Would you trade AS for a visible disability ??

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I think the hardest thing about having the "invisible disability" of HFAS is always being held up to the NT standard of behavior. I am diagnosed, but every time I am in a new social situation, I basically start over from ground zero having to interact with an unsuspecting person who assumes I am normal.

Out of everything, probably the single "AS-experience" I hate most is having to swap pleasantries and chit-chat with a hyper-friendly individual. No matter how good of a day I am having, I just hate having to try and quick-fire things to say when I am talking to him. I can't stand having to maintain the illusion of normalcy when I talk.

It comes to the point where at times i hate "go-getters" and hyper-solicitous NTs as they are just so irritating to me. I know they are trying to be nice, but its too much of an overwhelming bombardment for me to react to them. To normal people, they are just a bit over-eager, but they are obnoxious to me. I get tired very quickly around such people.

I was in situations like the Army in my life where you are expected to be hyper-social, and I was always held to the same standard as NTs. Having HFA, there was not enough of an obvious gap in my functioning to where people would differentiate me out or clearly see there was an issue beyond "me not trying." Its really the worst of both worlds to where you have the disability, but there is no chance of strangers making reasonable accommodations for you unless they've had an hour spent explaining AS to them.

I also have a VERY active social radar, to where I am all too aware of how badly I "perform" socially....... I know too well how people perceive me and how how I scrape the bottom of the social barrel. I get paranoid and overheat my brain thinking of all of the negative attributes they have for me, which crushes my self-esteem and locks me up .......... I truly think that "ignorance is bliss." I have to think at times I would be happier if I just had down-syndrome, or more severe autism to where I was not even aware of social dynamics.

I certainly can't trivialize mental disability or ignore their hardships, but its quite bad when you are terribly aware of your problem. I know in a textbook manner EVERYTHING about what is wrong with me, but I can do nothing to improve overall for many reasons. When I was about 11 (I was DXed at 24), I began to become horribly aware of my fungal status in the social totem-pole, but AS was barely even in my comprehension. I knew there was SOMETHING I was doing to be so tremendously shunned and looked down on, but it was beyond me what. The general-population all just assumed I was a "nerd" NT though........ and it would have been more placid at least to have my error be something visible so I could have been included, even if patronized.

If I had an obvious physical disability like I was missing a limb, that would be something people would also perceive. I know that people with physical disabilities face many challenges, but there are also so many accommodations for this, and people are usually all too altruistic and head to help them. All of this is great, but I don't think NTs can even grasp the concept of a "social disability." I think people understand physical and mental, but since NTs are hyper-social by default, they can not internalize such a concept.

In my 7th grade health class, there was the "Wellness of life" triangle showing your life activities divided in to 3 equal spheres........... physical, mental, and social. The point of this life triangle was to show that if you were neglecting any sphere, or had too lopsided of a focus in any area, that your life would be thrown out of balance to the detriment of your functioning. I think not having a social sphere did this to me, although I barely perceived it growing up. Also, if they can acknowledge social functioning as being essential to life, then being socially-crippled is terminating.

I definitely feel like AS has already destroyed my life. Its doubly compounded by the fact of my awareness of it. I know people have negative thoughts about me, and I strain to imagine what they are, when I don't specifically know.

Maybe. I've said many times before that it would be easier to be blind or in a wheelchair, because at least people understand those disabilities.

Edit: God damn you, spell check. You've failed me again.

Last edited by Jory on 29 Dec 2011, 2:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

No, i want a Stapm that i can place on the foreheads of people who don't understand Aspergers Syndrome and thing we can control it. saying something along the lines of " i don't know what a disability is!" i would use it daily :p

Nope, unless you can think of a physical disability that gives me like super powers so I can like shoot lasers out of my eye or something, so it would be worth losing who I am.

I can totally relate to this statement. I'm waay to aware of myself screwing up. I'm so friggin paranoid. Of course, u cant really say if you would be happier having a more severe disability. Hmm perhaps, I'd like to see what the depression rates are between HFA/aspergers and LFA. Are the depression rates much higher at the higher end of the spectrum? Are the people whos are severely autistic happier? I feel like having being mild puts us into very compromising situation because people expect a lot of us, often more then we can deliver. Im curious if the LFA are happier (in general) then HFA.

In a heartbeat. When I see someone with a physical disability (missing a leg/arm or something) I feel empathy for them. I'm sure there are jerks out there that make fun of physical disabilities, but more people I'd like to think would be empathetic or at the very worst sympathetic to it.

Aspergers is like having a negative "it." You hear in sports "Tom Brady has "it" " or "Kobe Bryant has "it" "...aspergers is like having an "anti-it" where you just give off a weird/creepy vibe to a majority of people even if you are good or decent looking.

^ YES ........... That is one of the most spot-on statements and descriptions I have ever read.

I totally lack that undefined quality of having a "presence." I know what you mean about just (not) having that "touch" in encounters.

Since people think I am an NT from a distance, they are often very eager to talk to me or engage with me when the get close-up. I find though that they very quickly sort of "go cold" on me, and start looking for an "out" when they realize I am abnormal.

What happens is first there is a "delay" in my small-talk response, which puzzles them. Next, I say something that is not relevant, or perhaps way too pedantic for the 'light-hearted" conversation. I say something that usually sounds rushed or hurried. Then I say something even more awkward and hopeless trying to "fix" the conversation.

I have no common interests with other NTs in my age group, so my responses and topics are atypical and not things normal young people my age say.

Having bad social skills is the worst, as it "shuts the door" for any more profound mental things you want to do as an adult. Its hard to succeed in school without cutting through alot of the social BS and annoying prerequisites that someone like me struggles with.

I don't think you'd like to live with people always pitying you. I mean, yeah, when they pity you they don't beat you up; but either way, they're looking at you like you're not quite human. I'd prefer a good honest shove, insult, or fist to the face any day. But then, I guess it's the overt attacks that I'm most familiar with and best at dealing with. If I had a more visible disability rather than one that mostly stopped me from detecting condescension, maybe I'd have become adept at dealing with condescension and pity.

I have some friends with physical disabilities, and depending on my particular energy level my own autism can be obvious as a disability rather than eccentricity or oddity; so I can see things from both sides of the visible/invisible divide, and really they don't look very different.

While a visible disability makes you less likely to be bullied, it also makes you more likely to be pitied and underestimated; and while an invisible disability means you're less likely to be thought basically incompetent, it also means you're more likely to have your actions misinterpreted. Both groups have very similar problems, at the bottom of it; they only look superficially different.

Whether your disability is visible or invisible, the problem is the same: People treat you as though you are a less-valuable sort of person than they are, either because they judge you to be morally or socially inferior, or because they pity you as someone who should make them grateful that they aren't like you.

You ever noticed something about opposites? In order to be opposites, two things have to be very much alike in all ways but one. Light and dark are both states of illumination; hot and cold are both measurements of heat; early and late are both descriptions of time. Visible and invisible disabilities are the same way: They are opposites, but because they are opposites, they are very much alike.

I highly recommend that if you are interested in advocacy in general, you should get to know people with all sorts of disabilities, rather than just autism, and both visible and invisible, so that you can see what is different and what is the same and how different people live their lives with their different disabilities. While of course you'll see the same diversity you see in any subsection of the human race, you'll probably be surprised by how much everyone has in common--how little it matters whether you are autistic or developmentally delayed or have seizures or a spinal cord injury or CP... You'll find, I think, that there's a lot about wanting wheelchair-accessible classrooms and ASL interpreters that's very similar to wanting to get rid of fluorescent lights or get a teacher to give clearer instructions.

No, but I would trade it for another mental disability (if I had to), like ADHD, because then I will be more likely to have more friends and go to parties (I think).

I'm fine as I am.

What Verdani said.

I say that if you would rather be blind than autistic you are already blind, either literally or metaphorically. Anyway, I know a man who is legally blind and you can't tell just by looking at him, so it sort of ruins the point of this thread.

I say that if you would rather be blind than autistic you are already blind, either literally or metaphorically. Anyway, I know a man who is legally blind and you can't tell just by looking at him, so it sort of ruins the point of this thread.

I am happy with having Asperger's---I wouldn't trade it. Sure there are challenges---but everyone has challenges. Asperger's has given me gifts, talents, and fun interests. It took me a long time to begin to know who I was. After being diagnosed with Asperger's I began a new journey in life of discovering myself. I now understand most of my eccentricities and why I have them. And I understand why I have the talents, gifts, and interests I have. They are because of Asperger's. I am thankful to have Asperger's and would not want to give it up.

No, I prefer to have a mental disorder than a physical disability.....though everything is not quite so good with my physically because my lower back is screwed up in such a way it causes back pain and limits my physical flexibility.

I used to say this a lot that I would like to swap, but now that I have done more research on various conditions that are physical (and obvious) I am not so sure. For some bizarre reason I went to a college for the blind (after several other placements failed) and I wouldn't say that the people there were happy because they were blind. They still got teased (mainly by ignorant little kids) and some were so unhappy as being labelled 'disabled' that they refused to use white canes when they went out which put them in danger. Being in a wheelchair is difficult. Been there and done it. I spent the most part of a year on crutches and in wheelchairs thanks to dystonia down my right side. It was horrible. Suddenly everyone spoke to me like I was thick, or like I was a little baby. Others ignored me. Some stared at my twisted body. I soon discovered the other downsides to being wheelchair bound such as not being able to get in about 3/4 of the shops (they seriously should be accessible in this day and age) because of poorly placed racks, badly designed layouts or shelving that was too tight to fit the chair through.

I suppose what I WOULD like is to not be so aware of my disabilities or the negative ways people respond to my disabilities. It is the awareness that makes me so distressed. Most people in wheelchairs are aware of the fact that they are disabled and that people stare or ignore them, it's no better either way.