Tired of the Asperger Stigma
Lets take a moment and look at those of us who have Aspergers, Some of us live daily lives just fine,some like to pretend they dont have it and others are trying to find a way to fit in and deal with this diagnoses still.
Needless to say there is one thing a good chunk of us know about and its one thing im tired of seeing and hearing from some “Normal” people. In society some people view us as a stigma, they look at us and they see some one like them,but then when we or some one we know tells said person that we have aspergers, they instantly change there tune and start to treat you harshly.
Probably not at first,but they slowly start to say and do things that we can read/pick up on with out them realizing it. Now are we a stigma,no, we are truly not. We who have aspergers are highly intelligent and some times way to damn smart for our own good.
So what are these stigmas I am talking about.
They are what some “Normal” People think of us and that is as follows:
Mentaly/physically Retarded
Last, not deserving of friendship and or love
These are the things im tired of people thinking and saying. Are we Monsters, NO we are not, Are we Retarded, NO again we are not, Are we Violent, Again NO, Are we Incompetent, NO and do we deserve Love and Friendship, YES!
That last one, I wont go into details about that one until later in the post.
Those of us who do have aspergers live day to day just wanting to be treated like everyone else and not judged for our situation. Some of us want to fall in love,have a family,career and be able to go to school and just above all just live normal lives with out all of these stupid stigmas following us around.
So how does one go about living and knowing that there are all these stigmas about us,well its simple, we try to ignore them and live the best we can, Will there be days when we just cant take it and get tired of people like this, well sure,but at the end of the day, you did nothing wrong and was made to be an even stronger person thanks to having experiencing something like this from people who think lowly of those not like them.
The below text will be about my experiences, Cause I feel like I should throw mine in here as a way to show that no one is alone in this and that we are stronger and better than people who do things like this.
How do I know of these stigmas, well lets put it this way. I’ve had to deal with them for about 5 years now and I am now 26 years of age. Why am I still dealing with them at this age. Its simple, its called some “Normal” People dont want to try to understand us, the simplest word I can think up is Ignorant.
For the last 5 years I have had to deal with ignorant people who are my age, a year older than me,a year younger than me and a mother in her 50s.
In the past 5 years I had to deal with a now ex friend by telling her off, as she told me I was mentally retarded and didnt/shouldnt know a damn thing about being pregnant. Needless to say I dropped her fast after this attitude from her.
A few years after that I went through a rather bad divorce,the main reason is my now ex didnt want to be with any one with Aspergers, the main reason he left me was because of my aspergers and how I can get severe stress/anxiety attacks that turn into fits and he in turn would just walk out of the house on me when I had them as he couldnt stand to be near me, the one thing he said to me that still sticks to my mind,but I know is not true is that he told me, He never invited anyone over cause they all thought I was annoying and didnt like me. That was the hardest thing to get over and my councilor at the time helped me and helped me to see i was not at fault for that divorce.
Fast forward or rewind to May of 2014 to August of 2015
I had known this person online for 10 years, for those 10 years we got along great,but then when I started to vent about my divorce with her and one other person on skype, they both got annoyed and agitated with me and so she introduced me to a guy friend of hers cause I also had that mind set no guy or something wouldnt/didnt like me,but then the one she introduced me to who I was trying not to talk to ,but then did cause the others were ignoring him. well to put it simple, Me and him had a Instant connection and from there we hit it off rather well and got along fantastically. She didnt like this as a matter of fact and once we started going out she went from a good friend to a hellish friend who become instantly two faced. Keep in mind I have an account on another site and on that site I had a shop where I would edit and color up digital pets for fake currency. Now keeping that in mind, she would verbally harass him every night she saw him in person about how lazy I was and how she rather take over as she could do a better job of running it and how I always had excuses and never got anything done. well I did get things done and im a super slow person when it comes to online work for fake currency,but then again art in general can take days to weeks to months to do. This went on for 6 months and he was getting rather tired and annoyed by her doing this cause he fully understood my point of view on things and thinks that site shes obsessed with is stupid and pointless. So moving on to January 2015 my then boyfriend asked me to marry him so he is my fiance now and lets just say she didnt take to kindly to this and wasnt excited for us like she wanted everyone to believe.
(Yes I will point out this last one is going to be long as I got the most stigmas from her, than I have ever gotten from anyone)
Anyways from there she invited me to go to Katsucon feb 2015, I was one of the volunteers for merchant hall staff and mind you this was my very first anime convention. The whole time at that Con my fiance and I were mostly stuck at the table sitting there mostly to help those who came up to us to ask things,but really the only thing I could really give anyone an answer on was where the bathrooms were as none of the other staff members nor the head merchant hall staff member who invited me to go, told me what the hell I was suppose to do and so I sat confused and not knowing what to do and at the same time I was super irritable during that whole convention as I was running off 2 hours of sleep for 3 days and was expected to go to bed “early” and wake up at like 6am to work the table that we got stuck at all day long, I did have fits while I was there and I had one of my major fits one night and of course my fiance just held me that time, he knew I was frustrated,tired as all hell,not feeling good and just mentally not there. He also knew I had been having dizzy spells from lack of sleep and when ever we needed to get into the room there was no one around to get the room key card from so I had to suck it up for hours on end and drink coffee and tea lattes to help me out and that was a terrible idea, they didnt really work to wake me up anyways..I would still be severely tired after drinking them. There was one day we also missed getting lunch and dinner the next night cause the other staff took off and didnt come back to take over.
Fast forward to a week after I left Maryland from visiting my fiance, he came down in january and I went back with him,so as to clear up confusion.
a week or so after I leave he tells me that she is at it again, how she is now going up to him and verbally telling him how I dont deserve him, how my divorce was my fault and then say something negative about my Aspergers side and eventually went on to say how I was not welcomed back to katsucon because of my behavior and how the rest of the staff thought I was being rude and agreed I was not welcomed back as staff again,but that he was welcomed to be staff again if he felt like it. This in turn ticked him and he told me all of the things she kept bad mouthing me to him and eventually she did find out one day cause he told her. She was expecting him to not tell me cause she thinks that you dont tell your other half anything when it comes to friends bad mouthing them in relationships. To be honest here that is not how relationships work and me and him are fully 100% honest with each other. This went on for months and he would continue to tell me every time if things were said about me from her. At this point we were also trying to get a pair of my pants back from her, as her mother apparently picked them up thinking they were her sisters jacket back in the hotel room at the convention. So of course that didnt help matters as she kept refusing or coming up with excuses as to why she wouldnt give them back,I wasnt that concerned if I didnt get them back,but I dont have much money and cant buy clothes often so it would of been nice to of had them back as they were my more comfortable pair.
Its now late July early August and he has flown back down to see me for about 2 weeks. During this time me and him were having a good time spending what little time we had together,but then things went south from there as more stuff was brought up and I ended up getting fed up with all this bad mouthing and trash talking of me,cause at this point she had dragged in one other person and they were both know trying to get him to leave me. She had dragged one other person into this mess she created a few weeks before he flew down. So I had one of my closer friends who had lived with me and my ex previously and she tried to explain how she needed to knock it off and stop telling people my divorce was my fault and explained how my first marriage really was,but she in the end took it as a threat and lies and thought I had sent it. She eventually did something else thats mostly related to that site,She deleted work I needed to get out for users on that site and that in the end set me off. I was fed up,tired and just done with this mess. my fiance and I didnt need this and I cant have stress in my life like this. So in a very long harsh truthful post on that site, I called her out on everything and yes it made me look like the bad guy,but how else is one to stand up to a bully. I told her to knock it off and to stop texting and sending him messages cause my fiance was done hearing it. Once again she took it as a threat and reported my friend and I and then got her mother involved. Her mother who I guess is in her early 50′s..wasn’t/Isn’t a very nice person, She wanted to throw me in jail for slander,lies and harassment. She even thought I was violent, They also started to tell everyone how I was giving out there names and Real Life address to people,to which I dont know there addresses and I would never do that. They even went as far as to have some one spy on my facebook and skype posts as well has that other sites posts I made and then some how had some one she knew track mine and my friends ip addresses just so they could blame me some more. Her mother also sent my fiance nasty messages saying how I am a Monster,a failure as an artist and will blame my failure on him and how I was a threat cause of how violent I am and then with out saying it,but saying it in a way. she also told him I was mentally retarded and was using the fact I had aspergers as a crutch and a way to gain sympathy from people at the convention. What they dont know is, is that I told people in the staff hotel room cause I wanted them to be understanding so in case I had a fit. Those fits are beyond embarrassing for me and I feel like crap after I have them in public..Through all of this her daughter was going around on that site through skype,spreading as many lies as she possibly could. She was going around telling everyone she knew who didnt even know me, that I was threatening her,harrasing her and doing all of this over a pair of pants. She kept at this for weeks and made her self out to be a saint on that site,to which users still think she is sadly. Weeks go by and eventually my fiance and his mother and her mother and her all meet up and words are exchanged. My fiance mostly said things just to get them shut up and knock it off,cause they wouldnt listen to reason and wouldnt stop this mess they created,so he did what he thought best, just agree with them to shut them up even though he really wasnt agreeing with them. In the end she tried one more time to get him to leave me by saying how there was a girl at the Con who was interested in him and of course he and I both agreed it was a yet another lie she created and another failed attempt and from that day he hasnt talked or hung out with her anymore and so far things have been quiet.
These have been my experiences with how people have treated me knowing I have aspergers, you can take it as one giant rant if you want,but I was mostly typing up my experiences to show that we all experience these stigmas and what we do with them is up to us, I on the one hand will continue to stand against people like this and work at my art more and more. I am a Photographer and I like to think semi successful,but for now I have no art sales since my town canceled the art walk we had once a month.
There is nothing to be ashamed of for those of us who do have apsergers, we are all smart fantastic people who can do great things, I like to think of having it as not as a curse,but as a gift for it makes me who I am, I live my days not thinking about having it cause I dont let it hold me back, I just live my life acting as much as a normal person as i can,but what is normal anyways.
So I suppose just keep in mind there is nothing wrong with being some one who has aspergers, will there be days that are hard, well yes.cause thats life. Just think about it this way, those who want to treat us harshly dont realize just how strong we really are as a person and how much we have to deal with. We as individuals will go on to do great things.
