Are you very high-functioning?

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Very similar but not married.

I feel like I've learned to blather on well, say all the right things at the office, and I can make a broader swath of acquaintances than I could years ago. It still doesn't make me less weird though, and I really think sometimes the lack of fundamental conformity is a bigger gap than social skills in the raw.

High functioning enough that I feel dumb around normal people only to realize later I was misunderstanding them because of their lower functioning ways of thinking, otherwise I tend to be several steps ahead of people when it comes to ideas and concepts. Although when it comes to social ques and interactions I do seem to be about as dumb as a rock until I learn the social skills that others seems to be born with.

^^ That's another hard one too. I've had enough hard life experience to know that beating on myself when I don't fit in is the best policy (a habit I'm trying to break) both when I'm functioning above the crowd and when I'm functioning below or outside it.

Absolutely not, even when I was quite successful it took all the effort I had to just about stay afloat and juggle too many dishes and they eventually shattered one after the other in quick succession, only realized years later it was like balancing on a tightrope and spinning dishes at the same time.

I've really enjoyed this thread.

I sometimes seem to be a social expert and have expert executive function...then the next day I'm resenting anyone for saying "good morning" to me and staring into space at my office. It's a bit like Flowers For Algernon.

I have taken learning social skills as a special interest, so it's similar to how my abilities in a foreign language work: when I'm stressed, I'm not as good at French. It's the same for arithmetic. So it seems social skills are just that: skills.

If I stay away from people for a while, I'm very happy, but then my skills atrophy. Like, if I don't practice a musical instrument for a while then try to play it. My authentic voice is not...NT friendly. I speak in weird poetry and big words. It's not the current idiom, cadence, everything.

Of course, social skills are different from all that, because of the huge amount of focus they take to get right. I need to rest alone and quietly for at least as much time as I'm in a conversation, possibly more. I get dizzy and my vision gets strange (lights, colors) after particularly difficult conversations.

And if I don't rest enough (never sure what counts as "rest" and how much is "enough") I WILL shut down. But usually my body just hijacks my next sleep, and I don't wake up until 10,11,12 hours or whatever. A few times, two days!

But successful job, marriage, etc. I'm the highly verbal, able to be charming and thoughtful -- and also rebellious and hard to work with -- kind of aspie. The one who no one thinks could be autistic but everyone thinks is weird, blunt, and rule-focused. As a result, some people immediately take to me and others can't stand me. I don't seem to have much control over it, which drives me crazy.

I've decided I am just going to be me. I want to be polite, but I don't really understand the rules. So I practice empathy (also a skill) and try to believe in the best in everyone. But I'm going to be myself.

I'm also basically out at work now, and I want to be an open advocate for us. I am tired of having to bend to their unwritten rules.

I've spent all my damn life trying to understand them and accommodate them. They need to understand us and accommodate us, too.

teachers and professors used to tell me i had a bright future ahead of me. my therapist used to tell me that i was eligible for government benefits. they were both mistaken. sums it up

I'm considered high functioning in the sense I have "above average intelligence" and "no intellectual impairment" but I'd say I'm low functioning in the same way a depressed person might be low functioning, or someone who has other problems and it affects how they live.

Functioning labels don't always make perfect sense, a non-autistic person could be considered low-functioning. People still have the idea of low functioning and high functioning autism as being two distinct conditions.

I'm pretty high-functioning for a Wolfman.

With the vague definition of high functioning I think I am

I am 34 years old. I own my own business. I work full time, but with a lot of control over down time at work.I have a masters degree. I love picking up projects and focusing on them for a short time and being super productive (unrelated to my job). I have saved up some $$ from living extremely frugally (a project/special interest) and hope to retire somewhat early. I have a partner and hope to have a kid. I have a lot of female friends, but I prefer to have one on one time for an hour regularly (like at least once a month, ladies coffee dates). I am terrible with the opposite gender, because I can never differentiate between platonic and flirty male friends. So most of my male "friends" are more like acquaintances or my boyfriend's friends.

I "act" mostly normal. I just frame it to people that I am extremely shy and introverted and only good in one on one situations. I tell everyone I can do stuff for just an hour. I'll help out with "x" just for an hour. If I have a "purpose" serving, photography, ushering, etc. I can kind of function with large groups of people for maybe an hour, but if it's just like cocktail hour no way!

On the ASD side, I experience really high amounts of anxiety, depression, insomnia, digestive problems, chronic pain, and a lot of shutdowns. I work in holistic medicine so I can help myself manage some of that (which is really nice). My childhood was really terrible with a lot of bullying but I saw good grades as my way out, so I always fought really hard for those. (Special interest special project) I do much better once I have some control over my environment. I panic whenever I feel super restricted. Or at things like weddings, I don't go to those.

I do okay one on one, but there's seems to be some triggers where with certain people I just have to flee. I can't really deal with them at all in a casual social context, but work's fine.

It's great to see this thread in these forums. I'd like to feel not so alone with my ASD. I'd like to make some new friends and share strategies for coping with life so pm me

Last edited by mitylene on 12 Oct 2016, 4:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Welcome to Wrong Planet. I look forward to your future contributions.

Thank you

According to the DSM-V, I'm classed as high to very high.

It's more trouble than it's worth, honestly.

I grew up in a time that Autism was a worse version of the dirty word than it is now.

One girl was hung by her NT 4th grade classmates in her first month in a mainstream school.

Mine is about as bad. I grew up friendless, and once, at 11, I was almost raped.

I graduated high school, but was denied entry into college because of my genetics. Same with jobs, even to this day.

Now I'm 41 and unemployable because of a mix of genetics, age and no job experience.

I'm the eternal outsider, even online. Whether I mention being Autistic or not, people hate me after a time and I wind up leaving. The only positive to it is that it makes me a perfect observer.

I play on RPGs, do housework and watch Netflix and Hulu. I live with my brother, and even that is strained.

I'm aspiring to become a singer, because that's one skill I have that's marketable at any age...but discrimination there is very real, so I have no illusions about being accepted right off.

If anyone tells you that being higher function is a better life...have them try living mine or some others in our shoes. Those rose-colored glasses will fall right off and shatter.

Do I sound bitter? I have a right to.

Empress Reborn, what you wrote really resonates with me. I can't help but respond to your story with complete empathy, and I can't help but think you're awesome. I wold love to get to know you online, but my only fear is that you would end up hating me. Because that's what happens to me, unless I play a character (which I will not do).

The truth is, I express my actual thoughts and feelings in print, and they are 1) misinterpreted and 2) not liked (almost always due to #1).

In real life, I'm a white girl with a good figure in a society that is way too into that whole package, and have accidentally found I am automatically endearing to a subset of people. The other folks instantly hate me and don't know why. I know why: I'm autistic and weird. They get strange ideas about me, from what I can tell.

That subset who likes me for reasons I can't understand are so important to my well being, I can't imagine the struggle you've gone through without that. The times when I haven't had it have been difficult, especially since I have no control over any of this.

I think you're very brave, and a survivor who's story I would like to know more about.

I understand the need to ask this question, both of oneself and of others, but am also beginning to see why it's actually a bit more complicated.

High-functioning generally translates as "passing for as close to normal as possible", as in being able to hold down a traditional lifestyle (job, marriage, family, etc) whereas low-functioning seems to conjure up images of someone living with round-the-clock care and completely incapable of doing anything on their own. I'm thinking that the vast majority of people fall somewhere in between, and even so, show marked discrepancies between what they excel at and what they don't exactly excel at. Rather like being on the spectrum itself, with its high IQ/low EQ defining characteristic.

I would certainly define myself as far closer to high-functioning, but in certain situations I would certainly *appear* to others to be low-functioning, and indeed in certain areas I suppose I *am* low-functioning. I have two degrees but have never been able to hold down a job for more than a few months at a time, and never a full-time one. Sometimes I'm up to going out for a wander around in fresh air and other times I can't face doing so. I live alone and pay my own bills and buy my own groceries but I get a fair bit of help arranging stuff like repairs at home. The few people I'm close to would see me as being high functioning but therapists for example would probably see me as low functioning, but only because appointments with them stress me out so much I'd be very curious to know how high or low functioning the "wider world" would define me as being.

Run my own business.
Vape weed all the time.
Play video games to my hearts content.
Read books at my leisure.

No friends. Feel like my wife doesn't understand me after 10 years. Totally disconnected and feel like life is a joke and everyone is playing with some sort of insane handicap.

Their own incompetence and lack of drive wears me down and makes me not want to be around them. Many people who have drive have it for empty reasons, which also wears me out to be around. I see them chasing happiness and yet I know why they don't have it and that what they chase won't achieve it.

I know what I need to be happy but can't seem to quite articulate it to those around me in any sort of coherent fashion that they would understand.

Life feels like an endless "chasing the weekend" joke I am getting increasingly tired of.