How Did You Interpret Your Autism Before You Knew?

[OkRad]

I am wondering what you thought of yourselves before you knew you had autism?

I was born into a religious family, so around 12, I was sure I was evil. The meltdowns were scary and I interpreted them through my religious beliefs. This was a huge burden for a kid and everyone kept telling me to give it to God and he would take. He sure did not take and did not even let me know what the trouble was!

After that a shrink convinced me that there was no god and that I was just mentally ill. Then a lot more shrinks said I was mental and I had so many dx's that some even contradicted one another. It got to be absurd. No single person could have the number of dx's I had. It was a joke.

Then I came full circle and thought there was a God again and he clearly hates me. No way that I would have gone through everything I did and there NOT be a god behind. Some seemed perfectly engineered to torment an autie, weird things, and the hits just kept coming with zero down time between them.

Then when I was Dxed it was as much a huge existential kick to the gut as it was a light going on.

Now I just assume I was horribly, horribly unlucky and about to find my place among those in the vast past who suffered.

Nothing special, not remembered, the nameless, trillions of people who have touched this planet for a second and died.

 

[Nitro]

I never knew how different I was. My explanation as to why I knew so much was always explained that it was because I had seen a lot.I wasn't aware how intense the visual part of my memory really was until I started taking a closer look at it.
I just saw my deficits in my deep personal relationships as just another flaw in my human fabric.

 

[Suzanne]

I have undiagnosed aspergers, so not an autie ( just thought I would clear that one up for you).

I thought I was just some very strange character, who did her best to try and fit in, but always managed to find pain in that event. Suffered so many highs and lows that I became scared to even try to "fit in".

I was raised a catholic and thought: if there is a God out there, why would He allow so much suffering in the world? Actually, never brought it close to home, because you see, I felt I was worthy of all the bad things that happened to me; why I never even went as far as thinking about marriage, because when you believe yourself to be unattainable, then you are not going to even go there, in search of a partner. It always surprised me when the opposite sex became interested in me and even more when I was asked the hand in marriage by my now husband.

Sorry, I completely veered away there ( really a huge issue for me).

You are not the only one who feels that they have been very unluckly in life; it seems that my siblings just had to breath and things went their way and I always had a huge struggle to get even a glimpse of a notice.

My faith now keeps me from caving in mentally.

So, basically, always a sense of struggling against this huge tide and now, even though I am not official yet, I feel such a huge sense of: fitting in, but mostly on here; in life it is still very hard, because most do not speak the same language and that is also literal, considering I live in France too lol

 

[Alcyon]

What a thought provoking topic!

I agreed with the prevailing opinion that I was slightly eccentric, but generally a decent sort of fellow. A lot of good things happened to me; both because of innate gifts and because of hard, grinding work to become the person I thought I should be.

When it all fell apart at various times for various reasons in my life, I would, sooner rather than later, redouble my efforts and keep trying. I figured all my difficulties would resolve themselves if I just tried harder and learned more. I am fortunate in having a tendency towards black depression balanced by, if not outright optimism (that can be there), then at least a remarkable pig-headed stubbornness.

Although I recognised that I had challenges, it doesn't take too much observation of the world and the people in it to to realise that it's a mighty strange place filled with mighty strange people. In that regard, I seem to fit in just fine.

I still wonder at times, regarding the diagnosis: am I better off for knowing?

 

[OkRad]

What a thought provoking topic!

I agreed with the prevailing opinion that I was slightly eccentric, but generally a decent sort of fellow. A lot of good things happened to me; both because of innate gifts and because of hard, grinding work to become the person I thought I should be.

When it all fell apart at various times for various reasons in my life, I would, sooner rather than later, redouble my efforts and keep trying. I figured all my difficulties would resolve themselves if I just tried harder and learned more. I am fortunate in having a tendency towards black depression balanced by, if not outright optimism (that can be there), then at least a remarkable pig-headed stubbornness.

Although I recognised that I had challenges, it doesn't take too much observation of the world and the people in it to to realise that it's a mighty strange place filled with mighty strange people. In that regard, I seem to fit in just fine.

I still wonder at times, regarding the diagnosis: am I better off for knowing?

If I could hit agree 100 times here I would. That "grinding" away, that determination to be better and exhausting persistence......It was like sitting in a pushup position with sharks swimming around below me and knives ready to pierce me if I relaxed one inch.

It was like climbing a sheer cliff that has been oiled and you don't get it. There is an elevator for everyone else......why were you put at the bottom of that cliff? No problem, you say. It's not the destination , it's the journey and look how fit you get climbing that cliff!

But then you realize you got nowhere. Not even an inch. Then Life hits.......you find a mass or someone kicks you in the face and you're down to the bottom, or you have a medical event, family dies, and no one cares that you have been climbing so hard.

The time you wasted climbing, others have used to build a little 401K, a family, a retirement nest egg, a career.......

And then--boom--- it's too late. The elevator was never in your reach.

Yeah, I am a bit negative these days, but I learned from the great historian Thucydides that Hope is only good for those who have resources to sustain it. I don't. Hope is not my friend.

But Aspie Central is!

 

[ksheehan88]

I was convinced there was something deeply wrong with me and that I didn't belong anywhere because I struggled so bad with bullies and trying to make friends. People take an instant dislike to me, without even speaking to me. Considered myself stupid because I couldn't seem to ever say the right thing. Didn't fit in with fashion. Personal hygiene wasn't up to scratch. Always just thought I had one of those "faces".

Things like meltdowns (my Mum used to call it the "dying fly") and sound sensitivity was just put down to me being short tempered, overdramatic, overemotional or oversensitive.

Ruminating was just put down to me being a "worrier" and I was (and still am) told to "just stop thinking about it".

To cut a long story short, everything makes sense now.

 

[OkRad]

I was convinced there was something deeply wrong with me and that I didn't belong anywhere because I struggled so bad with bullies and trying to make friends. People take an instant dislike to me, without even speaking to me. Considered myself stupid because I couldn't seem to ever say the right thing. Didn't fit in with fashion. Personal hygiene wasn't up to scratch. Always just thought I had one of those "faces".

Things like meltdowns (my Mum used to call it the "dying fly") and sound sensitivity was just put down to me being short tempered, overdramatic, overemotional or oversensitive.

Ruminating was just put down to me being a "worrier" and I was (and still am) told to "just stop thinking about it".

To cut a long story short, everything makes sense now.

Ohmy goodness!! The "dying fly".......that's great. But how awful but how true how people interpreted your distress. I wonder how much of how we interpreted ourselves before is from exactly things like you just wrote....how OTHERS laid it on thick.

If no one said we were bad maybe we would not have thought so. "Just stop thinking about it." That infuriates me. I want to say back, "Stop being so ignorant!"

 

[Alcyon]

If no one said we were bad...

One thing that may have been an advantage for me growing up is that I am all but certain that my mother has Asperger's. She doesn't know it, and at this stage of the game I'm not going to bring it up with her. I have no idea what my father's "thing" is, but he is not quite normal himself.

So, at home at least, I wasn't that strange.

 

[midlife aspie]

I always thought my main problem was that I just did not identify with the same interests as my peers. I did know that I was a slow information processor and that I always sought solitude, albeit subconsciously. It wasn't until I got married that I had any problems, and those mostly from being around other people most of the time without a true refuge.

 

[xudo]

Things like meltdowns (my Mum used to call it the "dying fly") and sound sensitivity was just put down to me being short tempered, overdramatic, overemotional or oversensitive.

I can totally relate to this. I was told to stop attention seeking, or showing off. Too emotional, too sensitive.

Ruminating was just put down to me being a "worrier" and I was (and still am) told to "just stop thinking about it".

Again, I can relate. I hate being told to "just get over it" or "just stop thinking about it". If it was that f***ing easy, don't you think I would??

I've had problems with being used by people who were supposed to be friends, or being bullied by supposed friends too. I always realised that they thought I was weird, but just thought that that's the way I was. I would carry on hanging around with them because to a point, I thought that this was how friends treated one another and partly because it was better than being alone. Now I realise that they were just utter b***ards.

 

[ksheehan88]

I can totally relate to this. I was told to stop attention seeking, or showing off. Too emotional, too sensitive.



Again, I can relate. I hate being told to "just get over it" or "just stop thinking about it". If it was that f***ing easy, don't you think I would??

I've had problems with being used by people who were supposed to be friends, or being bullied by supposed friends too. I always realised that they thought I was weird, but just thought that that's the way I was. I would carry on hanging around with them because to a point, I thought that this was how friends treated one another and partly because it was better than being alone. Now I realise that they were just utter b***ards.

Oh the joys of people...

Yeah I tried to stick it out with the mean ones just because it was better than nothing (at the time) and it just seemed as though that's what friendships were like.

I'm used to being used aswell. Comes with the territory of being "too nice".

 

[ksheehan88]

I've just had a thought...

What in the blue **** made my Mum think it was normal for a 16 year old to have a full on tantrum - dropping to the floor, screaming, pulling hair, kicking legs, hitting head on floor/walls...

That's not "normal" behaviour for a 16 year old, is it? Even worse, I do that now still at 28...

And yet she's convinced that's just who I am...

How annoying...

 

[toothless]

i didnt have any self awareness,i was deep in my parallel universe of autism and i didnt know any different.
i would often hear titles like 'unteachable, disturbed,bad, dumb, simple, backward, and posessesd by the devil' by teachers,my family [close and distant,mum and some of her family were hardcore catholic,the same as the infant/junior school i went to] but i had very little understanding of them if any and i just carried on doing my own thing in my own world.
it only hit me when i got into my late teens and i had flashbacks to everything in my childhood including what was said about me and i had flawless imagery of the persons saying it,they had caused me a lot of low confidence and self hatred but over the years ive managed to build that back up into a more positive outlook and i dont neccessarily view autism of any level as a disability any more unlike before,i see autism as a way of life and any impairments we have are caused by a clash of neurology and environmental factors,ie we wouldnt have a communication and language impairment if it wasnt for the human need to verbally speak a human language.

 

[Mia]

Funny, I didn't think of myself as evil, thought of most people around me as cruel when I was a child. Seems as if people wanted to control my every move, thought and word when I was a child. Like you OKRad, my family was religious, the matrilineal side all belonged to the charismatic catholic church.

That's how I was raised, but, I was never called evil; difficult, bad, horrid and weird were some of the words used. Endless defiance might be the description of my childhood. Sometimes I think I'm the only one who got out half sane, somewhat intact and less delusional than the rest.

Maybe it's because I'm older that I've come to certain conclusions about who I am. It has taken about fifty years to find out and understand things about myself. Before I understood the autism spectrum, I searched for a long time. Freud and Jung gave me clues, as did Levis-Strauss and Alice Miller and many others. Sometimes I would read case studies for months, just for fun To discover any real truths that I could. Serial killers greatly interested me, although I'm still unsure why. Guess along the way, my endlessly ruminating brain came to some conclusions.

 

[ksheehan88]

Funny, I didn't think of myself as evil, thought of most people around me as cruel when I was a child. Seems as if people wanted to control my every move, thought and word when I was a child. Like you OKRad, my family was religious, the matrilineal side all belonged to the charismatic catholic church.

That's how I was raised, but, I was never called evil; difficult, bad, horrid and weird were some of the words used. Endless defiance might be the description of my childhood. Sometimes I think I'm the only one who got out half sane, somewhat intact and less delusional than the rest.

Maybe it's because I'm older that I've come to certain conclusions about who I am. It has taken about fifty years to find out and understand things about myself. Before I understood the autism spectrum, I searched for a long time. Freud and Jung gave me clues, as did Levis-Strauss and Alice Miller and many others. Sometimes I would read case studies for months, just for fun To discover any real truths that I could. Serial killers greatly interested me, although I'm still unsure why. Guess along the way, my endlessly ruminating brain came to some conclusions.

I find serial killers very interesting too... What drives somebody to commit murder? What is their thought process? Are they bad, evil people, or mentally ill? How do they feel during and after the event?

My Mum said it was weird to be intrigued by serial killers. I don't think so, people eat it up when there's stuff on the news about murders... they find it abhorrent and awful, say how horrible it is... but they're thirsting for as many gory details as they can get their hands on, that's the way its always been.

 

[Mia]

I find serial killers very interesting too... What drives somebody to commit murder? What is their thought process? Are they bad, evil people, or mentally ill? How do they feel during and after the event?

Ksheehan I'll move the reply and start a new thread: Serial Killers, don't want to hijack OKRad's with my reply.

Serial Killers, why do they do it?

 

[Mr Allen]

It never entered anyone's minds that I could be Autistic until my sister in law started noticing that I was like some of the clients she was working with in a Home for Autistic adults in Gloucester, England, so then her and my Brother went online (this was in 1999, Google hadn't been invented yet) and got all kinds of info which my Parents took to our Doctor and from there we got me a diagnosis, and the rest, as they say, is history.

 

[Shawn D]

Growing up, I just assumed I was mentally retarded and no one had the heart to tell me.

 

[On the Inside]

I thought I had different priorities than others, was interested in things that weren't thought of as productive or worthwhile, but were fascinating, nonetheless. I knew I was smart, had some talents and abilities but I seemed unable to maintain efforts and persevere through difficulties to succeed with them. Well meaning people would tell me that I was a late bloomer, marching to a different drummer, that I would find my niche. Teachers, professors, coaches and bosses would be mystified by my inexplicable lapses of motivation. I was otherwise a great student, employee, athlete.

Then there was the unexplained need for quiet alone time, that seemed beyond mere introversion. The way that I would check out and get lost in my own thoughts even when I was with others. The odd stimming behaviors that once in a while someone would notice and ask about. These things I wouldn't be able to explain, just thought that everyone did them at some point.

I guess I thought I was different, and that was OK.

 

[Mr Allen]

Growing up, I just assumed I was mentally retarded and no one had the heart to tell me.

Contrary to popular opinion, Autistic people are NOT retarded, and neither you, or I for that matter.