Had people thought you where slow?

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I have ASD/VCFS and I am 17 and male and I don't know what it is but a lot of people my age group think im slow because of how long I take to do things. Most people treat me like im 5 and will help me even though I know what I am doing. I also seem to respond slowly to what people have said to me. Like when someone is talking to me I will take a while to respond they will be saying to me "DUDE OH MY GOD YOUR SO SLOW" and I would just get really irritated at this. I also have a difficulty with school work like I make way more mistakes than what is normal so don't give me the "everyone makes mistakes" excuse because I seem to make more than others to make people mad. When other teens my age come to check my school work they will say to me "DUDE OH MY GOD THIS IS SO EASY WHY CANT YOU GET THIS RIGHT HERE LET ME SHOW YOU" and the whole time I am thinking what an idiot I am. I also seem to be in my own little world most of the time or when I am in a group I do things so slowly that other people think I am slow because of how long I take to do everything. I also have a habit of frustrating people and making them irritated at me because of how slow I respond. People would say to me "Dude your so slow" or they will say how smarter they are than me or how I am such an idiot because of this. I would like to know am I the only one who is like this or have this problem? I know I keep posting this but I seem to be the only one having this problem right now.

You have bad working memory and processing speed I assume. I think it's common amongst autistics. Or perhaps executive dysfunction is giving you problems.

No you are not the only one. When I was a teenager, I had a tough time keeping up with my friends. Individual school work was okay, but when it came to group work it exhausted me. And in the end people talked down to me anyway. Or they were just trying to be nice and I took it as being condescending. Socializing in a group was not much better.

That still happens actually. (many many many years later ) I can't truthfully say it will get easier as you get older, but if you seek out and value friends who let you be yourself--that really get you-- it won't feel so bad so much of the time.

Not exactly a chipper response, but I hope it's helpful.

OP: The best thing to do is to try and not think about it. The more you listen to people saying that you are slow, the slower you'll be. By all means try, but at the end of the day, everyone needs to work at their own pace. I totally understand what you are saying though, the only way is to try and not think about what you are doing too much but at the same time remain focused. It's kinda like meditation really and needs to be practiced

Yeah I've lost jobs over it....but I don't really get down on myself about it anymore because yeah I am a bit slow, not because I am 'stupid' or an 'idiot' but because it takes me longer to process some things. So yeah I can relate but just remember the people giving you crap over it are the ones with the problem.

Yes. But I also convince people I'm smart with my vocabulary and stuff I learn at school.

I don't have a source, but I've heard more than once processing is slightly slower in the autistic mind.

I've had people call me slow, my entire life. The thing that helps me, is that I concentrate at thghe task at hand, I actually speed up.

A boy in Catholic School would always call me "slow", "stupid", "loser" and his insults unintentionally stuck with me my entire life. Though in regards to the "slow", I know that was never my fault. During passing periods, all the middle school kids were forced into this cramped narrow hallway where you could barely get two rows of students going and I was always yelled at for being slow even though I couldn't move through the hallway because of the extreme crowding.

Still, while nobody else has ever called me slow, that boy's insults only made me come to terms with the reality of how physically and mentally slow I really was throughout time.

I've been seen as slow. It takes me longer to get things and can take 20 minutes of explaining something to me.

Only all my freaking life from teachers, parents, siblings and I could see it in other peoples faces - even if they didn't say it I knew what they were thinking.

I've read somewhere that the autistic brain processes auditory information slower than usual. I've had comprehension problems all my life; both in hearing and reading. I've seen some improvements but it's still there lingering, urging me to say 'what?'

I'm a slower learner for physical things too. I need step by step instructions and repetition to be able to remember how to do something.

I haven't been called slow, or at least, not in my face. I tend to pick up things very fast, people generally only ever need to explain something once to me. (which is a pain in school, since the other students need more time, so I get bored easily).

However, I can take a long time figuring something very simple out. I tend to over think/analyse a simple problem and spend more time then I should doing that.


EDIT

Holy crap, I always ask "what?" after someone says something only to realise while I say "what?" I figured out what they said. I always feel stupid. Could it be that I process that slower and feel compelled to ask them to repeat only to have it processed seconds after?

Last edited by Guilliman on 06 Apr 2011, 11:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Wow. this verifies the fact that one can process things "slower" and still be really smart. i try to explain that to people and i wonder if they think i'm delusional. i've pin-pointed some of it to being sensory related. how can one fight the environment and still be as "fast" as other people? maybe your issue is sensory. i don't know you, so i can't say. only suggesting.
or maybe the focus is on different things. if its something i'm not necessarily "tapped into" at the moment, i'm just not as good as with what i currently am "into."

I'm definitely thought of as slow in the offline world, both for taking extra time to process some things, and for my general physical appearance (which has gotten further from the norm the longer I'm alive).

Dude, they are NTs and can't even imagine what auditory processing means (or processing informations generally). Speaking about myself, I didn't know to have this ability because it was so natural for me. I took months to understand that my son is experiencing this, and eventually I understood reading WP posts.
His therapists say he's lazy but I know that it's not so. He can understand a single word but he is tired if he has to process a sequence of words. He's a 3.5 yo autistoc boy.
Try to explain why you appear slow and that, also, that your autism doesn't make you less intelligent and that you don't like to be treated like a 5 yo. People understand this and modify their behaviour in the majority of cases.

I am slow in some things (ie it takes me ages to think up replies to people which is why I prefer online interaction...you have more time to think lol) but run in hyper speed in others (can be an incredibly fast talker speed wise once my brain has formulated something to say).

I actually had someone ask once how I managed to say such a long sentence so quickly without even breathing in the process lol.