Feeling alien towards others on the spectrum

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Do you ever feel strange and uncomfortable with other autistic people because your autism is different? Why?

The more I see of kids with AS or of youths with it on TV the stranger I feel about autism. Adults too, but I only really know WP. Because they are usually much better than I was at their ages, but unlike me they're also so much more failing to cope even if they try hard.

I don't expected them to cope as well as I did and I really like engaging them in some sort of interaction and help them.

It's just that it really confuses me. I feel alien about having the same diagnosis as them.

I always wonder how others don't just cope as well. I mean, I don't do anything special, so it's a whole different autism I have or something because I know others try very hard too. But it's really bugging me and I wonder about the nature of autism.

I think I know what you mean. When I was first diagnosed, I had never met a diagnosed autistic/AS person and when I finally did I was thinking 'But they're nothing like me' and if anything we were completely opposite. I live in a group home with 5 other people on the high functioning end of the spectrum and I've been here over a month now but I still have trouble understanding a couple of the residents. I bet NTs sometimes find that other NTs confuse them too I doubt it is AS specific. Me... I'm confused about everyone and everything!

Maybe I'm confusing you with somebody else (I've certainly been known to do that..) but I thought you'd said at some point that you were diagnosed with AS kinda as an experiment, using different criteria than are normally used? I think it was not long after I first came to WP, and I don't remember what the thread was, and I'm sure I won't be able to find it in your 4000-something posts.. But if that was you that was diagnosed strangely, is it possible that you don't actually meet the normal criteria? A lot of people who aren't diagnosed do have it.. it's possible that somebody who was diagnosed doesn't.. (or did I like dream all this or something?)

I feel alienated by everyone, at least I feel like Aspies will or can understand,
or at the very least, are capable of listening.

No that wasn't me. I was diagnosed by a different set of criteria than most here that's true.

By use of the ICD-10 from the WHO, not by use of the American DSM. But the criteria are mostly identical.

*scratches head* I wonder who it was.. maybe you posted near them in the same thread? (in which case you might remember which one it was? 'cuz I'm feelin' like an idiot..)

I think the ICD psychiatric diagnoses and the DSM diagnoses are almost the same for most disorders. In the US, usually when the ICD is used, the still use the ICD-9. The person who had said something about that was talking about the criteria by one of those autism "pioneers," I think. I thought they'd said something similar about not being like most aspies, though.

I feel exactly the same way as you Sora. Just a couple of weeks ago I met my first aspie besides myself, and we were completely different. His speech sounded slow--something more of a pause, I wonder--but whatever, I felt like an alien to him. Don't know how, but maybe it's the expectation we have on other aspies, they supposing to be like us just a few twists in their personality. So when I saw him I was saying, "Whoa, this guy, he acts different than what I suspect. Still we're aspies, and that's all that matters.

I would say that because none of us are 100% autistic (which I admit I got no idea what it would look like), so we still have some NT comportment so we expect them to be like us while among the autistic there is has much diversity then between the NT, we are just less. So maybe when we meet other aspie we see them the same way NT see us. It just that after first impression most chance that we will act different then NT through.

I do been get to some aspies social meeting, I did feel a little "alien" sometimes.(Turn out not all aspergers are "intellectuals") The things is that asperger syndrome is not the "whole" of our identity and that other elements could counting.
I know you don't like when peoples say you that, but from what I read frome some of your posts you are really, really, really smart. That could give you a ability to cope better, by learning rationally more of the "social skills". Their also this abilitiie you talk in one of your posts about learning social skills by "patterns recognition" (propably coming from your "high intellignece", by the way).

Hum, interessing point.

(BTW, Sora. Where do you find your avatar? It's really beautiful and I will like to get this picture in higher definition.)

Last edited by Tollorin on 09 Aug 2009, 10:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

Nah.

I fit the symptoms and outcome of the majority of those with the passive/aloof type of HFA* (at my best I'm passive).

*The book, High-functioning individuals with Autism explains the various types of HFA (Kanner's and AS on one end to "mild" AS, Schizoid PD, NLD, SPD on the other).

I seem to have the opposite problem. On WP, I feel like there are very few people here with my permutation of symptoms (or "visible effects" if you will). Almost all of those I relate to have extremely light symptoms. Some of them even label themselves as NT but with a few AS traits thrown in.

A few weeks back was the first time I met up with someone with AS in person. He seemed completely normal to me. No flat effect, good eye contact, we did the small talk thing just fine, and we had a very pleasant conversation. It was wonderful. I wish we could have talked more, in fact. Had I not known, I never would have suspected him of having AS. Odder still was that he has studied Asperger's quite a bit, and he's fairly convinced that I have AS. He said it was something about my mannerism, my approach, and my writing style on WP.

I thought about this some more, but I really cannot remember. If I happen to remember a topic like the one you described, I'll tell you though. I only know of the four somewhat popular sets of criteria... you don't mean Gillberg's criteria do you?



I will look into that.



I suppose I should accept this as a compliment, but it's embarrassing nevertheless because I don't feel that smart compared to many other people with a high IQ.

But yes, the pattern recognition (wherever this ability stems from, that bit is puzzling me completely) is a big advantage in social interaction for me and an ability that is fundamental to how well I function socially these days. I just wonder why I have that ability when others don't report of the same.



I found it on livejournal, but I don't remember where exactly, I'm sorry.

Hello Sora

I don't feel uncomfortable, but sometimes a little strange. I sometimes think 'oh I'm not like that' but then I think about the differences between NT's and relate that to people like ourselves and just put it down to that. Then I feel less strange. I have only actually ever spoken to 2 other autistic people (both have Asperger's) - one over the phone and one who I see on a regular basis as we met through my boyfriend. Any one else I have either spoken to through WP or MSN. All of whom I have spoken to have been different, sometimes with different types of ASD. Having said that though, I can understand why you may feel uncomfortable as I did at first, purely because I doubted I was autistic in the first place, largely due to the stereotype you see in the media. Now that I am far more learned I feel much more comfortable. I was ignorant and I am no more. Although, Sora, I doubt that this is your reason.



The thing with seeing autism on TV is some TV people like to over-dramatise things, so you have to be mindful of that. I'm not saying everyone does that, but some do. An example of one that didn't was a documentary I watched over a year ago called 'Autism and Me'. It was about a female who had four boys, all of whom had some form of autism. Her youngest had autism, her second youngest had HFA, her second eldest had Asperger's and her eldest had PDD-NOS. The child you saw most of was the one with Asperger's and he seemed to only be affected by it mildly. He was quite a joyful teenager who really didn't care what people thought of him. He knew he was different and dealt with it. He struck me as being the sort of kid who, if he were to be picked on, he would just turn round and say 'I don't care'. I don't actually know that but that's how he came across. My boyfriend thought his traits were very similar to mine. The other children seemed to be more affected by their ASD's, particularly the youngest as he barely spoke or interacted with anyone and didn't really welcome the attention. His breakfast had to be set out in a certain way and he had to have a bedroom to himself otherwise he got rather upset. His mother always complied with it and understood that this was the way he was and couldn't help it. I felt that this programme was positive and just simply displayed the challenges that both parents and people with ASD's face on a daily basis without making us look crap.



I feel that I also cope well with it - I am able to work, I socialise whenever I can and am in a long-term relationship - all things that are supposed to be very difficult for people like me. I do find it difficult, but I just have to try harder than most. I used to feel that, if I don't, then I'm denying myself a life. But then there are people with ASD's who cannot live a life like mine and it used to make me wonder 'well do I have it then?' But then people are different aren't they? Everyone deals with different things in different ways, it's just having an ASD seems to create an invisible barrier that NT's don't have. Having said that, I used to know an NT who had never had sex or a relationship because he was too scared of it and didn't really socialise much as he ws easily intimidated by people, so it just goes to show the differences between people. The guy who I regularly see with Asperger's has some similarities to me. We think very similar thoughts when it comes to certain TV series that we both like and music, as well as having similar thought processes when coming to making friends and relationships. We are both currently in long term relationships (I've been with my partner for 3 years, he's been with his 11 years) who we live with. Yet when it comes to going to work, I can, but he can't cope with it at all and has problems socialising unless someone he feels close to, such as his girlfriend, myself or my boyfriend is going to be present as well. But despite that, I no longer doubt I have what I do and feel more comfortable speaking with others that have ASD's as a result. I think it was because I felt a little bit like a fraud to begin with as I didn't seem to struggle as much as others, but then when I saw this site and people were discussing similar difficulties and emotions surrounding those difficulties, I felt more at home than I did with NT's.

I am quite atypical compared to most aspies, I'm not what you would call the "classic case" of aspergers if that makes sense. And I hear of people haveing sensory sensititvities and I think I'm the only one who's actually a sensory seeker and overloads are few and far between. And I'm not a "little proffesor" I'm more of a little philosopher, I'm not a walking encyclopedia of facts, I'm not that factual in that I am more about ideas and fantasy. And also I'm in that crossover point where I'm too NT to fit in with aspies and I'm too aspie to be like NTS.

I haven't seen the TV show, but from the way you describe him, that describes me perfectly growing up. I knew I was different, but I didn't really care. I stopped seeking friends, yet eventually friends found me. And out of that, I actually became rather outgoing in certain friendship circles.


Exactly. Especially without a diagnosis, I often wonder this. I often feel like a fraud. Sometimes I actually feel guilty that I don't seem to have the challenges that many here face.


Yes, yes... yes!

I also think that, when autistic people are getting by just fine in life, they are less likely to need a support forum. So that sort of skews the demographic a bit on WrongPlanet.

I often forget that there are probably more people out there like me who have absolutely no idea that autism is more than just "Rain Man." I think about my musician friends and I see AS traits almost everywhere. We share learning and thought processes, and they are amazingly similar to what people discuss here. Among my friends, the traits seem to present themselves more as foibles than dysfunction. Few of them would believe that some of their basic thought processing may have more in common with autism than not.

I saw that documentary the night my mum told me about my diagnosis. I remember thinking "oh man that asperger guy is such a nerd!" then afterward my mum was like "you have that", I soon changed my mind about him and then realised that I could infact relate to him.