Hows life been for you with autism

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Dunno if its even possible to educate neurotypical people on this. Loads of people seem incapable of comprehending the idea of you being autistic when you're just as smart as them. Everyone says that to me "I don't see you as autistic". Its as if they think your different because you have a mild psychological issue that can just be overcome with a little effort by facing it. They don't seem to comprehend the fact that rather than being analogous to a slacker in school who just needs to pay more attention and try harder in order to keep up with the class its actually more analogous to a Russian in an English school. He can put all his effort into paying attention to what the teacher is saying but despite his best efforts he'll fail because unless he learns English he won't know what the hell the teacher is talking about. In the case of autistic people its even trickier because they can't just learn to think like a neurotypical person in the same way a Russian can learn to speak English. People with HFA such as ourselves though are more like Russians that can speak enough English to keep up with the class. This kinda Russian has an advantage over the other students which is that he speaks 2 languages. In our case our neurochemistry seems to make creative and scientific thinking easy for us which is probably why we dominate science and are the ones that invent everything because science not only requires logical thinking it also requires creative thinking. Thats probably what confuses people they see that socially we act like ret*ds but then they see us performing things that they would consider complex tasks that require intelligent to perform.

Did you get diagnosed early in life or later on? I got diagnosed a couple of years ago at 20, I didn't know there was even such thing as high functioning autism I got diagnosed accidentally when I went in for an ADHD assessment then I read up on HFA and it explained EVERYTHING. It all started making sense then. It was weird before that cuz I knew I was different and everyone was alluding to me being different and it was starting to freak me out cuz I didn't know why I was different. To make matters worse this ****** up society makes it out like if you're different there has to be something wrong with you so I was thinking I was psychologically ****** up but was in complete denial and had repressed all memories of why I was ******. Given the choice to go back in time and get diagnosed earlier I wouldn't cuz if I didn't have that unique life experience I wouldn't be where I am today. What about you hows life been for you being on the high end of the autism spectrum?

Yep.

"You're different, you're weird - WTF is wrong with you, loser!?!"

"Disability? Handicap? Oh, come on, you're no different than the rest of us, Slacker."

The invisible Impairment.

They wouldn't think of dumping a paraplegic out of a wheelchair and screaming: "Get up and walk, you bum - quit faking!" But it's perfectly acceptable to treat someone with HFA like dirt, because we're just using it as an excuse.

I'd never heard of AS until 45, DXd at 49...I don't know if knowing earlier would have helped or hindered. It wouldn't have changed my disability. I don't believe you can improve on it significantly, much less cure it or 'overcome it' - that is simple self-delusion. A part of our brains stopped developing normally. No amount of 'positive thinking' is going to will that away.

Best to learn to live with what we have and make the best of it - it's a waste of time thinking "One day I'll be just like all the other boys and girls" 'cause we won't, and the minute one starts thinking you are fitting in and passing for normal, you're setting yourself up for a big humiliation when you realize they know you're not one of them.

You know I have had two very strange experiences with physician assistants lately.

PA No. 1 saw the book I was reading in the exam room, "The Complete Guide To Asperger's Syndrome" by Tony Attwood and she asked me who has AS and I told her I believe I do. Right then she started questioning me if I had a diagnosis. She told me I don't appear to have it. I told her I was in the process. And she wanted to know what traits I had. But before I could answer her she started on about her step-daughter having Aspergers and having everything on the spectrum. So I asked her about a couple of different traits but she said she didn't have those. Then she continued on how her step-daughter would never be able to leave their home because of this or that. Then she stop and said to me not to get her wrong she loved her to death. Then she continued complaining. It really made me wonder if she really does love her or not. I got the impression she doesn't like people with AS because she became commanding with me like I was a damn idiot who was going to misbehave. So I said to her she would make a great drill/training instructor in the military and she was not really happy with that I don't think. I think maybe I should look for a new doctor.

PA No. 2 was very nice but she talked very loud like I couldn't hear and very simple like someone would talk to a child. Prior to seeing PA No. 2, the MA and I were updating my medical information in the computer and I said I believed that I had AS to her.

I know that kinda treatment all too well. I've never been called different but God knows how many times I've been called weird. People never explicitly ask me whats wrong with me but my god do they allude to it. Been called a loser many a time and loads of people over the years alluded to me being a slacker that just needs to try harder. The people that know me including my family thought I was just intentionally being rebellious and non conforming because I thought it was cool when in reality I was doing it out of obligation cuz I grew sick of trying to be something I'm not (a "normal" social person).



Haha I wouldn't put it past some of them. In this analogy they'd be thinking about the time they had a sore leg but decided to get up and walk anyway and then assume the paraplegic is getting people to roll him around in a wheelchair because he doesn't wanna push himself to walk with a sore leg.


It woulda made it easier for you to accept that you're different and stop trying to conform to the norm which is a seemingly impossible task for people on the spectrum. Good to hear you say that "its a self delusion" because I've known all along that conforming to this BS was going against my true nature but I thought that everyone was like me and they were all going against their nature because its their obligation. I was becoming an anarchist because I started seeing society as some kinda twisted mind control mechanism which molds people into something that is opposed to their true nature but its a relief to find out that its I just have different neurochemistry so I perceive the world differently.


This is another reason being diagnosed helps. Now that I know why I'm different its a lot easier for me to ignore the BS neurotypical people put on me because they think I'm just like them and now I don't mind spending all my time doing what I like to do which is obtaining knowledge and building things. I obviously use my time way more productively than neurotypical people who sit around talking about mundane BS for hours yet people who know me like my brothers and their friends still try to get me to hang around with them and make it out like I'm the one thats wasting my time. Thats irony for you. If talking makes them feel good then to each their own they can spend their time whatever way they like but talking doesn't make me feel good obtaining knowledge and implementing it creatively makes me feel good and on top of that I end up with more knowledge and things done. I watched the TED talk by Temple Grandin yesterday
ted , com/talks/temple_grandin_the_world_needs_all_kinds_of_minds dot html
and shes spot on its people with mild autism that are the ones making scientific discoveries and inventing things because we're the ones that like it enough to devote all our time to it and we have no trouble thinking outside the box.

Like Willard I got the diagnosis late in life.
The hard part for me was it turned my hole life experience upside down. Here I was blaming other people for things that had occurred only to find out that it was probably my own fault for not recognizing things that a NT would have.

I don't know if you can teach an old dog new tricks but at least if the old dog knows the cause he can at least keep from making the same mistakes.

Interesting s**t. Heres something I was thinking which would backup your theory that she didn't like autistic people. In scientific fields (that includes medicine) I believe that people with mild autism are the ones that excel and take the higher ranks while neurotypical people are always stuck as mediocre scientists because they do not think outside the box rather they are fixated on what is known. Being fixated on what is known you can solve problems that have known solutions and if you studied in medical school for 4 years after a 4 year BSc you will be able to solve a lot of problems but the people who make the things known in the first place are the ones who explore whats outside the box to make discoveries and put the pieces together to make new applications of what we know (inventions). When you learn what aspergers is it becomes evident that all the great scientists seemed to fit the criteria. Maybe that pisses off neurotypical people who like to consider themselves scientists.

I've had similar experiences. People say I just need to try harder and that psychology is BS. They say I should get a second opinion blah blah blah. Then when issues come up and I start to get overwhelmed suddenly they switch. Then it's, "What's wrong with you? Why are you acting so crazy?" Then I get mad because I've spent so much energy trying to explain it to them already and they act like I never said anything about it. The truth is people just don't care about your diagnosis. There is something to make fun of in everyone and people will latch on to anything. If not to your face then definitely behind your back. This of course isn't true for everyone, but most. People don't really care if it's a medical diagnosis or not, if it's not severly crippling you, they will make fun of you for it and test you. You can't really compare it to someone in a wheelchair because their disability is so much more apparent. It's out there for everyone to see all the time and there is no questioning that person is in a wheelchair, he/she is severly disabled. Anyone who would make fun of that would be labeled a complete A-hole. Yet even they get made fun of on TV shows like Family Guy and South Park. No one is safe, that's just the NT world. It's best not to think about it or just face it head on and deal with it in your own way.

The way I deal with it is I actually take pride when someone makes fun of me for traits related to AS. Usually they don't even know it. It's almost like reassurance that I'm different, like a snowflake haha. When someone says something negative about how my facial expression is always sort of the same and "flat", I just say "Yeah". When they say something about me being awkward, I just laugh and say, "Yeah I do that sometimes." I'm not necessarily proud of being on the spectrum, it's not like an accomplishment or anything, but I'm proud to be me. Enough said, i guess.

Maybe, I don't know. I wonder if she feels like people with Aspergers are just using it and pretending for various reasons like Willard said. Maybe her and her step-daughter are jealous of one another and don't get along. She's only been married a couple of months. She said she is a teenager and she does live with them all the time. I don't know everything, the whole story but I felt very uncomfortable by the way she behaved. Psychology is not her specialty and she hasn't spent enough time with me to know anything about me other than one small medical area. I haven't been seen by her for any length of time either. She's actually only the assistant to the doctor. I don't need a diagnosis for disability because I'm already disabled. I was awarded disability because of a rare disease I have which is genetic besides having other diagnosis, I am curious if everything is connected. I'm 48 years old and just trying to figure it all out. Thank you for reading my long comment.

If my parents hadn't listined to the stupid phycologists and social workers and homeschooled me since kindergarden with an unschool approach, life would have been wonderful. Aside from the bullying I received that has resulted in social anxiety and ptsd, I can't complain.

This could have been written about me.

Its been six months since I was diagnosed and it has been the biggest relief. I married for the second time last year and my wife has been a great support to me - but I still get angry at her because she was the one who first put forward to me that I had AS. I felt like I was just a regular (but slightly eccentric NT) before. But now I'm relieved because it has explained all the very stressful and upsetting moments in my life. I get constant flashbacks from my life even as early as when I was age five. But the saddest flashbacks are those with my first wife of 12 years who used to ask why I didn't cuddle her - or why I wasn't smiling in a happy moment. I just didn't understand.

Fortunately my first wife and I are good friends and I've since told her. It came as a shock when I told my parents about my AS and my mum got angry and upset but now she's cool and my family are very supportive.

The most difficult thing has been looking for a new full-time job. I was made redundant from a 12 year career when the recession hit my former employer. I just didn't realise how difficult I would find application forms - when I look at at application form it just looks like a jumble of confusion.
Thankfully my wife helps me with these too.

I feel very lucky to be diagnosed and have loving support around and but I wish I'd known sooner.

I haven't got the diagnosis yet, though I'm quite certain. My brother's diagnosed and my son's diagnosed. I'm very much like my son.

My life has been more or less on the normal track and most NT people don't have any problem with me. I graduated university, worked, married, had kids, bought a house in the suburb...etc. It's only my parents who are disappointed with me and keep bringing up that I'm a failure. It really hurt my feelings as I consider my life OK and I accomplished enough for even a NT person. I'm considering getting a diagnosis and show them it's not easy for me to get what I have, and leave me alone. If they think it's an excuse and wouldn't accept me, then I would seriously think about cutting them off.

It's been wonderful. I can go through each day of my life, just doing my own thing, and I don't have to answer to anybody.

Are you saying that you would have wanted to be homeschooled, or that you were and regret it? I am asking because I homeschool my children.

Well, I had figured that out a long time before the diagnosis - I knew there were social things going on between other people at work that I was not privy to - even when I was standing in the room. I was aware that there was a sort of language being spoken that was utterly foreign to me, but the parts of that interaction that I could see were distasteful to me (the ass-kissing and sucking up and obviously insincere flattery) and I didn't want to learn to participate in it.

Of course I knew I couldn't, even if I had wanted to, that behavior just didn't come naturally to me, I was born without the asskiss gene and I have no problem with that - but I was also aware that it was my inability to converse in that social jargon that left me vulnerable. When coworkers needed a scapegoat to cover for their own deficiencies or protect their own jobs, I was always the first body thrown under the bus.

At my last job, I actually sought out, interviewed, recommended and hired the guy who two weeks later, fired me and took the promotion I'd been working toward for nearly a year. And it was only after it was all over that I realized I should have known that was the Manager's plan all along. The signs were big as billboards. :::Doh!:::

yep.