Wouldn't It Be Better To Have Severe AS Than Mild?

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I am sort of like you.

I have no diagnosis but I do have many traits. I started learning how to make friends around 14, but it's because I CHANGED who I was. I don't think this is the answer for everyone or even an option in some cases.

I had some fulfilling friendships and they only reason the fell apart is because I walked away from them, but in the past I was very introverted and people did take advantage of me because of it, talked to me like I was a child and acted like I should be grateful to be around them. I've slipped in an out of my introverted nature my entire life, but I haven't been my "true" self that gets disregarded and taken advantage of since I was about 18.

It's a shame that anyone should have to become someone that they aren't to be treated with respect. I too sometimes wish that I was more severe so that I could fit ALL THE WAY in with one group, I would like to be NT or have AS to a degree that would allow me to fit in with other Aspies, instead I drift along this uncomfortable middle ground, trying to fit in with NTs enough to for relationships and because I WANT to have these relationships but knowing at the same time that I probably don't seem quite normal to most of them.

I don't know the answer. Many people seem to like me even though I'm weird. I'm not usually the kind of weird that would cause people to call me "slow" or "crazy". I've been called eccentric. I HAVE been called crazy by some people, and they really believe that I am but these are usually people that I knew felt that way about me and that I honestly didn't like much. You can't win with everyone, there IS something not *normal* about me, even if it isn't that severe and some people aren't going to like it. I force myself to be more extroverted than I really am do people won't f*ck with me, even it means coming of as a bit strange or distracted at times, because I'm talking to people/doing things with them when I'd really rather be at home studying about something.

Just try to be yourself or the closest thing you CAN be to yourself while making it clear to other people that you aren't going to tolerate being treated like what you described. Maybe you need to get rid of the people in your life who treat you that way, I did when I was about 18. I knew that I was already *that* person in their group and that it wasn't going to change so I just changed the way I presented myself and met some new people.

It's all a learning experience. I still feel that I'm in no way connected to anybody I know but I go through the motions.

When did severe sensory overload suddenly be a symptom of "severe" autism? Doesn't everyone on the spectrum experience that? Because I'm very much people's idea of a high-functioning Aspie (bright academically, able to hold my own socially, relatively normal affect) and I've had overloads so severe I've stripped naked and still it's been too much because of my hair on my back and the floor under my feet. I've been trapped in the catch-22 of needing silence in order to think and get away from the pain and being unable to be polite as sounds pound my head as if they were nails being hammered in, and people continuing to talk to lecture me about manners because I can only say "shut up! Shut up!"

I really don't think you mean to imply that life with sensory issues (which practically all of us have) is a living hell. Right off the bat, I can think of things that I'd willingly experience sensory overload to avoid. Or are you trying to distance yourself from "those people" (the LFAs), who are disabled and life unworthy of life, while you're high-functioning and thus okay?

I mean, yeah, wishing more problems on yourself does seem a little weird, and in the OP's case it's nonsense, but... I find that I must either cordially disagree with the idea that LFAs' lives are a living hell, or cordially disagree with the idea that I am an LFA (and the idea that my life is a living hell).

Sensory issues are not a diagnostic criteria. There have been threads here with people saying they don't have any sensory issues or non-inhibiting ones at least.

I think I see where he is coming from--it does seem to me that the ones with the greatest emotional issues in dealing with Asperger's are the ones that are nearly normal--they would fit in if it weren't for their inability to understand nonverbal social conversation. You look normal--what is your problem?? Those of us who are clearly eccentric or obviously different seem to have an easier time of it.

No.

Some of the s**t I did from my ASD traits...I totally don't want a severe version.

And I already have hypersensitive sight as it is, and some of my sensory processing mechanisms are totally outta whack.

I get where you're coming from. I don't fit in with NT's, and I don't really fit in with the AS people at my social support group. They spent 2 hours talking about the same subject, which I wasn't particularly interested in, and drove me around the bend.

However, any friends I do have are generally considered a bit weird, which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing. I'm convinced at least two of them have AS, although mild, as they haven't been diagnosed (yet). So maybe try finding "weird" people to hang out with, you never know, they might me mild aspies like you.

On that... sometimes I wonder where autism ends and being "normal" begins.

Even some severe aspies feel the same way. They also feel they don't fit in because they are too severe. I have a friend from here ho is severe AS and she feels that way.

Anyways I have also felt I don't fit in with other aspies not NTs. It's like I am in between. I feel I am not aspie enough but yet I feel I am not NT enough.

Indeed. Although I'd say autism begins when impacting your life in a negative way. Eg getting depressed because of isolation, etc.

I think this sounds like a case of the grass being greener.

The benefit of being more severe is also its drawback.

It's like envying a guy in a wheelchair because nobody questions his being disabled nor can anyone force him to prove he is disabled to receive assistance.

You just know the typical guy in a wheelchair would gladly give up all the "benefits" of his condition to be able to walk and run.

I don't know about you, but I like being a stealth Aspie. I feel like I can infiltrate the NT world and learn how they function as I appear to be just a quirky NT to most people. Oh how little they know, lol.

My former roommate has a sister, Shannon, who has severe autism and it's heartbreaking to me. This girl is 26 years old, completely dependent on her mom and sister, and can't hold an entry level job. It doesn't seem to bother her though. So long as she has plenty of Muppets and Fraggle Rock videos to watch, she's happy. For awhile, when my roommate would go to school, Shannon would think that she died. She comes home, "Yaay! You're not dead!" This repeated until they brought her to the university so Shannon could see where her sister was going. Now it's "Caitie's going to college? Have fun!" She's so sweet.

I have heard over the years many people,
AS and NT, who have expressed the
desire to be more in their heart
than in their head.

My work with people with learning
difficulties autistic and non-
autistic has taught me that the
greatest suffering in humanity comes
from a lack of humility and an
overactive mind.

I have learned and continue to learn
that although the auguish and pain
of the clasically autistic is real
and cries out for our love and
understanding. They have a simple
spirit and beauty that can leave
one in awe.

Wouldn't it be better to be more
severe?.........interesting thought.
What I would question is wouldn't
it be better to just be
ourselves and stop trying to
figure everything out?

I am nowhere near reaching this
enlightenment.......but I know many
who have, though the 'clever people'
would lablel them mad.....or
severely redarded.

That is the curse of my form of Asperger's--the automatic reflex to figure everything out! People get really upset when you figure out clever answers to questions they didn't really want an answer to! But why did you ask it in the first place? I now say I don't know the answer, even though I actually do--if I realize they have stupidly asked a question they don't want answered! It isn't just a reflex--I can go for hours figuring out how to make something perfectly square and level--or figuring out how to fix some appliance that broke. My wife wife has different opinions of the former and latter.

I figured out that I really need to come home and not work on work--it is really important to do stuff to de-stress and get my mind off problems that really need to be solved--though I'll often solve them anyway.

Sort of like the movie Adam--the customer wants 1000 $5 widgets, not five $1000 ones. For some of us it is hard not to overdo things. I think the better adjusted among us realize the need to crank out the cheap ones first, before we do anything else--prioritize!

Wow, I can recognize that... being obsessed with music, I eventually joined one of the school bands (was the jazz band) to find others with similar interests, but most of them weren't as obsessed as me, so I still didn't connect to them.

I don't know about the mild - severe thing. I'm told that I have a mild AS. No there isn't in the DSM a 'mild' or 'moderate' category, but remember the term spectrum disorder - some are more mild, some are more severe. On one note, I had being told that I have a 'mild' case, because I like blaming the fact that I was a basket case as a child, on AS or ADHD, rather than on myself - otherwise, I just get into the mess of, "I guess disregarding AS and ADHD, I'm still a bad person."

Meh.

On one hand, there is something to that 'Stealth Aspie" that's kind of neat... yet, on the other, I want many friendships or connections with other people, but can't seem to find a single soul I can relate to, and I hate failing in conversations, and I hate feeling uncomfortable around the very people I want to feel comfortable around. Adding to loneliness, and thus, adding to depression.

On the note of anime and games and such... I tend to have NT and AS interests in that sense. I used to be really into sports. I suppose after years of not fitting in with any sports teams, and a few AS traits making sports difficult, I lost interest and gravitated towards more... "atypical" interests such as anime and games. Needless to say, however, I didn't quite fit in with either of those groups either...

I must say I've been in OP's shoes. In a way, it would be easier to have something that most (some?) people have recognized as a disability. If I were actually on that side of the spectrum, though, I probably wouldn't even recognize whatever "benefits" I did have over people who are only mildly disabled...