How do u feel about being Autistic?

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When I was first diagnosed three years ago, I was excited, because it explained so much about me and why I was different. I reveled in my unique mind and thought autism made me something special. These days I just wish I could be rid of it. It's like a heavy weight on my back, getting in the way of everything I want to do. My meltdowns have increased in frequency from a couple of times a year to a couple of times a month since March. I've got a team of people supporting me (two job coaches, an OT, an individual therapist and a couples' therapist) and I'm still struggling to keep it together each day. My tolerance for sensory stimuli continues to worsen, and I feel tense and irritable much of the time. A few months ago I started deliberately self-harming, and my therapist thinks I show signs of depression. I'd give anything to be rid of this label. I don't care how boring normal people are, I just want to be like everyone else, to not be hurting all the time because of sensory issues, to not be confused and anxious all the time because I can't keep up with change, to not have to leave work early and embarrass myself in front of my co-workers because I can't control the meltdowns. I just want it all to stop.

So much this. So many rules, and constantly trying not to slip up and let anyone see how weird I am (ruined a lot of friendships and relationships that way). That part of it really sucks. But yes, I do jump up and down out of excitement, with my teenage stepdaughter or by myself, quite frequently.

Like a lot of people said, school was hell. I had a bullseye painted on me or something, I was always the target for bullying - the entire school got in on it in 6th grade, even people who didn't know me, and it didn't let up till I graduated high school. That part also sucks a lot.

I finally got diagnosed just recently, and the diagnosis itself has taken such a weight off my heart. One of my earliest memories (about age 3?) was the thought that there was something inherently *wrong* about me that would keep me from ever being as good as other people, and my whole life I've thought I was just broken, somehow. But now I know that I'm not a failure at being a person - I'm just autistic. It's been life-changing, liberating. It doesn't make living with practically no executive function, crazy anxiety, and a total lack of social ability any easier, but claiming it and owning it has taken away a lot of the shame I used to have about my differences. That part, I love.

And I love the way my brain works, it keeps me endlessly entertained in lieu of social interaction. The weird way I don't recognize language at times is helping me create a post-apocalyptic language for a book I'm writing. Even though - or because - I'm as high functioning as I am, I can help my friend understand his autistic child, thereby improving both their lives. Maybe I can even work with HFA kids - especially young girls - and help them understand they're not broken, either. I love that part, too.

Would my life be easier if I were NT? Yes.
Would it be *better*? I'm not sure of that.
Would it be as interesting? No way.

StarTrekker - I'm really sorry you're going through such a hard time, and I hope things get better for you. Please don't take anything I've said (or anything anyone says, for that matter) as meaning that you're wrong or weak for wanting to be like "normal" people. Nobody really knows your struggles but you, and your own feelings are what matter, not anyone else's opinions. Sending you all good wishes, and hugs if you're comfortable with them.

Thank you Graceling, that's kind of you

This Autistic life has been nothing but one excruciating experience after another and most days I wish that I would die in my sleep. I'm sorry to shock anyone with this revelation but it is how I've been feeling for many years now. I just want the pain to end.

I just want the stares from NTs to end, I just want the bullying to end, I just want the whispers behind my back to end, I just want to be alone and feel safe and protected, I just want the constant and unrelenting anger to end, I just want the constant fear that I will wind up in the street to end, and in short I just want this life to end. The sooner the better.

I just can't seem to find any peace whatsoever.

With the advantage of hindsight, (I am three decades ahead of you, approximately), I can assure you that my 40s were the worst decade of my life. It is somewhat astonishing to me to find that my 70s are the happiest, and if nothing else, my unhappy 40s served to refine my survival skills.

I can also tell you that age is a great leveller. Many NTs in their senior years are astonished to suddenly find themselves automatically dismissed and disrespected, regarded by many younger people as automatically stupid, unable to learn, of little account or value. Ageism doesn't discriminate between NTs and Aspies - both are simply seen as old, and therefore stigmatised, othered and excluded. For AS people, this is nothing new, and our experience is an advantage. Our aspie-ness is no longer noticed, as our differences are ascribed to ageing, and it doesn't even occur to others that we are or might be on the spectrum - their prejudices about ageing scoop up our differences and place them in the ageist rather than the AS basket.

Age is a great leveller I have found, and the survival skills I have acquired over a lifetime are an advantage now. I watch many NT oldies flounder, their egos unable to adjust to their diminished status, their identities which were centred in doing (careers) rather than being disintegrating. My wide AS range of interests still enrich my life, and the extra time I have to pursue my own interests is a great bonus.

I hope you will also find that life after the difficult 40s transforms into something meaningful and enriching.

^^^
I'm so glad you said that B19 because right at the moment I'm hating being me and living in an NT world. NT's are so stupid and cruel.

People on the spectrum really have no business being put through the public school system beyond the 5th/6th grade level.
If I had a kid with autism or aspergers I would either send him/her to a private school or home school after elementary.
They can go to elementary to learn some basic social interaction, but skip all the adolescent stuff (clearly the liabilities outweigh any gains as far as social learning goes).
THEN they can go to college having completely bypassed a f**k ton of soul crushing, self esteem scaring stuff that would otherwise be with them the rest of their lives. Seriously, people in prison probably have it easier.

I might even go as far as to say the state should have to fund a separate middle and high school just for kids on the spectrum.

Eh, it has its pros and cons.

I’m really fond of how much focus I put into special interests and solving problems in my life. I’ve survived a lot of hard times in my life because of the intense focus I put into dealing with them. I just have to make sure I get focused on the right things. Once I ease in in the inital stage of change and the caution around it, I’ll come sliding down with an acceleration of progress the longer I focus on a task. This benefits multiple areas of my life and I’m grateful.

That need for focus and routine can be inflexible at times though. I have regular periods in my life where I get down and unmotivated because life in general is changing — even if these are changes in several small details. It’s a little overwhelming but it’s not full on depression at least. I just give myself time to rewind with something familiar when I can and it’s not so bad.

No bullying from other students — at least not right now (Elementary . . . wasn’t so fun). My school has gained some ridiculously high standards for dealing with bullies thanks to a dangerous incident (Nearly had a school shoot out with guns due to a bullied kid.) Anyone who even thinks of breaking these rules of conduct are probably going to be afraid of what crazy s**t punishments the school applies. It also has a pretty amazing emotional suport system for students too from several teachers offering their time to listen and the kindest guidance counselors. I’m a little more anxious though . . . of what it would be like when I get out of highschool and go to college soon. Would it have the same standards or would it be like those horror stories I’ve heard? Sheesh.

I’m a lot more distressed with my sensory issues though. I can get a shutdown if I’m not too careful. Oh well. I guess I’ll just use my obsessive focus on this then. But man, it’s going to take a long long long time.

I think a lot of us would answer this question differently at different points in our lives. At various points I know I would have happily eliminated various traits from my personality if I could. Now I'm in an "it is what it is" kind of place where I'd still like to develop better coping skills, but I wouldn't change who I am, if you see the difference.

I also think there are two kinds of people on the spectrum; those who have higher social needs and suffer a lot for it, and those who have much lower social needs. When I was still in grade school, fifth or sixth grade, a sometime friend of mine dropped by wanting to do something, and I turned her down, saying I wanted to finish my book first. My dad scolded me for this, telling me, "If you don't do things when she wants you to, then she won't do things when you want her to." His goal was to get me out and socializing more, but instead it got me to assessing friendships very differently than I had.

To that point I'd always kind of wanted a 'best friend' and all that. After that point, I recognized why I didn't make those sorts of friends, and how much of it was simply my choice, and I realized the costs of those sorts of relationships -- costs I knew I didn't want to pay. I wanted a best friend because I wanted someone who understood and accepted me; when I started thinking of friendship as a reciprocal relationship with responsibilities, it immediately became clear to me I was simply not willing to fulfill those responsibilities. I still wanted someone to understand and accept me, but watching various best friend pairs I realized how much of myself I would have to subvert and deny in order to fulfill those responsibilities, and I decided that wasn't what I wanted in my life.

I'd still get desperately lonely sometimes, but it was a different kind of loneliness somehow. I wasn't being left out so much as I'd opted out, if you see the difference. I wasn't seeing people all around me who had what I wanted, because what they had wasn't what I really wanted, just something that looked a lot like it. There's a big difference between missing something you're not even sure exists, and missing something it seems like everyone else can get hold of.

I value social relationships, but I do not like, want or value socializing per se; I'm thinking that's part of the autism in me, and I have no desire to change that about my self. Ditto the drive toward social conformity -- not something I want to be caged by the way most NT people seem to be. As an adult, I have a lot more control over how much my disinterest in conformity handicaps me. For instance, I dress and do my hair in ways that would get me labeled eccentric in suburbia, but I live downtown in a poor neighborhood with homeless people wandering by right regular, so I can dress for comfort and convenience rather than appearance, and no one looks at me twice.



Autistic people are still people, and there's still enough variation among them we'd drive each other just as crazy, I expect. One of my big issues is people touching me, and, at least when I was younger, autistic guys were among the worst about it. Some of them just hadn't matured to the point where they could understand or remember that touching people who don't want to be touched is unkind; some of them used the fact that they were on the spectrum to get away with things. Having autism doesn't make people kind, considerate, or compassionate, and it definitely doesn't make them more likely to honor people's personal boundaries.

People don't like to change systems that give them power; an all autistic society would have a different set of systems that would be more comfortable in some ways, but might be worst in others, especially for women (if some of the current theories about women on the spectrum are right, anyhow).

I can't say I'm ecstatic about it.

I don't really have much of a life.

I go to work, earn money to pay bills and get up the next morning and do the same again.

Not much thought goes into weather I'm happy or not, I just keep going like I'm in a treadmill and I do my best not to look back as well.

At best I'm apathetic.

I have found that, too. I still have my underlying anxiety but to an increasing extent I find that I am being allowed to be what I have always been.

I wouldn't go so far to be a "aspie supremacist" but the sheer thought of a cure bugs me. I'm in between doesn't really affect me and proud of being autistic. I think that it's just wasting your time to dwelve in self-pity. Like WP'ers do IMO i'm proud of being autistic in a way that is that I have to overcome more difficulties than others I don't think that having autism is an advantage. While I do have some advantages (like being able to recall large amounts of information" I can hardly function. but autism is a DISABILITY!! ! so It's okay to be disabled. I just think those who think I shouldn't be so are just stupid. I have a right to be disabled.

It would fall apart due to lack of diversity.

Well all it would do is make you not be legally autistic you still would be autistic.

No I passed middle school easily. But I am already failing high school lol. It really depends on the person tbh Some will pass high school others will fail some will fail middle school some won't even make it there. You are making quite a few assumptions.