What do you hate the most about having autism/aspergers ?

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I deal with those feelings, although I've never really thought of it as internalized ableism since it's significantly rooted in being identified as gifted despite the other issues I had. I expect myself to learn quicker than average and don't like when I only learn at an average pace, let alone slower than that.

Also, unrelated: When you quote someone you need to keep the part with their username to avoid wrecking the formatting.[/quote]

(Sorry, new to the platform and not familiar with interface)
To me I consider it a more general issue of ableism as sometimes it applies to others- the idea of 'you can do this sometimes, why can't you now?' I assume sometimes that if a person is 'performing' differently than normal, it means they're not trying. (again something to work on)

No worries, not everyone's familiar with how BBCode works.

I think not trying is just the easiest explanation for someone to consider, because we all have not tried at something before, and know lack of effort can lead to poor results.

It's also one that we're trained from the day we enter school to apply to ourselves. You do poorly, you're called lazy and told you're not trying, so we internalize it long before we learn about anything else that might also compromise our ability to perform.

So it ends up ingrained before we've even learned potential alternative explanations that might apply in our own defence, so it ends up being the first thing that comes to mind, even if we eventually start applying other explanations in our own defence at least some of the time.

Oh yeah, it makes sense as in it's a huge part of our culture- but it's not right or fair, even when I do it. This also happens in situations where a person I know isn't masking how I would in a situation- society told me that doing that was the right thing, but it's not fair to force that on another or myself.

It might also be too enmeshed with our productivity culture to be able to recognize where the one ends and the other begins, although I suppose a case could be made that productivity culture is inherently ableist.

I believe it is. It creates a social structure where no one can reach ideal and full personhood, but especially not those who are disabled in some way.

Maestro CapedOwl,

Thank you for your kind words and I often find myself reading your posts with equal interest and fervor.
great minds think alike,... and so do ours apparently ...

Congrats on your mantra; I fully understand what you mean. The fact that we have to stay in our row-boat and can never just 'ride the waves' as you stated is another great analogism.
Our verry highly trained AI LLM (something i feel most masking ASD/Aspi peers develop) is always trying to 'catch-on' and preempt as to not fall out of sync with the 'wave surfers' . Because personally I find that going with the waves does not allow me to arrive at any form of meaningful interaction. At least for me, my 'fresh and spontaneous' interactions are never understood/received in a socially-constructive manner. thus, I keep rowing

Thank you as well for bringing up 'anchoring', this is a handy technique that I try to use as well. And also a demonstration of why I am grateful; the fact that we can do/apply this.
We walk the same path under the same sky, yet the stars we see are different — and in that difference lies the quiet miracle of being human together.

Kind regards,
Kada

I hate that i struggle talking to most people especially females

Everything.

Some of us experience autism as something like a mental health condition. Not saying autism is a mental health condition but to some of us it can seem like it, where all our symptoms are just a nuisance rather than a gift of some sort.

For example, my symptoms affect me negatively:-

Special interests? I only had obsessions with certain people that made me look like a stalker and was embarrassing and almost got me in trouble with the law.

Sensory issues? I've never had the ability to hear sounds others can't, only feel sensitive to sounds that others can hear but can ignore or adapt to.

Routines? This is a hard one, as I find routine challenging to stick to but I dislike change such as changes at work or in the family, etc. Which isn't the same as routine change.

Meltdowns? Well, who likes meltdowns? Nobody.

Social? I am socially awkward but don't seem to experience the common social deficits of autism. I've always been able to understand body language and tone of voices and emotions, etc, but just not always respond appropriately, or have acted on impulse rather than being normal and boring.
I have social anxiety and can be shy, yet at the same time I'm highly social and really love engaging with people and I become attached to people without any conscious effort.
My social awkwardness seems to come from a lack of confidence more so than social unawareness (I don't have social unawareness). So for example I know social cues very well but sometimes back away shyly from responding. Like the other day when I was at my partner's daughter's place, she was putting sunblock on her little son and I needed some on my shoulders, so my partner said to me to ask her if I could put some on me. I knew it was very simple, just to say "hey Daisy, please may I have a little bit of that to rub on my shoulders?" (her name is not Daisy by the way) but for some reason I was reluctant because I suddenly felt awkward and I secretly hoped my partner would ask her - which he did.

I think if I worked on my confidence skills and being less afraid of using people's names and asking for small favours without feeling embarrassed all the time, I might get on better socially.

Society.

I don't think any one thing stands out in my case. Different ASD traits affect me differently depending on the circumstances. And I don't know enough about how NTs feel and cope with the challenges of the world, so it's hard to compare myself with them, which I'd have to do if it's going to be valid to hate anything about myself in terms of my ASD traits. I can't even be sure I don't have ADH and that might conceivably be responsible for some of my frustrations, such as my poor attention under some circumstances. And I'm fairly content with me the way I am, and I tend to feel I can do anything I really turn my mind to, given enough time.

I suppose that feeling of being "behind the door" might be pretty high on any list I might make of frustrating things that seem associated with ASD. Though it doesn't happen much because I tend to avoid groups who aren't inclusive or generous enough to help me get up to speed if I'm struggling. And frankly I tend to blame them rather than my ASD. So maybe what I hate most about having ASD is ableists. But memory problems is another strong candidate because I've often wished I could resume tasks more easily after a break and that I could generally trust my memory better, though as with all these things I've never compared my performance to that of a NT.

I've not noticed much describing of ASD in stereotype terms. Maybe the "zero empathy" thing, though that might be more to do with the careless use of a term that means one thing to the eggheads and another thing to the public. I suppose the stuff on ASpartners.org has a lot of malicious stereotyping that portrays us as a particular kind of narcissist. According to them we're manipulative and cold-hearted.

Executive dysfunctions

The fear of being judged by how I express myself. I feel society taught me to bottle things up due to fear of how people might react, etc. Especially if you were born in a neurotypical family.

Being shunned by society, being made fun of for my social difficulties, unable to relate to most people, loneliness.

Being emotionally vulnerable and constantly worrying about what's going to happen to me in the future, like becoming homeless because of having ignorant government/council that are too greedy to bother to house a vulnerable woman in a small studio flat where she can feel secure no matter what life throws at her.

I'm talking about the future, when my partner and close older relatives are no longer around. I know people say that I shouldn't worry about that until it happens, but to feel happy and secure in the present I really need someone to tell me that I will always be safely homed, even if it's just a studio flat, with all my precious possessions and pets, even if I was to lose my job. This bit of promising reassurance by someone who is educated in council and knows the facts and helps and supports people with an understanding ear, would be enough to make me feel so much less anxious presently. I think I'll make an appointment with citizens advice to get this reassurance. Being homeless is my biggest fear and I shouldn't have to live in paranoid fear that the government is going to be out to get me and take away my security.

It's a thought that if they didn't make housing so unaffordable, less people would actually need to claim from the government to live, hasn't the government ever thought about that?

Having poor conversation skills. Also being hypersensitive to noise, vibration, light, people.