There are so many positive aspects often talked about when discussing higher functioning autstic people, I thought maybe we should discuss the negative aspects of being a higher functioning autistic.
I think this issue is not discussed that often, and being someone that is higher functioning I know there are definitely some drawbacks. But I’ll let you lead the discussion. What are the negative aspects of being a higher functioning person with Autism?
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You look either unusually smart or age appropriate most of the time, so you grow up hearing “if you’re so smart why can’t you do x?” or “stop acting like a (child 2 or 3 years younger than you)” or “you’re not listening.” It does a number on your self-esteem. If you ask questions, people might think you’re trying to annoy them because how could anyone fail to understand what you meant? You might not get diagnosed until you have a child with Asperger’s. If you do get diagnosed–especially if you self-diagnose–people think you don’t really have it, you’re just over-medicalizing, because after all, despite your quirks, you basically seem normal. If you’re dyspraxic you may be slow to learn daily living skills. As a teenager and young adult, you might simultaneously need your parents’ help and resent their getting involved. Becoming independent is a hurdle…everything seems like a hurdle, actually, but no one can see how exhausted you are because you’re doing everything you’re supposed to be doing. Friends get annoyed or hurt that you’re not calling them or making plans to see them every time, while actually you are just too drained to even think about making conversation. You might feel like a bad friend or a flake, even if other people don’t see you that way. But you can’t help being drained by most kinds of social interactions.
(Disclaimer: I haven’t been diagnosed with Asperger’s but people close to me have. This is just what I’ve observed.
Might post more tomorrow, but here’s one thing that comes to mind…
I can have people fooled into thinking I’m ‘normal’ for some time. I’ve been described as seeming at or beyond my age level. Then I make some social blunder, or say/do something that *nobody* who has reached adult status would be expected to do. When an NT points out that I’ve caused offense, I may ask why it was offensive. Here’s the thing: I think because I seem otherwise normal, it’s hard for people to understand why I’d be asking. And even if they try to explain it, they can’t because it is something that boils down to ‘common sense’.
Most of the negatives associated with being HFA and Aspergers come from societal attitude. Difference is always looked down upon, and treated accordingly. That creates confusion because it inhibits the only line of learning we have – experience. Perhaps that’s a negative within ourselves – the lack of social instinct. In fact it can reflect on general instinct if your affliction is particularly bad. Information needs to be processed manually first time around to make it a habit and appear automatic later. But because the info changes from time to time, understanding the whole thing becomes crucial.
That’s why I say we are prisoners of our own experience.
This can be overcome though – and it’s up to the world to understand us. That’s a critical factor. And so is silencing those who are trying to destroy us as bad people.
I had an article in mind to write for a while now. I would title it Faking Normal. I’m very good at it too! You have to be, to live in the cutthroat world that is politics. But in the end, it is rather exhausting.
For example, alot of times I feel like my face is a porclein mask. Naturally, my face does not show emotion really, unless it’s extreme anger. If I am around others and I am feeling sad or I need to look empathetic, I mentally have to think about how to display that emotion on my face. That emotion does not appear on my face automaticly.
And if I am tired, or it’s an early morning, my brai hasn’t had the chance to wake up really, so the emotions won’t show when they need to, and I get looked at as cold hearted and incapeable of empathy when the exact oposite is the case. I remember describing it to my mom once. Explaining just because you can’t see how I feel doesn’t mean that I don’t feel.
Which she understands, as I’m pretty sure at this point both her and my dad (were as my father passed)are on the spectrum somewhere. And a friend with ahendonia understands even more than others. You “act” the emotions on the outside to try to reflect what you feel on the inside to help others to understand what is going on.
Which can be negative when you have to do that all day, plus keep up conversation, plus having to use diplomatic skills, and putting on a bold buisness face. Negative because it truly wears you down and out! I come home exhausted every single day from work, happy that my cats seem to know what I feel anyway. No faking there!
I hate having such a hard timebeing able to start a regular conversation. When I am at work, it is alot either, because I work in one of my areas of interest, and as such always have something to add, say, or bring up. But regular conversation, like asking someone how thier dog is, or how thier daughters recital was, is difficult. Once passed the “how are you?” I am at a lost as to how to carry on the conversation.
I hate being viewed as inferior by regular people. I know most of the time they aren’t meaning too. It’s just, as soon as you get a label, no matter what lable it happens to be, everyone views you as something set apart from them. You are labled, there for something must be wrong with you. And therefore you get treated like a little kid.
And viewed like you can’t do everything everyone else can do. Even if that is total bs. Drives me batshit!
A few from Miss Theo! Comments?
It is to bad no one else seems to have posted.
It’s such a good topic!
I have one more thing to add. I hate it when just one little thing messed up on my routine throws me off for the entire day, and I can’t remember what I’m supposed to be doing and have to pretty much give up and wait for the next day!
living inside shadows, a blind bat with faulty navigation system, able to grasp complex intellectual things but cannot figure out meanings behind simple interpersonal communication… the list goes on and on… just ask any aspie…
This is a great topic I’m surprised it hasn’t garnered a bunch of posts…
I think HFA/Asperger’s is worse in some ways because it’s often invisible. Especially for girls.
You go through your whole life knowing something’s off about you but don’t have the skills to communicate how it’s affecting you. You spend most of your life trying to learn the “rules” to a world that seems to despise the idea of rules and can’t figure out why you want any anyway.
You eventually learn coping mechanisms that let you blend in and appear normal… and these are precisely the coping mechanisms that keep you from getting diagnosed/getting the help you need.
High school is horrible. If you’re smart you make friends with the teachers instead of the students and manage to get through okay. College is another issue, because nearly everything requires social interaction.
At some point you finally hear about autism and are filled with an overwhelming sense of relief at *finally* knowing what’s been wrong all this time… only to discover that the people who know you will alternately argue up and down that nothing’s wrong with you or act like you’re some kind of alien.
Every day things are hard, but there’s no real point in looking for help because it’s just not there. You look normal, so you should be able to act normal. When you get stressed out your symptoms get worse, and your symptoms getting worse stresses you out more, and before you know it you’re hiding in a closet banging your head on the wall repeatedly… but no one sees this because you can’t make yourself get dressed and deal with people when you’re like this anyway.
The issue here is similar to other “invisible” disabilities. I happen to have a largely invisible peripheral neuropathy as well. Life is horrible most of the time, and almost no one gets it. I can’t wait to be done with it.