As an autistic, do you feel as though you're viewed as slow in 'real life' or, if not slow, at least not nearly as smart as you really are? While, online, you're constantly told you're amazingly bright?
This is my reality. In real life, at least a few people have definitely viewed me as slow, and have greatly underestimated my intelligence. I figure if it's happened to me, it likely has to others on the spectrum; I've heard from others on the spectrum that this has happened to them too. In my case, I assume it's due mostly, if not completely, to my selective mutism, something which affects some 0.8% of the population, many of whom happen to fall on the autism spectrum. It probably doesn't help that body language just doesn't come naturally to me and that those rare times I actually speak, I often stumble upon my words due to anxiety, something which never fails to creep up when I'm in public.
Despite the fact that, thankfully, I'm usually quite confident in my abilities and know with certainty that I'm, in fact, not 'slow', I sometimes allow people's ignorance to get to me. On my better days, I can laugh it off; on my worst, I get irked by it. Ironically, most of these people who have assumed I'm slow are, to be frank, not smart.
15 Mar 2017, 8:10 pm
