What is the most disabling part of your autism?

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I might say "poor math ability" but not sure if that is due to my ASD or if it's just a learning disability of mine that I would have regardless.

Also my anxiety. I'm on meds, yes, but anxiety is part of who I am so it will never be cured.

Too much empathy. I'm too sensitive to other people's thoughts and feelings, and it sometimes drives me mad.

Adaptability.

In the long run alexithymia has been the hardest aspect of my autism to cope with. It affects how I set and accomplish goals, my motivation, communicating feelings, my relationships, and dreaming of things that I might want.

Adaptability to changes.

For me its communication and the fear of having to deal with social interactions that accompany it.

Some of mine would have to be Social cues, sensory overload, and all the sudden changes last minute. It's like a curse sometimes for me sadly because it just makes me want to break down and cry when i'm in a certain situation.

Sensory dysfunction tops the list for me by a mile. I'd say socializing was the second hurdle, but I can handle professional conversations without much trouble, and that's all I need at this point in life.

I comorbids count Executive functioning

Sensory sensitivities, emotional overload, the fact that I do not have a public persona, the fact that I have no social awareness, lack of social stamina,* the fact that I have the emotional capacity and processioning of a four year old and the practical mental capacity of a twelve year old. And I have other disabilities which really impair me as well. But that list is the list of the things that impair me the most from my Autism.


*I had an interesting and wonderful experience last night. For the first time in my entire life, I had a social event with three other Autistics and no neurotypicals. One of the Autistics I had met for the first time last week and the other two were a married couple who were friends of the first person. I had never met them before last night. We met to discuss a common interest and also found out that we have another similar interest. It was absolutely amazing. We had dinner together at the couple's house and we spent 5 hours just talking together. We had such a wonderful conversation that we did not even notice that it was almost 12:30 midnight when we left. For the very first time in my entire life, I was able to have a long sustained social interaction with not a single communication breakdown, no social fatigue and no social overload issues afterwards. For the first time ever I felt refreshed and invigorated after a long social event and had no need for recovery today. Normally it would take me a couple of days to recover from an event like that.

What I realized this morning is that it is not socializing that impairs me. It is socializing with nts or with people that I have nothing in common with that impairs me. Last night I never had a need to interpret what anyone was saying. We all understood each other perfectly no matter what happened in the conversation. Everybody used words that meant exactly what each person was trying to express. Even when we could not find the right exact words, we managed to understand each other. There were no mysterious social cues to have to guess and no social errors were made because there were no unreasonable social expectations. I did not not have to interpret facial expressions or body language and no one cared if there was no eye contact or even if we looked at each other or not. Everyone was totally relaxed because no one had any judgments based on social expectations. And one of the guys had some trouble with fully comprehending everything we were saying but we had no trouble at all helping him whenever he needed it. There was no, "we are smarter than you" attitude whatsoever because we, as fellow aspies, know how intelligent and talented he is in his own ways and we understand our own deficiencies as well. So the level of respect was so much higher and if he misunderstood something it was not even a problem at all, we just helped him understand and the conversation continued. And everyone did the same for me when I did not fully understand something. It was the best social interaction I have ever had in my entire life.

So now I understand that what impairs me socially is not socializing in and of itself. Last night I even felt refreshed and energized at the end of the night and into this morning. I do not feel any fatigue at all. What impairs me is socializing with people with whom I feel like I speak a completely different language even if we are both speaking English. What impairs me is trying to keep up with unwritten social rules and getting judged when I get them wrong when no one is willing to tell me what they are. What impairs me is when people judge me harshly and socially bully or punish me for being so emotionally and mentally young like a child even though I am physically a middle aged adult and have the intellectual analytical capacity to match my chronological age even if my emotional and mental processing do not. And last night, not only was I not punished for being so young, I was encouraged to be my natural authentic self. Most nts will never allow me to do that. Even my psychologist has asked me not to let my young personas show up at our sessions anymore. So it was a radically different social environment than I have ever experienced in my entire life. It really goes to prove that Spectrumites really do have a social structure that works very well for us and that it is just as valid and important as nt social structure.

I often tell people that Autistics have our own social structure and we communicate just fine if we stay within that structure. The problem is not that we have trouble communicating, the problem is that we have trouble communicating in ways that are not natural to us. If an nt were the only nt in a room full of Autistics, the Autistics would be communicating with each other just fine and the nt would probably have the same impairments that we have when we are in a room full of them.

For me, when It comes to speaking, it's so hard in part because I know what I want to say but I can't translate it into words so I have word-finding difficulties, use bad grammar a lot, and I'm screaming at myself inside my head "why can't you just move your damn mouth?"

Feeling overloaded by things others might consider little things or "not a big deal". I can't handle much and a lot of things or information at once causes me to overload and then shut down.

Misunderstanding and being misunderstood. Over and over and over again and again. So frustrating.

It's easier since I'm retired and carry a badge that says "Autism - may not be able to respond." I just don't bother speaking if I don't want to. What a relief.

I cannot say for certain that autism itself can be disabling, but I can say that my childhood made it seem like it. For example, I think people actually felt SORRY for me whenever I had a meltdown. I hate being pitied because people who pity me are putting themselves above me when I think we should be equals. Therefore, the stigma surrounding autistic people is what is truly disabling.

I can't pick out one thing. Everything interacts with everything else and what is the worst at any one moment depends on the context.

Social interaction, sensory issues, black and white thinking, not understanding some concepts easily, and having awful meltdowns.