“High functioning”

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Does anyone else get annoyed when people say you are high functioning as if you don’t need help? I want badly to get a diagnosis so I can finally know what’s going on with my brain and everyone always tells me either.

A. You probably are just add or adhd or something.

Or

B. If you’re autistic you’re high functioning.

Like I may seem like I have all of this figured out but I struggle socially I may make it look easy but really most of the stuff I say is just stuff that i’ve heard other people say and get positive reactions from. And I get that I should feel grateful to be called high functioning. Grateful that I don’t struggle as badly as I could have but at the same time I don’t Feel like I struggle enough to get a diagnosis.

Are the people saying these things experts, or just regular people you know? If it's regular people, it's very unlikely that they know anything about these diagnoses. There are so many misconceptions about autism in the general population.

No, the doctor who diagnosed me said I was high-functioning, and it didn't bother me at all. I don't know who said it to you or how this person said it, but high-functioning doesn't generally mean "doesn't need help." It means you aren't non-verbal in diapers and needing round-the-clock care. It means you don't have autism+intellectual disability.

I don't see a reason why you should be "grateful" for being called high-functioning. People might intend for it to be a compliment but...I don't see it as complimentary.

Do not get attached to a diagnosis. You could end up disappointed whether you get it or not. An autism diagnosis will not really tell you anything about your brain. Autism is diagnosed on the basis of behavior, not brain scans. A single behavior can have different neurological causes in different people in different circumstances.

If you want to know yourself, you need to observe and analyze yourself throughout your life. A psychologist who will see you for only the few hours that the neuropsych evaluation lasts won't know much about you. Something I learned the hard way.

If you are "high functioning", it shouldn't take you long to recognize the limitations of "experts".

Some people feel that having a diagnosis or receiving a label is sufficient. However, it really doesn't accomplish anything.

Most of us have to experiment and find ways of managing to improve coping on our own. That's where this web site is helpful, because people can share what they have tried and what worked and didn't work.

High functioning (with or without Aspergers) usually results in living a life with greater mental processing. This in itself isolates one. Mental processing precludes flying on "autopilot". This means that social interaction will often be halting and uncertain as one tries to interact on "manual control".

Over time one can develop a repertoire of comments and one liners that can aid in brief social encounters. However, deeper relationships require identifying those who are tolerant and kind.

There is a pdf booklet called "Aspergers - An Intentional Life" that sort of covers some of this manual mental processing and its effects.

http://christianpioneer.com/blogarchiev ... e_2017.pdf

Few people realize how spiky the chart of functions can be. They assume that if you are smarter than they are in any area, you must be able to do all the things that are simple for themselves.

No it doesn't bother me if anyone says I am high functioning. I am high functioning. I can do lot of things able bodied people can do and I can take care of the yard and clean my house.

Hmm...

I'm high functioning in a sense that I'm capable of independently performing daily living skills.


Everything else is everyone's assumptions or fancy ideas of what that label even meant.

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I've spent decades as the 'clever' person who because he can do x is being obstructive,passive etc if he can't do y and z. My stepdaughter , because she's interacted with me over a greater period of time , has a firmer grasp of my strengths and weaknesses than any professional I've seen. I think there are more than a few like me who've spent decades not getting the support they need because of the myopia of (mental) health professionals.

High-functioning and low-functioning aren't even diagnoses or specifiers. They were informal labels given based on whether someone's IQ was above 70 or below 70. The problem is that, especially in people with autism, IQ tests aren't very useful, either because someone is unable to communicate what they know, or they have what's called a "spiky" profile, like me, where they have uneven skill sets, making a full-scale IQ invalid. The other reason the high-functioning label was given was for people with what is considered "milder" autism. People who can speak fluently, function (with some support), and generally had a "good" prognosis. On the other hand, people with "severe" autism are often considered "low functioning" because they have higher support needs. The problem nowadays is people think of the autism spectrum in a linear way. I have moderate classic autism but that doesn't mean I sit in between "mild" and "severe" autism. I have moderate to high support needs, yet I am considered intelligent. So do I have LFA or HFA? Exactly, the answer is neither. The next time someone tries to peg you with a functioning label, this is all the information you need. You don't have to "prove" your autism, even if it is considered mild. People with mild autism are fully autistic, just lower support needs. People with moderate or severe autism have higher support needs. But we all have autism.