When NTs say "oh I'm like that too"

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In addition to what I previously, there are indeed still those people who can't relate with us but pretend like they do which has the effect of sort of invalidating our struggles.

I find this kind of thing to happen a lot with my comorbids too.

"Everyone finds it hard to focus on school work."
Yeah, but I find it nearly impossible most of the time and when I do manage it it's very draining.

"Everyone gets stressed in school"
Yeah, but not everyone has to consciously slow their breathing to avoid hyperventilating and going into fight-or-flight multiple times per day.

Well if someone is talking about their struggles and you can so much relate to it and that person has a diagnoses, I would say it's good you go get it checked out yourself. That is how people sometimes find out they are on the spectrum. Sometimes people just assume what they are going through is normal, especially if they have always been told everyone feels that way or goes through that so they just assume they needed to toughen up, buck up, just live with it because it's normal.

But my question is just how does anyone know that other people don't go through the same struggles as them? How does anyone know they are not exaggerating? I often wonder how harder I have it or if it's the same as lot of people. I can't see inside anyone's head and just because they don't seem to mind doesn't mean they are not upset and stressed out, they just might not be showing it. Do I always show my feelings? I also am not in other peoples lives 24/7 so I wouldn't see their struggles and how they handle things and how they live.

Funny story here, I was on another forum and there was a guy on there who worked full time and he would get so exhausted he would come home and spend his time resting and spend his days off resting because he is so exhausted and he can't be with his friends because he has to spend his time off resting from work. He thought this was normal and I told him "lot of people don't get so exhausted from work they can't do anything else " and I also think he could have an ASD or something but no he is unaware and thinks he is "normal" but just a little strange. Even I don't get so exhausted I have to sleep on my days off and even after work and do nothing else. Instead my way of relaxing when I come home exhausted from work is watching TV or playing video games or doing the computer and this was when I didn't have kids. I didn't even want to do any other work and I only wanted to relax. Hey even my mom comes home from work and she wants to sit and watch TV or read, not clean. But yet I wonder how in the world do parents come home and still clean and cook and take care of their kids because I don't think I would be able to do that which is why I work part time. I wouldn't have to sleep of course, I would have so much stress on me I would be a mess but yet lot of people can handle this. It's all different degree. For lot of people coming home from work exhausted and relaxing just by watching TV or reading is a luxury while for people like me it's a need. But if that man wants to live his life that way slaving away and not actually have a life except working and sleeping, his choice. But to me that isn't worth living. But it's amazing what people think what is normal and don't even notice how others can work full time and still be able to hang out with their friends and do fun things, do they just assume those people must be rich and not work full time so they don't need to work long hours?

I thought it was normal to feel the things I felt for much of my life exactly because of what you mentioned in your first paragraph. And the fact that my doctor and nurse parents kept calling me a hypochondriac and that I was always told to buck up made me believe that I was not really impaired when I was.

The differences are obvious in an example like this. I get physically affected by certain sounds. I meltdown very violently, not in the sense that I am violent, but the meltdowns are very graphic for lack of a better word. People who are just annoyed by noise don't meltdown like I do. And that is not something I can just hide or stop from happening. I have to get away from the sound. I don't have a choice. I can't be around it. People who are just annoyed don't have to get away. They are just annoyed. Sounds have caused me to physically collapse and black out when everyone else there was fine and having a good time. I have often wanted to commit suicide because of the sounds I was hearing. That is not normal. These are not things that you can just hide. If I stay in the vicinity of the sound for longer than a couple of minutes, I will not be physically able to contain my reaction. So for someone to tell me that they experience what I do and feel what I feel when they can stay in hearing distance of that sound and not have any visible reaction at all makes me believe that they have no idea how I really feel. If they can continue with their activity without interruption and not have that sound impair them to the point where they can't function at all, they do not feel what I feel.

The fact that I can't be in a room with other people for more than a few minutes at a time without facing sheer exhaustion or having to rock back and forth because I am so exhausted and overwhelmed by the physical movements of other people's body parts and the sounds of their voices, and the fact that I might have to sleep for a very long time to recover from being in a crowded room, is not normal. I understand that people are tired when they are in crowds. But normal people don't take six weeks to recover from the exhaustion of a two day church retreat. One church retreat we went to was two days and at the end of the first day, I was so exhausted just from the presence of the other people that the girl who invited us told me, "I know exactly how you feel, go ahead and rest for an hour and then you can come back and join us and you should be fine." I was like, an hour? You have NO IDEA what I feel. It took me about two weeks to begin to recover from that.

I would never have the nerve to tell a mother who has had difficult and painful childbirth that I know what that is like and that I know what she feels because I had menstrual cramps. It's kind of like that. Or try telling a man who has passed a large kidney stone that you know how he feels because you had cramps. Yeah right. I am sure he would punch you right in the nose.

I don't think I said anything wrong.

If you believe somebody doesn't understand your suffering, EDUCATE the person about that.

Why place blame on the person for not understanding?

It's better to educate a person who's ignorant of something than to get angry at someone by default for exhibiting ignorance. It's possible the person had good intentions.

If I offended you in any way, Joe, I apologize. It was not my intention.

Sometimes, people see something in themselves when they see somebody, say, react to a sound or have trouble communicating.

No, it doesn't mean the person is autistic, obviously. But it might inspire a person to explore the possibility that autism might be behind the difficulties they are experiencing.

That is absolutely right and good and I have actually had that experience several times. When I have shared my own experiences while educating others I have had several people wonder from hearing me if they or their spouses might be HFA as well. I actually believe that one of those people actually ended up getting a diagnosis after we talked. So yeah, it definitely turns out for the good sometimes.

This is why peep talks doesn't seem to work out for me.

Worse part after the "Me too"? Especially when there's a degree of clarity: The "Not my problem" comment.

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Hi Skil! So nice to see you too. I have missed you.

I've missed you too. I thought you had left WP since I haven't seen you around in ages. I'm very glad to see that you're posting here again. We have to talk later on and reestablish contact.