Hidden Autistics

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[quote="slave"]...
:!: :!: :!: :!: :!: Your blog is very interesting. Consider me a regular reader from now on. :!: :!: :!: :!: :!:[/quote]
Thanks for the words of encouragement about the blog. It's good to know someone is reading it. That will give me motivation to try to keep it up to date.

I can't help believing that the impairments of AS are present in a lot of people with higher than average IQ, but they are able to adapt well enough to function at a level that would prevent them from ever getting diagnosed. If some universal bio-markers emerge for identifying which people are properly described by AS, regardless of clinically significant impact on their day to day lives, then I think we will get a much fuller picture of how AS fits into normal human variation and how much of it is really something that should be considered pathological.

MEG might be one of those objective measures for autism:
http://45p13.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/res ... raphy.html

Your avatar/icon is AWESOME!! !! !! !!

I feel like I can relate to Joe. I always feel like I was conditioned to put on my social face if you will when I go out, and if I'm having a good day I tend to at times fool people. But when I'm having a bad day, everyone's expectation of me comes crashing down and I always feel like I'm letting someone down somewhere because they thought (were sorely mistaken that) I was an NT. I think I can bluff it pretty good because I was raised around more women than men.

It is exhausting. I remember there were times I'd come home from school and crash in my bed for a few hours.

ditto on the whole questioning of peoples' motives/thoughts. Growing up being severely bullied did not help in that regard for me either. I am ALWAYS suspect of other people for most part.


This behavior is such helpful. I use it all the time.

Amen, sista. Amen.

TheSunAlsoRises

Like me too. Just trying to keep up the facade is exhausting.
But it's not quite effective enough. After a while people notice something "off" and back away.

The only people who worked it out were a former workmate who has a sibling on the spectrum and asked me a few telling questions.
And a councellor, who after weeks of trying to suss out my psychological motivations suddenly asked if I knew of any Autism in the family. She changed her advice from "mend it" to "fake it".

Thanks League Girl for the posting as often there are many people whom are often autistic and tend to be over or under looked as people.

I'm good at keeping up a facade of being "normal", I only show cracks here and there (gaffs that can easily be written off as simple quirkiness). The only problem I have with these bouts of acting is continuity. I often forget things about people that they have previously told me, sometimes making it awkward (but this can be written off as forgetfulness, or in the worst cases, aloofness). It is very draining, but easier than dealing with what I had to deal with before I developed a "mask of normalcy".

(sorry for those who don like/ don't get my metaphors, I like to use them to describe things because I find them easy to use.)

I can relate to Joe, and definitely to Misslizard here. I have been trying really hard in a lot of areas for a long time, wasting a lot of energy, and to be honest...getting absolutely nowhere with "Joe's NT agenda". The funny thing was I didn't even realize how much time or energy I was wasting on it until very recently. It is exhausting to try to do what Joe does, and quite frankly, I am really not up to it anymore and haven't been for awhile. It's been making me kinda sick. I can "be social" for a little bit, and sometimes I find that fun with the right company (like other people into systemizing like I do), but mostly I find it not worth the effort and lately I am asking myself why I do it. What do I gain? Not a thing! (except stress, exhaustion) What do I lose? Maybe more than I realized, because it is sort of a false character.
Is the "social me" the real me? No. The real me, the honest, true, genuine me is the relatively quiet me. The one that gets distracted from boring conversations and lost in contemplating puzzles at the table. The one that is stuck in an interest for "just one more minute" putting off dealing with my wild hair for hours before going out. I'd really like to do away with the boring conversations, the wild hair, and some of the going out...unless it's to a museum or to the beach.

My good news though is that when people ask if I'm on the spectrum or it gets mentioned people I know don't react badly to it. They seem to expect it. If they did react poorly that would reflect badly on them and not on me or on autism, and I wouldn't want to have people that shallow or judgmental as friends anyway. I am fairly confident most of the people I call friends or even aquaintances wouldn't have a problem with it, and some of us even joke around about autism & some of my quirks (which I apologize for sometimes, but some of my friends find them amusing). I am finding that faking neurotypical is really not good for my health...but being genuinely myself can't possibly be bad for me.

I can sympathize, definitely. At different points in my life and around different people, I've usually been more or less capable of passing for "quirky normal", but that's because I can hide the very real problems that I do still have. Inside, my head kind of feels like a washing machine.