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every april someone "in the know" feels the need to tell me that it's autism awareness month. while i think it's neat that we have a whole month to make the nation aware of us, i don't really understand what the purpose of it is. i mean, i've spent my whole life hiding the fact that i have asperger's, and it wasn't until recent years that i've actually been okay with it enough to share that fact, and i still sometimes feel weird about it. case in point:
while we were in florida, there was a little family drama. joey's dad's siblings were totally shutting out his wife. his wife is bipolar I and has her own way of dealing with things. she wasn't at his bedside 24/7 because frannkly, that's morbid, and she'd been taking care of him for the past years that he'd been declining. she would go home to lay down after her meds kicked in, take care of shit around the house and just do whatever she needed to do to function. his siblings were like "you know, she really NEEDS to be here" and were being awful to her, pretending like she didn't exist. when we all gathered to tell dad our last words everyone was hugging and crying, but no one was hugging michelle (joey's dad's wife). so we did.
eventually, we got sick of watching everyone treat her like crap, and joey sat down the most influential sibling to try to explain how michelle was acting, and that people deal with things differently. now, joey's family ADORES the crap out of me, i can do no wrong. so joey was trying to explain that michelle is "sick" (for lack of a better term) and has to deal with things a certain way and stay in certain patterns just to deal. he told her that she's bipolar and has severe anxiety, and aunt kathy (who he was talking to) was shocked that a mentally ill person was with her brother. so joey pulls out his ace in the hole and says: "you know kym is bipolar too don't you? and she's autistic!" to which aunt kathy is flabbergasted and said something like "oh but she does so well!"
ever since that conversation aunt kathy has treated me different. it's a subtle difference, but i notice it. she seems to talk slower around me and has begun saying "bless your little heart!" and things of that nature. it's a subtle difference, but i catch it even tho joey doesn't. i guess this is where autism awareness month should come in handy, but i know that aunt kathy will always think of me as slow because that's what people think autism is most the time. and this is why i used to hide the fact for my whole stinkin' life.
but - the family started treating michelle as part of it, so i can handle being spoken to as a retard to make sure michelle isn't alienated.
aaaand joey needs the computer. god i can't wait till he gets a job, if he ever does.
while we were in florida, there was a little family drama. joey's dad's siblings were totally shutting out his wife. his wife is bipolar I and has her own way of dealing with things. she wasn't at his bedside 24/7 because frannkly, that's morbid, and she'd been taking care of him for the past years that he'd been declining. she would go home to lay down after her meds kicked in, take care of shit around the house and just do whatever she needed to do to function. his siblings were like "you know, she really NEEDS to be here" and were being awful to her, pretending like she didn't exist. when we all gathered to tell dad our last words everyone was hugging and crying, but no one was hugging michelle (joey's dad's wife). so we did.
eventually, we got sick of watching everyone treat her like crap, and joey sat down the most influential sibling to try to explain how michelle was acting, and that people deal with things differently. now, joey's family ADORES the crap out of me, i can do no wrong. so joey was trying to explain that michelle is "sick" (for lack of a better term) and has to deal with things a certain way and stay in certain patterns just to deal. he told her that she's bipolar and has severe anxiety, and aunt kathy (who he was talking to) was shocked that a mentally ill person was with her brother. so joey pulls out his ace in the hole and says: "you know kym is bipolar too don't you? and she's autistic!" to which aunt kathy is flabbergasted and said something like "oh but she does so well!"
ever since that conversation aunt kathy has treated me different. it's a subtle difference, but i notice it. she seems to talk slower around me and has begun saying "bless your little heart!" and things of that nature. it's a subtle difference, but i catch it even tho joey doesn't. i guess this is where autism awareness month should come in handy, but i know that aunt kathy will always think of me as slow because that's what people think autism is most the time. and this is why i used to hide the fact for my whole stinkin' life.
but - the family started treating michelle as part of it, so i can handle being spoken to as a retard to make sure michelle isn't alienated.
aaaand joey needs the computer. god i can't wait till he gets a job, if he ever does.
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Strange that she is treating you differently because of it though. You haven't changed- only the way they look at you. But if you keep being the person they like, I'm sure it will be forgotten and they will go back to normal. As much as family and in-laws ever are :)
From:
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From:
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As for the autism, I've been very surprised to learn that some versions of autism are surprisingly identical to the typical attributes of many successful IT people. For example Bill Gates's storied behavior has many traits of autism.