Can I be low functioning and people not reakize

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kraftiekortie,

I probably fit the description of "low functioning" you describe. While I am not, in the true sense of the term, "low functioning," I am behind my peers of equal intellect in the attainment of life skills. While I am doing things and living an active, well-rounded, life, my friends have done things with their lives. They were teachers, parents, spouses, all regular adult human beings. I work, but not full time, I play tennis, have a rewarding social life but still behind the curve in accomplishing adult milestones. I am working hard to catch up. I hope that I can become fully independent and life well into old age in a happy and healthy fashion.

Isabella, that is so horrible. I am so sorry you had to go through that. And so glad that the other doctor realized what was happening. I often get mistreated in the ER and accused of faking. It is also well documented in my chart by my neurologist that I have these types of issues and become unresponsive and can become catatonic but no doctor or nurse ever reads the chart. I have to tell them I am Autistic because they refuse to read it on the chart. Two years ago I was mistakenly 302'd. I was mistakenly 302'd again almost two weeks ago. The first time I told the hospital that rather than suing them for bullying me so incredibly badly in the ER for over eight hours that I would personally come in and, for free, train their entire staff on Autism. We had emails and meetings about all this for months and finally they decided that no, they did not want me to teach them anything. And none of the suggestions I gave them have been implemented at all. No weighted blankets, no letter sign boards, no education on how Autism can appear, nothing. So you can imagine how furious I was to be so badly bullied in the same ER and accused of faking again. I talked to one of my counselors about it and she said that in that ER, every single person that they go there with who has a mental illness or who is a high functioning Autistic gets bullied there.

But because of other issues that happened over the past three weeks, along with the four trips to the ER in three weeks, I was so overwhelmed that I started getting chest pains and chest tightening. So I went to the other hospital where I have also been badly bullied for "faking" loss of functionality in the past.

Because there, they ask you a bunch of suicidal yes or no questions in triage, and because I have suicidal thoughts all the time and have had since I was ten, like many Autistics, it's just normal life for me like breathing to have suicidal thoughts because I am constantly so overwhelmed, so I don't even mind them, they just come and go as they need to, and because I can't lie on the spot at triage, I immediately got put into a crisis room. I didn't care because it's actually a pretty nice room and more sensory protected. But the doctor came to see me and said, my EKG was normal. I said, "What??? How is that possible since no one took an EKG at all?" Then he said, "Oh sorry, I just assumed they had taken one." Then he said that he saw one on my chart from last year and he thought that was the one from today. I was like, wow, he gets paid more than I do at my job? If I had made a mistake like that at my job, I would no longer have my job. But at least he apologized which is more than I can say for a lot of doctors.

Then he discharged me and gave me the summary printout of my visit. The first thing I saw was that he had diagnosed me with Anxiety Disorder. I do not have anxiety disorder. When I challenged him on it, he said that he diagnosed me with this mental illness because I seemed a little anxious when I came in and because Autism makes people anxious. I was livid!! ! So he removed the diagnosis from my record.

Thank you. And my heart goes out to you so much as well. I honor your courage especially after such life threatening experiences.

I even went to the police station of the officers who 302'd me the second time and offered to teach them a class on Autism. They said they would be happy to have me teach them but I had the to present a curriculum and then they would have to have a doctor look at it and I would only be allowed to teach them if the doctor felt like the topics I wanted to cover were relevant to enough people in the community. So I am going to start some threads about the specific topics here and hopefully there will be tons of people here saying that the topics are relevant to them. I can't believe how hard it is for Autistics to be able to teach about our own condition in order to be understood and not be bullied and abused and have out lives threatened by ignorant and arrogant people.

I also in that three week traumatic period, taught a class at my own expense to a group of camp counselors that does camps for disabled and Autistic people. They were so rude to me and pretty much jut dismissed everything I said. We have to fight tooth and nail to educate people about our condition and they refuse to let us do that and then they use ignorance as a justification to bully and abuse us. And they justify it by saying that they were trained in Autism most likely by some Autism Speaks protocol or that they worked in a facility that served Autistics, or like they say at the ER, we get Autistics in here all the time so we know everything about Autism so you must be faking because you are not like what we know.

With the GAF I'd fall into the 41-50 category .

With Whodas 2 I'd get :

Understanding and communicating 14
Getting around 5 *
Self care 4 *
Getting along with people 20
Life activities - household 16
participation in society 19

*With getting around . It was hard to choose re getting outside. I can physically do it , but don't go very far by myself because of my poor sense of direction.

*With self care. Also difficult. Can physically do it , but if left to my own devices can be prone to self neglect re hygiene etc .

I had an interesting conversation with my coworker today. She is wonderful. She is very loving and supportive of me and loves how I teach her about Autism because she has an adult Autistic relative that she is extremely close to and I help her understand him better.

Today I told her what happened to me at the ER with the doctor and the EKG and him giving me a mental illness diagnosis or Anxiety Disorder after just knowing me for all of 20 seconds. She asked me why it would be so bad for me to have that diagnosis because I am Autistic. I was pretty taken aback by that question but I explained to her the potential dangers in having a mental illness diagnosis for a mental illness that you don't actually have. Once I explained this to her, she understood and agreed. Then I came back and asked her a question. I asked her how she would feel if that had been done to her and what impact it would have on her to have an erroneous mental illness diagnosis on her medical record. She took a step back and said, "Wow, good point!" Obviously, she had not thought of it from that perspective.

It was amazing to me how she could think that it was ok for me to have an erroneous mental illness diagnosis on my medical record just because I am Autistic but it would not be ok for her as an NT. Now I don't mind having a mental illness diagnosis at all as long as I actually have that mental illness. But I will not tolerate having some doctor put that on my medical record just because he feels like it. But it blew me away that she thought that me being Autistic made it ok for me to be treated that way.

And when I told one of my counselors what happened she said, oh, we should look into that because that could explain your chest pains. I told her that if I had a mental illness, the neuropsyche who diagnosed me with Autism four and half years ago and who has been seeing me regularly ever since, and my trauma therapist would have both picked up on that and diagnosed me themselves. And I also told her that the three weeks of unrelenting bullying and trauma and massive never ending sensory overload and emotional overload would be just cause for heart pains as well. And if she had been through what I had been through in the past three weeks, she would be having chest pains also. So no, it does not mean that I have a mental illness. If I truly had one, I would admit it gladly but I just don't. But it is amazing to me that people think it's ok to do that to people just because they are Autistic.