Main impairment: social or something else?

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I was thinking about this for several reasons today, and it got me wondering:

How many of you guys here feel like your main impairment isn't actually social, but something else instead?

My overall impression when it comes to autism is that people tend to understand "low- or high-functioning" to be mostly tied to superficial social ability. I've never really had big problems with that (eye contact, voice modulation, nonliteral language and so on). I've also never had problems understanding that people have different interests and motivations than me (I've always had a really hard time relating to their motivations, but I think that's a very different thing). I never had an unusually narrow range of interests either. So from that kind of perspective, I'm "high-functioning", maybe even "very high". And from other perspectives too. I'm perfectly capable of taking care of myself. All that a developmental specialist would probably have had to say to me would be "what are you doing in my office?".

The one thing that's ironically consistent and pronounced about me though is inconsistency. There are days when my brain just doesn't work (or sometimes certain parts of it, like emotional reaction, or emotional regulation, or motivation, or motor skills, or switching between tasks, or problem-solving skills, or language skills, or alertness, or sensory processing, or I guess pretty much anything else a brain is supposed to do). I guess most of the time, at least some of those things won't be working 100%. I never know which ones it will be though, or when, and it's often also hard to tell which ones aren't working right now (because of that impairment itself). I think I've made nearly no progress learning to predict it, and only limited progress trying to prevent it. The progresses I've made over the years have mostly been in learning to account for it and working around it instead.

So in the end, even if I may suffer from social difficulties (mostly because of that misalignment of motivations between me and other people), I don't feel like that actually gets to be an impairment. It compounds the issue, but it's not "the real issue" itself, from my perspective. Instead, the impairment that I do have exists regardless of any practical need to interact with people. Occupationally speaking, that makes me patently "low-functioning". It's kind of a bizarre place to be, when most people I interact with wouldn't even imagine I have an impairment. Growing up, everyone just assumed I would be overall "successful" as an adult, and didn't seem to see any reason to believe I wouldn't. I only learned on my own that I actually wouldn't, still contrary to everyone else's belief at the time.

I am very poor in earning money... I suppose that non-social issues are even more harmful in my case than social ineptitude. But even my social problems are rather severe generally.

I have serious problems with managing physical discomfort (such as having a shower (too cold water or air, or too hot water...), I did not take a shower (or bathe) since above 12 weeks at now), I have low physical strength and endurace, I am slow in "practical" activities, somewhat clumsy, I rather have issues associated with executive functioning (they may be (similar to) certain negative symptoms of schizophrenia (and I have diagnosis of schizotypal disorder)). I have severe OCD (especially about religion, harsh divine punishment like (everlasting) torment, large evil), I am definitely not asexual and aromantic (Abrahamic religions (for example Catholicism) often at least appear to be anti-sexual), I have urge to have female partner (but I have never had a girlfriend despite being nearly 29,5 years old), to satisfy my evil carnal lust and intimate desire and it "costs" to reject them and avoid sexual thoughts/dreams and activities. I have to take psychiatric medications and have no driving license.

I'm not sure. My main problems are social stuff and focusing on open ended tasks. I don't know if the latter is autism or undiagnosed ADD.

I'm just "impaired" all across the board.

I'm pretty good, sometimes, at not seeming impaired, though.

I'm not really good at "spring cleaning," which seems to be a requirement this time of year. These are times when my wife wishes I wasn't there, since I'm "less than useless" at spring cleaning, and don't have the inclination. I sort of understand "what the fuss is about"---but I don't really care all that much. It's an "impairment" because it seems like "spring cleaning" is some sort of required activity.

I'm pretty good at being lazy, doing lots of Internet research, and watching YouTube videos.

I'm also pretty good at feeling sorry for myself----which seems to make my "impairment" worse.

Mine is supposedly social and emotional issues, along with communication and possible language issues that came with it.

Yet since puberty, my issues goes beyond social and it seem to be gradually getting worse year by year.
It had nothing to do with change (except the body and it's hormones), major events or even stress and overwork alone cannot explain.

Except numerous flukes on restorative sleep, where I end up with zero issues at all.
Enough for everyone to see a whole world of difference.


My main issues are now do to with processing and memory related -- something I do not have at childhood and most of my teen years.

It can look like ADD with BPD and some cognitive impairment, but it's not.

I may have an untreated and undiagnosed medical issue.
Likely to be dismissed as some female body norm because it changes in every other week, unable to have consistent routine even to something as basic as sleep and hunger even.
Or just blame autism altogether.

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My biggest impairments are my anxiety, sensory issues, and depression. That’s not to say that I’m not also socially impaired, but it doesn’t hold me back as much as the other stuff.

I am impaired socially, but less than I was as a child. My other impairments (sensory issues, executive dysfunction, comorbid disorders, etc.) compound my social impairments and each other.

When I was a kid I was impaired socially enough and had enough other impairments to be considered weird and stupid, and also as deliberately trying to misbehave whenever I messed anything up.

Now as an adult I have better social skills, but my other impairments haven't improved much and they make it so I can't socialize as well as I could, so I still am treated like I'm weird and stupid and like I'm trying to misbehave/be lazy all the time.

Executive Dysfunctions.

Not that social impairments/differences are not a problem.

My worst problems are sensory, executive dysfunction, and repetitive actions (RBFBs which can cause self-harm). Other than that, if I could live by myself in the middle of nowhere and not have to interact with the outside world, I'd be fine socially. I only scored the 1st percentile for social skill / social desire on my ASD test. I'm really not comfortable with people, but I can choose to live alone and avoid them for the most part. In that respect, people aren't a big issue. Sensory, executive dysfunction, and repetitive behaviours are injurious to me even if I'm alone in my house. They make life very difficult on a daily basis.

Oh, also mutism and alexithymia are a huge problem for me. I have a hard time maintaining relationships or self-advocating with professionals / companies as needed, because I can't formulate my thoughts and feelings, or express myself verbally. This leads to a lot of meltdowns, and judgement from doctors, businesses, strangers, etc. when really I was just trying to ask a question or seek help for something.

I can be socially awkward, but not really enough to impair me socially. I think my anxiety and overthinking is my main issue. Also I seem to suffer some sort of math dyslexia, where numbers confuse me and I have trouble decoding large numbers. If I see a large number with more than 3 figures, I sometimes ask what the number says. I know this may sound like a small issue but it affects my life more than it should.
I also have trouble controlling my hyperactivity, but I think that's due to ADHD. Hyperactivity isn't just jumping about energetically. It can also mean overthinking, hypersensitivity and impulsivity, which I have extreme issues with.

I would say that impairments are interconnected and intrinsically linked:

Low capacity stress
poor short term memory
dyslexia
sensory impairment (hypersensitivity)
poor emotion regulation
combined with IQ above average

is like having a computer with no ram but fast processor and no error correction
which if you input too much data, starts to do loads of random things as well as shutting down

Social impairment, yes.

I do have problems with sensory filtering and executive functioning, too, but the main "issue" is definitely social. I can put on a mask like most others at the expense of depleting valuable energy, but I've opted out of that behaviour. Nowadays I operate on my brain's base capacity, which is enough for marriage and a job, and pretty much nothing else.

I feel OK on this level though. So much unexpected stress in life anyway, so keeping a 50% mental buffer capacity helps me through my everyday challenges.