Do higher functioning aspies have it worse in some ways?

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This is a quite good description on how i feel it too.
How i see what you write here above: we are the referee in a footballgame...
We observe the behavior and the "operation" of the other people/players around. (for us: to get the best out of it)
This was literally what i did in school, i "refused" to be a player (wasn't good, not fast enough etc.) but instead i was playing the referee.
It wasn't that i did not wanted to play but it wouldn't work... (gymnastics was one of my lowest scores)
I was good in observing things/situations but i couldn't respond quickly enough, i supose i'm based on a lower Intel-processor, i can do it, but slower, need more time to process all of the aspects, even the those who are not required to process. I like to see every detail but mostly it isn't necessary.
(Too much information that causes a flood of work going to a small entrance to be processed)
I'm sort of scared to have smalltalk or situations where feelings come above.
Professionally, this is not a huge problem, i think i can execute my fonction quite well. (i'm train staff/crew in Belgium)
I need to deal with a lot of clients, that isn't a problem but it should stay professionally...
Sometimes i'm having awkward situations, but i love to learn from them. What NOT to do/say or what should i do/say next time...
As long as it stays professional, it's all cool, but i can't have smalltalk. (isn't necessary but likely interesting in what i do)
I realy want to have smalltalk but if i would respond it would be too late. (see processing part above)

No one knows me how i am, it's somehow painfull to feel it that way.
I can't act how i want to do it, that's causing little bit of stress, requires a lot of energy...
But at the end of the day i'm glad that i've done what i was suposed to do.

This describes me at least a little (having trouble to speak about myself, i get struck when i need to say something about me)

greetings,
Jonas

p.s.: I don't speak English as native language, so sorry if i made any mistakes

I wouldn't say I have a harder time than people on the low-functioning end of the spectrum, but I know I find it very frustrating sometimes, when dealing with people. I don't look, act, dress, or sound like I have Asperger's- but I do. It only really shows to people who know the AS characteristics and can spot them; my select few genuine interests, my social anxiety, and my occasional lack of eye-contact. People say I speak very well to both individuals and to groups, but honestly, I'm terrified of public speaking. The eye-contact, I've learned to consciously improve over the years, and I've never really had too much of a problem keeping myself in check when it comes to talking about my interests; I have enough passing ones to not get hung up on the major ones in conversation. Except for that one time my mom called me out on it when I was talking with her about a project I was working on. Now that stung; basically being told to shut up by your own mom, no matter how congenially she says it. I never forgot that, and it still serves as a reminder to keep my mouth shut sometimes about the true extent of my interests.

I can't really judge who has it harder, as thats rather subjective. But one thing I struggle with being a bit more on the high functioning end of the scale, though I think mid-functioning would be a better term for me. Anyways though when I am able to reduce my stress a significant amount I seem more functional......and then people assume that means I am doing 'better' so they can start piling expectations on again, or I want to push myself in some areas but I miscalculate and over-do it so then once the stress builds up again I end up becoming totally dysfunctional again.

But of course trying to explain that I have to be careful how high my stress level is....so I don't overload myself is something a lot of people don't get. They think if I am fine at the moment I should be able to handle whatever comes my way and the issue is once it gets to be too much I get overloaded and can't function at all......but some people think its lazy for me to try and figure out what kinds of things stress me out too much and limit my exposure to them or avoid them if needed or if I take things slow to make sure I don't over-do it to quick rather than just jumping in resulting in burning myself out. So yeah I guess one of the hard things is knowing I have limitations and such and trying to work around those with people constantly assuming I'm being lazy or not trying hard enough. I admit my issues with stress have to do with PTSD to but even before that I struggled just because of the autism related stress overload issues as well as sensory isssues.

I've finally gotten much, much better at accepting, and more importantly, giving honest congratulations and compliments.

In fact, I've decided that it is well worth taking time out from my normal job to give someone compliments on a job well done if I honestly believe that--when I was young I was too busy doing what I perceived as my assigned tasks to be bothered--but now I know better. Especially for good work that is often not recognized in our organization.

I have the ability to come across as being extremely intelligent, I can talk down to engineers and doctors, anyone who isn't an expert in my special interest, the reality is that I am not as intelligent as I come across, and of course I have very low social intelligence. Reading this thread has been like reading a checklist of my life, I can relate to every single one of you, where I seem to fall flat on my face is when I reach my level of incompetence, people see me has being superior to them and are ruthless when they discover otherwise, like I am a charlatan, or like I conned them. It is in this way that I don't fit in anywhere, I am either too intelligent or not intelligent enough but I never can seem to find a happy medium between the two extremes.

I have the same problem but I also have the unique experience in that I couldn't read body language, feel empathy, or observe when I was younger.

At some point I experienced significant changes in my sensory perceptions, self-awareness, and understanding of others. It is undeniable when you consider that I had no sense of smell and then at some point it just came to me. That is a clear neurologial change.


As a result of the changes I've experienced I feel like I've lived both as an LFA and an HFA.

Having no self-awareness meant I didn't feel embarrassment but as soon as I became self-aware I not only felt my current embarrassment I felt the cumulative embarrassment of everything I could remember doing in my oblivious state.


It was like being in a hypnotic or altered state of some kind and doing all sorts of weird things without inhibition only to wake up and realize what I had done and feeling humiliated all of the sudden.


I would seriously consider going back into that oblivious state. Now my understanding of social conventions and communication is dramatically improved but I actually feel less happy than I did when I was unaware. I've become very depressed and my parent's expectations of me have grown since then. Now that my father sees how normal I can appear to be he doesn't understand how I can still have difficulties in many little things that are still problematic. He criticizes me a lot more than he used to because he expects more of me than he did before.


Not functioning would be the downside but at least I wouldn't be so miserable.

Just because someone is wrong doesn't mean you need to point that out.

Seriously, just let it go, and you will do a lot better in conversations. This also goes for folks who want to show they are more intelligent--you might win that argument--but you know that you eventually going to fall flat on you face--with nobody around to defend you or even pick you up off the floor. Instead, it is better to agree with folks, if you can find areas that you can agree on.

It depends on the issues that people with LFA / HFA have. Some of us also have other disabilities, which makes it a lot harder.

Story of my life.

For real.

Not only others- but you beat on yourself as well- because you compare yourself to your nt peers - and not to dramatically manifestly handicapped people in wheelchairs, or to downs syndrom people- because you dont think of yourself in the same category as the manifestly handicapped even though you do have a subtle handicap.

Me too, and it describes how I am very well. I sometimes think it's a curse to be an out-going Aspie. Oh well, at least it's disarming! I mean, charming... hmm, maybe both.

Yes yes yes! I've been mulling the same thing for literally years as I struggled through life and finally was diagnosed AS (among other flavors of specialness). My sheer determination and ability to improvise my way through the more difficult things (read: compensate) let me manage to barely, just barely, keep my head above water overall. I do think life would have unfolded very differently if I'd let people see me struggle early on.

Later, I often tried to ask for help, but people would say things like "you can't be serious" or "you're smart, you're just being lazy". Ummm.... nooooooo..... I'm "book smart" but anything that falls under the category of "common sense" or "obvious" or "inside the box" tends to evade me. Let's just say I can't even SEE the proverbial box everyone is supposedly always stuck in. Or I don't understand subtle, unspoken, or implicit instructions.

Here's an example: all through HS and college I did HORRIBLY on blue book essay exams. I failed them miserably, often not even finishing large sections. Why? It never clicked that I could start by outlining, then drafting. We were taught to outline and draft on yellow paper using pencils... pens and white paper means final draft... so in my mind, a blue book could only contain a final copy, which I would painstakingly outline and compose *in my head* and THEN start writing out (never had time to finish). It was about 10 years after I graduated that I suddenly realized the mistake I'd been making all those years! *facepalm*

In some ways I think so simply because I think other people are less likely to try and understand you when you appear normal for the most part. Symptoms might be dismissed as "quirks" or people decide you are just an "odd" person as opposed to someone with high-functioning autism. I have treatment-resistant depression as well as Asperger's and from experience I've come to the conclusion that it is much harder for people to understand or accept mental disabilities when the afflicted person looks and acts fairly normal; people are much more accepting if they see a broken arm or a blood sugar check (I used to tell my mother when I was a teen that I wished I had a broken leg so people would *see* that I had a problem and understand how much emotional pain I was in). I hope that makes sense.

amen. I mean, I'm glad I'm high-functioning, but it took me being hospitalized for stress-induced paralysis and seizures before my dad understood that me having breakdowns after trying to work retail was not just me being "lazy", or "picky". I'm sorry but trying to figure out who to card and who not to card for cigarettes and who would be offended and who would f***ing arrest me if I didn't card them and all that was enough to send me over the edge at Walgreens, and you can be as empathetic and talkative as anyone in the world but that is not normal, it's not ok, and it's not something I should have had to try to deal with and figure out on my own without even knowing what was wrong.

compound the "why the hell does an easy cash-register job make me hide in my room for a week, too scared to even call and quit" factor with the "everyone else is looking at me sideways because that just happened" thing (forget about the "where is rent coming from next month?" factor) and you've got quite a cocktail.

I'm empathetic. I'm extremely good one-on-one with people in crisis and fairly good at parties or when I've had a few drinks, but I overanalyze EVERYTHING and still get overstimulated in a big way. my therapist is pushing for me to go on disability and to stay in counseling until I can finish school and get a degree in something technical and low-interaction like IT, but it took me 10 years of therapy and 20+ years of showing symptoms but not BAD ENOUGH symptoms to get diagnosed. if you do well in school and aren't fighting - crippling loneliness, intense stress, and anxiety bad enough I ended up being screened for child abuse at the hospital (because most people with internalized long-term anxiety bad enough to cause paralysis and non-epileptic seizures are child abuse victims) nobody really thinks that there's anything worth having you evaluated for.

"breaking the tard barrier" is my new favorite phrase.

that's exactly how i feel, but then the girl is a guy
That is how people see me too!