do people think you're "stupid"?

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Nope. People think I am some sort of genius. Personally, I always felt rather stupid. Turns out they were right. I only felt stupid because I did not understand people and their ways. The truth is to other people that just made me eccentric and now I learn that I am autistic too. They still they always saw me as a very, very smart person despite how I felt. I am often told by professional people especially (like Doctors, my shrink as well) that I intimdate them. That used to confuse me because I assumed it meant physically and I am only 125lb and pretty mild as a person. Now I understand it is intellectually. See how smart I am not?

People often assume I'm the quiet, deep thinking type. But really all I'm doing is replaying a song in my head over and over or amusing myself in some way until I can find an opening to leave.

Some people think I am stupid and some think I am very smart. But I have gotten on my training job when I took something literal "I thought you were smarter than that?" He didn't think I'd be stupid just because I was "very smart."

But it's usually jerks who think I am stupid. Nice people say I am smart. If someone thinks I am stupid, there is a high chance they are a jerk. I've seen the pattern.

This has happened to me, although not so much with doctors (I think my therapist loves that I keep coming up with stuff that she considers unusual for people to work out on their own), but I've had acquaintances suggest I was intimidating to them because of my intelligence, attention to grammar, vocabulary, and breadth and depth of knowledge.

I never really understood the point of that, or attributed it to other things even when they told me why, because I didn't consider myself particularly smart. I often feel naive, ignorant of what "should" be obvious information, and spent years trying to work out how, if I am supposed to be so intelligent, I kept ending up feeling like I was sabotaging myself.

Sometimes, yes.

And then I prove myself otherwise and their minds explode. *grin*

It can occasionally be fun, ya know, because of their reactions.

People always assume i'm a bit thick because of the vacant look on my face. At work I never answer a question unless everyone else is stuck for the answer. One example, someone asked where Winston Churchill was born, everyone was shouting out guesses but the bloke next to me was saying "I know this, what's it called, It's on the tip of my tongue, etc." so I said Blenheim Palace and he immediately jump up shouting "yes Blenheim palace" and everyone is congratulating him as though he knew it but mine was just a lucky guess. Another time we're listening to a quizz on radio, one where the questions are so hard they give you three possible answers and you have to guess the correct one. The first question was, "what is the most northerly point of the British Isles", I answered Muckle Flugga before they had give the three possible choices, the next question was "what is Sternus Vulgaris (spelling), I answered A Starling. Everyone there decided I'd heard the questions before even though it was a live radio show.

Not in a more 'classically intellectual' sense, but in a more 'social' sense... sometimes.
Sometimes I think that people who either don't know me and/or have never heard me speak or write may assume that I might be kind of stupid or something because (like FTM) I space out and look vacant sometimes, but once I say things, I don't feel that they assume this trait to be a characteristic of my personality.

Many people that knew me in school knew that I was more intelligent than them, but people that don't know me well (currently everyone but my family) probably think I'm not intelligent, since very often I speak slowly or pause a lot because I'm not good at putting my thoughts into words, especially in speech, which might cause them to think I'm ret*d (in the actual, non-colloquial meaning) or something. I don't know, I don't talk to people enough anymore to ask them or be able to tell.

I actually am intimidated by the intellect of someone I know. I'll try to explain why.

Except in my areas of special interest, I am not an expert on a lot of things. Not in the usual sense. My main expertise lies in areas of cognition most people don't even count as cognition, while my ability to be abstract and intellectual, never my strongest point and always something I had to force, has dwindled the more my genuine expertise has grown. Although I can "borrow" intellect for brief periods in my area of special interest only.

So in discussions with this person, she always knows far more about any topic we discuss. I mean knows more intellectually, not in the weird unconscious way I can come to know things without knowing I know them. And I just cannot hold my own against her even when she is wrong. My mind can't track all the things she is saying and thinking. In no time at all my entire brain has turned to fuzz. She "wins" every argument whether she's right or wrong or both or neither (I don't think of conversations in terms of winning, but that's what happens. She can always outmaneuver me intellectually. I often feel as if I am being dominated by her in some weird way.

Also, she has this whole system of thinking that is utterly foreign to me. It often seems to me as if she only ever questions what I say if it violates her stereotypes of the world (which often coincide neatly with cultural beliefs somehow) yet tells me that in order to be rational I must scrutinize my own beliefs all the time or something like that (but only says this when I say something that contradicts existing cultural beliefs). I seem to just accept how things are most of the time (but not how things "seem" to most people -- which many call "just how things are" even when they're not), while I have seen her really struggle when a piece of information contradicts the ideas or ideologies she forms (or gets handed) about the world. (She is such the idea person, and I am such not...) But somehow even in matters such as these I end up outmaneuvered.

I also get intimidated because casual conversations can at any moment turn into intense debates complete with having to "cite sources" for one's opinion (somehow especially if one's direct observations of the world contradict common beliefs or ideologies). I simply can't function like that when I am trying to relax. She also often wants me to explain things (usually impossible to explain "sensing" things) in ways where nothing I say is ever good enough, and by the end I can literally have a headache. When I want to do something like watch a movie, I will be struggling to an extent just to interpret what I see, and she will often be sitting there dissecting it and predicting what will happen in ways that sometimes spoil it for me.

I guess it's not her intellect itself that intimidates me, it's more what she does with it. I've talked to others who feel the same. It's like somehow without intending to she gives off an "I'm smarter than you could ever be, and no matter what you talk about I can demolish your opinions" vibe. I'm certainly not similarly intimidated by kfisherx or Verdandi. I guess there's a man who has a similar effect on me too. I just shut down in situations where I'm being expected to use areas of my mind that are iffy and flaky at best, and that barely function outside my special interests (and even within my interests it's time limited and difficult).

BTW those current and past at least semi-mental (as opposed to purely sensory ones, which I have much more of) interests include: Cats. Power dynamics/justice/rights/oppression (still don't know what to call it) including but not limited to disability issues. Autism. Maybe others but that's all I can think of. Those are the areas where I can somewhat hold my own in these conversations -- to an extent and only at certain times. But even these, I handle in a more sensing way than most people, which often ends up meaning I say things that totally clash with both standard views, and the ideologies of many people who claim to offer an alternative to standard views. (Well I clash with ideologies in general but that's a different situation altogether.

Anyway I feel really stupid around people like I described, and so do others I know. As well as intimidated.

The experienced you just described is not the result necessarily of your particular kind of autistic thinking style. I am the sort of person that thinks in words and ideas, and I know many people who can do that to me.

Also I think sometimes it isn't just about the intellectual manipulation of the arguments but the way people present themselves personality-wise in such a way that their assertions, even when they are just that, simply sound more authoritative than mine. Some people also have a skill of filling in time when they are thinking about their argument with more BS assertions that sound grand, or making a joke, whereas when I am pausing to think, it is obvious I am pausing to think.

Also, being wrong along with a group always makes you seem less stupid than being wrong on your own. When I am wrong about something it is often the case that only someone with my world-view could make that particular mistakes. Whereas when other people are wrong they are often wrong together, which makes it seem less stupid, even if their mistake is equally as face-palmingly obvious.

While you may not get the same feeling with me on this forum, I have heard others state similarly about me as you do this other girl. I am only recently aware of my intellectual superiority though and honestly did NOT realize that I was different before then. In fact I honestly thought I was less intelligent than others due to my social immaturity. This always caused me to get frurstrated in conversations because I never understood why people were so slow and could not just keep up. I am now MUCH more careful in conversations and allowing people time and opinions and not bombarding with all my knowledge. I am the "gentler and kinder" Karla now since being enlightened. I also learn more this way so it is a WIN/WIN. Gifted/ASDis actually a weird combination...

I am stupid.

I don't think that you are.

No, they think I am a genius, but I'm not.

I have the opposite problem; people tell me that I'm smart and make them feel stupid.

I was asked by a friend whether I thought that she should study Comparative Literature or Epidemiology in grad school. I said that I thought epidemiology was interesting, had a lot of applications, and that I had in fact looked into studying that for a brief period.

Her response?

"Well, if someone as smart as you wanted to do that I'm definitely not going to go for it."

I really don't have anything to say when people say stuff like this to me. I just absolutely say nothing, and maybe change the subject.

They don't need to think

I shall put to rest those rumours once and for all..

I am stupid!