People with milder forms of autism struggle as adults

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It is more than just relationship problems. For me, I nearly lost my job when I witnessed my Father die and I could no longer process the world due to not being able to up level all the bits of data anymore. In addition to saving my job the past few years, the DX is also saving my life. Since my Dx, I have not once gone to the hospital for anxiety related issues (panic attacks, high blood pressure, ulcers, infections, etc) Before the Dx, I went at least 1x a quarter. I have a significant impairment in everyday functioning and it has little to do with just social skills.

That said, I do manage a full time job as a senior manager at Intel as well as a par time job managing a football team and I do advocacy work, etc.... It is ALL about very high IQ and exceptional Executive Functioning skills. The more I work with autistic kids and other adults the more I appreciate the EF skill component as being key/essential to many things in this life.

Successful is defined by me as contributing to the world and to others by doing work/creating in a field that makes you happy (passionate about).

I do not believe that it has anything to do with independent living (whatever the hell that is) or any of the other crap that people tend to lay on the word. We all seek to contribute and we all seek to do our passion. When you can combine the two, you have found success in life.

Wow, I am really surprised by this. I am an adult with a mild ASD (aspergers), who considered by life to be relatively successful. I have a college education, a good job, a home, and I live independently. I don't require any outside support or therapy sessions. My social life is a disaster, but o well. Having lots of close family members and good co-workers, makes up for the lack real close friends.

After readings these forums, I cannot believe I am a minority in the mild ASD group. I was happy to read that so many of people on the spectrum have college education, I assumed most would have jobs too. Sad that so much potential is going to waste, because people on the spectrum really do have so much potential.

Also I question how they define success. What does it mean to be successful, one person Idea of success might be very different than another person.

I apologize if I trivialized any of your problems, as that wasn't my intent.

By your definition, I am pretty successful.

Same. I actually think some have got worse.



I never had this. I was just seen as odd by others. I did have a lady at university (something to do with my supposed rubbish attendance - I had 1 and a half days off in the first term due to illness) tell me I don't have Aspergers. Why and how that's relevant to my so-called poor attendance, (bearing in mind, I spent the first 6 weeks ill and was constantly visiting the doctors - although, I tried to do this on days off) I really don't know.



When I was at college and had major (I still have this issue) issues with lights, it would really piss off others. Lights give me migraine and can make me quite ill.

I know maturation is not knowledge or academics, I just don't really agree with the notion that aspie maturity sets in more slowly.....I don't think our maturity can be compared to NT maturity that way....but I sort of see what you mean I just wouldn't describe it as slower because to me that would indicate it does develop like NT maturity just slower......as in by the age of 18 someone with AS would have the maturity of a normal 14 year old for instance. and by the age of 25 they'll have the maturity of a normal 18 year old.

I mean in my case I know why some people might find me 'immature' but I don't feel like its a case of being 'behind' just different from them so I don't deal with things in the same way.

Not at all. You did fine. I just wanted to clear up why someone as succesful as I may benefit from a DX since that seemed to be a question from a few. It is very much needed in my case.

My definition only requires that you contribute to the extent that you can back to the world doing something that you love to do. The greater your reach the greater your return/hapiness.

Check my age. I learned about AS roughly 2 years ago and was diagnosed a few months ago while being treated for depression the 4th time. Not knowing about my AS for all those years has caused -- a divorce, a shortening of my IT career, contributed to my bankruptcy, etc. My current status is not pretty. What I wonder is how many other people are out there and suffer, yet do not know why.

Every adult I know who is getting a formal DX has this sort of story to tell.

http://asdculture.wikispaces.com/To+Lab ... o+Label%3F

Here is a blog I wrote about this topic.

I'd agree with Sweetleaf that its different maturity rather than slower maturity.

In my case, I've always seemed both older and younger than I am, but not my own age. Currently on IRC people guess I'm in my early 30s - I'm 22. I also often act as if I'm about 10 (though less currently with my depressiony-stuff than usual).

My maturity is definitely uneven, not actually associated very strongly with my age, and different, but not lower than NTs. (Really, overall I've been viewed as more mature since I was rather young)

Few things I wanted to chime in on...

First off in terms of maturity, up until around the age of 21, I was always assumed to be older, to act well above my years, both to my peers and also to older generations. This was pretty universal, and starting at 21+, I have been labeled as much younger than I am.

From my point of view, I see a few things that have led to this, one being as a child up to young adult, I've always been big for my age, and more serious than silly, as well as more interested in knowledge, books, and the way things work, than my peers who were very aware of each other socially. As Hans Asperger stated I think for the more logically oriented of us Aspies & Auties, the term "Little Professor" fit me especially well and led to this distinction of me being more mature than my years.

As an adult in the 21+ part of my life, as I stated I"m constantly being assumed to be much younger than I am, and this confuses me more as to why. I lean towards the fact that I dress very functionally and comfortably, and on the social side of things, I am less inclined towards playing political games, and more likely to be blunt, and brutally honest (in as nice a way as possible, for me its all about sharing information, I don't mind being corrected b/c I want to know the "truth", thats definitely not universal in the work place and life lol).


Secondly, I wanted to address the functioning levels things. Since receiving my diagnosis and starting to let certain people in my life know about it, I am constantly told "You must be very mild" or "that doesn't sound like you at all" . Took me awhile to realize that people were trying to reassure me, or make positive responses, but either way it hurts to have people minimize the issues they may not see, or do not understand.

I am 31 years old, and I have been constantly employed for almost my entire working life, since I was 13/14 and started my first job. Is that a sign of a successful autistic? I have lived on my own mostly since my early 20s, is that a sign of a successful autistic? What those don't show is that, no matter how many accolades I receive about my job performance, in every job I've had, but I've been stuck and never able to move up beyond "entry" level. While I live independently, I utterly fail at keeping my home a healthy environment. Things like keeping up with dishes, laundry, trash, cleaning, bathing, eating on a daily basis are total struggles for me . And that doesn't even go into my social failures, I can not keep up with having more than 2-4 people in my life as friends, and there have been so many misunderstandings accordingly.

Now the above of course are rhetorical questions, but they show how much "Successful Autistic" means when said. Being a manager at a big company, isn't the sign of a successful autistic IMHO, nor is someone who can't work but manages their day to day struggles successfully. We all, whether Mild or Severe in descriptions of our issues, have major obstacles we need to overcome, and I really truly feel that functioning level descriptions in and of themselves aren't bad, but the way they are used most definitely is the majority of the time.

If you were to describe someone as "Mild" and then interviewed them about their daily lives, issues, successes, and failures, I think a much different picture will coalesce. We all struggle, we all succeed at times, we all fail at others, but Mild should never minimize our real true issues that we need help and guidance with, and anyone saying anything else is just full of B.S. .

My life has been a story of early promise, declining with age. I started school a year early (at just 3yrs) because I could already read and everything was easy peasy right through primary school. Bullyng was not tolerated at my primary school, but I was treated badly by the kids who stayed nearby. I started to struggle with reading to order and felt humiliated by my teachers. I was bright, so I was obviously lazy. As soon as I got to high school, the social issues started to become apparent, but only to me it seems. I was already selectively mute and being constantly picked on and laughed at didn't help in the slightest.

I went to uni, but left with my ordinary degree in microbiology, due to worries about the social aspects, although I was perfectly capable of going further, academically. I know I had severe social anxiety, which led to avoidance strategies. So, I effectively wasted 3 years, After a taught post-grad, I got an admin job (a job I could have got straight from high school, with a few school certificates). My avoidance strategies were still at play and I stressed out over tasks I wasn't managing to get done each day. My prospects of promotion were zilch, although I'd made a niche for myself in database and advanced spreadsheet design. Unfortunately, projects like those were few and far between. I still had all the run of the mill stuff to get on with too, which I hated, couldn't do properly and my boss made no bones about telling me so.

When I had my daughter, I had an escape route. 6 years later, I'm still a full-time mum. Although this is fulfilling in itself, my daughter is at school now, so I do have time to work and I hadn't intended being a housewife forever. But, I'm stuck. I can't/won't ever go back to the type of work I have 11 years of experience in. Moderating this site has become a great alternative to paid employment and I'm gaining some new skills. Best of all, I don't need to see anyone in person. I hope one day to make my art a full time career, then I will feel that I've lived up to my early promise.

Oh hi story of my life, there you are.

When I was 2 years old I could read, when I was 3 I could read paragraphs from adult-level books. Primary school was ok/good, secondary school was crap, and university was ok/good and I got a 2.2 History degree. I've done two manual labour jobs, picking stawberries, and a paper round, for a small amount of time, and some crap work expeience. And I advertised myself once which just filled my computer with spam and scam attempts. Nowdays I sleep all morning and stay up online all night, living off state benifits, effectivly unemployable.

I was starting to doubt the 80% unemployment figure the Internet journalists of this world where quoting

In fact it's a little bit less depressing according to a local autism organisation they claim it's only 50% !

Oh well I'm sure a toilet bowl needs scrubbing some where or something.

I might get a cleaning job at an amusement park, they probably like that I am ok with cleaning up gross things like vomit...they probably think I'm crazy for actually listing cleaning as my job preference...rather then the cool positions like ride operator or games & food employee. So I might spend the summer scrubbing toilets for a living. I can be the seasonal toilet scrubber or something

^^^
well it only sounds mildly intresting to me because I want a night job.

If your not a dr what other options are their ?