Heard the best saying ever about "mild" Autism.. Brilliant!!

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Exactly. I'm technically diagnosed with Asperger's, so would be classified as "mild." No one but me knows how hard I struggle to even say a word sometimes, they just know that sometimes I talk just fine, so I must always be capable of that, and just don't want to talk. No one I know in person believes me when I tell them that sometimes I literally can't speak loudly/clearly enough to be understood, or at all. People don't see how much my sensory issues bother me, because unless it's excruciating, I tend not to give any outward sign. I also tend to have shutdowns instead of meltdowns, and I'm usually quiet and unobtrusive enough that people seem to not even notice when that happens. No one else sees how hard I struggle just to fail at so many things, they just see that I didn't succeed, so they assume I wasn't trying hard enough or don't care. Now, everyone who tries to interact with me for five minutes can probably tell that something's up with me - I've never had anyone doubt my diagnosis or anything when I tell them - but no one truly understands just how hard it makes things for me.

I can totally relate, my dad makes the same judgments about me. He has a tendency to scream at me about how I clearly don't care about things if I don't succeed, until I'm far too distraught to say a word in my defense, and then when I try to leave to give us both time to calm down, accuses me of "running away every time you don't like something." He has some autistic traits, and I think he recognizes the similarities between us and assumes that if he has these problems and can still function perfectly well, then clearly I can too, if I'd just try hard enough, not realizing how much stronger these issues are for me. I think he kind of sees it as just being introverted and intelligent, which is definitely not the case for me.

I am going to disagree with the consesus here in some ways.

I think how one presents is in no particular order is a combination willpower, smart or dumb coping strategies, the situation you are in/people you have to deal with, and severity.

I fully understand that autistics on a whole would be a LOT more happy and productive in a autism friendly world not the often autism hostile world we are in. That is why I support the Autism rights and Neurodiversity movements despite their growing reputation as whiney identity politics. But I am not convinced there is no severity difference between the married good job and struggling like hell to keep it up as autistic and the autistic in need of 24/7 maintenance.

There is different levels of pain, intellegence, different stages of cancer. It makes no sense that autism is somehow different. It never feels "not so bad" when it is happening to you. That is life in general, not just autism.

Does your mom think you aren't autistic and does she think you're very normal? Sounds like it. I am also baffled how a parent can be so oblivious to their kid's disability. They surely would have noticed it then too when they were a child but just didn't know what it was then unless they thought their child was just a lazy inconsiderate a**hole and never stopped to think to take their kid to a therapist to figure out how to help them and to get them to stop and surely the doctor would have told the parents the kid isn't doing it on purpose and help them to figure out how to help their kid.

My mom says I am very normal and has downplayed my problems by acting like I am doing it on purpose or it's something I can just stop like a switch in my brain. Like I told her one time I can't seem to do two things at once because when I am in the middle of something and then I have to stop and do something else, I get forgetful and she goes "no you are in a rush" or the time I was talking to her on the phone and I was still working my old job at the time. I told her how it was so hard for me to remember to do something and my mom was like how that is unacceptable and when things are very busy at work, she tells her patients to call her if she isn't back in ten minutes. But here is a thing, lot of people have executive functioning issues when things are really really busy and packed and it becomes acceptable to make mistakes because everyone becomes understanding but I do this on a normal day and that is when it's unacceptable because we are not very busy and packed. Another thing I remember was when I was in high school, I was having a lot of anxiety and then behavior as a result of it and I told my mother in my senior year how I wanted to move out when I was 16 but I couldn't because I didn't have money or a job or even my driver's license (we lived in the country) and my mom said "You just wanted your way so you wanted to move out because you weren't getting your way." She has said plenty of hurtful things to me about my problems and I believe this part is totally unrelated to my disability and it had more to do with being young and inexperienced with dating since plenty of NTs also have had bad relationships but I told my mother how I was so naive and didn't pick up on the red flags about my first ex and my mom goes "No you gave him the benefit of the doubt." Not very hurtful there, just a neutral comment but I still felt she was downplaying my issue.

I sometimes wonder if she is secretly disappointed in me because I never went to college and got a degree and I am not working full time. At least she has never implied this was a choice like I decided I just didn't want to pursue a degree or that I just want to be lazy. But she has said other things like how I don't care what people think when in fact I am not aware what others could think of me based on my clothing choices and because I have a poor sense of fashion or telling me I jut chose to not tell her as a child how little kids are allowed to upset older children and get them into trouble with their behavior when in fact it just didn't occur to me to tell her that so she was acting like I had decided to not ever tell her as a kid until high school.

Another disturbing thing she believes, that I tried to be Asperger's in my teen years. I wish she would understand that people on the spectrum do get worse when they reach adolescence. I have seen posts about it on autism forums and even autism parents have written how their autistic child had gotten worse and seeing individuals on the spectrum saying the same about themselves. I thought I was going insane at that age and it always puzzled me when my mom would tell me "be Beth, don't try to be aasperger's." That just made no sense. That is like telling me "Be Beth, don't try to have brown hair." She would have mind as well have told me don't try to be OCD or anxiety or ADD. So basically she thinks I faked all my issues in my teen years and that I chose to have meltdowns and chose to have tremendous anxiety and chose to be bothered by my brothers making messes or being in my personal space or that I picked to have anxiety about our puppy peeing in the house. Only thing I tried to have was ODD and that backfired because that would have given me a trip to a mental hospital.

My dad definitely seems to think I'm just a lazy inconsiderate a**hole, despite my diagnosis. He doesn't listen when I try to explain, going so far as to interrupt me mid-sentence when I'm trying to explain that I can't do something to say "No, I think you just don't want to." He definitely seems to have the same opinion of me that your mom does of you. I've had some similar experiences with him.

Who would've known possessing something so apparently mild could screw up so many of our lives so badly??

I love your comment Dancing Corpse!

Yeah, my mom is tough to figure out. I have a hatd time understanding her. I think she thinks that HFA is like having the sniffles. She once sent me a list of 20 most successful Autistic people and said I was making excuses for not being able to succeed. I asked her if she understood why they publish those lists. I actually have no idea why they do but I figured maybe that question might make her think. Considering that the under/unemployment rate for Autistics in the US and UK is between 80% and 90% and that is only what we know of those diagnosed. (I cam find the sources later if you want, I am lying in bed now) I think they might put out those lists because they think it's so impressive that Autistics can be so accompliahed. Reality is that in the right environment with the right support, we can easily be the most accomplished people. What holds us back is not issues within ourselves but the struggles we have trying to navigate a society that is not made with us in mind. It's the challenges of living in a world that we have to struggle a hundred times harder in than nts do that makes it so difficult for us to succeed. If society was made to accommodate Autistics, we would succeed just fine.

So I have to disagree with what someone said earlier about willpower. I am sorry, I. Have an older phone so it's hard to do quotes and go back and forth through posts with it so sorry I did not specify who posted that post. I have plenty of willpower. But willpower doesn't cut it when it comes to dealing with my issues with Autism. No amount of willpower can make me overcome some of the issues that challenge me the most.

I think the trouble is that autism affects people on so many levels. So someone who has reasonable social skills may have debilitating OCD or big executive functioning troubles. Or a person may have more of the classic "tells" such as monotone voice or a pronounced flat affect, yet have better social skills than a person who looks and sounds more NT.

I really think it's the social skills that have the most effect on people's lives. There are therapies and workarounds for the other things, but even if you're good at working the social scene by intellectual ability alone, you'll still be exhausted by the end of the day.

And we can't underestimate how powerfully sensory and emotional overloads can affect our ability to function. I have had 11 meltdowns in two days. Yesterday I tried to eat a can of tuna and the effort it took for me to open it, drain it, and put it in a bowl was so great I thought I would pass out before I could eat it because I was so overhelmed from overload. And I am about as "high functioning" or seemingly "mild" as you can imagine

And bieng streesed or tired I think causes more of a functioning dropoff with us then NT's because we have less "spoons". Others see us functioning well at certain times and when we don't they assume we are not trying hard enough and making excuses because when they are tired it is a lot less difficult for them to plow through it.

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I think you are definitely right when you say fatigue has greater consequences on us than it has on nts. And we get fatigued so much quicker. It takes a lot less to exhaust and overwhelm us than it does nts and the effects on us are stronger and it takes us much longer to recover than it does nts.

I only have an Associates. Funding was pulled out from under after I had taken transfer classes in order to get my teaching degree. I wasn't in a position to get a loan unfortunately.

I do get upset when others assume that just because some autistic people got advanced degrees that the rest of us should have them. Having great financial resources makes all the difference in the world as well as supportive family. I had neither.

Ladyelaine and the Santa Maria lady are very fortunate. Having been called stupid, fat and ugly all through childhood took a toll on me.

I don't tell people what I have. Past experience has taught me not to.

P.S. The people whom I have told had no problem believing it....bringing it out in the open seemed to give them permission to treat me like a child. I'm not good with that.

That is why I don't seek a diagnosis, HistoryGal. I feel a formal diagnosis would give people the ammunition to treat me as either an outcast or a child and I don't want that. I think it could also kill any future career goals I have. I just have to accept I'm different and make the best of it.

HistoryGal,

Yes, I am fortunate. I am behind the typical curve by quite a bit, but I am slowly and steadily improving. I need to be careful not to do anything that could set me back again.