• Replies 1 reply
  • Subscribers 5 subscribers
  • Views 418 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

First negative experience

Bumblechunks

Hi all,

My first post!  Wish it was a merrier affair ...

I was diagnosed as autistic a few weeks ago at the age of 41.  My newborn son was born eight days later, so I haven't started to process my diagnosis to any meaningful degree.  However, I was party to a conversation with my sister and my wife yesterday during which I had my first negative post-diagnosis experience.

I'm very specific when it comes to questions I ask of other people, and very literal when it comes to their replies.  This has been something of a humourous-not-humorous running joke for a long time in that I often accuse my wife of failing to answer my questions properly, which I find exasperating.  This dynamic reared its head during the above-noted conversation, and I was told 'That's not autism, that's just you being an ***.'  My wife's words; my sister agreed; a guffaw at my expense ensued.

That sucked; to hear it from them both was really disappointing.  I haven't mentioned my diagnosis to my parents yet (and perhaps I won't) but I know with grim certainty that my mother in particular will find a way to rationalise it as an error, anomaly or discount it in some other way.

Does anybody have any experience in dealing with this dynamic?  How did you manage it?  I'd hoped that family could be counted upon as 'in the bag' when it came to post-diagnosis support and understanding, but perhaps that was naive.

Thanks in advance for any help or insight.

Ciao!

Parents

  • I have quite a similar dynamic with my wife (who is also diagnosed). I like to think of it as different wave lengths that we operate on. 

    I also have to remind myself that as frustrated as I get with her over certain things she likely does the same with me so is entitled to blow off a bit of steam. Especially when she will say things spur of the moment that I take offence to. If I later question her on it she will admit it was a poor choice of words but she meant no harm by it. 

    With regards to having your family support you, I'm not sure. My family accept my diagnosis but I can tell they don't really understand it, and with my son's diagnosis they try to justify his traits or write things off as just quirky. I think you have to accept that a lot of people don't understand autism, or worse, think they do because because they watch a program on it... and that people most likely won't set out to hurt you or disproof your diagnosis but be confused by it and try to rationalise it so they can process it themselves. This is especially true with parents who think you are effectively saying "you missed this huge part of me, you failed as a parent".

    Sorry, a bit of waffle as I'm in a similar boat and trying to figure it out myself too!

Reply

  • I have quite a similar dynamic with my wife (who is also diagnosed). I like to think of it as different wave lengths that we operate on. 

    I also have to remind myself that as frustrated as I get with her over certain things she likely does the same with me so is entitled to blow off a bit of steam. Especially when she will say things spur of the moment that I take offence to. If I later question her on it she will admit it was a poor choice of words but she meant no harm by it. 

    With regards to having your family support you, I'm not sure. My family accept my diagnosis but I can tell they don't really understand it, and with my son's diagnosis they try to justify his traits or write things off as just quirky. I think you have to accept that a lot of people don't understand autism, or worse, think they do because because they watch a program on it... and that people most likely won't set out to hurt you or disproof your diagnosis but be confused by it and try to rationalise it so they can process it themselves. This is especially true with parents who think you are effectively saying "you missed this huge part of me, you failed as a parent".

    Sorry, a bit of waffle as I'm in a similar boat and trying to figure it out myself too!

Children
No Data