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Did you understand the concept of ASD at first?

flowers

flowers

Member
When I was in high school, I was really obsessed with psychology. However, whenever I read about autism (maybe it was listed as asperger's, can't remember) I would get really confused. I couldn't understand why it was listed as a disorder. It just seemed like they were describing a perfectly normal person to me.


Funnily enough, it never ever crossed my mind to think that maybe I was autistic and that's why it seemed perfectly normal. In fact I just blew it off as some 'made up' disorder or something. o_O


Did you understand ASD when you first heard about it? It seems like for some people it clicks instantly, and for others not so much.
 
The first time I heard about autism was when I read the text on a graphic about acceptance/inclusion a friend shared on Facebook. I looked it up on Wikipedia but didn't read it very thoroughly, and only read about autism and not Asperger's so I didn't see myself in it. A few months later, when my mom told me she'd figured out I have AS, I looked autism up again and followed a link to the article about AS, and that time I read more and related to it.
 
The first time I ever heard of aspergers was in a Temple Grandin video and when she was describing her childhood I knew without a doubt that I had it. So I would say I got it right away. Then when I found this forum I really got it.
 
My father told me first that he thought I had it. I thought of it as my father's idea, and consequently as something he'd made up.
 
When I was a young boy, I asked my mum what on earth ASD was.
My mum said to me "it means that you think and do things differently to many people you will meet."
I still didn't understand what she meant by that.
I thought, what does mama mean, different? Isn't everyone different?? :P
It took me years to figure out what it was and more importantly, where I fit into this spectrum thingy. :D
 
I did hear about it when I was young I never accually knew what it was until I was 11 when my mum took me to the counselor in town.
 
The first concept of ASD that I had was from the movie, Rain Man. I thought that ASD was seen as an excuse for misunderstanding family members to fly off the handle of their autistic family members.
 
No, not at all. I recognised myself, on reading about a young girl with Aspergers (first time, I ever heard the word), but subconsciously, I felt I had not the right to assume that I had it, because I just am not autistic and because I can read emotions; do not have a monotone voice, I thought I might be on the very edge of it. But after that, it is like I had always known about Aspergers and little by little, I became convinced due to my husband pointing out traits, but had no idea about my make up lol

Funnily enough, I have a deep interest in psychology too, but due to my upbringing, never pursued it. But I am glad, though, because I am not bogged down with all the rules, which do not benefit the client at all.
 
Not at all... I don't know how it is in the US or the UK, but in France we don't say "Asperger's Syndrome". The term we often use is "autiste Asperger" and in my head, it was totally inconceivable that I had autism. In my mind, an autist couldn't have a life like mine. I had a lot of preconceived ideas about autism...
 
Years ago I had a bit of the notion of this stereotype about autism, but I had no clue there was a difference between high and low functioning and whatever there was.

To make matters even "funnier", say 5 years ago I was living so much in my own bubble, I didn't even have a proper clue there was a thing like disability income. But I was so "out of touch" with other people I didn't even consider myself or others different; I just considered everyone to be a person with it's own set of peculiarities.

Only after I got in touch with a woman through a datingsite, who told me she was diagnosed with PDD-NOS I started learning about it all a bit more proactively. Then eventually, I ended up at a therapist and got my diagnosis.

But still; the concept of ASD, call me overly simplistic in my thinking; to me it's just a different way of how your brain processes information, and as it seems society is not built to deal with these people in the general sense (hence, we need all kinds of accomodation and things like disability income). Everyone is different, everyone processes information in their own way; it just happens that people on the spectrum a bit "too divergent" for lack of a better word.
 
I wouldn't say I understand ASD, but I'd say the criteria are recognizable enough. I used to think the symptoms were more severe, a belief which may or may not have been influenced by Rain Man, since I can't remember what was my first real introduction to Autism.
I read a lot about psychology when I was younger, and I did my research into ASD, and for a while I felt my complaints were too minor for me to qualify for a diagnosis, even when my psychologist was convinced it was a great fit.
 
When I first heard about Asperger's, I didn't know it was even connected to Autism. Learning about "the spectrum" really helped me to put things in perspective and I think that's really when I started to grasp it.
 
Only understood it in its more severe forms, where there is a profound disability. Didn't know what was meant by a spectrum, and that there were widely varying degrees if functionality and affect.

"Spectrum" always brought to mind some visual/sensory difference, like all autistics saw things that normal people didn't see. (Which is true of course.) Like their vision was some form of multispectral imaging system capable of detecting electromagnetic frequencies beyond normal vision.
 
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The first time I came across the term Asperger Syndrome was in a book by Augustine Buroughs, ' Running With Scissors" where he briefly describes his, now famous, brother John Elder Robinson as having it. But the description of his brother is not much like me (actually, it reminded me a bit of my own brother, rather than myself), so I didn't really understand it. Then a friend's grandson was being assessed for AS and I started reading about it. It didn't take long to see I fit in somewhere myself, especially once I learned about how it effects females differently than males. And finally I understood my mother.
 
I didn't understand the concept of ASD at first. I had seen autistic people in TV documentaries and heard the voice over person describing how having autism effected them but I hadn't seen or heard anything that I related to. IRL I have family members with aspergers, whose behaviour I had observed but I just assumed that no two people are alike and that they were just a bit more different than most. It wasn't until I heard someone give an example of their experience of a social situation, that I also experience, and link that experience to having aspergers, that I connected with the idea that I might have aspergers.

As I have read experiences that I relate to, on AC, it helps me build a clearer picture of what parts of how I am would be considered to be due to Aspergers and how they differ from the experience of being Neurotypical.

Reading a definition of what Aspergers is and how it effects a person helps me to understand what aspergers is but not what the experience of having aspergers is like. I relate more to a person sharing what the experience is like for them.
 
Not initially. When I first saw the diagnosis I though it meant that I would be treated like a freak and forced to take additional special ed., which I hated. Relatively recently I've come to kind of like my diagnosis.
 
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