When social issues are *not* the primary problem/difference?

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Hello. As in title - do any ASD folk here feel like their biggest difference and / or impairment is not a social/communication issue first and foremost? Below is my story, feel free to skip and answer straight away if you don't like big blocks of text.

Brief intro - I am 25, a research postgrad at a UK university. I'm a few weeks away from a dx decision. I was referred for autism dx after years of mental health difficulties, mainly anxiety. I spent a lot of my life relatively isolated and struggling to make lasting connections with others. I now have a small solid friend group, and isolation is no longer a problem.

I am seeking dx however to hopefully eventually access specialized assistance/employment. Of course, meanwhile I have been thinking in great detail about my impairments and aut-related differences. I am starting to think that for me, at this point in life, the biggest and most disabling/unmanageable issues are with executive function (planning, organization, switching between tasks, designing instructions, interpreting and following instructions, certain types of problem solving) and information overload. I cannot deal with deadlines, in the sense that to make one deadline I have to sacrifice all other tasks. Whatever I do, I either spend a lot more time on than anyone I know, or barely any at all. This as you can guess means I have next to no work experience of any kind. If I am busy with research I can barely look after myself (i.e. capacity to cook, shower, do household chores, do bills) is reduced to minimal. I can only look for part time work when I totally give up on my studies. I work part time as a tutor some times, and I put in an average of 3 hours of prep for every hour I teach. I can concentrate hard and lose all sense of time, but afterwards I am so fatigued that I can barely speak. I do not know if I am depressed, but it certainly makes me question whether I should abandon my dream of an academic career and focus on something less demanding. Except that, of course, I would not be able to acquire or even briefly hold down any job outside my field (where I will lack talent, and not have the EF levels to make up for that lack).

My second biggest issue is what I call information overload. This basically means that I cannot engage with the world in 'appropriate' ways without a massive effort because I am constantly overstimulated. I do not feel pain from this most of the time, but I can lose balance/develop nausea. This is not always a bad thing - I get a lot of physical pleasure from the intensity of my perception and mild synesthesia. I don't think in conventional sentences, but rather mentally 'warp' through series of vivid associations. I can get very lost in my head even doing something simple like taking a walk outside. It has helped me write poetry, and also cope with trauma. But the downside is that I become exhausted and/or 'wired'/hyperactive easily, and cannot do the things I am supposed to do. I spend a lot of time in bed, just trying to calm down and recover from doing what to most people looks like nothing. It gets me down, and sometimes I wonder if this is what is meant by depression.

Can anyone relate?

Thank you for reading or replying.

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The problems *I* notice the most are my executive function difficulties, especially in regards to organization and emotional control. The people closest to me see these things as well, but those I am casually acquainted with don't. I work for myself and not a tremendous amount, so these things aren't really seen at work, either.

Other people do notice I'm different. I don't have a lot of friends, though I have a couple. It is hard for me to keep friends over a long period of time. I still have not figured out what I am doing that causes this, and I am not told.

So, I can't say which is the bigger problem - EF or social issues. I think I would say that my EF difficulties bother *me* more, but my social difficulties bother *other* people more.

Yes I relate.

My upcoming dissertation topic is tentatively called "Autistic Adults in Positions of Power." I haven't started anything official on this yet, but I have informally gathered some information that relates to what you're talking about.

What you're saying is pretty common for people who are in higher, white collar positions. The only thing that I commonly hear but you're not saying is trouble with office politics. If you're not experiencing that, count yourself lucky.

Some solutions that I have seen implemented have been:

-Get an assistant to help you with planning. If you don't have an assistant, ask a co-worker to help you work out a plan in exchange for helping them do a piece of their work.

-Create breaks or buffer periods throughout the day between stressful or high complexity situations/heavy exposure to environmental stressors

-Ask for an office or office space that is quiet. If this is not an option, you could ask the people around you to help you get rid of the things around your desk that are stressing you out (maybe they keep people from talking to you when you're working, the lights get changed, movement gets visually blocked off, etc)

-Make it clear to the people who work with or under you that you need to work in a particular way. For example, ask them to remind you of things, send emails instead of call, put things in writing.

I can relate to what you're saying. For me, when I first discovered AS and that I most likely have it, a lot of the other symptoms jumped out and seemed more relevant first. It was only when I started delving deeper that I realised that many of the social coping strategies others were talking about were things that I do myself too. But they were things I never thought of as coping strategies - I thought everyone did them. Once I realised that's not the case, then I realised that I had unknowingly been dealing with these difficulties all my life too.

Social skills and Executive dysfunction

I think my main issue is anxiety and then next is how I learn and my learning style and that was another issue in school so that held me back in life and kept me from going to college and getting a degree because I am a concrete learner and not very abstract. So I am stuck with uneducated jobs. So it's like I am slow.

My lack of filter. Mainly when hearing voices or following oral instructions.
Despite not getting overwhelmed (unless it has something to do with multiple conversations), maybe it has something to do with my short term memory or my weak verbal learning.
And, cold sensitivity.

The rest isn't a problem. Or much of a problem.
Mostly because I don't have the specific needs (like dependence in routine, or coping) nor certain desires. (Namely, social desires and such)
And partially lucky enough not to be clumsy, and in a more forgiving setting (that probably staved off anxiety and depression, being less of a 'target').


The rest is that I'm just capable of taking care of myself.

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Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.

I view socializing as optional, so the fact that I'm bad at it is a non-issue.

What is an issue for me, in terms of affecting my survival or quality of life:
- sensory overload (everything is too loud, too bright, too intense)
- physical symptoms (food sensitivities, digestive problems)
- attention problems (can't focus on what I'm supposed to be doing)
- need for routine (difficulty adjusting between workdays and weekends)
- visual perception (everything is just a confusing blur, I get lost)
- insomnia (brain won't turn off, ever)

I only care about social skills insofar as it affects my survival. And yes I find it extremely difficult to make business phone calls, or meet with doctors face-to-face. I struggle to effectively communicate my needs, and achieve the necessary objective. But I only have to deal with that sort of thing a few times a year, whereas the sensory stuff affects me every day, and is inescapable.

My core problems are:
1.Information going between the environment and me. I function very well within my own shell, but when applied to my immediate practical environment, my poor short term memory cannot keep track of what I have to do. Social problems result from this, because most people are very environmentally oriented. For example, I do not like to play games, I never had a job, or a car, or lived alone, etc. My intelligence is severely split between extremely high conceptual level and poor short term memory, so that I am not compatible with any IQ level. I fear the immediate environment, including people.

2.My tastes, desires, abilities, etc. are so different from most people that I cannot mix with them. For example, besides having no interest in games or environmental interface as mentioned above, I have no interest in sex, I find infants disgusting, I have no interest in social conflict or any story where anything goes wrong, my thinking is mathematically oriented, my orientation to music is very different from most people, I have extreme discriminatory feeling reactions to people, from extremely disgusting to extremely wonderful, etc, etc.

But I have much love in my heart, I can be very warm and caring and very affectionate, but due to the above, and my non-alignment to my physical appearance, I have no friends or connection of any real kind to the world around me. While I can be a very good friend, I make a very bad showing as a stranger, so that no one would give me a chance at volunteer positions, etc. I can only function very directly, and that is not acceptable behavior for a stranger.

I said even at my evaluation that sensory processing and executive function difficulties were my biggest problems.

My social communication is still diagnose-able, though.

Yes. Social problems are a major issue but not nearly the worst. Insomnia, executive functioning and sensory problems are worse. I understand you on the academic issues. I obsess about school and put so much effort into researching/studying that I fail to properly feed and hydrate myself... Basically do not take care of myself at all. I also have to do it 100% at the expense of everything else... I must make 100 on my exams. I hate it. Every thing else in my life suffers because of poor executive functioning.