Your top 3 difficulties caused by autism

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1. Social interaction. This is the biggest but it has gotten better over time. It will never be as good as it should be, though.
2. Prioritizing. I know what my priorities should be but I don't pursue them like I should.
3. Sensory: Not too bad but still an issue.

1-I'm unemployable, only a scammer would want me.
2) It's very hard for me to get a girlfriend
3) Too hard to explain here.

Top three? Hmmm, hard to sum up.

1) Attracting bullying in every situation I enter, and no matter what I do to try to hide my oddness (am hoping as times goes on and I grow in confidence and assertiveness, this can become less).
2) Severe anxiety and exectutive dysfunction problems
3)Very bad OCD; intrusive thoughts all day and various rituals, getting thoughts stuck in my head, ruminations about all my past hurts all the time, from recent ones to those years and years old; checking, washing, tapping and on and on and on.........

And......

I have severe sensory issues as well. Depending on where I am, this can managable or a living hell

And yes, social. I even have problems in basic shop interactions. Sometimes I despair and just feel like giving up. I hate how inept I am, and end up hating myself for it.

Clumsiness. Slowness in general.

Deep depression.

Loneliness

Gut problems; pain, upsets, poor digestion, knawing anxiety

1. Social/verbal communication with NT/Allistics.
2. Anxiety and depression caused by not being able to communicate with NT/Allistics.
3. Employment because every job requires some kind of communication skills.
4. Executive functioning dysfunction.
5. Being socially awkward = bully magnet.

1. Sensory issues
2. Social issues
3. Anxiety and depression
4. Maintaining relationships
5. Work

Anxiety is the most prominent symptom that affects my daily life. Most of my anxiety is caused by sensory issues which build up quickly in busy areas - office, mall, busy city, social event etc. My below average social skills, or mostly lack of desire to socialise in normal ways means that I have trouble maintaining relationships with most people. I have trouble holding down a normal job because the daily over-stimulation, socialising and office politics is exhausting. All this under-achieving leads to depression. It's a vicious circle.

I didn't realise until recently that my sensory issues have such a big impact on my life. By simply knowing this I've found it easier to regulate my levels of stimulation and consequently have had much fewer panic attacks. I'm currently working on improving my skills in areas where I can work from home so I have control over that large and fairly stressful part of my life. Having problems not turning up to work because it's too stimulating for me is much more of a problem than being shy or a bit odd.

For one or two answers I have posted on a thread in the past 3 years, i have not visited Wrongplanet anymore. And now I am back...why? Because frankly I have come to a point in my life where i don't know where the exhaustion starts or ends with all the input I have and as an eternal nomad (21 years of non-stops travelling, which has been my escape time and learning coping skills and mimicry of NT, for I wuld have killed myself ahd I stayed home. In alien cultures i was the alien too and too easily forgiven for my faux pas there). Last year I started thinking (when did I stop thinking? Worrying, creating anxiety or anixty creating problems and too much thinking?) that my life had no sense, I had a deja vu, as if I had had 9 cat lives in one already). I never saw that I was only coping abroad, I didn't have to justify my asocial behaviour for I was easily forgiven as a foreigner who doesn't know our culture, hence I never perceived myslef as being wrong or doing wrong. It was only when I went back home and stayed hthere one year that I had constant clashes and people calling me cold and arrogant...that the red flags were on me and thought: something must be wrong with me.
Now I am tired of traveling-with age? Or just because I have too much overload and input I cannot process anymore. because I have friends around teh world and yet I have none, for nowhere I builte a base..everything fizzles out. I get the occasional e-mails that invites me to go back to that city because it's been so long. But nothing goes deep. My own family never understood me and I cannot relate to them...I see the Asperger in mum now 82 and in an asylum for old people.

I have travelled with the friend who with help of a friend specialized in autism and special needs children, had spotted teh Asperger in me, only 5 years ago. I was then 48. I had a hard time when it hit me in the face again when living in Peru and with her of how rigid I was, how uncommunicative, of how everything fel in its place to see why over teh years I never had good relationships with people that I tried to befreind.
Of how obsessed I am with things (which have helped me to develop a line in Arts and style)...of how my meltdowns originated with having to put out so much of effort in trying to be understood and loved. Of how I cannot listen well to people, of how I procrastinate forever, of how disorganised I am....and now of how lonely indeed I am and have been...and told my friend, after travelling one year together since nov last year, that I want ot be on my own again. I have travelled 30 years on my own, alone and lonely. Many things just didn't go deep enough. She's back in England and I am now alone and lonely...no peers that I want to talk to, no backpackers I get to tell more then the occasional chit-chat, and then I feel how they look at an old fart still travelling.

On the road I will die, surely. keeping my head up and telling myself I am the eternal nomad and that is my karma, for going back to my country I cannot, I would not find a job, I would be poor again like when I lived in a flat at age 24. Back to square one? No rather push myself and exert myself rather than having to face to get in a routine and having clashes with people. I had many with my mentor who's gone home.

And so coming back and having gone through some topics since last night, Iwas shocked to find out of how much I have that is Apserger which I wanted to downplay and ignore (sometimes you go through a phase where you want to thin: I don't have that, or I am not as bad as that one, until you are comfronted with lacking skills or ineptidudes of your own in your face). I forgot a lot, and I still discover more to think about what htis or that has done inmy life and caused. but one cannot repair and call 'friends' backt trying to explain why it happened...

Anyway, maybe more on this in another topic. So, the top 3?

1)Noise sensory overload:
I appear as spontaneous and very verbal, but say the worn things sometimes or have monologues, or talk at people, digressing a lot...people get impatient and walk away...

2)anger/meltdowns:
because of overload of noise, to much chatter from people who constantly want to engage in conversations...making apointments on Facebook she will (my friends) to tell me at that time we will chat, even if we have nothing to say.

3) rigid and no pacience: Never wanting to admit that I am wrong...in topics, my points of view.

I am emotional watching movies (cry a lot even when it has nothing to do with me) and yet cannot show my emotions close to my relatives if something happens,

Obsession with perfection.
Racing thoughts.
Lack of organization.

1. Inability to socialize normally
2. Inability to gain a relationship
3. I can't drive, my difficulties in paying attention and constant thoughts render me unable to maneuver a vehicle.

For one or two answers I have posted on a thread in the past 3 years, i have not visited Wrongplanet anymore. And now I am back...why? Because frankly I have come to a point in my life where i don't know where the exhaustion starts or ends with all the input I have and as an eternal nomad (21 years of non-stops travelling, which has been my escape time and learning coping skills and mimicry of NT, for I wuld have killed myself ahd I stayed home. In alien cultures i was the alien too and too easily forgiven for my faux pas there). Last year I started thinking (when did I stop thinking? Worrying, creating anxiety or anixty creating problems and too much thinking?) that my life had no sense, I had a deja vu, as if I had had 9 cat lives in one already). I never saw that I was only coping abroad, I didn't have to justify my asocial behaviour for I was easily forgiven as a foreigner who doesn't know our culture, hence I never perceived myslef as being wrong or doing wrong. It was only when I went back home and stayed hthere one year that I had constant clashes and people calling me cold and arrogant...that the red flags were on me and thought: something must be wrong with me.
Now I am tired of traveling-with age? Or just because I have too much overload and input I cannot process anymore. because I have friends around teh world and yet I have none, for nowhere I builte a base..everything fizzles out. I get the occasional e-mails that invites me to go back to that city because it's been so long. But nothing goes deep. My own family never understood me and I cannot relate to them...I see the Asperger in mum now 82 and in an asylum for old people.

I have travelled with the friend who with help of a friend specialized in autism and special needs children, had spotted teh Asperger in me, only 5 years ago. I was then 48. I had a hard time when it hit me in the face again when living in Peru and with her of how rigid I was, how uncommunicative, of how everything fel in its place to see why over teh years I never had good relationships with people that I tried to befreind.
Of how obsessed I am with things (which have helped me to develop a line in Arts and style)...of how my meltdowns originated with having to put out so much of effort in trying to be understood and loved. Of how I cannot listen well to people, of how I procrastinate forever, of how disorganised I am....and now of how lonely indeed I am and have been...and told my friend, after travelling one year together since nov last year, that I want ot be on my own again. I have travelled 30 years on my own, alone and lonely. Many things just didn't go deep enough. She's back in England and I am now alone and lonely...no peers that I want to talk to, no backpackers I get to tell more then the occasional chit-chat, and then I feel how they look at an old fart still travelling.

On the road I will die, surely. keeping my head up and telling myself I am the eternal nomad and that is my karma, for going back to my country I cannot, I would not find a job, I would be poor again like when I lived in a flat at age 24. Back to square one? No rather push myself and exert myself rather than having to face to get in a routine and having clashes with people. I had many with my mentor who's gone home.

And so coming back and having gone through some topics since last night, Iwas shocked to find out of how much I have that is Apserger which I wanted to downplay and ignore (sometimes you go through a phase where you want to thin: I don't have that, or I am not as bad as that one, until you are comfronted with lacking skills or ineptidudes of your own in your face). I forgot a lot, and I still discover more to think about what htis or that has done inmy life and caused. but one cannot repair and call 'friends' backt trying to explain why it happened...

Anyway, maybe more on this in another topic. So, the top 3?

1)Noise sensory overload:
I appear as spontaneous and very verbal, but say the worn things sometimes or have monologues, or talk at people, digressing a lot...people get impatient and walk away...

2)anger/meltdowns:
because of overload of noise, to much chatter from people who constantly want to engage in conversations...making apointments on Facebook she will (my friends) to tell me at that time we will chat, even if we have nothing to say.

3) rigid and no pacience: Never wanting to admit that I am wrong...in topics, my points of view.

I am emotional watching movies (cry a lot even when it has nothing to do with me) and yet cannot show my emotions close to my relatives if something happens,

I am emotional watching movies (cry a lot even when it has nothing to do with me) and yet cannot show my emotions close to my relatives if something happens,

I can relate to that. It's like I have extreme empathy for all the suffering in the world in a way that is way above what is normal, but when it comes to things where I'm socially required to be behaving in a certain way, e.g. excited, congratulatory, sad, whatever, I can be left feeling cold.

Exactly!

1) Social. I just seem to screw up without knowing why and it sucks.
2) Sensory. School is torture. I hate certain stores because of the way the smell/ are set up... etc.
3) Disconnect between logical self and emotional self. I have no idea what I'm feeling ergo I have no idea how to express it. So... interpersonal problems galore.

1. Social: small talk, eye contact and phone conversations are the worst.

2. Sensory: ridiculous auditory hypersensitivity, as well as a heightened intolerance for large groups of people packed in a single space (holiday shopping and riding the bus both make me seriously hate people)

3. Routine change: small day to day routine changes such as getting up later than usual or making a detour someplace on the way to the shops are okay, but bigger things like learning a new skill, meeting new people or any new situation where I don't know what to expect make me very anxious.