feeling like a failure, even though you're smarter than most

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Yes, I have felt like a failure.

When I first started work I assumed that due to my superior intelligence I would automatically be on the "fast track" to success - instead I chose the wrong career & ended up stuck in a rut.

I was furious and resentful that the social skills I had been brought up to believe were irrelevant were valued so much more than a high IQ.

The most important thing is to manage expectations and for the AS child to be given a realistic understanding of his/her potential to succeed in life.

It needs to be explained WHY social skills are important, as well as trying to teach them. (I would never do anything I was told unless I understood the reason for it!)

Also, please do not underestimate how difficult some of these things are for an aspie with Executive Dysfunction (as I also have). It is a question of "can't", not "won't", and there is no logical pattern to what is or is not difficult.

In my younger dayz i felt like a scapegoat cos i couldn't fit in well wid people but wen i turned an adult tings started 2 get better n now i feel good about myself.

Well, if "smarter" than most equates to saying razor is to hair as knife is to...throat, I guess I am smarter than the average autistic/"NT" in that single facet, which is supposedly generalized
intelligence.

Failure as in utilizing said intelligence to do as my intellectual peers have achieved and accomplished (formal education and vicarious vocative vocational voids), I am a failure, albeit with one hell of an excuse: autism.

Smarter than the average bear, moves far slower than my fellow hares, but doesn't care; I only cared for the expectations placed on me by those I cared for, and since I misread said expectations due to my one hell of a reason: my inability to achieve what my intellectual peers have is moot, and close to naught in importance for I don't wish to do that.

At the moment, it's paddling my feet around in the stream, sharpening knives, talking to her, listening to Sage Francis and learning how to talk to people I don't know.

We do what we want to, consequences are on us, and made by others.

To my parents credit they have never called me a failure, or said they were disappointed in me in any way but I do feel like a failure for sure. I don't know that I am smarter than most, my IQ tests would say so but I don't feel that way and I certainly haven't accomplished the sort of things that I think I should have accomplished by now if those numbers were accurate.

I don't know what my parents could have done any differently as I think they did the right things, so my feelings of FAIL have nothing to do with anything they did or did not do. Getting the proper diagnosis for your children this early is already a good start. Form here you have access to a ton of resources to aid you in many of the difficulties that you may face. Just make sure they know that you don't think they are failures and you will be fine I think.

I would emphasize the word *interests*. Various social events can be disturbing, especially the "funny" ones.
When in distress, people learn little, more likely they worsen their phobias.

Also, a bit of socializing might help those who feel like a failure. I guess half of the feeling comes from stupid things, like a soup poured into own lap.
Such embarassing events happen to everyone, but if you do not go out, you won't notice. Others then look more able and succesful then they are.