How would you describe autism?

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I'm curious to know how others here, in a few sentences, feel their experience of autism would be best described. It's not easy trying to boil it down like that, because it often seems like a whole disparate array of traits, but I'd love to hear what you guys think.

I guess how I'd describe it is that the intensity of everything is turned up, including your senses, emotions, anxieties, interests, and everything else. The only thing that gets drowned out is the social perception.

A long series of big tangled obstacles.

I've written a long description of my feelings on this in another post before, but, made shorter...

Autism, for me, is like a wall in my head. Lots of things struggle to get out of the wall, through a few small gaps. Things also struggle to get into my head, so everything is fighting to squeeze through the small gaps and can be overwhelming to manage and filter.

Maybe like driving down a rural county road in thick fog.

A life-long struggle with a very "wicked" dichotomy of "smart" and "stupid".

The easiest way for me to describe my experience with Autism (Asperger's Syndrome in my case) from my own perspective:

I pursue my interests wholeheartedly, wanting to know as much as I can about them. Even though I enjoy interacting with other people, keeping up with the task of easily missed social cues and understanding group dynamics makes it exhausting. On top of social over stimulation, I also have to worry my senses in general, as I can easily be visually and audibly overwhelmed. If the stress I am put through becomes to much, I could have a meltdown, which means I must always be aware of my limits. Issues like this may be why I ultimately prefer spending large amounts of time by myself in a small familiar space versus out in the world where there are lots of people.

For me, this is my understanding for normal, my baseline to compare to how the rest of the world works. It is the way I have existed as long as I can remember. Of course, then I look around me and it's obvious that these are not the standards that most people live by, that the position I sit at to look at the rest of the world from is not the one most people hold. As a result, I have a harder time understanding the people around me than the average person probably does and the average person has a harder time understanding me than most people.

It's all obviously much more complicated than this, but that's the best I can do in a quick summary.

Autism is taboo.

I was fairly recently diagnosed with Asperger's. Among minorities, mental illnesses and disorders are considered as acts of demon possession or the Devil's doing. Especially in certain faiths dominated by mysticism. I'm still struggling to accept the diagnosis even though I largely identify with the symptoms. Someone here said that it was like swerving between "stupid" and "smart." I kind of always knew that I interpreted things somewhat differently and it made me feel like a fraud not to feel emotion or at least express it as strongly as others. Even my writing can be quite disjointed because I can't seem to get the ideas down on paper. I could do rough drafts but I'm still fighting myself on getting those done half the time.

So I learned to mimic-through reading primarily. I still feel at odds with admitting it and although I say it to close friends, it's more so saying it out loud to make it more real. Autism in a word to me is "excuse." Western culture says that if you want something desparately enough, you'll move mountains even if you're sick or wounded. It's really romantic ideal and in no way practical but it still makes me want to hold up my Aspie's card and say that it's okay that I can't do this or that because I'm diagnosed- as opposed to actually improving on light sensitivity, aversion to large gatherings and loud noise, and dating altogether. I keep trying to think of it in a more positive light because it just means more diversity and what-have-you but when I suggest that I might have it or that it might not be such a bad thing, the backlash or quick retorts have no end. Being on the higher end of the spectrum with my masking abilities only makes me feel more cautious of to whom I admit my diagnosis. I feel like I'm straddling that wall but I'm falling over into the wrong side.

A long, lonely terminal decline.

Bieng Autistic distinguishes me from my peers but is indistinguishable from myself.

Autism is what makes me unique and interesting and it gives me great focus.

A world where everyone speaks English, but they have a different dictionary than I use.

Living life with a 6-inch wall of glass between me and everyone else.

As I havent been diagnosed it's difficult to know if any of my problems are due to autism.

At the moment I feel broken. If I do test positive for autism then that would change things and I hope I could be as optimistic and positive and some posters here ( notably the younger members )

It's like having a car that looks nice on the outside, but everything under the hood is messed up, and doesn't work as good as it should.

It's like being born a native on the outside, foreigner in the inside. No matter how you live and understand your native land, you will always be a foreigner in the inside one way or another.
People can always scoff it off as an individual thing, but collectively it's not the case.

Depending on your personality and needs, it may or may not be a good thing.
In my case, I happened to indulge it.

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I would liken it to a dream I once had where I suddenly found myself in a parallel dimension. A lot of things were familiar and the way they were supposed to be, but some were very different. Some things feel like they are right while others seem wrong and off.

Another way of describing it would be to say that I feel like I'm from a culture that is both very alike and different from the one I live in, and that some norms make sense, others don't.