I don't feel anything in common with non verbal low function

Post Reply New Topic

when it comes to how i feel about it, broadly speaking i feel equally related and alienated from both low-functioning autistics and regular neurotypicals. now, in terms of any measurable characteristics, i really don't know. i'm at the borderline between being "a fully functioning member of society" and being "a potato", and it's not because of lack of opportunities or lack of some kind of help or treatment. i'm simply not able to cope with the demands of regular life

i have my personality disorder, and sometimes i wonder if it's not the reason why i can't cope (it does make human contact more stressful, and stress makes everything worse), but i think it's also a big part of what pushed me (and keeps pushing me) to improve my self-sufficiency skills. and adhd is a constant and major problem in my life, but my haphazard thinking is also a big part of how i find creative solutions to difficult problems in my own life

so in the end i just know that there are these "themes" in my life, and that's pretty much it. i don't know what caused what, and i can't imagine what my life would be like if you removed one of those elements. it's like a neuropsychological ecosystem. like, if you kill one invasive species, maybe everything will be fine, or maybe an even worse invasive species will take over instead, you just never know. psychiatry is light-years away from being any help to me

Hello,
I feel autistic, as I am on the spectrum, too.
I can understand, why it's all the same condition. I can get non- verbal, severely introverted and I can also understand why hitting himself can help a person to cope with life's struggles. I hit myself years ago and when I look back, I can say I did it for relaxing myself and help to calm down during a overload situation.
As a special needs teacher I worked with kids on the spectrum, too. We always had a deep relationship. I think this is because I could understand them better than neurotypical people.
Sometimes when I am very sad and the world is too much to cope with, I wish myself being a low functioning autistic person. Why? Because they often (not always) feel free to do what helps them to calm down or to be happy.
I myself can not do this directly. Because I'm always thinking and thinking about how my actions will be rated by other people. So sometimes I wish myself being low functioning. I hope you understand what I want to say.

Regards, Sophia.

on-topic (from a thread on why change can be a difficult thing):

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=326658&p=7248306#p7248306

When I was a kid, a friend of mine had a brother with severe autism. And although both me and him were on the spectrum, we were still complete opposites. He was a year younger than me.

He was non-verbal and still wasn't talking at age 7, while I was very verbal and had reached my verbal milestones at average stages.
He went to a special school, while I went to mainstream school.
He was still in diapers at age 7, while I was fully potty-trained by the age of 2.
All he did when at home was repetitively throw toys and grab them, while I played with toys like any normal child.
He hated oher children near him, while I loved playing with other children.
He couldn't express himself at all, while I expressed myself too much.
He never made eye contact, while I made eye contact naturally from birth.

You get the idea.

High-functioning and low-functioning are really just stereotypes. There are some people who are non-verbal but have very high intelligence. Some people who are completely verbal but intellectually disabled. Some people who seem high-functioning but have periods of being non-verbal or having injurious meltdowns. And everything in between. So you can't divide the spectrum into two neat groups. We're all different, but struggle with some of the same things.

Nobody else around here identifies with having savant skills that upset NTs?

Neither do I. I cannot relate to lot of people on the spectrum because I am not at the same level as them. I am the closest to normal. I can't understand how people on the high end of the spectrum can understand LFA people and relate. That is like me being able to relate to everyone with OCD or anxiety disorders. I also can't because I am not at their level of where they are on the anxiety or OCD spectrum.

Yes I have been non verbal before, I can feel the days of feeling frustrated when I couldn't get people to understand me and when I would say a word and they would think I am saying something else so the screaming and crying I would do, yes I remember how much I hated change and would get upset when someone would take a new route to places, and the days of seeing people as objects and then always being surprised how they knew how to cry and they also knew how to get hurt and the days thinking other kids were joshing me when they would tell me they don't like books or Polly Pockets and thinking one of my cousins was crazy for turning down birthday cake. I also remember days when I didn't always express myself. Something would bother me but I didn't act out or cry and scream or get aggressive. But to me severe autism is still not the same as where I am on the spectrum.

I don't think anyone is saying severe autism is the same as where they or you are on the spectrum. I know it's not for me. All I'm trying to say is there are similarities but indeed degree of severity is where the difference lies.

My AS traits are so obscure, that I often have doubts on my diagnosis. I was diagnosed when I was 8, but I feel that 8 was too young for someone like me to be diagnosed. I didn't think I had many symptoms as a child to be in the AS category. But maybe that is what ''mild AS'' is. My AS is mild in every way. I have an anxiety disorder, and likely ADHD too, which are both more moderate than the AS itself is, and I wish I could have been diagnosed with anxiety disorder and ADHD as a child. I feel more like PPD-NOS; some behavioral awkwardness but otherwise not enough to qualify an official diagnosis of AS, if you get what I mean. I don't know.

I have always been able to understand emotions, even from an early age. I remember when I was 3, I could recognise emotions and actions of other children, and I would feel concerned. I would stare (like children do) and recognise how they're feeling straight away, and even mirror that emotion. Also I was interested in other children from a young age too. My mum says I participated well in activities at preschool, interacted with my peers and could share toys with other children, like it was natural. Also I didn't have any abnormal repetitive behaviour or special interests as a child, and I only started getting obsessions with people when puberty started. Then it went on all through my teens and early 20's; being really fascinated and obsessed with particular people, and wanting to find out more and more about them, and being mistaken for a stalker. But now I don't have obsessions like that, just general interests but nothing I would harp on and on about. As a child the only noise I didn't like were sudden noises like dogs and the school bell. Otherwise, other noise, like loud music or children shouting all at once, did not bother me at all. I didn't go around with my hands over my ears, and I didn't rock or flap or show other typical signs of autism spectrum behaviour. Maybe I took the Sallyanne test and didn't pass it or something, or maybe I failed other tests when being assessed.

I have autism. I suppose i'm highfunctioning because I am married and I work and can make decisions for myself and stuff, but I fail to recognise social cues, I dont really care for social contact (except with my husband ) and I can have really bad meltdowns can even lash out.

I am a bus driver and i'm really good at my job. I deal with the public well and dont take s**t from anybody. I dont care what people think of me, if i have a meltdown in public i dont feel ashamed, i just cant feel some of those emotions Nts feel, or can't relate. I prefer being alone, (again except with my husband) I lived alone for 8 years before I met my husband and i never got lonely I was really happy. But i do need to be loved so i am glad i have my husband becuase he protects me, but otherwise i do not care for friends.

I go nonverbal when I feeling angry and dont want to talk to anyone, although I try to be professional when driving my buses because i love my job so much but sometimes i go nonverbal with my colleagues they get on my nerves sometimes. Probablly because theres a lot of men in the company and most of them think they can wind me up and tease like 'egg me on' and then theres some that want to date me regardless of the amount of times i tell them to piss off.

There are many differences between Asperger's and low functioning autism. Asperger's doesn't have a low IQ, no speech delay as a child and low functioning autism doesn't have clumsy motor problems. I've seen videos of low functioning autism where they go into crazy rages hitting themselves and I don't feel I have anything in common with that.

Is that all that different from supposedly intelligent Aspies getting into flame wars on the Internet?

I don't see a problem with the current ASD diagnostic spectrum. There are very reasonable arguments why the current system exists, put together by the APA and very smart clinicians. That being said (and I'm a scientist), one of the things that I'm acutely aware of is that we know SO little and understand SO little about anyone with autism and how our brains work. I won't be surprised if/when Asperger's is broken out into a stand alone diagnosis again, or high functioning autism, and moreover if/when we actually start to understand more about those with "lower functioning" autism. I, myself, like to imagine and think it's far more sensible to assume that there is high function within those individuals, but we don't yet have the ability to understand or recognize it. I feel the same way about animal intelligence (not that I'm lumping in anyone with ASD with animals!).

So don't worry about it. It doesn't matter. What does is if you can get any help that you might need, and if you can be happy or work towards happiness. And finally, perhaps assume that you're are less different from those that you see as "other" until we understand more. I think it makes the most sense now to assume we're all on a spectrum, but if that's problematic for you then I can understand that. There are also some interesting books on the spectrum as well and the history of science/medicine and history of spectrum diagnoses ("Neurotribes" was pretty good, I thought).

My 6 cents