explain how autism feels in your own words

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For me, it depends on when I would be relating my experience.

As a child, I felt lost and alone in a fog of confusion. I didn't 'speak the language' that everyone else was speaking, and everything I did was wrong, apparently. To me, I was happiest when alone, doing my own thing, but when out in the big, bad world, I always felt like I was simply going through life, hiding a huge secret from the world, which I was ashamed of; even if I didn't understand what it was.

As an adult, I would describe it as a forceful challenge, in which to test me and my ability to cope in life; no matter the obstacles. I've had many things thrown my way, and I've learned to either dodge them, or survive the hits. Now that I've learned what I am, and how to harness what I have, I use it like a tool, or a super power, to get through life. It's both a handicap, and a gift, depending on my current predicament, though I choose to see it more so as a gift, as I would not wish to be rid of it, now that I have mastered it.

Ditto for me on that. Almost to the letter.

I went for years observing how fluidly and seemingly effortlessly most people socialized, and thought that something was not right that the same kind of thing refused to happen for me, or that it somehow seemed to deliberately avoid me.

Before I had even heard of AS, I thought various things - that I'm unlikable, that someone put a curse on me, that God wanted me to suffer, etc. I could not really make sense of it, even as I did enjoy my alone time. But too much alone time left me trailing my peers socially, and that had its own consequences.

Ah this is why it can be better to stay in your own world sometimes. In my inner world it's all warm and accepting and I can find lots of things I love and enjoy such as the pleasure I feel when I indulge my hobbies and whilst I am there everything is lovely, especially as I live alone and can mold my environment to suit myself in many ways.

The only downside is that it gets lonely some days, especially when I find myself desiring a little intimacy, and to ease that loneliness and make contact with people I have to pop out of my world and interact with others...that is where the problems begin, with outside interaction.

I am just dandy when I am pottering around in Bumble land most of the time, especially as I don't always judge in the same way as society does (I still don't understand fully what this whole worthless thing feels like and how a person can be worthless to begin with..it seems an odd way to measure or quantify the process of life). Its when I have to come out of bumble land and deal with social politics, social cues, noise, chemicals, clothes that irritate, peoples demands that be this that or the other and so on.

Too much, usually want to head back into bumble land again, whether I am in company or not.

It's like I have something stuck to my face or my back; something gross or ridiculous and everybody else can see it on me, but I can't figure out what it is. And for whatever reason, everybody insists on cranking the lights and sounds as instensely as they possibly can while exhibiting no discomfort, and then criticizing me for trying to avoid these sounds or wearing sunglasses inside, despite that being a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

And somehow, everybody seems to know just what to say. Their words fail to conform to the formal rules of logic, and yet they overpower anything I can say with ease.

I don't know really.

I feel as if most people are like dolphins in the ocean, and I'm more like a dog. They are perplexed by my frustration and fatigue from being in the water.

The world overloads my senses, and I just want to withdraw and be alone. Also I feel like I'm a different species from most human beings.

I feel tormented and tortured, I feel like I'm serving a sentence for a crime I can't remember committing.

I feel as though I'm separate and isolated. It's as though there is some kind of invisible barrier between me and the rest of the world.

I am always on the outside even when people do try to include me. I get scared, I get lonely, I get exhausted through trying to do what is expected of me.

I have breakdowns, meltdowns, shutdowns and I get overloaded. I have psychotic episodes, I get paranoid, I find it hard to distinguish reality from fantasy.

I am anxious, extremely shy, nervous, timid, and I feel as though I stopped developing socially at about 13.

Everyday is an achievement in itself. I feel stupid. I am confused.

I feel like there's nothing wrong with me. I feel amazing! I'm the best @#$%ing person ever. No lie.

Everyone else though is like wtf is this crap and treats me accordingly. So then I'm like, "hey guys, what's your problem ya'lls?"

And then they tell me but it's so ambiguous that they don't even really know what the problem with me is. It just is. It's like their instinct just knows.

And then you realize that while everything that you see is right and normal and all that, everyone else looks over like you're some kind of crazy person. There's something wrong with you. But you're like, what is it? It's not really anything. But it's there. And you have no idea what it is. You don't know how to stop it, you don't know how to even approach it, you don't know what you're doing wrong, or when, or how, or why. It's just there and it's just there to screw up everything that makes you awesome. You try to construct using your smart brain how you could circumnavigate it, and while you do succeed in some areas, there are things that you will never understand.

The universe is all in my head but the human race confounds me.

This summarizes it better than I could myself.

As a bit of a computer nut, the way TV Tropes describes Asperger's made a lot of sense to me.

An analogy I also like to use when explaining Asperger's to an NT is to compare my life to a message board, a lot like this one. I see people communicating, but I can't see the subtext beneath the words clearly. I can't hear the tone of voice being used, so I have to make an educated guess based on what is said.

The key is that I have to think about it, instead of it coming naturally. I have to devote brainpower towards interpreting feelings in others, where NT's don't, and because I have to think about it, that means it's more likely I'll make a mistake and say the wrong thing, or send the wrong signals.

It's quiet and peaceful inside my own world.
Laying for hours staring at the pictures on the wall with beautiful piano music by Franz Liszt filling up my head.
My world is time slowed down, time doing nothing. The outside world is chaos.

Trying to find whats suits me in life.

Yes!! Extremely accurate. For me it is 100% the same thing.

Oh, another thing. You have to learn things manually. Instead of naturally. So when people act like it's "natural" it's actually not. lol