why tell? why not tell?

[Guest guest]

I like to analize things a bit before I decide. I like to look at

things from all angles. I list all the poistives and negatives of

each choice. I include the logical parts, how things make me feel.

I am also working on paying attention to my inner voices, that means

putting down all my thoughts and feelings even if they don't make

sense. For years I would try to rationalize away or ignore all the

thoughts and feelings I had that didn't seem to make sense. Now I

realize that many of those thoughts and feelings actually make

perfect sense now that I realize that my brain is wired completely

different from normal people and I don't really experience the world

the same as other people. So even the parts of me I don't fully

understand are valid.

Also involved is evaluating the unknowns. What am I risking with

each choice? I try to use my knowledge of people and situations

(admittedly not my strong area) to try to see what the most likely

outcomes would be.

Risk is a big thing for me. I am pretty risk adversive. And

basically, telling people is a risk. Will the people react

positively or negatively? I have also ran into problems before

about only telling some people a secret. To simplify a really

confusing situation, my previously good relationship with a co-

worker went sour when she found out I had told other people

some 'secret' information about the reorg that I had not told her.

So I don't really know if it is an option to just tell some family

members and not others.

A brief background on my birth family situation. My birth family is

very aspie. My mom, brother (only sibling) and father all show

fairly strong aspie traits. Many relatives on my mothers side show

aspie traits as well. I don't see my dad's family much, so I

couldn't say about them. I am not sure if my mom and other

relatives realize how different they are from the norm or not. My

mom and her family all work very, very hard at pretending to be

normal, although it is intirely possible that they do not think of

themselves as normal rather than pretending to be normal. As an

adult looking back I realize that there is a lot of hiding and

double standards going on. It strikes me as unusual that at no

point did my mom or any family member say anything like " I know how

you feel, this was hard for me too. " And yet I am thinking it must

have been hard for them. Instead I went through most of my life

thinking why do I have problems no one else does. I remember the

hassle my brother got for being a picky eater, and yet adults who

were picky eaters were accommodated without a hassle. There was a

pretty strong push to get me to act acceptable. I really felt like

it was more important to my mom for me to be acceptable than for me

to be comfortable or happy. Now that I know about AS, I think that

the big crime I had was not being AS, but not being able (or in

their eyes, not being willing) to hide my AS sufficently. I may be

much further on the AS spectrum than my mom and family, after all my

dad avoids all social situations except major holidays and seems to

go days without talking. On the positive side, there seems to be

some indications that they are becoming more accepting of my

eccentricities. Anyways, risk wise I don't think it would go over

too well, especially since it would force many family members to

accept their own aspieness. Another factor is that becase I don't

have a dx, it would be easy for people to dismiss, if they did not

want to accept it.

My husband and daughter both show some signs of aspieness, though

probably not as high on the scale as me. They seem pretty well

adjusted. My daughter has friends, a boy friend and does reasonably

well in school. Hard to tell though. After all, could I tell the

difference between someone with minor symptoms who made no attempt

to hide them and some one with major symptoms who tried very hard to

hide them? We have some friends we play D & D with that show some

signs of being aspie as well. All of these people accept me for who

I am, without any explainations of my quirks. I am the way I am and

that is enough for them. I do not hide my quirks from them. I am

myself with them. Sometimes with my husband I talk about how my

mind seems to work differently than most people's. To tell them

about AS would be to mention traits that they also have as well. I

do not wish to force any of them to confront their apsieness. This

has been a hard process for me and I am a very introspective person

who has been searching for answers to why I am so different. For

those that seem to accept themselves as they are, quirks and all, it

is perhaps better if I let them continue on.

Ilah