Does anybody hate how we're mentally challenged?

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Autism/aspergers is a just another term for being mentally challenged/slow. That's why we're all socially ret*d. You can always tell how smart somebody is by their speech. I always feel like I don't have much to talk about. I can talk about something simple like how my day was. Here and there Ill add a joke once in a blue moon. I don't know how to use my imagination or use my creativity. I get lost when people start talking about those things. I feel like I am another mentally challenged person. Anybody else feel this?

Last edited by alakazaam on 13 Mar 2013, 1:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

Don't like to say it but your right.

No point in worrying about it.

You put it in a very ouchie way. But I have to admit - everything I do is slow. But I have come to accept that. I have a hard time talking about anything other than mundane things... even if I am well studied and actually know a lot about a subject. It is like it is stuck in my head. Except once in a while I shock myself. But the very next day talking to the very same people I become "a dunce" again.

As for creativity - I sculpt and paint dolls. But I need to look at photos. I can't "just do it"

I have had a life long belief I am stupid. But with the support of my boyfriend I no longer think of myself that way.

Don't really agree. I've known plenty of people who could talk the leg off a chair but have nothing between their ears but a vacuum. Other people don't have wonderful sppeech because they stutter, or have cerebral palsy, or are deaf. I don't think you can judge someone's intelligence by their speech at all. In some ways I am creative, others not so much.

As for socially ret*d, I used to think that way, but honestly, the NT's who go through life lying, cheating, manipulating, playing office politics, saying one thing and meaning another, gossiping , backstabbing .... how the hell are they socially advanced creatures?!?!?! They just make more problems for themselves and everyone else.

I don't mean to offend anyone, but I found out a few days that I am aspie. I have a mild stutter on top of this. It's hard taking this all in, but I guess I gotta live my life.

n Opal, the NT's can cheat, lie, and manipulate because they have the brain to that. We are honestly blunt because we don't have the ability what NT's can do.

Last edited by alakazaam on 13 Mar 2013, 1:37 am, edited 1 time in total.

what i really hate is when people equate it with being "mentally ILL".

Maybe they just don't have the brain to be honest
they make a rod for their own back

It's smarter to be honest all the time. It's makes a person more genuine. I like this characteristic. I am talking NT'S are smart because they can get out of a situation through a lie. We don't that ability to do that. That what I mean Opal.

Oh please. A mild autistic variant ("Asperger's") is not M.R by any means, two separate disorders all together. You are not socially ret*d (even it may seem that way) you grasp social cues and relate to people in a different way do to differences in the way your brain is wired not because you're deficient or damaged somehow like a person suffering from mental retardation (or whatever PC term they're call it these days).

I do feel like a ret*d sometimes. I was even treated as such by someone and my mother took a dislike in her and didn't want to buy from her. My mom thinks me asking too many questions is what did it. I did take one of her sense of humor seriously and she asked me back "Does this place look like it hasn't been lived in for 25 years" and I said maybe it was taken care of while trying to sell it. It just reminded me of my high school days and appropriately she hadn't grown up yet and she looked to be in her sixties.

I feel like that a lot. I feel overwhelmed and slow around other people. I feel better when I am alone in my own world. I think of it as being extremely introverted and I don't really care if I am socially ret*d.

Aspies can't be mentally challenged because we have normal or higher IQ. The very definition of mentally challenged is having low IQ.

And no, you can not tell how smart someone is by the way they speak at all. Some are shy or have social anxiety or mutism, others stutter or have another language as first language. The way they come off says nothing about their intelligence.

Like you, I hardly ever have anything to say, and that's the most challenging thing about interaction for me. Even when it comes to things I love, I only have so much to say about it. I hear about aspies yapping to strangers for hours about their special interest while I just wanna submerge myself in it. I don't understand how anyone can just go off for hours about anything. The only times that has happened for me, has been with my mother, and it only happens so often.

As for creativity, I used to love writing stories. From I learnt to write I would jot them down. Then I turned 20 and it was as if a switched had been flipped. Before that I had written nearly everyday. But the drive disappeared almost over night and I who had once had so many ideas I needed to write down in a book, failed to keep them coming. The only stories I have written since were for school. I wasn't good at finishing stories as a child/teen though. I would come up with an idea, and clearly see one or more part/s of the story, but I had a very hard time writing the parts I didn't see. I have notebook upon notebook filled with stories I started but never could finish. Man, now I'm getting sad.
Nowadays my creativity is limited to daydreaming.


As for being slow, I'm slow at everything I do: whether I write or do something else, I'm often the last to finish, and I'm always among the last to finish. When I'm writing, it takes me a long time to formulate the text.

Last edited by Skilpadde on 13 Mar 2013, 4:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

When I was in a psych hospital for a suicide attempt years ago, the psychiatry staff believed I belonged with the mentally ret*d bunch so that's where they placed me. I stayed there for 2 days before being brought back to the general population. Yeah, I'm autistic, but I'm not that severe. I do have severe social and avoidance issues, though.

Agreed, especially since some people will just use long words without any idea as to what they mean. Actually being able to string a verbose sentence together without errors is probably an indicator of at least average intelligence or practice but that's about it. Personally, I tend towards the wonderful trope of sesquipedalian loquaciousness, especially when I'm nervous, but I would say that's really just overly formal speech more than any indicator of intelligence.

As for the actual point of this thread, I would find it very difficult to call AS being mentally challenged: its main distinguishing factor from classic autism is the presence of average or higher intelligence and more or less normal development of language skills. Sure, not being socially adept is a genuine issue and you can outright get disability allowance with any form of autism in the UK, but I wouldn't call it being mentally challenged, ill or anything like that. It's a social learning disorder that's often bundled with idiosyncratic behaviour but it has nothing to do with intelligence for better or worse.

@skillpaddel- I just feel ret*d because I am socially dysfunctional. Some people don't take me serious or treat like I am mentally challenged because I am quiet. With the way our brains our wired, we aren't able to showcase our intellectual level through oral communication. It also takes longer to complete tasks like you said with your writing speed. I consume a lot of time writing and formulating my thoughts as opposed to NT's. Doesn't that mean something?

Nope.

Socially ret*d? I suppose, yes, technically.. as AS hinders social development and behaviours.

I've been told countless times that based on my speech that I must be smart. I speak quickly, not slowly, and have always had a rather advanced formal vocabulary. (Along with the typical unique aspie prosody.)

I've never had a problem using my imagination or creativity.

Maybe you just need to do more creative things in order to boost your level of creativity? Practice makes perfect.. use it or lose it etc.