High Functioning, Gifted and/or Female?

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I think it's fair to say that whether I class as AS, NT or somewhere inbetween, I'm definitely a high functioning individual. I'm also female and scored as gifted in a Weschler assessment when I was 12 (though I don't feel all that intelligent these days).

So all in all, I belong to a barely researched spectrum demographic. I'm definitely BAP, but there's still a lot of confusion about how females present or exactly how AS and giftedness overlap so I don't know if the issues I do have could or would be construed as AS in the future as more research is done.

I just wondered, if you're in or around this demographic too, what's your life like on the spectrum? What issues do you face? What advantages do you have? What similarities or quirks have you come across in relation to others on the spectrum?

Thanks.

Hi Filipendula. I'm a female aspie who is a genius according to Weschler. I'll do my best to give to input.

I was diagnosed earlier this year, and I really wasn't sure if I would get the diagnosis because, like you, I felt like I was probably somewhere on or near the fuzzy border, and didn't know which side. I'm high functioning, because I have been employed, have friends, and all those sorts of key necessities to be considered functioning well in society.

The traits that I have that don't cause much trouble are predominantly the sensory ones, like sensitivity to touch, sound, those sort of things. I have these issues but life goes on quite well regardless. The traits that DO cause me a significant amount of suffering are the executive functioning issues and the social difficulties.

Executive functioning: While I have a job, and have never been fired, I have quit many jobs due to stress, depression, anxiety, etc etc. Nobody can really see it on the outside, and my employers tell me they are happy with my work, but I don't feel that way. There are so many tasks I struggle with, and don't know how to explain what the problem is or what I need to make it easier for me. In the end I just leave and hope my next job will be better. I don't feel as though I will ever be happy with my vocational life. I feel as though I have this "untapped" intelligence: I don't feel intelligent because I have been able to actually do anything with it. I don't really know how to apply my skills in a useful way (or what they really are, even!). It's like I have this brain that thinks in a really intelligent, useless way. Very very frustrating. (I also believe I have memory issues but haven't been able to figure out what exactly is the problem.)

Social difficulties: Yes, I have friends. I have a small handful of people who I value in my life and who like to hang out with me. They are all individual friends, not a group, and we usually socialise one-on-one. I've never been able to fit in with a group of friends, I just can't get the dynamic to work for me. Group situations are really difficult, and trying to turn an acquaintanceship into a friendship is almost impossible. Again, people can't really see from the outside that I have issues in this area, but I do feel like an outsider most of the time, which again leads to anxiety and depression.


The main advantage for me is that I like the way I think, and who I am. It's just a shame that the way I think and who I am doesn't fit into the rest of society. I would love to meet more like-minded people (in person...there are some here on WP which is great but we don't "hang out", obviously).


I hope that gave some useful insight. Can you relate to some of it? Anything else you are curious about, I'm happy to chat about.

Hi! Welcome to Wrong Planet, it is nice to "meet" you.

I think that I am somewhere in this category as you describe it. I grew up completely undiagnosed until age 30, and socially was quite frustrated and isolated. I was very smart at subjects in school, quiet and well behaved so I did not frustrate my teachers and they did not have any complaints. I remember being in gifted classes in elementary school, and having success at things that surprised everyone such as constructing the most weight bearing bridge out of a set of supplies like cardboard, plastic straws and straight pins.

However, like YellowTamarin stated, trying to find work has been a constant source of frustration. I have a college degree in teaching, which I am essentially unable to perform full time. I have quit approximately a dozen jobs, due to anxiety, depression, and basic cruelty by coworkers or bosses due to my inability to perform mundane tasks in their desired fashion. I like babysitting because I don't have to leave my house, and I am very successful with children one on one, but it is a very low paying profession and well below my educational level, which confounds my family because they don't understand how I can be smart at certain things and completely paralysed in other aspects of grown up life.

My social issues started quite early, I had invisible friends early on in life, and usually had one best girl friend in school that I sort of clung to. Groups of girls habitually ejected me from elementary thru high school, so I became friends singly with other girls who didn't fit, and I was friends with boys who were nonjudgemental (gay boys, art boys, etc) and importantly- they did not take advantage of my naive and trusting nature. As an adult, I mostly stay connected with friends at a distance online, and have a few local friends most of whom are lenient about my weirdness because they are artsy, or because they also have anxiety so we get together based on staying at one of our homes, craft projects, going to a movie, or their children.

I relate to issues of sensory overload, anxiety, reoccuring depression, having an easier time caring for pet animals than people, and having empathy that I do not adequately express or console another person while also being struck by the tragedies and losses. I hate change, routines of day to day activities and rituals are very comforting, I can eat the same thing for breakfast for seven years, I didn't know that was all that unusual.

Hope that helps!

Im not a female, but want to add a question to your post if is not a problem, i have a problem to, when i was 10-11, my teachers maked me do an iq test because they thought i was too dumb because i was doing too bad in school.

My iq was 168 points.

Falling very far away from the genious starting point.
And yet i dont feel myself that intelligent, i actually feel as a dumb, my acquaintaces in college think im intelligent,because i do excelent in more subjects without going to classes or studying.
but i just think this is logic, not intelligence, i consider intelligence as the way of creating things out of nowhere using what you had, but right now the only thing i had do, is making the exercises in different ways that other people, where is the intelligent, if im a genious, why i havent discovered anything, why i havent yet maked an invention, why do i think im dumb, why do people think im dumb,i said some acquaintances think im intelligent, but there are more that think im stupid.


Does anyone feel this way?

My experience as a female with aspergers/autism is that females are more aware of the differences between themselves and others. Females with aspergers/autism seem more interested in exploring the differences and trying to understand so that they can fit in.

Hope this was helpful.

I meet the criteria for your question.

My life overall is pretty good, I am fairly happy with it. My interests make things worthwhile to me. I attend college full time and also have a full time job. I have held jobs previously for long stable periods. Getting work is difficult but keeping it is never a problem. I find college easy - but actual attendence in the classroom is the difficult part (for social / sensory reasons). Currently I am lucky that my work has given me non-contact hours due to my college commitments, which lessens the amount of stress hugely. If my college would do the same I would be one happy little aspie (I know they won't, but I can dream ). Probably aanother part of that is I know what I want to do and am on track to do it.

My main issues:

Executive dysfunction: This interferes with my life a lot. I have a lot of difficulty with time managment, organising and prioritizing tasks, daily household, school and work related stuff. It's difficult to transfer my thoughts into sentences, and much worse again if I have to verbalize something. Obviously I'm physically clumsy and have difficulty with fine motor tasks - I can do them but it takes me much longer than it should, and is very tiring. I suck at writing and use a computer instead for practically any written task. I have practically no verbal short term memeory. I don't learn verbally at all and understanding verbal instructions is difficult to near impossible for me. Combine this with things like an inability to keep track of time, and you have problems. There are probably a bunch of things that fit into this category that I just can't think about right now.

Sensory stimulation: This is bound to happen whenever I go out of the house. Some things are juts annoying and others are unbearable to me. Materials that are painful to touch, smells I can't stand or are just too strong, noises - especially heavy machinery, fireworks, alarms, bells, strong sunlight, really bad glare from cloud cover. or sluro or strong lights I do start to overload from it eventually. Overloads happen much more quickly when combined with the other issues I have stated.

Social stimulation: I am good for about 3 hours worth of scoial interaction per day. Anything more starts to overload me. The bigger the group - the worse it is and the more tiring it is. I have good friends but I don't see them all that often, and I prefer one on one friends or hanging out with a small group of people that I know well. I am bad at making new friends or doing small "chit chat" or other NT niceties, which means colleagues and others I am usually unable or unlikely to form friendships with. I cannot live with other people because of the social overload - it feels like I am always running on half charged batteries because I can never relax and it makes me more likely to burnout.

Emotional stimulation: Things that are emotional difficult or trigger me tend to overload me. This becomes much more difficult and complicated because of the alexithymia - I won't even know if I am doing it, or if I do it is too late, or I have no idea why and therefore cannot solve the problem. I also seem to feel more intensely on the occasions that I do, and have little to no control over my emotions due to the alexithymia. Obviously this can make my life very difficult at times.

Generally, to cause an overload, meltdown or shutdown properly, all of those 4 issues would need to be present and I would have to be overloading on all of them at once in order to trigger one.

Avdantages are: I am a hell of a lot happier than most NT's will ever be and I enjoy my life a lot more because of my interests. Happy is my default state while engaging an interest. Provided I get enough time with my interests and enough time alone, my life is much more enjoyable and I am much happier than most peoples. I also have the ability to see through a lot of crap. The amount of logical fallacies another other things often provide a lot of amusement to me. I am very interested in the world around me, and in other people although I don't dwell on them, because it tires me out and there are also other more interesting things to think about. I get on with animals brilliantly and I can understand them instinctively. I tend to be perfectionistic, which can be a pain in the a** at times, but is also a great help when it comes to doing things right and attention to detail. Obviously the mount of logic is usually helpful, and if nothing else, enables me to entertain myself.

The part in bold, are you saying that when you did the test, you completed the tasks in a different way to what was expected and therefore you were able to excel at it? If so, I can relate. I solve problems in "unique" ways, so I get high scores. I don't see this as intelligence as it isn't helpful. I've never found a way to make use of the skill of solving puzzles differently to most other people.

An example: A test I was doing had some maths questions, and having not studied maths since high school I have forgotten most of it. There was a multiple choice question about the angle in a triangle. I had no idea, but I looked at the picture of the triangle, looked at the possible answers, and picked the one that seemed to be the most plausible answer. I think I was supposed to do something with COS TAN and SIN but I ignored all that. My results came back suggesting I was highly skilled at maths.

Another example: For a memory task involving repeating numbers back in a particular order, etc., I used my grapheme-colour synaesthesia and other odd methods to remember the numbers, rather than just 'being able" to remember them. I ended up with an extraordinary working memory test score, but I honestly don't think my memory is anything special, just my unique way of playing with the numbers.

This kind of thing happens to me a fair bit.

My experience with iq tests is they are not trying to access how much you know (ie facts) but how your mind works out problems/situations. Your example of the angle in the triangle is a good example of this.

Having a strong memory does add to a higher iq score. A good working memory gives you more mental space to work out situations. I, unfortunealty do not have a strong working memory. With a complex problem, I need a sheet of paper to jot down my thoughts so that i can visually see all the info and organize it into a solution. Your grapheme-colour synaesthesia is a great asset.

I agree with you guys in saying a high iq does not translate directly to financial success. Most books and radio programs that I have read/listened to about financially successful people have stated it was their people skills that were more valuable in their success opposed to iq. This, the social side, unfortuneatly is the part that AS people are not good at.

Hi Yellowtamarin, thanks for your comprehensive reply (I'll get to some of the others in a bit), I have to say I relate to a lot of what you say, especially the following:

I have all this except that I question the 'friends' bit a little. I had one or two special friends through most stages of childhood, but that's fizzled out a lot as I've got older. I do have very friendly colleagues, but I rarely see them outside work, nor do I feel that they really care about me or know who I am. What I do have however is a partner and I guess he's the bestest friend of them all! If it wasn't for him I think I'd function much less well than I do since he does all the cooking, organising and finances etc. that hold our life together. He's dyslexic and fairly BAP himself, though not as much as me. We have very similar ways of looking at the world and that's so reassuring and relaxing to come home to at the end of each day.



This is what makes me doubt my position on the spectrum most (as well as not having meltdowns) since I wouldn't have said that I have any sensory issues at all and I think I experience the external world much as I imagine an average NT does (but how would I check?). However, the fact that I routinely skip breakfast and lunch at work as well as not bothering to drink and powering through on very little sleep without the slightest change in my mood may suggest that I'm one of the hypo-sensitive types instead.



I definitely have executive function problems OR I am genuinely lazy and need to pull my finger out. I really don't know how to tell the difference since the primary clue for me is inertia. I think it's probably a combination since I do feel that if I really paid attention and tried, I could e.g. post a letter. It's just that, for some reason, that never happens and a letter can sit on the desk for a year or more and never get posted no matter how guilty/anxious I feel about that.

Social difficulties for me are reasonably minimal. I think I understand others pretty fine, but I find it hard to know how to react or connect and I don't subscribe to many social norms. I'd be interested to know more about how this aspect manifests for you and others in this category.



I do fine at work up to a point. No issues whatsoever if it's the right place for me. However, administration, team leading, coordinating, flexibility with time and tasks - all that feels like a massive burden for me in my current job and I never feel like I'm performing well enough even though I'm more intelligent than my colleagues. I also have a habit of fighting for my principles to the point of falling out with a manager or organisation and I don't understand why I can't just let go of things the way other people do. I've walked out of jobs because I couldn't handle the number of small injustices I saw/felt or because of a change in the ethics of the organisation. I was constructively dismissed once because I stood up for what was right. It always gets me that I'll fight for others, but they'll never put their neck out and fight for me. I don't find it terribly hard to get or keep a job so long as the place doesn't push my buttons and I don't push theirs.



Me too! It frustrates the hell out of me that many of my special interests are essentially acamedic e.g. medicinal uses of plants. I want to read text books and memorise every word, but I seem unable to hold onto anything. In one ear and out the other. On the other hand, my partner complains that I have a ridiculously good memory for things he said 5 years ago which I will still quote him on now if he dares to say anything contradictory. It really annoys him.



Very useful insight, thanks. Sorry my response is so long, but I thought it would be interesting to draw comparisons. I'd be very interested to know more if you think of anything.

I've had a non-clinical diagnosis and I am awaiting my clinical one. I'm female and when I took the WAIS III almost 5 years ago, although I was very sleep-deprived that day:

Under General Intellectual Ability, I scored as superior in the verbal (VIQ), high average in the cognitive (FIQ) but only average in the performance (PIQ).

Under Perceptual Organization Index (POI) I scored average for, non-verbal reasoning average,

Under Processing Speed Abilities: I scored 91% better than my peers, obtaining highest score on Digit Span sub-test (ability to process and store information according to a specified sequence). My ability to encode and manipulate verbally presented information and performing mental arithmetic operations is a relative weakness. My skill in processing visual material without making errors is much better than 91% of my peers.

Working Memory Abilities: compared to my peers I experience ease in holding information to perform a specific task, performing better than 84% of peers.

Summary of Intellectual Abilities: significant difference between my verbal comprehension skills and my non-verbal reasoning abilities.

I also scored in the top 3% percentile in a Mensa home test.

I don't know if any of that classes me as gifted (genius I doubt!) but I would class myself as high functioning because I have had jobs, have lived alone (although became very reclusive whilst doing so) and I am married with children (none of this is without major difficulties though). My non-clinical assessor told me that because I scored so highly in the verbal range this has enabled me to have a more 'invisible' presentation of Asperger's. No doubt it is also the reason I've had the troubles I've had in getting diagnosed.

The advantages I have, are having an excellent memory, I am creative (good at art) and have a love of science related things.

The disadvantages are that I have incredible anxiety and inability to handle stress, sensory issues and socialising issues and executive dysfunction (like yellowtamarin have quit jobs through stress and been 'let go' probably because my face didn't fit). These make my life very difficult, a constant struggle. I'm never on top of tasks, find certain environments difficult and feel overwhelmed after a certain point in social situations.

I've not knowingly met someone else on the spectrum. However, the only friend I had through school certainly has some Aspie-like traits. A friend I've met in more recent times, has very Aspie-like traits as do her daughters, and I believe they are all on the spectrum. So it appears I do tend to gravitate to/attract similar types.

I'm pretty sure I'm in this category and have been asking myself the same question about the difference and overlap in 'symptoms' of giftedness and AS/autism. Some of the problems that come with giftedness are so similar that it's hard to tell which is caused by what.

I scored in the 99th percentile on the WISC at age 12 and again in the 99th percentile on the WAIS at age 35. I'm from a family on my mother's side with many individuals with autistic traits (non-verbal grand uncle, grandfather and uncle with unusual prosody and stimmings, cousin diagnosed with LFA at age 6, later diagnosed with PDD-NOS, mother and brother weren't neurotypical either).

I have been on a disability benefit since 1999. My 'diagnosis' for this disability is rather vague. While every professional acknowledged that there was severe impairment in social functioning, nobody (except for one psychiatrist that nobody else agreed with) could put a 'label' on me. Keep in mind that I was diagnosed at a time when almost nothing was known about AS/HFA. Most of them agreed the problems I had where due to multiple factors.

Both my parents suffered badly during WW II. My father was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to a punishment camp which he barely survived. He was diagnosed with 'war trauma' (C-PTSD nowadays) of such severity that the pschiatrists thought he wasn't mentally strong enough for psychotherapy. My mother worked in the central office of the Dutch railroad and saw the deportation trains go by. Needless to say, she was deeply traumatized by that too. It is known that children of Holocaust survivors/war victims, can 'inherit' the parent's trauma, not ony psychologically, but also through an epigenetic mechanism that isn't understood yet. Like many second generation war victims, I have abnormal 24 hour cortisol levels. This abnormality has also been detected in children diagnosed with AS and may explain the aversion to change, need for predictability/routine and low tolerance for stress.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7976489.stm

As a child, I never had more than one friend, and none at all in pre-school. The reason was only partly social akwardness. I felt different, but in a way that seems to be typical of gifted children. I felt smarter than the other kids and even smarter than adults. I didn't relate to the things other children found interesting and usually played on my own. This feeling of being different became less marked when I went to a Montessori primary school where I could work on my own and at my own pace. Unfortunately, this school closed down. I had to go to a regular public school and there something happened that I (and the professionals I talked with) thought was a colossal mistake on the part of the head-master. What that mistake was is a difficult to explain without a lecture on the Dutch educational system. Let's just say I was sent to the wrong school (way below my cognitive capacities). From that moment on, I rebeled and got into a whole lot of trouble. I had more 'friends' than I had as a child, including boyfriends and even a husband, but all these relationships were dysfunctional. Invariably, I was always the one to break up.

I had jobs, but never stayed for very long. Again I was the one who quitted. Most of my employers were satisfied with my work, and if I did stay long enough I very often got a raise or a promotion. The reason I quit was usually boredom or restlessness. Again, this is fairly typical for a gifted person working below their capacity. All these things overshadowed another problem I didn't notice so much until I got a job with a building society in a very quiet and beautiful 18th century building. Everything worked in my favour there. I was hired to set up a computer system and pretty much could work on my own. There were only 5 people working there. This was the only job I kept for more than 6 months. The next job was in one of those dreadfull 'office gardens' with lots of noise and people running around all the time. It was there that I had my first 'meltdown'. I thought it was just stress at the time, but now I realize it was the sensory overload.

This all culminated in me having a 'burnout' at 40. Apart from the burnout I also had social anxiety and agoraphobia. After 2 years of sick leave and therapies that only seemed to make matters worse, I was given a disability benefit. From that time on, I began to withdraw from the world more and more. I spent huge amounts of time doing things that I found interesting, almost to the exclusion of everything else. To my surprise, the anxiety and agoraphobia vanished of their own accord.

Today, I'm still pretty much a recluse. I'm trying to build a freelance business for myself, but here one of the typical 'gifted' problems is a hindrance: I have so many interests that I can't make up my mind which one to focus on. So I do a little bit of arts & crafts that I sell, and a little bit of writing, and a little bit of investing.

Lack of support. Although people are generally sympathetic, nobody quite 'gets' it what the matter is. From their perpective I'm doing pretty well and am not dysfunctional anymore.



I'd never have gotten through all this in one piece if I wasn't very independent and gifted. I do see my intelligence, talents and interests as a great strength.

I am high-functioning, gifted, and female.

I have high-functioning classic autism, and I am capable of living independently and managing my simple life, although I currently live with my parents. Giftedness makes me good at learning things about the physical workings of the physical world and figuring things out about the physical workings of the physical world. Autistic intelligence gives me some different strenghts than most people, including other gifted people. Socially, giftedness doesn't help me. Socially, autism gives me differnet instincts, different ways of thinking that don't match those of most Earthlings on Earth, including other gifted people. Being female doesn't help either. Perhaps a little in people's perceptions of me, but I don't know what eggsacly those are, so I can't talk about them here.

Many of my issues are sensory issues. I also lack social cognition and don't know as many social things as most others seem to know on WP. I also have different emotions from other people. I don't understand most of the emotional reactions of most people. I have emotions, strong simple ones, not complex social ones. For eggsample, I don't feel the rudeness of others. When someone is "rude" to me, whatever that means, I feel nothing. I dont' have moods either. I don't feel a lot on an hourly basis. In other areas, I am a perfectionist. I like routines. I am particular about things. I like to do things my own way. My way is usually different from standard ways. Other people might not understand my way. I have issues in verbal areas. I find it hard to think verbally, communicate verbally, just being verbal is a strain upon my brain. It makes me tired, and I feel like I am not getting anywhere with it. It is so much easier to fall back to non-verbal. This makes it hard to deal with people who are moar moar moar verbal than me, and these include most people in the world.

I have good eggsecutive function. If I need to do something, then I can focus on it and do it. This is a big advantage, I think.

My other advantage is that I have a warm personality, or so I think. I smile a lot. I suddenly started smiling when I was about thirteen, after being mostly eggspressionless before then.

I wish I could said that I got such a IQ really. Been able to succed in college without studying or going to class is quite impressive and I don't see how logic alone could allow you to do that, you must also have a very impressive memory at least. Logic is intelligence too. Making the exercices in a different way that other peoples show creativity, and a different way of thinking. (Which is frequent among highly intelligent peoples, and autism, the two must play here.) I don't think that anyone ever created something from nowhere, peoples are generally inspired from what came before, even great artists.

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Last edited by shyengineer on 11 Nov 2012, 5:53 am, edited 1 time in total.

Howdy, I'm a high functioning, gifted female with Aspergers. First of all, I'd recommend reading "Aspergirls" because [in my opinion] it gives a good overview of how the syndrome manifests in females, in general.

My life...hmm...well, I graduated from college with a bachelors degree, got married a year later to an Aspie engineer, bought a house right after that and then had a baby. Our son is most likely on the spectrum, so that's a difficulty because he throws a lot of tantrums and is largely unable to communicate at this point. He's in early intervention right now and it's a lot to keep track of. Our marriage is difficult because we both have trouble processing emotions and expressing ourselves to one another. I am able to work from home running my own small freelancing business (because I'm gifted in design). This is a tremendous benefit because I have the luxury of making my own schedule and working from my couch.

That's a very broad overview though. If you're interested, you can read more about it here: http://www.homewardcrowned.com/

I'm female and "twice-exceptional." I am both gifted but learning disabled. (I have AS and NVLD.) I have very obvious strengths and deficits. My abilities are very scattered. (For example, there is a 35-point difference between my Vocabulary and Perceptual Organization WAIS subtest scores.) My lowest abilities are still "average," so I have been able to accomplish things I might otherwise not have been able to do had I not been high-functioning. However, being high-functioning is a double-edge sword, as it's also harder for people to "believe" that I have problems. I "appear" relatively "normal," so only those closest to me know how much I REALLY struggle.