Being an Aspie is the worst

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I just have a problem with the majority of the human population, and how willfully ignorant and superficial they usually are.

I don't expect it to change though; they'll always be scapegoating something....whether it's race, financial class, or other differences.

It is the worst - people with severe conditions like Mental Retardation and Down's Syndrome still get to be called ''neurotypicals'', even know they don't function normally, even socially normally. Well some might, depending on how severe the condition is in the person, but I used to go to a youth club for teenagers and young adults with disabilities, and I wouldn't say any of the others were Autistic, but they certainly were all lower functioning than me. They weren't all standing there in a big crowd having a social get-together, drinking Bacardi and joking and having small-talk and talking about their personal issues, etc. They weren't nothing like that. Some brought toys in to play with, some were in wheelchairs and needed 24-hour care, and some had physical disabilities too, and one had a facial deformity and also had the mind of a 1-year-old. I wouldn't say they were typically developing teenagers with the ''typical'' brain, like all of my family and friends and colleagues are. I felt like the highest-functioning person there, and yet they were all ''neurotypicals'' and I was the inforior one. Doesn't make sense to me.

Well, in my opinion, DS and MR aren't "neurotypical". They're different from the typical--in a different way from the way autistics are different; but they aren't NT. You were in an environment that made your weaknesses most obvious--of course they were better suited to it than you were. Take them all to a classroom and ask them to do schoolwork, and the situation would have been reversed, with you having the average-or-higher ability and they being delayed.

I don't see why you would think you were "inferior" because you are worse at socializing in a big get-together than people with intellectual disabilities are. You're judging yourself by your most prominent weakness. Isn't that a bit silly? It's like saying Stephen Hawking is a horrible scientist because he can't run the 100-meter dash.

Well I would still say I'm better at communicating than most of the teenagers at the youth club place. Some couldn't even talk, and some had speech delays and couldn't hold a conversation with anybody properly. But all of my friends I have now are NTs, and although I will always find some parts of social interaction difficult, I can still have a conversation with people, and I don't have any speech delays, and I could just pass off as being ''normal'', even though there will always be odd quirks about me, but some people look past my odd quirks and be friends.

It's funny, I know a boy of my age who has ''high-functioning MR'', and it affects his social skills - but in a completely different way to my other friend who's the same age, who is high-functioning Autistic. I know everybody's different and everything, but they both still had completely different personality styles, and if you hung out with them long enough you would realise who had MR and who had Autism. The MR one is struggling to find a girlfriend and doesn't even have any friends. Well, he makes friends then doesn't keep them for long and ends up arguing with them and falling out. He has a lot of crude behaviour and says more inappropriate things than the Autistic friend. And although my MR friend doesn't have sensory issues or anything like that, he is still socially different to the average NT and the average Autistic person. Well, as from my understanding. I've watched lots of documentries of people with ASDs, and they're kind of like me, only they obviously have their different ways but they're on the same sort of level as me, generally speaking. Nobody I've ever met with ASDs are like my MR friend.
So knowing that there are other people out there with different conditions other than Autism makes me feel more acceptant of myself a bit more. Just believing that the whole population is divided into ''Aspies and NTs'' makes me feel that diverse people are few and far between, but knowing there are lots of other disorders besides just Autism is interesting. I would like to learn more about Fragile-X Syndrome and Soto's Syndrome, and all those conditions. Even ADHD is interesting. I have got a friend with ADHD, but I only see him occasionally (even he can be quite difficult to get along with, socially - he doesn't have many friends).

Who votes that Female aspies have it better?! !! I DO!

Alas, your words aren't exactly that relevant to the 80% of the aspie population who's male.

One person. Great sample size.

Who votes that having to deal with told how great you have things on top of HAVING f*****g AUTISM is very annoying?

I was taking into consideration the countless other females on the L&D forums that clearly have better outcomes than the average aspie male. Selection pressures are much higher against males, after all.



I do. But, I didn't imply that as the only thing I was implying was that female aspies have better 'lifetime odds' than male aspies.

I'm sure you've been told before that just being able to get laid doesn't fix all of one's problems. Also, being socially naive, unable to read people's intentions, difficulty communicating: this greatly raises the odds of getting into abusive relationships, and, because of being physically weaker than males, being in actual, physical danger.
But of course, that doesn't matter, because it doesn't matter if you're dependent on someone who scares you, because at least you're getting laid, amirite?

As for socialisation outside of the dating world: I've seen no evidence of these "nurturing females" that were meant to be mothering me in school; I was bullied by males and females alike. Anyone who seemed to be nurturing was just trying to mould me into what they wanted me to be, and they turned nasty pretty quickly whenever I asserted my right to my own personhood.
Females are expected to be better socially. Imagine having the same social impairments you do, and being expected to be really, really good at it. Do you suppose this would make things easier?


I do. But, I didn't imply that as the only thing I was implying was that female aspies have better 'lifetime odds' than male aspies.[/quote]




ORLY?

One of the articles you linked to in another thread (I don't have the link, sorry) mentioned a great risk of depression and other psychological problems for females with an ASD. How is that "having it better"?
Someone is going to come in and post about females not being diagnosed as much, and how this means we have it easier: no.
We don't get diagnosed as easily because we're quieter; more likely to turn on ourselves than rage publicly, more likely to have our difficulties dismissed as "just anxiety", more likely to be diagnosed with mood disorders when we melt down, more likely to be seen as shy rather than impaired, there are people who think that females can't have AS... so we spend years struggling while the males are picked up earlier and spend years getting the help that they need.

Yes, we surely do have it better.

I'm noticing a pattern in a lot of these types of threads. The aspies lucky enough to be born with high intelligence and personal obsessions that they can engage in in solitude are typical amongst the "AS isn't an impairment, it's a difference" crowd, being able to casually dismiss the area they are most commonly deficient in as unimportant and criticisms from a NT standpoint as "their problem". Meanwhile, the ones born without gifts that have desires that require playing the social game to meet are generally the people who end up having depression, depersonization issues, etc. and making these threads, then being dismissed by the aforementioned crowd as pessimists who'd just rather complain than use their gifts to succeed and accept themselves.

You are actually right. But I can't help if I was born an extrovert Aspie with that social trait in me, making me desire friendships and somehow thinking that socialising is the most important thing in the world.

Interesting perspective you have there, but as you yourself mentioned in that, how do these who claim they weren't born with gifts....know they were born without gifts?

Perhaps they do have gifts, but haven't bothered to find out what they are, instead preferring to wallow in self misery?

I know plenty of NTs who do that too.

Believe me when I tell you: I'm the last guy you would've ever expected to claim such a thing for myself; all the gifts I have were dismissed by shallow, superficial NTs years ago; so about 10 years ago I literally believed I had nothing to offer whatsoever.

I can also assure you that absolutely no one could pinpoint my gifts either...often times what they did pinpoint were things they insisted I was good at...but I could easily tell I wasn't.

From where I stand, it's as though these folks are trying to see themselves the way the NTs see them. This is not necessarily always a great idea.

I mean.....10 years ago I even asked my boss to name some of my positive traits; she got them all wrong.

Well now I must admonish myself for even bringing gifts into this discussion, as it was a minor point that not only distracts from my main point (ability to fulfill desires) but sets me up to deal with an unfalsifiable argument. Tell me, Doctor, is there anything, anything at all I could type to you over the internet that would sway your incredulity on the subject? Or can we both just admit that this is just turtles all the way down, where I could lay my entire life's story at your feet and you could just hand-wave it all away with a quick "Nope, you just haven't searched hard enough. Keep looking!" until I either leave exhausted or admit to having anything that you simply assert is there?

However, while we're on the subject, I will note that I don't see it as a coincidence that people happen to enjoy what they are good at. Whether you take them for granted or not, gifts are not things that are "diagnosed" by NTs - they are your passions, your tickets to whatever success you can muster. You say that you could not detect whatever gifts you had, but did you pull a complete 180 on your life simply through this realization as though you had suddenly triggered a long latent superpower? Or did you realize that these were things you had all along to the point where it made no difference whether you were aware of them or not, tools that you would have been using all along?

Which brings us back to my main point - our desires and the luck of the draw. Not all of us have an affinity for things which we can engage in in bubbles away from the rest of civilization. Yet us aspies are all born with brains with a development disorder that severely hinders our social ability to the point where socialization becomes its own scientific field of study for us, a field of study which, again, not all of us have an affinity for. Those who do not have the ability to overcome that barrier are forced to turn to solitary means of progress and entertainment, which is why most aspies engage themselves in books, TV, and the online world, simply working with what's available to them in an enclosed world. The aspies who cannot find joy in such things, advance mentally through activities that stimulate their minds, or overtake their social deficits through the use of logic alone are trapped and left to stagnate. It's like being stranded on the Moon, dying a slow, painful death from asphyxiation, while aliens who don't need oxygen to survive float on by and chuckle about how you haven't adapted to the environment like they have and praise the Moon as the greatest place to be - who needs oxygen anyway?

You act as though the lack of ability to socialize is automatically a bad thing. Well, it is pending you desperately want to conform to the rest of society. Here's one thing I've learned over time: as an Autistic person, no matter how much work you put into your social skills, you're never gonna come off as suave as say...James Bond. Never. We Autistic folks will always be half-assed at doing something our brains are not designed to do. So, if no matter how hard we work at doing something that our brains are not designed to do...why keep pulling on a door that says "push"? Instead, focus on being the best at what our brains are designed to do.

Once you find out what you totally can do, you can find fun and creative ways to do it.

And in answer to your question: more like after finding out what I was good at that had been dismissed, I'm now extremely skeptical of the society that dismissed them, and I see most of those people in a totally different light; rest assured it isn't a very forgiving one.

I understand however being heavily disillusioned over all of this; I was there too. But also understand at the time I had no one giving me any really good advice in dealing with it. In fact, to this day I barely still meet anyone who offers any good advice; it's all generally pathetic. If I have a difficult time, I have to figure a way out of it myself; everyone else is far too shallow, superficial, and intellectually bankrupt to offer anything of substance.

An interesting theory to think about that I have thought about in the past that someone mentioned here earlier (sorry for the awkward wording tonight). So I will just write it out as a formula as I interpret it.

AS+introverted+gifts and/or special intense interests=happiness
AS+extroverted-gifts and/or special intense interests=unhappiness
AS+introverted-gifts and/or special intense interests=?
AS+extroverted+gifts and/or special intense interests=?

Please note that I do not necessarily endorse this theory---just interesting to think about it. I don't believe these formulas would be absolutes by any means.

This would be an interesting study indeed to do a poll on this---it's probably already been done to some extent.

As for me---I am AS+introverted+gifts and special intense interests. However, I have my times of depression. I have a lot of anxiety. I have shutdowns. I have challenges. But, for the most part, I am happy. I try to focus on the positives. But trust me, I have made my share of posts on The Haven.

your chart actually confuses me, as I could swear two of them are just repeating previous entries.

Well, as Judd Nelson did say in the Breakfast Club: "everyone can do something"; I agree.

What you can do just may not be what the majority want you to do. You then have to question whether what the majority consider to be in their self-interest is in yours or not. And don't forget that what the majority consider to be in their self-interest may only be so short-term; many variables to consider here.

Just look for the plus and minus signs---they're 4 different formulas. Look before the gifts (some are plus signs and some are minus signs).