High/Low functioning aspies and awareness

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I wonder, what are more: Low functioning aspies or high functioning?

I saw this documentary about a non verbal girl that types one letter at the time in a computer, she says she is AWARE of her meltdowns and strange behavior not being normal nor accepted by the environment. She then stressed that all her severe autistic traits are due to stimuli overload and inabillity to cope with things like bright lights and cold, harsh sounds.

Now, to my question, what do you think PREVENTS her from being able to simply cope and work on her difficulties? she already solved half the problem by acknowledging it! Why is "autism" so crippling and why does stimuli makes a girl not act her age or talk at all? (I'm asking, because I don't have problems with stimuli like touching and stuff, I just don't like loud parties because it's loud and has stupid EDM music no offense).

This, "Autism the Musical", and several other youtube video are good example for low functioning autism.

But hey, wait. Have you ever heard "everyone has autistic traits/guidelines"?. But seriously, can a person play too many video games, then get addicted and sit all day near that thing, then "woah look, he is hyperfocusing his special interests" and then like not being around people all day means less friends and social experience. You know where I'm heading....

I don't think the kids in autism the musical are low functioning, at least not all of them. At least one of them had Asperger's. They were mixed in their functioning level.

First of all the whole everyone has autistic traits/is autistic is a heap of rubbish. Okay some people may have the odd trait but even so they are at the same level as an autistic persons or they would be autistic.

Your question, just because you are aware of something doesn't mean you can stop it. For example, sometimes when I am stimming I know am I but can't stop, it's just impossible.

No disrespect to those with severe cases of Autism, but I'm only mild Asperger's so I'm naturally verbal and expressive, but I'm just curious: Say you're severely Autistic, you can type words on a special gadget thing to communicate to others, you can understand words just like the average person can, you are clever, but you cannot verbally speak. I would like to know what that's like. I mean, what stops the Autistic person from being able to actually speak? Is it overwhelmingly severe shyness? Or is it Just difficult to move your tongue? Does it get frustrating to be unable to speak verbally? Even if you're in a quiet room with no distractions or anything to overload your sensory issues?

Is it a bit like knowing you're physically attached to your arm, and the blood is circulating healthily in your arm and you have nerves and no damage or pain in your arm, but something in your brain is neurologically making you unable to move your arm? I think that is an existing disorder, actually. But I'm just using that as an analogy.

I'm not making fun. I'm just curious. I find this very interesting. What's it like to be severely Autistic? I have the same misunderstanding about it as most NTs do, except I'm actually willing to understand.

Great questions, I know when I am the least bit stressed It's impossible to get anything out of me. Feels like a traffic jam in my brain. So much going on in my head I cant get the words out.

I'm also high functioning and ordinarily perfectly able to speak, however, under stress, it's as if my brain and my mouth stop cooperating. I know what I want to say, but I can't make my mouth move correctly to say it. I think it's a physically neurological thing.

Perhaps the brain doesn't send signals to the mouth or tongue so she can't make herself speak. I guess a bit like cerebral palsy. Perhaps she has both.

Maybe verbal apraxia? I have no idea.

I've always been able to verbally express myself. When I'm stressed and overwhelmed, I cry. I cry to people, and tell them why I'm crying and how stressed I am. I never go non-verbal when I'm stressed out.

Even when I was a kid, apparently I used to whine a lot. I was a very anxious child, so a lot of things made me anxious and overstimulated, but I wouldn't go non-verbal. I would just whine instead. I was very verbal. Everyone started getting mad at me for whining too much.

Am I the only Aspie here who can verbally express my emotions?

I have trouble verbally communicating occasionally, and can tell you what it feels like using analogous examples -- plural, because several issues are occurring. Read each sentence knowing the following sentences might clarify the previous ones. Don't make snap judgements on one sentence before reading all the way through.

Have you ever been speaking and then couldn't come up with the next word/phrase? 'It is on the tip of my tongue', is a saying people use when they have an idea to express but can't remember the correct word or phrase to say it. Something similar occurs with autists that have trouble speaking (frequently or occasionally when stressed). I don't know about the ones who can't speak at all -- this is just my experience with verbal difficulty. The 'tip of the tongue' blankness isn't the same as not being able to verbalize a whole idea, but it can feel similar (because you asked what it feels like). Just expand that moment of inability several times. That moment of 'blankness' for me feels like the connection to verbal expression has been severed. There is a snapshot of an idea there, but no words. I wish there were a way to express those snapshots of ideas rather than using words -- it is so much slower.

Typing/writing/sign language uses a different parts of the brain (uses a different combination of pathways) than verbal speech, which is why some are able to communicate using other ways.

Verbal speech takes a lot of energy if you are not good at it -- similar to writing with your feet. You could write with your feet, but not as well and takes more concentration. Over time, knowing it is so difficult, it creates anxiety each time you have to do it spontaneously.

People command your speech like your body commands Earth's atmospheric air to enter your lungs. Now, imagine the air is filled with pepper spray. You take a breath and it harms you. You become afraid to take another breath because of the pain it will cause. The fear adds to the difficulty -- there is a snowball rolling down hill in a cartoon effect. Sometimes the air isn't filled with pepper spray, and sometimes it is, but you don't know when, because there isn't a pepper spray forecaster (I am story telling a metaphor).

Verbalizing isn't exactly painful, but can be an energy hog. When a person has a list of several things to do in a day, and spontaneous conversations prevent from having enough energy to complete that list, or causes the quality of work to become unacceptably low, that person will avoid the negative consequences. Most autists are introverts, and introverts prefer to do good quality work over unimportant conversations. If the introversion is extreme, the neurotransmitters dopamine and acetylcholine are serious cause/effect contributors toward having or not having the ability (energy) to verbalize. I don't know the exact mechanisms for what happens when the brain refuses to spend energy on verbalizing -- but I do know that if energy levels are threatened, it will shut off parts of the brain it feels are extraneous. Same thing occurs with circulation to extremities in the freezing cold. Some people experience 'shut down' with otherwise normal abilities when cognitive functions are stressed. It was called conversion disorder when I was diagnosed, but it might be called something else now.

The difficulty in verbal communication is complex, and can't be explained away with one or two reasons.

I am a high functioning aspie, as a kid I did not speak mush and think the main reason was I felt more comfortable not doing so, but I have always known people didn’t want to hear what I had to say and would because I was different. I am 64 now and I decided to start talking more so at about 35. Most people other then aspies that I am around everything comes out in babble I sound like a complete moron. But yet I have been an over achiever in so much of my live. I was in a programmers group and was able to do way more than the others could ever dream of but jet I could not speak to them. In my mind in this situation to me it is their “being or the essence or their energy or their grey matter waves” but whatever it is everything I say has nothing to do with anything I want to be saying and I hate IT! But I can’t not do it. To me a none verbal is overcome with everything bombarding him/her to the point they simply can not get through to the outside. Anyway that’s my 2 cents

I do not think I am quite as severely autistic as Carley (the girl you are talking about) but fairly close. Speaking does not come naturally to me. I was totally nonverbal until about 8 years old, and then after only used one syllable words. But it takes effort to do say words. I managed to bridge that impairment to a small degree, but many can not, the connection just is not there. Talking for me just feels unnatural.

Even typing stuff out like this takes a lot of effort. I type faster than Carley, but it is only like 20 words per minute, and I have to take a lot of pauses. Taking what is in my mind and turning it into a psychical act like talking or writing does not come naturally to me. It is like I have to force the connection and it is tiring.

It is not that I am unable to work on my difficulties, it is that there are impairments there that have to be worked around. I have been very successful in some areas, partly in others and with some stuff not at all. It is like trying to master any skill that does not come naturally. Juggling does not come naturally. You have to figure out how to do it. Just understanding the mechanics is not enough. Some pick up on juggling easily, others are never able to do it. So that is what autistic impairments are like to me.

As far as traits like stimming and meltdowns, that is from the fact that my mind takes in so much stuff at once. I have a great deal of difficulty mentally filtering things like light, sounds, smells, textures. My mind is very aware of all of it in great detail, takes in everything at once. I try to filter these things, but again, the filter is not there naturally to suppress all the sensory input. My reaction to this is stimming and if it gets to be too much I have a sensory meltdown.

The traits like stimming are not really the issue. Sure everyone stims. Twirls hair, bounces their knee, taps their fingers etc. The issue is why the stimming is taking place. It is like say coughing. There is a difference between coughing because someone ate or drank something the wrong way or because of a mild allergy and someone coughing because they have bronchitis or pneumonia. A cough is a cough. The question is, what is causing the cough? And if you have bronchitis, can you stop coughing even though you are aware of it? Nope.

Hyperfocusing for me is really a matter of focusing intently on one thing, because I am trying to tune out taking in everything else at once. It is like when someone is stressed out, people suggest that they try to occupy themselves with something and focus on that instead.

I am EXTREMELY verbal, I am hyper lexic, but when I was a kid I was nonverbal. I have memories of being non-verbal, and sometimes in recent memory I've gone back to being non-verbal, and in certain situations I can go non-verbal. Now adays it is a sort of shutting down. When I go non-verbal this is what happens:
I get really hyper self aware, I either turn beat red OR my face goes completely blank my eyes do to, I stare off into the distance, and slowly stop being able to process my surroundings, people, and obviously at that point the proper social cues and such- I go from being invisible NT-passing to omgwtf is wrong with you people think I'm having a psychotic break.
I completely turn into my mind and lose all awareness of everything vision goes white, usually start stimming, I'm completely silent.

Other times, I just literally lose the ability to use my words I just kind of smile or some gross proxy to that and I just nod and run away until I can recover speech again.

As a kid, before I started speaking I remember there being this disconnect between my thoughts and anything my mouth could do. I also somehow mistakenly felt like I could project myself or thoughts so that people could understand me, and my mother and some other female caretakers were very perceptive so for a little while it worked well enough.
The feeling as a child was the same I get now when I get these non-verbal attacks. No other emotions accompany them except a kind of "oh- s**t, here we go again. Damn!! So inconvenient!" feeling/thought.
Sometimes I just have nothing to say... and become "effectively" non-verbal in other people's eyes.
The worst times are when I'm trying to will myself to say something, but I can't; it's like when you get punched in the gut and you get the wind knocked out of you, and you try to draw breathe in, but physically can't except in this case, the breathe is words and you can't force them out.
The words, despite trying won't come to. It's very frustrating! and I feel very non-functional in those times. It's terrible when it happens in a business meeting or during a conversation.... however, there is usually a build up and it takes a long time to go away so that I talk again. It isn't the same as a melt-down at all- those are very VERY different for me and a lot scarier and worse lol- the non-verbal spells are just.... weird and potentially damaging to my job or career prospects so...
However, I'm considered "very highly functional" so... I am not sure how this fits with maybe "truly" non-verbal ASD people. I don't mean for it to be representative of anyone else, just my experience personally. I don't know if they are similar or really what they are I just know that sometimes I "go non-verbal" like a mode or command or something.