out to her) so I guess that gives her all the more reason to dismiss my diagnosis.
I sent her some Attwood stuff already but I might just send the "discovery" one along too! Its awesome I found an interview of Attwood which is really good too. It says it's about female aspies but it actually covers a lot more than that so I recommend it to everyone!
About the Us/Them stuff:
I think the dominant culture encourages NTs to strive to be "normal" through the rejection of deviance/ weirdness (aka aspie eccentricity). So it follows that people with much milder aspie tendencies ("shadow syndrome") will do all they can to reject these traits/ stigma and pass for reasonably normal. And so even though there is probably a natural bell-curve for AS, only 1% actually qualify. And there is no "hyper-NT syndrome" on the other side of the spectrum because its an ideal! ... bleghh... so basically the Us-Them stuff persists because of mild "NTs" reject their aspie traits and treat us as deviant/ strange.
meh that's my hunch anyway.

 

[Droopy]

Sorry to hear about that, wale_bone. I'm not sure what to say other than I hope it works out soon.