As an Aspie I envy elements of lower functioning Autistics..

Post Reply New Topic

I have high functioning Aspergers but sometimes when I look at lower functioning Autistic people I know I think "they are a free person..." in a way that those of us who are better able to "pass" are not.

One I know jumps around most of the time, stims freely whenever he likes (vocally and physically) wears crazy, outlandish clothes and is often rude to others in a cartoonish way (he's often quoting stuff he's heard on TV) All the neurotypicals love him and call him a legend and say he has a great sense of humour. If I behaved like that people would say I'd lost my mind and consider me to be a dick. There are times when I am quite envious of his ability to just do whatever his body and mind feels like and he has no real shame filter or social awareness. He just doesn't care. He is a free person.

Furthermore many these days have gone to special school and not suffered the same bullying as children that a lot of us who went to mainstream school suffered. Especially those of us who were diagnosed late.

I suppose on the flipside many don't have the same independence or ability to get on in life (I'm not implying they have things easy by any means) but would you agree that in some ways lower functioning Autistics are more accepted to be their real selves? I also wonder if other Aspies or high functioning Autistics have an urge to stim a lot more than we actually do? Would we be more mentally calm and together if we did so? I go to an Aspergers meetup once in a while and nobody really stims, but I catch them doing subtle movements with their hands when nobodies looking. A part of me thinks, have we become so adept to wearing our masks that we can't even really be ourselves in front of other Aspies? We continue to live through the neurotypical expectations and eyes even in such an environment!

I'm aware that I'm generalising on some level but this is my personal experience from what I've seen. Curious to know if others have had such thoughts and if you think Aspies should stim more than we sometimes do.

Without knowing what someone who is lower functioning feels or endures , I have no idea how to answer your question.

I cannot put myself in someone elses's shoes - go figure

Sometimes I think like that. When someone has more visible problem, people take this into account. About me often they think that I am weird or stupid and no one has an understanding.

My parents considered put me to special school. I don't know why. My mother told me that they considered it because of my sight. I don't believe her this because at my 5 I saw as well as now, I only squint. If they put me into special school, maybe no one would bully me at school. But I am not sure, if I could later study at university, then do my job and move out from parents.

Without knowing feelings and experiences someone lower functioning it is hard to judge if there is anything to envy.

Well...I am waiting for Ezra to weigh in.

He is a young autistic person on WP who has spent much of his life in autistic-only school programs( if I am not mistaken about his bio). He talks about how there is a lot of bullying by autistics against autistics. So autistics in segregated autistic only schools don't necessarily become liberated from bullying.

I don't envy "low-functioning" autistic people----at all.

There's lots of suffering and frustrating in their lives....and they frequently can't verbally communicate their feelings.

It's just hard for them.

I know this is something that I shouldn't even be thinking about, but I must admit that I sometimes feel like you.
I can envy my (lower functioning) little brother. At the moment, he does have an easier time than me in many areas.
He does not have to work or go to school, but he can spend all day every day engaging in his interest. He gets food and housing provided for him by the state, and he still has money to spend on fun stuff. He always has someone there to help him stick to routines and keep things in order, and if he wants to join our family on a trip, he can just go. He doesn't deal with anxiety or depression. He is pretty much happy and content all the time.
And here I am, struggling to keep it all together. Trying to hold down a job and still stay out of depression's way, constantly worrying about becoming suicidal or homeless again. Can never see my family because I can't afford the train ticket, and if I did I still can't get time off from my three jobs all at once. All while people keep telling me "but the autism is so mild in you, you can still do everything everyone else does".

I know that my brother has struggled in the past, and I really can't compare our experiences. I just often wish that I could live the same way as he does.

It seems like people thinks that living a "normal" life is a goal everyone should strive for, no matter how painful it is.
it's what I get to hear all the time from psychiatrists. "So what can you do to start living a normal life?" As if my anxiety and sensory issues and total exhaustion from being at work would just go away if only I tried harder. As if I would get happy if I could provide for myself the same way NT's can. I do appreciate my independence, people just don't understand how hard it is to stay afloat.
So I don't really wish to be lower functioning (I feel free to stim in public anyways), my frustrations are more about society deeming some people as "autistic enough" for getting the help they need, while some of us are completely left out because we should be able to pull ourselves together.
And that doesn't only go for getting financial help from the government. It's also about how I am supposed to learn how to fit in and conform to society, while my brother is free to be himself and people find him charming.

I think you can be free op.

Oh man can I relate with a former friend who's probably "less-functioning" than me.

So he went to college with me, so he's clearly not THAT "low functioning" (Side note: I think there are some problems with function labels, but to an extent, I get it). When I met him, he said he had "Asperger's." Thing is, he's more "obvious" than me (I only recently even learned I was autistic) and as a rich boy he was able to get a diagnosis growing up and could go to a school for autistic kids and all kinds of things.

Meanwhile, when I was a little kid, my doctors literally told my mom that I couldn't be autistic because it's "a boy's thing," and it meant that I had to adapt to the best of my abilities, and I got abused by teachers and was always treated like a "problem child." I had hell at schools (especially combined with my other disabilities). I had to get really good at masking, at BS-ing, all of it. I had to pass as NT because otherwise meant abuse and interpersonal conflict, etc.

Specific story: he came to my roommates/my room on Halloween, banged on our door, and tried to force himself to join our plans. I didn't know I was autistic yet, but I had been telling my roommates/then-friends that if he went I'd get sensory overload and that I couldn't be around him at this kind of event (and I also mentioned how he kinda coerced me into a hug one night when I was in PJs and no bra and he put his head on my breast and like nuzzled it and it really bothered me and it's been bothering me) and all kinds of reasons why it would be bad for him to join this specific event. So when he banged on our door I was trying to nicely get him to go, but he wouldn't take no for an answer (Which was incredibly triggering due to a bunch of past traumas). Then one of my roommates opens the door, interrupts our conversation, and says "no I want him to go," and drags him along. I had a terrible night, I lashed out at him a couple of times due to overload, I was super irritated and couldn't have a good time (and since we were at clubs, I was terrified he was going to try something and that's already a very stimulating environment so the two together was way too much for me).

Then a few days later she tried to make me feel ableist for not wanting him to come and for being upset that he invaded my boundaries. I told her point blank that it was "triggering" and she told be to "stop being immature and grow up." Thing is, she literally viewed him as a charity, was only friends with him because she felt like she needed to, and acted like he was a burden and that it was my duty to hang out with him, no matter how uncomfortable he made me (and despite the fact that I honestly feel a little sexually assaulted by what he did and I can't get the damn feeling of his stupid head nuzzling against my boob).

I ended up having a fully fledged meltdown at her when she told me that she pitied him. As someone who's been into disability rights and research, that's a major word, and her attitude towards him when I have similar problems felt so damn demeaning and was so upsetting that I just lost it and screamed at her, causing her to block me on every social media and causing me to move out.

I told him "she pities you" because, honestly, I'd want to know if a friend was sticking around because they saw me like that. And he was just hunky-dory about it, "don't worry about it, she probably just doesn't understand!" He hasn't been abused like I have. He hasn't had to understand why that's terrible. He was just so happy to have "friends" that he didn't care how low they thought of him. She thinks of him like a charity, like a burden, and he doesn't have enough self-respect to kick her to the curb for this and surround himself with better people.

Then later he invaded another friend's boundaries and she literally told me "it's hard to call him out." And this pissed me off, because she called me out for having a meltdown, something I literally can't control. Because I have more self-awareness, because I needed to to SURVIVE, she'll chastise me for things I can't control, but infantilizes him to the point where she won't even tell him he did something wrong.

Thing is, with the way people treat him and other "low functioning" people, they're never going to learn and grow as people. Obviously it's terrible when NTs call us out for things like meltdowns that we literally can't control, and sure, maybe low-functioning people are more "free," but the tragedy to me is that the label of "low functioning" becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. These people, or at least my friend, are coddled so much that they don't learn how not to hurt people, they don't learn how to function in society. People have this perception that they can't do anything, so they aren't pushed to do anything.

And I'm definitely not saying that the abuse I went through that makes me "more functioning" is a good thing. I'm definitely not saying that we should try to make people less-autistic. But I'm frankly so bitter that he gets away with so much, while also so saddened by the fact that the people around him are keeping him in a bubble and he isn't learning how to grow. There has to be a happy medium, there has to be a way to give us the tools to function in NT society and not hurt others without abusing us. I want consideration and accommodation for my disabilities, but I refuse to be infantilized for them.

Infantilized. That's a good way of putting it. I'm not treated as a child really, but I have to be looked after like one.