Do you feel that being female Asperger's was easier for you?

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Azureth
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31 May 2017, 1:46 am

I have heard that females with aspergers isn't as often diagnosed as compared to men, one reason being that females are brought up with more social interaction and given more time in that regard.



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01 Jun 2017, 6:04 am

I don't know, I have never been a male (or male-type aspie) to compare.
Sure, it is easier to meld into the NT society and meet expectations of other people. This is why some specialists don't even recognize the female type of AS/HFA. This girls mastered everything we try to teach the guys, they say.
But there is the cost. Maintaining your social life via frontal lobe is exhausting. Exhaustion leads to depression. As you know how to behave, people don't realize how much effort you put into acting normal and when you are tired and your asperger slips off, everyone (including yourself) is shocked. So you are always on guard, always controlling yourself, always wearing a mask and always anxious.
Wearing a mask all the time means also you don't know who you really are. You don't recognize your own difficulties, don't know what's wrong with you, why the meltdowns, why the depression, why the exhaustion after seemingly nothing. Then when you seek help, you probably would get wrong diagnosis that would make everything even worse. That's what happened to me.

Look for Tony Attwood videos, I believe he describes it the most accurately.


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03 Jun 2017, 8:36 am

Almost every autistic women I know has been raped. So I would say no.


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03 Jun 2017, 2:14 pm

Azureth wrote:
I have heard that females with aspergers isn't as often diagnosed as compared to men, one reason being that females are brought up with more social interaction and given more time in that regard.


I can't say for certain. I had it easier than most aspies anyway because I was diagnosed early, but I'm not sure if girls have it easier.

Boys and girls with autism tend to have problems unique to their gender on top of having the autism traits so I would say it's fairly even. You could argue that boys have it easier because clinicians know what to look for with them while girls may be overlooked because their symptoms don't stand out as obviously. I know many women on the spectrum who have had a very rough life because they didn't get the correct support when they were children. They often have multiple psychiatric issues and various social issues such as poverty and crime.

That being said, boys on the spectrum, I think, tend to be more isolated. I think part of that is because of the way that boys and girls play, where boys tend to focus on competition and girls tend to focus on interpersonal relationships. Perhaps autistic males tend to keep apart from the group because competitive play involves active participation and mutual cooperation, so it's easy to spot when someone "messes up". Female socialisation has more elbow room for mistakes so autistic girls have more opportunity to observe their peers and practice fitting in. Well, that's my hypothesis anyway.

I was more typical of autistic males, which probably explains my early diagnosis.



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03 Jun 2017, 6:25 pm

Azureth wrote:
I have heard that females with aspergers isn't as often diagnosed as compared to men, one reason being that females are brought up with more social interaction and given more time in that regard.


Going undiagnosed until I was almost 30 did not make anything easier for me. Quite the contrary, in fact.

This stupid idea, that autistic women somehow have it easier than autistic men, needs to die because it's incorrect and it's damaging to both autistic men and women. Autistic men want community and to be accepted and understood, but then they do everything they can to exclude the very group that could best understand them by telling us how much easier we have it all the time because we're girls. It's a bias based on lack of empathy for women. Stop telling us how much easier we have it when you have no idea what it's like to be us and don't seem to care to listen to us talk about our experiences, to learn what our actual perspective is instead of telling us what our perspective is from a place of ignorance.



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04 Jun 2017, 8:05 pm

this question is inherently flawed, but it's a good flaw to question.

level of ease can't be qualified, especially from a biased standpoint, so why insist on trying? its futile and if it takes us anywhere, its backwards.

my opinion--obliterate this question. focus on inclusion to fill in gaps of subjective perspective, garner more substantiated objective.

my reality--this question exists and i cannot control it. but at least i can speak my idealisms in a small corner of the internet.



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07 Jun 2017, 10:16 pm

Azureth wrote:
I have heard that females with aspergers isn't as often diagnosed as compared to men, one reason being that females are brought up with more social interaction and given more time in that regard.


Actually I feel the males often (but not always) have it easier because they are more likely to be diagnosed and receive support services, are not required to wear bras (yes, schools and work places and mothers will penalize girls and women for not doing so), do not have to deal with periods and the discomfort surrounding them, and are given passes for social indiscretions that women are often strongly condemned for. Females are expected to espouse higher levels of warmth and empathy and use passive means such as soft coercion and persuasion to achieve status and resources and females on the spectrum are often just as deficit as males on the spectrum when it comes to these things.

Growing up I was often told by adults I should smile, while it was perfectly ok for the boys not to. I was labeled as "stuck up" for being quiet when I really just didn't know that I was supposed to say or that it was ok for me to say anything, and I wouldn't have known what to say anyway, and as an adult, if I do not smile or espouse warmth then I am labeled a "b!tch" or people perceive me as some sort of enemy. In fact I've noticed that women are often assumed to be enemies unless proven otherwise by displays of warmth.

Years ago, when I was relatively new at my current place of employment, and still figuring out who it was appropriate for me to speak to on a casual basis, and when, I discovered a problem which I decided to bring to the attention of the guy who's responsibility it was to address such problems. This was someone who's desk was adjacent to my sub-department work area but just outside of it, and I had not casually interacted much with him due to the ambiguity of his proximity causing me uncertainty as to what level of casual interaction was permitted with him, and my newness to the office. I approached his desk and suddenly, to my puzzlement, I was surrounded by half of the people in the office and intercepted. After I had explained my reason for approaching the desk, they backed down and returned to their work stations. I discovered later that this particular individual had thought I did not like him and was upset about it, and my co-workers had thought a verbal fight was about to ensue. After this became known to me, the issue was cleared up, but does someone else think I don't like them? I have no idea. I imagine I would be the last in the office to find out as I tend to not perceive office tension.

Perhaps males on the spectrum are often branded as creepy, or nerdy, or losers. Perhaps they even scare people from time to time. However females on the spectrum are often branded as enemies and held to impossibly high social standards.



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08 Jun 2017, 6:09 am

I think these binary questions can't really be answered. I can't step in the shoes of an AS man's experiences of ease or difficulty, and he can't step into mine. From what I read on WP, no-one has it easier if they are AS.



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12 Jun 2017, 8:31 pm

I certainly don't feel that I was brought up to be more social, or given any additional attention from my parents. I was alone a lot.



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13 Jun 2017, 5:15 pm

I cant agree with the idea that it was easier to be undiagnosed due to being more subtle. For both women and men going undetected and being subjected to normative standards would in my opinion lead to additional mind/body health complications.



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15 Jun 2017, 3:40 pm

Azureth wrote:
I have heard that females with aspergers isn't as often diagnosed as compared to men, one reason being that females are brought up with more social interaction and given more time in that regard.

I was not properly diagnosed as autistic until age 30. But this was not because I had more social training and learned to mask autism.
1. It was because I am a passive autistic, which is not as recognized as the aloof type, or the active but odd type.
2. Passive autism can also be explained away as just shyness, a reluctance to interact socially instead of an inability to.
3. Passiveness is also more acceptable, sometimes even endearing, in girls.


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17 Jun 2017, 8:35 am

I have no idea...

Probably because:
One, I wasn't diagnosed late or just this recent. I had, more than a decade ago in my late childhood.
Two, social expectations or not, I didn't blend in. I refuse to mask. I simply refused, for various reasons that is either out of stubbornness, fear, intuition, luck, or actually knowing that being a full time actress is exhausting and it could break a person's psyche.
Three, gender issues are different from where I live. And so is the culture as whole, therefore norms are on a different take here. Same with gender roles and it's issues with equality.
Four, how my AS manifest is closer to male's than most of female's case. Or maybe I actually have both autistic masculine/feminine traits, and have little or none as a human despite being female myself. :lol:
Five, non binary gender is generally acceptable all around my current culture despite of being a major Catholic. While LGBTQA is acceptable, though, legal stuff and things like same sex marriage isn't allowed. But then again, this is one of the countries where divorce is illegal.
And lastly, how am I to imagine my alternate self as a male?? :lol: Male bodies have different needs and expectations for all I know. And so does what it would be if I was brought up somewhere else to have life itself easier or harder than where I'm right now?


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23 Jun 2017, 3:33 pm

I think in a way that I'm glad I made it into my 20's before I was diagnosed because if I had been when I was younger, I think that would have been used against me in my family--a way to discredit me even more. And without a family that was there for me, I think it would have been overwhelming and been a way that I was made to feel less than everyone else around me.

But I equally wish I had learned earlier in life, at least by my early 20's. I think it would have helped me avoid a lot of broken ideas about myself. Being made to feel horrible for things about myself when they were just normal. But I guess I am just glad that I know now.

I do not think it was easier for me though. I think life has been actually incredibly hard for me. I don't see that as self-pity, it's fact. I was experiencing burn outs at a very young age. I would play sick all the time to get out of school because I couldn't "explain" or give a just reason for why I felt the way I did--so I had to lie.

I think the mixture of Aspergers, not knowing I had Aspergers, and having abusive people in my life made life almost impossible for me. Any ONE of those things would have been a steep climb.



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24 Jun 2017, 1:43 pm

In some ways I'm glad I'm a female on the spectrum and not a male. I can mask my ASD well. I was a sociable child too.

I can usually tell that a male is on the spectrum, but telling if a female is on the spectrum seems to be harder, even if they display some of the symptoms. Males I've met on the spectrum seem more "geeky", more higher IQ than average, and talks in a flat sort of voice. But females I have met on the spectrum seem more average in regards to IQ (or even slightly below), but more sociable and displays facial expressions and tone of voice. I think, generally speaking, that females on the spectrum are more eccentric than males, but males are more geeky. But that's just my experience.


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06 Jul 2017, 12:36 pm

I wasn't diagnosed until well into my 30s. In some ways, late diagnosis was good for me, but not in all ways. I do think I would have been diagnosed earlier if I had been a boy or if I had not been an only child. My mother had plenty of clues that there was something different about me, but she chose to explain those concerns away, and I grew up lonely and confused as to why I didn't know the "rules" that everyone else seemed to know. I literally thought there was a rulebook hidden away and that I couldn't get to it because nobody liked me. I was considered conventionally attractive, and I think that both hurt and helped me in various ways. I wish I had known earlier, but I can see how late diagnosis was a benefit in some ways. Like, I don't think I'd have persevered in learning to drive if I had known that I was ASD and that some of us have a hard time with that. I just kept taking the test until I passed, and I'm lucky I didn't kill myself or someone else. It's interesting that now, I'm an incredibly safe driver with a clean record. I don't know if it's better that I was raised with NT expectations, teachers and caregivers were sometimes quite horrible to me, bullies, even. Not all of them, but enough, and I do sort of wish I had known why I was so different. I just thought I was a stupid and bad person. I'm a lot better now, but there are still triggers from the past.



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07 Jul 2017, 1:31 am

Joe90 wrote:
In some ways I'm glad I'm a female on the spectrum and not a male. I can mask my ASD well. I was a sociable child too.

I can usually tell that a male is on the spectrum, but telling if a female is on the spectrum seems to be harder, even if they display some of the symptoms. Males I've met on the spectrum seem more "geeky", more higher IQ than average, and talks in a flat sort of voice. But females I have met on the spectrum seem more average in regards to IQ (or even slightly below), but more sociable and displays facial expressions and tone of voice. I think, generally speaking, that females on the spectrum are more eccentric than males, but males are more geeky. But that's just my experience.


But if you can't tell someone is on the spectrum, then you would not know unless you were told.