How much do you have to suffer to have AS?

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Whenever I read criteria they refer to impairments causing serious problems in one's life. What are serious problems? Can one by definition not have AS by being well-adjusted (at least superficially). Is it the outer struggle that counts (goofing up) or the inner struggle (obsessions and confusion) If you become well adjusted (employed, married etc) does that mean you nolonger have AS?

Is struggling inwardly enough to have AS, or does it have to include bullying, unemployment or celibacy?

Simon Baron-Cohen puts the clause:

as,



Which seems about right; it's from his Adult Asperger's Assessment thingy.

What if it's the environment you're placed in, and the issues are actually arising from your personality interacting with an environment that's too stressful, bullying, social or fast paced to keep up?

I say this because I've done brilliantly in some environments and rubbish in others.

What are life goals anyway?

What if they change?

So called "normal" people sometimes have to change their life goals too in the light of new circumstances.

This is why, if I fail and I've tried my best/asked for help and not received any positive advice, I don't believe that the blame completely lies with me.

I didn't actually "suffer" from AS until other people expected me to "suffer" based on what they'd read. I didn't "suffer" until I was expected to socialise in a certain way and meet certain demands. I certainly didn't "suffer" from AS with my family or on holiday, or in places where people accepted me for who I was. In these situations where I was accepted and talked to, I thrived on my characteristics and the honestly weren't seen as "problems".

The only thing that I've ever "suffered" from is a chronic lack of understanding from other people. I'm usually very happy in my own skin until people deny me opportunities or make me feel bad about myself.

The only thing that I suffer from is the ignorance of the general population. I don't suffer from AS. Autism Speaks does not speak for me.

Sadly, this is why AS went unrecognized for so long. The more affected you are by it, the easier it is to recognize. Those "lucky" (sic) ones who have mild AS symptoms appear normal, live largely normal lives, but they suffer because they are always "out of step" with everyone else.

I socialize, but do so with mixed results (often negative results). I feel like I don't belong. I have trouble interacting on a meaningful level and that costs me job opportunities, promotions, etc. because so much hinges on how you get along with others. I have no obvious symptoms unless you know what to watch for. Some would say this is a blessing. Maybe it is....I can be self-sufficient, but I struggle in dozens of ways that most people never see, and I am frequently misunderstood by others.

I know some would say I don't really have a problem because I am largely normal and even NTs have issues dealing with others, but quality of life is more than just being able to have a conversation and hold down a basic job. AS can really hold a person back who does not know they have it or has not had access to support and counseling that can help them better deal with having AS.

As I thought last night....what good is it to have two good legs to walk on in a world that only prizes those who can run? Yeah, my AS could be much, much worse, and I'm grateful that it is not, but that does not diminish the fact that AS negatively impacts my ability to attain the quality of life I desire.

i think it depends upon the underlying personality of the person with AS.

i think AS does not define a person's underlying native personality in any way. a
persons personality more likely defines their experience with AS.

a basically optimistic person will have few problems, while a basically pessimistic person will have many problems stemming from their AS (i think).

i think that a person with AS who does very poorly in life would have done better if they did not have AS, and i think someone who attains a successful comfortable and happy existence would have been even more successful and happy without their AS.
i think AS is simply an impeding influence on a persons native course and development through life.
it is a mild impediment compared to most disorders that are defined with reference to psychology.



serious problems primarily stem from the underlying personality and not AS in itself (i think). AS augments their difficulties much.
i have no serious problems so i will leave it to others to answer that one, but i do see people on this forum that are seriously unhappy because they long for acceptance and belonging. maybe that is one.

i can not answer the rest of your questions.


but i will say that AS is neurological and inborn.
it is innate and pervades every nerve i have. that includes efferent ones and afferent ones and interneuronal ones and mirror neurons etc.

so one can not be "no longer AS" at any point in ones life if they were born with it.

i liken my experience of my life as to being introduced at birth into a world of people that can all play piano perfectly. (this is all abstract from here (equate music with social banter and discourse)) they do not have to look at the keys, and every tune they play is spontaneous and perfect, but i am born not being able play the piano, and i can not think up spontaneous tunes.
over time, i hear songs that i have heard them play before, and i learn in a stunted way to imitate them on my piano that i was born with but could not play.
one day i perfect a simple cover version of an oft heard song, and i play it and people respond.
so i keep practicing that song over and over until i can play it perfectly because of rote.
my rendition of the song is like a mechanical copy of their original spontaneous one i heard that i imitated to begin with.

so now, i have a small repertoire of songs i can play better than others, but the rest of the world continues to forge ahead in spontenaiety and they play effortlessly their tunes while i am far behind, learning the notes of the often repeated ones i have heard by rote so i can copy them one day.

for me, all social life is entirely based on deliberation, and not born on the winds of instinctive reciprocal social creativity like every one else i have ever seen.

it does not "wash" and i am usually at home by myself where i have no requirement to join any choruses.

The way I see it:

Normal people have problems with school, social relations and working, see:

-breakups with friends and partners, and divorces are common, all of which normal people "suffer" from
-people fail school subjects often
-people are often fired from work or have difficulty finding work

Now, how would you define someone who has by definition a serious disorder that impacts social functioning? All of these things prior are social in origin, and all of these above are what "normal" people "suffer" from.

Now again, it's rare that "normal" people "suffer" from these all the time and/or at the same time. Enter, Asperger's, where one "suffers" in all these things almost constantly, and which is easily diagnosed based on outward behaviour in most cases.

Outcome studies of individuals with AS seem to support my view here, i.e., it's "bad" most of the time in the areas affected, whereas it can be "bad" in an area of two for "normal" people now and again.

Personality doesn't define severity at all.

I think 'serious problems' means when overall throughout your life, your various impairments seriously affect you doing the things you want to with your life. (Bit of a mouthful that.)

I could use myself as an example perhaps. A 'normal' person might be able to go out, socialise a bit, feel apprehensive but still manage to get together with a friend or several, and enjoy themselves. Sometimes they might feel antisocial, or a bit depressed, but will come around and be able to go out, meet people, flirt, and date or whatever. They'll be able to manage to have a relationship or two.

Someone like me, with AS, on the other hand, might appear to be normal, and can pretend to fit in at work at least, but in reality I have serious problems being able to study, to work, to manage finances, to socialise, to have relationships, to leave the house, sometimes to even be around family. And AS is the a primary cause for my problems.

Blah blah

In that case, I think that most of my family must be improvisational artists.
It's like everyone has been given the social interaction/emotional intelligence hymn sheets apart from us.

While everyone else is singing: "We three Kings."

My family are caterwauling all out of time:

"We three Kings of Orient are,
One on a scooter, one in a car,
One on a scooter beeping his hooter,
Smoking a cheap cigar..."

Some of them aren't even singing that.
Some of them even sing "Summer Holiday." just to be deliberately awkward and defiant
And we mime where we don't know the words or actions.
When I ask my family: "What should I say?"

They just say:
"Be clever, do your own thing, say jokes and don't care what anyone else thinks." or
"Make up your own song, why sing the rubbish someone else has written?"

Some people think it's mildly entertaining though.
Other people find it incredibly irritating, but I don't understand why.

They mentioned nothing about respecting the other person's point of view or joining in the chorus, or cooperating, which is probably why I had so much trouble socialising as a kid.

Oh and the blatantly acted out public family Rondo goes:
"How do you do?
I'm fine how are you?
It's nice weather we're having.
I hope you're all managing."

One family member is like a broken record that keeps changing tracks every two seconds.

My family is like a group of individual improvisational artists who don't play in time or even in the same key, so there are discords and phrases interrupt each other. There are also times where the music is so awful that it's comical, so we laugh at our own mistakes. There are times when all the noise, by chance does make a half decent tune by playing along side each other. Just because the social reciprocation music sometimes comically terrible doesn't mean that there can't be a band.

I wouldn't have it any other way, we wouldn't be us.
We just live with it.

To quite a bit of the mental health industry, I probably don't have Autism at all. I don't seek professional help (I don't condemn those who do though), I can socialize, even play mind games with people the few times I need to (that said, I'm lucky if I'm out on one weekend every two months), I don't have any significant motor dysfunction, I work, and though I'm living with my mother currently, I'm not living off her, and I'm on a track to be on my own within about a year or so, should all go as planned. That said, I'll never cease being Autistic, at least in my own mind, and thinking I was normal was the worst thing I ever thought in my life, as it caused me to strive for standards I could never reach in some cases, and sink down to in others. None of this is anything I "grew out of", it's all stuff I worked my rear end off to obtain, and it's stuff that will quickly atrophy if I don't continue to work on it. By understanding my strengths and weaknesses as an Autistic person and being able to work with them, I'm able to function at least as normally as one would expect in the real world. Ironically, that's considered neurotypical.