How to help my friend to learn about being an aspie

[Fel]

So I have a close friend who is an "aspie" his family told me this in hushed tones before I met him (I was friends with his family first) he is a good friend of mine now and tends to come round once a week (and has been for about four years) I took the time to find out as much as possible about asbergers long ago, reading threads on sites like this one, to better understand him. Last year, I decided to fess up to him that I knew, as it became apparent that he would never admit it. He always spoke of how alone he felt at home, and how he can't relate to his family, I wanted to Help him understand why. Anyway, he said he doesn't want to be different and is happy to pretend not to be, that he is ashamed of it. He never brought it up again.
So last week he said to me "you know what I just realised? I have trouble being social with people" and I nearly fell off my chair. He doesn't seem to know what asbergers is! I spoke to his mum and she said when he was diagnosed he was to young to understand, and now he won't talk about it. Should I talk to him about it anymore or will he eventually start to ask questions when he's older, he's 21. What's your story about learning about this?

 

[xrobertxdavisx]

You should get them to watch some documentarys and youtube channels about it to see others with it who cope and how. Currently I enjoy Young, Autistic & Stagestruck and the film Adam.. I enjoy watching cus i relate to them and understand and stuff but yeh youtube has documentarys about it also. Also he is welcome here

 

[Spinning Compass]

If he is ashamed of it, it will be a real battle to get him to admit to having Asperger's. The fact that his mom mentioned it to you in hushed tones tells me all is not well in that household. Kids don't self-stigmatize out of the blue. Something must have gone on or is going on that has taught him that this is not a good thing. I can relate to that all too well. While my parents didn't "mean to" stigmatize me, they made it very clear in many many ways that my differences were bad, were not to be spoken of, and were to be hidden as much as possible. To this day I find it very difficult to relate to other Aspies because being around them will jeopardize my "normal" status.

 

[142857]

I saw a documentary on TV when I was a teenager, about kids who were profoundly autistic (non verbal, etc), and it really struck a cord with me. I said to my mother how they reminded me of myself when I was a little kid and maybe I was mildly autistic. My mother was horrified at the idea so I never mentioned it again - in fact I never considered it again for almost another 30 years. It can be pretty difficult for some parents to accept that there is something "wrong" with their child, so they may just ignore it and hope that it goes away. And this attitude has to influence the way that the aspie child feels about him/herself.

Your friend doesn't need to learn anything about having Aspergers. He has had it all his life. He just needs to understand that there is a neurological reason why he is the way that he is, and that he isn't a failure because of it.