For those with classic autism

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I would suggest you ask them to speak slower, but in practice I just don't say anything till they go away.


I don't use the phone, not at all unless in emergencies or I know exactly whose calling. I haven't called someone in about 3 years, and that time was to get directions off my brother.



yes, today is a mild day, I had a week of severe days a few weeks ago, I had a week a few months ago that would have gotten me classified as LFA.



those people can go **** themselves with a rusty pole.

I strongly indentify with what your saying trouper, I read about people talking about girlfriend trouble, coworkers bullying them and living alone..seems a long way away for me.

If you are looking for someone who likes to talk and listen, I'm always willing to type. I know that I am not diagnosed classic autism, but I'm not diagnosed anything so who knows what I am. I AM married, and I do have a job (although my husband comes with me and it is only five hours a week)...but I also struggle with a LOT of the same issues as you do.

Sent you a PM, mb.

Don't sell yourself short. When I was 18, I would never have thought I would have gotten to where I am. I was totally messed up. I just never gave up. I wish I could say I had a wonderfully happy life, but that would be untrue. What I can say is that because I've never quit pushing against my boundaries I've slowly progressed to a place where I am actually feeling some sense of adequacy. I'm a little old for it, but better than never getting there at all.

Don't ever stop pushing the edges of your universe outward. Just be true to yourself, don't fake it or live at the whim's of others expectations. You will surprise yourself.

Same here. That's one of the reasons I feel so left out on this site. I also find all the talk of 'pretending to be normal' odd because I don't. I can't. There's certain things I do which might be considered more 'normal' but I don't think I try specifically to do it for this purpose. Also, and I don't know if this is true for anyone else... I have NEVER actively sought a friendship. They just sort of happened. I really don't require friends in my life to be happy. Most people with AS find that a bit odd I think...

As for the useage of the term 'aspie', don't let that put you off responding to a topic. I think people use the term loosely sometimes and they are not specifically asking ONLY people with AS to respond. I personally like to hear from all levels of the spectrum because as I said, I tend to relate better to lower functioning (ugh I hate that term) Aspies/HFAs.

Oh, that phrase really bugs me. So many times when I describe honestly how I am not capable of something even if I try really hard, someone says that to me. It seems like for many people accepting that you may never be able to do something is seen as giving up, when it's not the same at all.

Tell me about it. I can play NT for a very short time, but at best, that means people judge my oddities by NT terms rather than it being obvious I'm not NT in the first place. The social anxiety and wanting friends and all of that... I can't relate, either. And I spoke on time, and read early, so it's not like I have the language delays of classic autism. Honestly, I think a lot of people on this forum aren't really complaining about AS at all--they're having problems with a comorbid social anxiety disorder that's not wired in at all. I know it's real, I know it's problematic to deal with, but it's not a part of autism proper. It's unconnected, at least as far as two features of the same brain living the same life can be.

Edit:
...Looking back on that post, I think it was somewhat elitist. I do mean what I said. But I want to stress that this does NOT mean I look down on people with AS/social-anxiety nor that I think their problems are any less difficult to deal with than mine. Actually, sometimes I think the people who deal with a lot of social anxiety have subjectively more stressful lives than I do, even though most of them are what you'd consider "mild". In quite a few studies it's been shown that despite having greater independence, those with milder disabilities are subjectively in more distress because they are being constantly compared to normal and expected to be normal.

As far as distress and disability goes, though, disabled people don't tend to report distress that's out of the range of NT/nondisabled norms; so the idea that disability=distress doesn't really apply nearly as much as life=distress does. Disabled people have unique problems that have to do with disability, but they don't actually tend to be out of the range of what NTs experience, subjectively (as reported by the person themselves, not by doctors' quality of life measures). It was somewhat surprising to me when I first found that out, because of the whole idea that my culture has which says "disabled people are automatically worse off and have more troubles", but looking at it straight on, it's fairly obvious--disabled people have problems unique to disability, but they're no worse than problems you'd expect just because you're alive and in an imperfect world. If you suddenly saddled an NT/nondisabled person with those same problems, they'd probably cause a great deal more distress, but for us, those things are normal. Kind of the way running five miles is no problem if you're a marathon runner, but a huge problem if you've never walked any more than the fridge-to-couch distance. We've developed strategies for that stuff that lets us deal with it pretty effectively... it's not the same thing as what an NT would feel if they suddenly had those problems and had no clue how to cope.

I agree! Before I knew I was autistic, I had so many plans about what I wanted to do in life. I thought that by now I would have outgrown my problems which I began to really notice in high school (some of them anyway...like a few of my social skills). I thought I would have a higher degree, would have an amazing career, be married, and have a family. Instead, I am at the exact same place as I was when I was high school: living in my parents' house with a total of 0 friends. I don't even have my undergrad yet, have no idea what I will be doing with my degree after (or what I will be CAPABLE of doing), and I can't hold on to even a part time job. I have never had a relationship, and I think it will be highly unlikely that I will ever get married or have children. This is not because I am "selling myself short", and I am sure others with classic autism (and more severe aspergers and pddnos) will agree. I know this is NOT what I had planned for my life, and SuperTrouper might agree (though I could be wrong) that when she was younger, perhaps she didn't quite envision the problems she experiences today.

I can see how people with very mild ASD can move forward in their lives and attain these goals with much more ease. There are some of us who are simply to severe to be able to do this. Now that I know that I have autism, I do not use the label as a scapegoat. Instead I use to understand WHY I have been unable to grow and change my life as everyone else I went to school with. I do not have a mild ASD, and neither does SuperTrouper. Not everyone can convince themselves into normalcy. My psych wrote on a form (which we did not discuss at any length), that there is no chance of real improvement for me. It doesn't mean I am not going to graduate university, then will hopefully get into grad school. It doesn't mean that I will not be OPEN to a possible relationship if the opportunity ever presents itself. It does mean, though, that I am going to struggle with this my entire life, and chances of me having a normal life like the NT classmates I grew up with (and even those with mild AS) is next to impossible. Many of us that have moderate or severe classic autism--even if we are considered HFA--will agree with this.

I totally agree with this. I don't know if you fully agree with the next thing I am about to say, as I am just putting this in from my perspective, but:

I don't understand how someone can pretend to be normal. My psych asked me during the ADOS, I think, (maybe during the questions about friendships or something) if I ever pretended to be normal. I said there were occasions (only a few) were I may have briefly immitated a friend who was more accepted than I was when others in the group were not be as nice to me, but it doesn't usually last more than a few minutes because I don't know how to carry it on. I don't understand what comes next, so it is absolutely impossible for me to pretend to be anyone other than who I am.

Like I said, I think it's a little presumptuous to think that mild disability means an easier life; I honestly don't think it does.

Well elitist or not, I do think there is a lot of truth to this. I wouldn't even say it is elitist, it is true that many of the posts here deal with social anxiety issues, and not everyone of us has that. In fact, social anxiety is quite rare in classic autism. My issues are based completely around autism, and I think that is another reason why SuperTrouper wants a separate thread...to keep one thread focused on issues that don't always turn around to social anxiety, but issues that are unique to autism that we must deal with on a daily basis. Of course, there are some people with severe AS too, for example, that might not have social anxiety but rather be just concerned about their direct Aspergers issues (not the co-morbidities).

If I were some ass hat NT suggesting that you just need to try harder then maybe I could understand where your coming from. But this is not the case. I get that all the time.

"Suck it up."

"Everybody is like that sometimes"

"Don't make excuses"

'Your are a genius but you will never be anything because you are lazy" (thanks mom)


I KNOW this crap. I've been berated as an underachiever all my freaking life. Sometimes the ones that throw this stuff at me are exactly the ones that should understand that there is something different about me that makes things that are easy for most people very hard for me.

I also know that it is really easy to let that crap beat you down until you actually start believing it. This is where I draw the line. I don't have to believe anything some ignorant person trys to force on me, especially when it is about me.

I say again "DON'T SELL YOURSELF SHORT". Don't let ANYBODY set your boundaries. Does this mean every person with autism will reach some fantastical level of achievement? Hell no. But you can never figure out your own limitations and find your own forms of success if you don't give yourself enough credit.

If you put all your effort into something, and YOU know that you put all your effort into it, then you didn't sell yourself short. Only you can know when that point is reached. Not me or some therapist or well meaning relative or ass hat bully. But you HAVE to find that place where you know you DID put in 100% otherwise you will never have self respect.

I'm sorry (perhaps I shouldn't even apologize), but I do not understand pretending to be normal. I do not understand social anxiety. And, I do not understand selling myself short. There is no metacognition about my capabilities or whatever. I simply do and be from moment to moment. I have zero sense of my abilities, for the most part, and my mom is in charge of what I am and am not allowed to do.

This sounds so much like me in my teens. I really know this feeling. I was so completely unaware of self. I was CLUELESS about what I was capable of, what I wanted, what was expected of me. This meta-cognition came slowly. It still is developing. The fact that you recognize you have poor meta awareness is actually meta awareness. Your current depth and breadth at that level of awareness is a different story but the seeds are there, already growing.

I hate to keep bringing up my age, but it is completely relevant. At 15 or 18, my concept of self was virtually non-existent. At age 53, it is relatively solid. The last decade has seen some big changes. The last year profound changes.

The point I'm trying to make is that change CAN happen. I would never promise that it will. Any real change is hard work and it's damn unfair. Maybe "don't sell yourself short" is such an old chestnut that it has no value (old chestnut = phrase used so often and for so long that it's value is diminished). here. It is a simple thing. We (all of us) can do the hard work, find our limits, be what ever we can, or we can let other people set our limits, degrade us, berate us, tell us we can be something we can't and then make us feel like crap for failing, and all the other negative garbage people try to "help" us with.

I think I experienced this is my teenage years which is why I was so impressionable. I just absorbed the behaviors of other kids and just automatically said what they said without thinking about the situation or whether it was appropriate. I might say something really rude without thinking, automatically, then wonder why people were rude to me. It baffled me. Once I left school I was able to reprogram myself to think about situations more and not just blurt out without consideration. I never thought about what I said at school.
Maybe I had a poor sense of self.

I don't think anyone implied this at all. I think the implication was that there are slightly different challenges that can be more understood by those experiencing the same challenges.

My goodness it is one thread! The more I return to this one, though, the more I am thinking this one innocent thread would be continously bombarded by the more mild folks complaining that we have one meazly little thread amongst the thousands upon thousands here. This is ridiculous!