Stereotypical assumptions people have had about your AS?

[Hurting89]

Here's a few "memories":

From a teachers aid back in 2007: "You know you have to bathe right? People with Asperger's forget to bathe and you'll have to remember if you want to fit in better in society"- ridiculous.

From an aspergers worker in 2006 "if you say you can read facial expressions what Am I thinking right now? I know you can't read them"

From a counsellor in 2014 "You're brilliant! You're brilliant! I bet you have so many talents"
Me: "no I don't have any kind of special ability"

Her: "wait.. So you really don't have any ability in mathematics, science or art? Really? Are you sure! - but you do have Asperger's don't you?"

 

[King_Oni]

I'll preface by saying this is merely about MY manifestion of AS.

But the times I've talked to professionals who assumed that because I have AS, I must be very structured and like rigid routines... not every aspie likes structure, much less likes "clear cut" structure.

 

[Hurting89]

^ oh yes, I forgot about the "rigid, anal retentive" stereotype too.. I think even medical professionals presume a person must have every trait and stereotypical behavior of Asperger's.

 

[Ylva]

"It must ne okay to address her in a voice I normally reserve for young children." This goes for both exaggeratedly friendly and 'strict'.

 

[Suzanne]

To be fair, I did quite a bit of stereotyping on myself! When I first heard about aspergers, I thought: oh I must be on the very beginning of it, because I can easily read people's faces ( too well) and I do not have a monotone voice or bland expression.

Come a long way since then.

For me it is rather the opposite: People CANNOT believe I have aspergers and I get: there is no way you are autistic; you look so normal and oh I am shy and this and that, which has the habit of totally throwing me off balance, that now, I really only say it if I deem it is necessary.

One friend just accepts I am. The other said she had never heard of it and would do some research on it; I gave her some links.

It is my husband who is the hard work. He assumes that it is some kind of illness and surely if I know what is wrong, I can change it? But little by little, I think he is appreciating that something is going on.

 

[Slithytoves]

The only stereotype I've run into within my own social circles since my diagnosis relates to over-attribution. People now assume every thought I have or thing I do that isn't mainstream is because I have Asperger's.

 

[DogwoodTree]

The only stereotype I've run into within my own social circles since my diagnosis relates to over-attribution. People now assume every thought I have or thing I do that isn't mainstream is because I have Asperger's.

That is exactly why I haven't told my family (beyond my DH). It's hard enough disagreeing with them on anything now as it is. If they could write off every errant opinion of mine as being due to AS, I feel like I would lose all sense of value and influence in my own family.

 

[Spiller]

How about the opposite for those of us not yet diagnosed?

Councellor 2013 - "You dress nicely, no odd colours or style.."
I've been shown one pattern of clothing, jeans and t-shirts, which I wear everywhere.

CBT therapist 2014 - "You can't have Aspergers because you can make eye contact."
I spent 20 years practicing all the usual coping strategies on customers - looking at the nose, eyebrows and lids, de-focusing my eyes, etc.

Councellor now - "I'm not qualified to diagnose, but you feel emotion so you can't.." and "You don't twitch or stim, so you can't.."
Once you've met one person with Autism, you've met one person with Autism!
Also, I've practiced keeping my stims under control in public for 30 odd years for fear of ridicule.

My friend - "You can't say you have no friends, you've got me!"
How many friends have you got? What does that word even mean?

 

[Slithytoves]

That is exactly why I haven't told my family (beyond my DH). It's hard enough disagreeing with them on anything now as it is. If they could write off every errant opinion of mine as being due to AS, I feel like I would lose all sense of value and influence in my own family.

I was worried about it having those same negative effects. I'm an oddball in my family, but we're close and we do value each other's opinions. So yes, they tend to attribute a lot of what I think, do and say to my Asperger's, but luckily that doesn't mean they dismiss me. They just feel like they know where my unusual perspectives are coming from. For the most part they're probably right. I'm just a little tired of hearing, "That (thought/opinion/action) must be because of your Asperger's."

If my family didn't have so much respect for me, I doubt I would've told them about my diagnosis. Then I'd be screwed. My opinions would just cease to count. I know I'm lucky that's not the case and feel real empathy for people who lose credibility after disclosing an ASD.

 

[Progster]

Unfortunately when people hear "Asperger's" they tend to imagine a fictional media person like Sheldon Cooper, and then compare you to that person... or they think of Rain Man. Not everyone is Rain Man or Sheldon Cooper, though we may share some traits. Every autistic person is different - it's called a spectrum for a reason - but people don't realise this.

I can't say I have any such personal experiences, apart from a psychologist saying that I "must be high functioning" based on 5 minutes of talking to her. I learnt about AS before my family members did, and they researched it on the internet to learn about it, so there was a clean slate - no preconceived opinions or media images to cloud their judgement, and I didn't get such comments from them.

 

[Ylva]

Councellor now - "I'm not qualified to diagnose, but you feel emotion so you can't.." and "You don't twitch or stim, so you can't.."

Well, they were right about not being qualified.

I'll admit I deliberately broke eye contact more often than necessary. I have all the years of practise staring at someone else's eyes staring at mine to manage a conversation while doing so, and to a degree enough to not really "care", the same way Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia doesn't "care" about pain. In the case of getting a diagnosis, however, I 1) wanted to get more depth into the conversation and analysis than I'd have managed under the Staring, and 2) I hoped to God she was too professional to get all "oh, you're not looking at my eyes, that means you're lying" on me. Luckily she was.

Honestly, people who say that remind me of elementary school children clapping their hands in front of my face and triumphantly yelling, "You blinked! That means you're scared of your mom!"

 

[AsheSkyler]

The only ones I've really been open with is my very immediate family and my husband. I think I laid on with the stereotypes heavier than they did. I had a lot of fun with it too. I had the robot joke going long before finding out for sure I was on the spectrum. When I was low on brainpower, having trouble formulating a reply or doing my homework, and just generally blanking out, me or my mom or sis would starting muttering "processing" and sometimes joke about how I needed a little LCD screen to have the little loading dots. And then I'd get so tickled I really couldn't finish what I was working on!