Neurotypicals are happier than people with AS

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NT's are generally happier. How many NT's end up with psychologists and psychiatrists? By contrasts, how many autistic people do? And if we want to defuse social constructivist concerns, how many of those autistic people goes to the psychiatrist or psychologist simply because they cannot cope any more? I only know three people who've been to psychiatrists (me being one) and none of them are happy, far from it, vast parts of their lives are psychological torture.

Hmm...

Some of the so called normal people I've seen experience lots of intense "social dramas" on a daily basis:

Splitting up with friends/boyfriends,
People not calling
People calling
Wearing the wrong outfit
Arguing
Rumour spreading
Rejection
Bullying
Deceit etc.

I don't think that I'm honestly able to cope with a lot of this non-sense.
Sometimes I'm actually glad to be sitting alone in a corner while other people yell at each other.

This is why I try not to get too involved and close to other people's emotional problems. It's just too much.

I know a few NTs who are always telling me how happy they are; but I think that if they were truly happy, they really shouldn't have the need to talk about it so often. They would just be happy naturally.

NT's can have a proper conversation without messing up all the time, they can physically do what they want correctly, they can manage to get a relationship going with ease, they are able to be within a position of power and they are able to get many friends, be popular and ultimately have a better life. Sorry guys, but I think that everyone who thinks aspies have better lives is delusional. Why do you think so many aspies are depressed? I want to kill myself as a result of Asperger's Syndrome.

i don't think its just an AS/NT issue, i think that intelligence relates to happyness, the more informed and intelligent you are the less happy you will be, you may be jealously lambasted for your skills, and, at the end of the day, IGNORANCE = BLISS...x

Not sure. I'm very sad sometimes, yes, but I'm also VERY happy at times...

Very important point.

NONE of those things listed has NEARLY the emotional effect on NTs as they do people with AS.

It may seem overwhelming to you, but to them it is a minor hurdle.

I wouldn't go so far as you did and dismiss the suffering of "NT's" as "minor", but I do agree that we suffer exponentially in comparison. The tricky thing is, everyone is the centre of their own little narrative and therefore any travails they endure will be placed higher than those around them.

I agree.

Also, most though not all NTs are extremely narrow minded and intolerant of difference. Today I actually heard someone accuse another person of being socially inappropriate and weird....basically because he pointed out a pretty looking insect, disrupting his group from their drunken shouting and general out of control behaviour. That's how messed up so called normal people are.

Sure, ASD sucks like hell sometimes. We can be horribly maladaptive, not be able to hold a conversation without having little psychological 'seizures' every few minutes because someone used fuzzy or non literal language and we can't decode. We can drive away the 1/2 close friends we have due to our obsessional interests. We can be reduced to sleeping 2/3 hours and hyperventilating all the time because we've had to adopt a new general life routine. We can hurt people we care about for weeks or months without noticing that we're being hurtful. We can completely melt down because we have to concentrate on more than one thing at once. I've had all these effects and more....and I would still rather be me.

I've been wondering that for awhile whether or not nt's were really happier than us and the reality is if it were true i think it would be really hard for me to accept that because of my "condition" i am living a less happy life than 99% of people around me. Truth is though that a lot of different things go into it. If you were to find a good looking aspie who's in good shape, who's familys got a lot of connections and he has a couple brothers and sisters who respect him enough to themselves and their friends stand up from him getting bullied in school, and he's really intelligent plus has a special interest in a field thats in high demand and has had a lot of lucky turns in life VS. an NT who may be social but isn't very smart, or good looking and happens to be from a divorced family with very little money and maybe he got involved in drugs and had to drop out of school.....u get the point. I think external things play a major part in as well.

Over the past two years I was in a fraternity up at my school and even though we were the "nerdier" fraternity we still had alot of NT's and I saw all the s**t that they had to go through throughout that amount of time. One guy had clincial depression, another had generalized anxiety disorder and was a bit sadistic, a bunch were extremely overweight, one's dad had died at an early age, anothers parents got married just to raise him and than got divorced not too long after.....and the "coolest" kid we had there's best friend ended up getting murdered the night of his birthday at the bar he chose out.

What i'm saying is everyones got s**t to deal with that can bring down their happiness and as my dad always says we all choose our own poisions..... At my college cocaine was a pretty popular poison. Just because I decided to see a free therapist on campus every now and than when i needed help while alot of other people i knew spent close to $5,000 on cocaine means that I'm the wrong one? don't think so...at least I utilized the free resources.

Well said!

I agree with AmberEyes.

To KevinLA:

If these (and others) are a problem for you/more so than for non-autistic people, then it's not because of your AS but because the rest of your person can't cope. I have autism, I can cope and don't even mind a number of these.



I've seen normal people develop emotional issues for years to come because of being bullied for a year or two, while I go out of a decade of bullying from students, teachers, adults and am totally mentally healthy besides the old neurological stuff I had before.

KevinLA, I don't understand why you'd think these have more consequences for autistic people than for others? If they do have an abnormally strong influence over you, that's not due to your AS then, that's due to having emotional issues, being unstable, having no self-confidence, being overly socially involved, that sort of thing.

NT's seem to be better than I am at going through the motions of life. They don't get so incapacitated by anxiety and inertia. They definitely don't get overwhelmed by things as easily as I do. They don't get so frustrated and mentally/physically drained by all the little things in life that drive me to the edge.

NT's seem to coast through life comparatively easy but at the same time most of them aren't as curious or passionate as I am. I can't imagine being your typical dumb "joe sixpack". I don't understand the average person. When I try to imagine being in the shoes of a typical NT I can't imagine not being bored out of my mind. Intelligent NT's are a lot more like me though.

not my kind of demarcation line - the whole ASD/NT thing. the term "NT" is as objectionable to me as the term "aspie."

I don't think one can generalise.

In the end, we are all simply HUMAN. I find it hard to remember this fact...but when I do, i seem to have a lot more acceptance and happiness in my life!

You know, sinsboldly posted something in reply to a post i made the other day - I was doing one of my usual grumpy rants about "young ASD people with the benefit of an early dx' versus "older ASD people without the benefit of an early dx." She posted about an experience at a conference where she actually went and TALKED to a younger person with an ASD and discovered that it was possible to bridge the gaps we can adhere to. "everyone has their histories," i think she said. We can educate ourselves and are open to others. It was good for me to hear this. I want to learn to be more open and more accepting, and i do not want to keep categorising people so harshly as it actually makes me angry and embittered. (so my motives may well be selfish but so what??)

I also come here to learn.

Salient point. I went away and made a decision to learn to do this more. I want to learn to bridge more gaps, not perpetuate the ones that are already f*****g up this world so successfully.

So I think it is a good move individually and for the planet. I want to try to practice it more.

Many events have a stronger emotional influence on me than on most people, but some events don't affect me as much as most people. AS is commonly associated with trouble regulating the emotions.

that says it all for me, Marshall.
There are great things and lousy things on either side of the divide. Welcome to the human race, folks.