Autism is really becoming a trend!

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Before you were born, when some us were were your age and younger, the Autism Spectrum did not exist. People did not know about Asperger's because it did not exist either. So many of us were punished for being Autistic and for acting in Autistic ways. We were treated as if we were being bad so we had to learn to hide our Autistic symptoms in order to "survive". If you got spanked every time you had a meltdown you would learn to have it hidden in private. If you got reprimanded for not making eye contact or for anything you did that was Autistic you would do everything you possibly could to hide those things and mask them.

well, i wish i could explain it well, ANYONE, and i mean ANYONE, can have autistic Traits, but only people with autism have autistic symptoms, theres a difference, Traits are a result of symptoms, like, a lack of social understanding is a symptom but a trait is not making eye contact, seeming Rude, and being Aloof. Many people with autism dont make eye contact because either they dont understand they have to and its very very hard to multi-task,listening to a person and looking at them at the same time. Sensory sensitivities are a symptom while avoiding noisy situations and covering your eyes when there are bright lights are traits. Stimming is a trait, needing to be calmed is a symptom.

Thanks, that makes sense.

OHHHH!! ! i miss understood! i thought you mend i pretended to act autistic. but i am actually very aware of the fact i am very good at covering my symptoms

Thank you. That helps me understand it better.

One A-N just posted a post on another thread that can be very helpful here. Here is the link to that page.
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postp5867220.html#5867220

You know what really bothers me the most about my job? - it's really not a bad job at all, I can't honestly complain about it other than normal kvetcing stuff. But the hardest part is dealing with the people. And they're mostly nice normal people too. It is just sooooooo exhausting and often dehumanizing.

I don't think they have any clue that I feel that way, they think I just hop along acting "different" on purpose with no concept of of the social problems around me. It's frustrating!

I hope you are able to save enough money to where you can retire on schedule at age 62 or whereabouts, or even before that point.

No worries at all dear. It would be quite odd to act autistic, I would think. I can't imagine why anyone would want to do that unless they were acting an autistic character in a movie or something. I hope no one feels like they should do that.

Last edited by skibum on 20 Jan 2014, 11:08 pm, edited 4 times in total.

Exactly.

Ja. It's something of an adaptation to pretend to be NT. Generally, though, in times of stress the mask comes off, so to speak, often resulting in an apparent increase of autistic symptoms.

Cool, I'm in fashion.

I understand why you have a problem with people that are so mild it's hard to know they could be on the autism spectrum at all.

I have a few reasons for this, mainly it describes my own personal feelings towards this matter.

1) Our symptoms are impairing enough to be almost physically observable compared to people who have it milder. So to us our experience could well be the most highest functioning form of autism.

2) We don't want people to box us in that group of people who they think are pretending or exaggerating having autism.

3) Because of the wide spectrum and even the fact that traits of autism can exist in people without the condition I need to set up a barrier between too mild to be diagnosed verses fits enough of the criteria. It's like I stereotype autism myself. This is to give a clear definition to what is autism and what isn't.

I know people with milder symptoms can still struggle with their autism but sometimes it either feels like I should be doing better or they don't sound autistic to me at all, like the way autism is experienced in me.

I mean no offence, I just get confused and need clear barriers.

And lastly, Sonic the Hedgehog has very tall legs in your display picture.

What's weird to me sometimes is what sets people off to identify someone as mild (I do not mean pensieve - she just reminded me of it). Like I had one person telling me I was so mild I barely had problems, but I have a brief from my attorney for my current SSI appeal describing repeatedly how obviously autistic I am in addition to my documented impairments in terms of social interaction, impairments in self care, etc.

Someone off the street isn't going to notice self-care impairments or even social communication problems. No one here would know that I can't even get most of my words out properly and have severe memory recall problems.

I think it's when people tell their life story and highlight those mild symptoms and talk about having no problems talking to people, of course this depends largely on the type of people they talk to and if they share a common interest. We're never to know it for sure.

I think people who know how to swim are doing better than me. If you drive, have a family, work, have successfully dated and can travel, well I think you're invincible. Anyone with any level of impairment can do/have those things.

This also extremely bothers me, because it takes away from the legitimacy of us who actually suffer and who need accommodation. I believe a lot of "Aspies" are just introverted OCD/ADHD people who play up their symptoms so they can get a "cool" diagnoses and be all aloof and "intellectual" (Not to mention these diagnoses are not even done by Autism professionals, rather a verbal diagnosis in passing from a half ass GP). I also suspect maybe even 50% of this board is most likely not on the spectrum. I find it even more interesting that I've noticed a majority of the posters here are actually female... yet it's suppose to be every 3 males to 1 female is on the spectrum I believe? Which I find rather odd considering the male to female ratio here.

I'm aware that last sentence will piss a lot of you off, however I'd like to point out that isn't my attention, just an observation. So if you choose to be offended, well.... *shrug*

Yeah, I agree with all this. Most people who see me on the street won't be able to intuit most of my difficulties, and I have no issues with that. It's more when you have people like those you describe deciding for others what counts as "severe" or not. Like there was a guy on an ADD forum who spent most of his time insisting that he was the most severely ADHD person there and that everyone else were fakers. And this was a guy who'd had a family, who had a college degree, who worked for most of his adult life, lecturing people who had severe difficulties in all those areas because of their own ADHD.



So who actually thinks that Asperger's Syndrome is a "cool diagnosis?" And how do you know the qualifications of those who diagnosed people here?

As far as your complaint that too many women post here, that reminds me of someone else who complained that people were talking about having the "wrong stims" for their apparent severity. It's kind of interesting how often someone comes around here to complain that real live people aren't conforming to what the books say, but the thing is that if real live people don't conform to the books, then maybe there's something wrong with the books. Or the ratios or the studies or the research. Plus there is current research and discussion indicating that autistic girls and women are underdiagnosed and are not taken seriously when they present with autistic symptoms. I believe Lorna Wing herself has indicated that the 1:3 ratio is inaccurate.

Also, a forum is a place where participation is self-selected, and may not fully reflect overall demographics. It may be that autistic women are more likely to look for interactions online than autistic men. There may be other reasons. I don't personally know, but my impulse when faced with data that contradicts my assumptions is not to throw the data away.



This is nonsense. You state something knowing it might bother some people here, but then you try to shift the blame onto them for reacting to what you wrote instead of taking full responsibility for writing it in the first place. That's not cool. If it wasn't your intention, then maybe you should have left it unwritten? As it is, at the very least, own what you say, don't blame others for responding to you.

Also, I didn't find your comment offensive. Just factually incorrect.