rebbieh wrote:
"Sure, but "high-functioning" isn't equivalent to well-functioning. No, I don't have same problems my cousin with low-functioning autism has but that doesn't mean my life is easy."
Perhaps I should start telling people that when they tell me how "high-functioning" I am. The truth is I am high-functioning but I'm certainly not that well-functioning a lot of the time. People have no idea how much is constantly going on inside my head. I do my best to achieve my goals and live a good life but it's incredibly difficult a lot of the time. I struggle with things (things both associated with autism and depression/anxiety) pretty much every day but people mostly don't see that.
I don't mean to complain but sometimes I really wish people could understand that. Been thinking about it quite a bit now before going home to see my family during Christmas. (In this case it was my grandmother who told me that I must be high-functioning and all I did was saying "I guess" while thinking "you don't get it".)
What do you tell people when they say you must be very high-functioning or when they don't believe you have autism? Is it wrong to get a bit annoyed when people say things like that?
EDIT: Added a question in the end.
There is something important here that you need to convince yourself of,
thoroughly: no one who doesn't have the same symptoms as you will ever understand what it's like. No one who isn't bipolar knows what it feels like. The same goes with BPD, PTSD, schizoid disorders, etc.
My good friend and uncle Clyde has grown accustomed to me and understands my symptoms well enough that he can basically grasp how they would impair me. However, he still doesn't understand at all what it's like, especially with my debilitating comorbid which causes migraines, panic attacks, light headed feelings, nausea, severe insomnia, and other symptoms.
On the other side of the coin I don't have a clue what it's like for him. He was a member of the 5th Marines in the same platoon as my uncle Ray, a group better known as Spearhead. For those of you who maybe aren't from the right generation or you just don't happen to know, Spearhead was the group that took Iwo Jima in quite possibly the most terrible battle of WWII (seriously, some of those stories make horror movies seem like
My Little Pony). I haven't the slightest clue what it's like to have PTSD that severe, and can't even imagine how it feels to have the same exact dream for 50+ years. And I don't have to.
We get by just by having as sympathetic and understanding of an attitude as we can and most importantly we focus on what common ground there is instead. There is absolutely no way we'll ever understand each other and that's okay.
So please get this through your head: no one else will ever understand you. It's the same for many other people. What's important is that you understand yourself and that you realize there are other things in life. Everyone is isolated to one degree or another in this way and while it may feel like isolation, it is merely a matter of perspective. And this message is some of the only real medicine you'll get for that ailment.
As bad as it may sound you really have to accept that you will never be understood by other people because it is literally impossible. Maybe you will relate to the few who have the same symptoms but it's up to you alone to deal with your feelings on it, not some cosmic force you can shake your fist at or some forlorn fantasy you can cling to of NT's suddenly understanding.
_________________
There is no wealth like knowledge, no poverty like ignorance.
Nahj ul-Balāgha by Ali bin Abu-Talib
23 Dec 2014, 10:10 pm
