When seeking help for your relationship, identifying what’s wrong seems like the obvious first step. This crucial first step ends up shooting ourselves in the foot. Neither partner is clearly seeing the other and each one erroneously perceives the other’s behaviors as the issue. This usually leads to seeking out a diagnosis that “proves” one or the other is indeed the root of the issue. We don’t intend to do that, often, we are just seeking for answers to the issues we face. But the problem is, you will never make true progress when convincing the other person their sky is purple.
The Problem With Seeking an Unwanted Diagnosis
The biggest issue with a diagnosis is that it comes in two parts; a label and the symptoms. This is the part that can make it difficult when it’s unwanted. If you are personally seeking a diagnosis, it can bring relief and understanding. If someone is pushing it on you because it’s the supposed answer to all the problems in the relationship- well that can be (and usually is) an issue. It’s because accepting the diagnosis isn’t just about accepting the symptoms, it means accepting the label.
For many, the label inherently means that they are the abnormal one, the one in the wrong. This is almost impossible to accept as the person receiving the unwanted diagnosis. For them to accept it, it means that they need to deny their personal lived experience, the lived experience that proves to them every day that THEY are NOT the source of the problem. They know firsthand they are doing their best, with basic deductive reasoning, their brain is actually telling them that YOU must be the problem.
How I Was So Wrong
Our journey of seeking a diagnosis wasn’t unwanted at first. My husband was right there with me. He took a test for Aspergers (the correct term at the time) and told me, “I think I aced that test”. We then began the journey of seeking an official diagnosis. It was a relief to us both to discover the “root” of what had been plaguing my husband. It’s like thinking you are cage-fighting a “monster” in the dark, to having the lights switched on and seeing it wasn’t a monster, it was a cat! The next step for me was to learn how to live with this “cat”.
I began my journey of learning, I made accommodations, I adjusted my expectations, I shifted my perspective. And there was a honeymoon stage. It also led to me being able to identify our youngest son at the time and begin assisting him in processing. However, over time, I began to get frustrated with his spectrum behaviors, how was he STILL doing the same thing as before? It didn’t seem like he was learning anything or TRYING to improve. I felt like I was doing all the heavy lifting, all the accommodations. The boundaries he would place seemed like they were just “luxuries” (I would think “Come on, who needs 3 days to answer the question ‘can the boys sleep over at grandmas?’”).
I accommodated them for a long time. We couldn’t seem to have any kind of “normal” life. No last-minute schedule changes, no grace for the kids when they acted like kids, no ability to connect with me emotionally. Anytime I went to him for support, it turned into him losing his mind over the issue and me calming him down. It was horrible. So I would try to help him see that he was wrong here, and “See, this diagnosis of yours means I am the right one and you are the wrong one… “ I may not have said it in those exact words, but that’s how it came off. The diagnosis was the obstacle to my happiness and his “unwillingness” (what I perceived then) to change was the source of our issues.
This invalidated his perspective. He felt he was being blamed for everything. In defense, he would point out where I was negatively affecting the relationship, and I perceived that he had no accountability and that he was blameshifting to me. When he would list the issues they seemed invisible to me. “You don’t respect me, you don’t listen, you try to wear the pants in the family.” Things that sounded so crazy to me.
The examples he gave of disrespect did NOT align with my perception of respect. To him, disrespect looked like me not agreeing with him, I couldn’t seem to have an individual thought of my own without disrespecting him. Wearing the pants looked like me trying to make decisions for the family, like letting the kids go on the audition they just got, or accepting a cake order when we desperately needed the money. I felt like the house was on “fire” and I grabbed a metaphorical hose. I wasn’t trying to take his job, I was just trying to “put the fire out”.
This is why the world sided with me. As much as I felt gaslit in the relationship, I had a general population on my side to reorient me and affirm I wasn’t the “crazy” one. With every push for him to change, with the “proof” that it’s HIM that needed to change firmly in my back pocket (the diagnosis), he became more and more resistant to the once welcomed diagnosis. With each argument and fight we had, I became more and more convinced this wasn’t just Autism, he had to be a narcissist too!
It got so bad that he rescinded his diagnosis and sought a new one, one he felt that I couldn’t interfere with. He felt I had been too involved in the first one and that made it faulty. He was determined to clear his name of being the source of the problem in the relationship. I didn’t think I had tampered with anything, I knew I just helped clarify what they were asking or what he was meaning to say. I feared they would misunderstand his answers or that he would misunderstand the question. I feared there would be misunderstandings of some kind that would alter the process and give an incorrect diagnosis.
That diagnosis came back even worse than the first, Paranoid Schizophrenia. We both knew that wasn’t true, we could see where his psychiatrist misunderstood some of his answers. Frustrated and feeling depleted he resolved himself to the conclusion that all doctors are idiots and don’t know anything. He had lost complete faith in the mental health system. All of these things were just confusing surface symptoms that masked the true issue plaguing our relationship.
This whole thing felt like a mess and I was no closer to getting the relief for my soul that I craved. I didn't know it at the time, but I was wrong. He wasn't the source of our problems, the Aspergers wasn't the source of the problems, I didn't need to "fix" or convince him to believe anything to fix our marriage. But something did need to get resolved.
The Biggest Obstacle When Seeking Help
At BTG we don’t need to use diagnosis, labels, point fingers, or blame to get to the good parts (the relief). We don't need to sit and convince someone they have something BEFORE we make progress. (We don’t need to convince them their sky is red). This dynamic sets us up to be powerless in changing our lives, WAITING for others before we can relieve ourselves of the misery we find ourselves in...
BTG not only focuses on empowering you to take charge of your happiness first, but we firmly believe that no one needs to be told they are wrong to learn how to understand their loved ones. There is a “No Arm Twisting” rule here at BTG. This takes out the biggest obstacle for those trying to improve their relationships. Blame. We inadvertently thought we had to identify who was to blame for our happiness. We're happy to tell you, it’s never been about who (it's not your loved one). It's about what has been the source of your unhappiness and confusion...
We learned a completely new way to be able to identify the issues without placing blame at all. In fact, we ditched diagnoses completely and have come up with new terms that simply describe your processing style. I had no idea how damaging it had become that I had accidentally weaponized a diagnosis that once offered him peace. It became a weapon of proof that he was the one to blame in our relationship. When in fact this is not true.
It is our ignorance of the way we all process. The true “enemy" has been invisible all this time. When we stop pointing fingers at the ones we love, this creates a “cease fire”. We put down our defenses and it allows us to come together to make real discoveries, real change, real progress, and real fast.
Stop the Madness
If you have a loved one refusing a diagnosis, validate them immediately. Tell them they are right, they are NOT Autistic, Aspergers, AuDHD, ADHD, or whatever label they’re resisting. This is the absolute truth and you can genuinely validate them, and this does NOT mean you have to sacrifice your ability to get help for the relationship. The first crucial step is to validate that their sky is indeed blue. Again, this does not mean you have to deny your reality to accept theirs. The truth that allows you to say this genuinely is this: They are simply manually processing. You can be manually processing and not be considered any of those labels.
Read "Part 2: No Diagnosis, No Labels, No Problem: How BTG Gets Rid Of the Biggest Obstacle When Seeking Help for Your Relationships" to see how BTG helps get you the relationship you want without a diagnosis or unintentionally blaming your partner for the problems in your relationship.
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