I wish Aspergers were visible and venting.

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People can understand to a degree that people with AS sometimes have certain personality traits but can't reverse. They can't seem to realize that certain personality traits are because of AS. They know I have AS but it doesn't help.

I cry easily. I'm 36 but emotionally am a lot younger. I hate it. I can't find a way to control it so I don't cry until I'm at home alone. How can I get myself to not cry?

I hate lights seeming bright. I teach part time (morning shift) in special education. One thing we do is to watch PBS on TV. It's so loud but I have to go with what other teachers and my boss think is right. There are children with Autism in the class who are fine with that volume but I'm not.

It's even worse when there is music. I know others have experineced this-where to have the music comfortable means voices are so soft you can't understand all the conversations but to make the music soft enough, the voices are too loud or something like that. It's just mixed up. Music right, voices wrong and vice versa.

I hate it when people who, when I tell them that I can't do eye contact and need time alone, automatically think that it's the same as when they do that. They're NTs. I don't understand why they say they can't do eye contact. I hate how they think that since they need time alone at times, that it is the same as it is for me.

Ok just venting. I'm off to go read other things on Wrong Planet, just to remind myself that I'm not alone. I feel it sometimes.

Oh and another thing. A question for people with 'mild' AS (hate that term but can't think of a way to phrase it for this question). Do you ever feel you are treated like you don't have a right to be frustrated? People at least try to understand and are open to saying they can't understand for more 'severe' things but if it's mild you don't have a right to be frustrated.

Is 'mild' even a clinical term? I see posts in which some refer to themselves as having 'mild' AS, but I think that's self-stroking - a form of denial in which Aspies convince themselves they're higher functioning than they really are and better able to hide their differences than they actually do.

I may be way off base here, but in my view, Higher Functioning doesn't mean your autistic traits are 'milder' - it means you cope with them somewhat better than someone with LFA. The hypersensitivities and difficulties are essentially the same. That's what's really frustrating. Because we need less direct assistance from moment to moment, we're often treated as if our challenges aren't real and we're just whining.

I kind of understand my parents say I need to grow up and when I mention still being depressed over my College suspension (5 years Feb) I mention comparing it to a death mom then gets mad at me and we get an argument etc. IMO ONLY I understand what I'm dealing with and ONLY I CAN FIX IT! It's not about "growing Up" getting over it etc.! !! !! !! I wish people could understand THIS!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !!

That's something that I've experienced in high school a fair bit. I wasn't allowed to get angry or frustrated, but my younger sister was allowed to show any emotion that she wanted. My dad's reasoning for that was, "You get better grades, so you should be able to control it better." or "You're a much better talker than your sister, and you're a tomboy." I just didn't see how any of that had to do with not being allowed to be frustrated or have meltdowns.

What I have learned.

"Adults" are expected to "suck it up" and get the job done. Bitching about every little thing that upsets you is not looked kindly upon.

I've learned to keep my mouth shut a lot of the time, but until I learned about AS, I never understood why when major bad things happen, it rolls off me like water off a duck's back, but the little issues drive me insane.

Before learning about AS, I felt I had "control issues" and major bad things I accept as beyond my control but I somehow think I should be able to "control" the little things in life.

In truth, we have very little control over what happens...big or small, but I think the little disruptions upset the apple cart we desperately want to keep stable for the ease of our processing daily activities. We see nothing wrong with expressing our distress, but others see it as juvenile. If they understood about AS and how it affects us, they might be more understanding, but they'd still ask us to learn to "roll with the punches" a bit better so we'd not be so unpleasant.

It isn't visible?

I talk too much about stuff people can't relate too. I become obsessed with random things/people/characters/food/smells/etc....I get too mad too faSt... I get frustrated with "normal people" Because it seems to me that they focus on the wrong things in life/conversation/etc. I was homeschooled and sheltered. When I was finally kicked into the "Real" world I was 14. I am now 22 and still find everyday to be a struggle. I have "Safe" people, friends I've made along the way, and I'm kinda okay when they're around. I laugh at all the wrong times in conversation. I can't talk to anyone (besides my safe people) without sweating, and freaking out. I move weird (esp. my hands and arms) I'm soooo very self-aware. It's amplified...everything is times 10!! !

But then, it sometimes seems to me that non-AS adults do exactly that: whine/throw tantrums about things that seem incredibly petty to me and I can't understand why they would even notice.

I know this all too well. It happened today. I had been looking forward to taking this one class next semester if i could get in but it turns out I can't because I would have had to take this semester and next. It was too late and I went off in the cafeteria slammed my books down and started crying. others were staring at me and asking me what wrong but I didn't feel like telling anyone. I was so angry and remained that way for a long time. I couldn't even concentrate in class because I was upset.

And such is the irony.

However, take a good look around at the "successful" NTs and the people stuck in "dead end" jobs/careers.

The ones who "suck it up" are often more successful and more often promoted. NTs pay a price for doing the same thing.

More so, a common human fault is readily spotting a flaw in another but failing to see it within yourself.

People (meaning teachers) don't even believe that I have AS most of the time. Last year, the head of Year 9 shouted at me for being selfish, and said that I don't deserve help because I'm not special, and that extra help is for people with terminal illnesses and such. That teacher can go to hell.

However, my maths teacher is very kind and let's me sit away from other people, and tells people off if they pick on me in class. He knows I have problems, but I'm not sure if he has been told that I have AS.

Aw, that sucks.

I couldn't take Spanish class for GCSE because I changed schools, and the people in my class had already started learning Spanish the year before. I'd really been looking forward to it, and all. But my mum is going to pay for me to learn Spanish outside of school, so that's ok I guess.

I guess in some ways it is but in a lot of ways it isn't. I have to act normal enough to keep my job but the emotional energy and effort needed to do that isn't visible. I can be around people long enough to work my shift but people assume that since I can do that, it's easy to be around people.

I wish people could see that some things are harder for us. They might be more understanding when we can't do it if it were visible that it takes a lot of energy and sometimes we need breaks.

I agree that the smaller things can be harder to deal with. Most people don't even realize that small changes are changes.

I don't see why society expects us to 'suck it up'. Why is it so wrong to have and show emotion?

Gnatterfly (and anyone else). What is your opinion on homeschooling? So many people are completely against it and don't see that there are other ways kids can have socialization opportunities. I often wish I were homeschooled. I'd love other's opinions.

Uhura

Or maybe you believe this because you want to believe that everyone with AS has it in the same severity as you? I don't think you can chalk up all of the differences simply to "successful adaptation," either.

I think the DSM V is planning on categorizing autism into mild, moderate, severe, and profound and doing away with the Asperger's label entirely. What exactly this means is still subjective, but it's at least a recognition that such a scale exists.


It seems that there is both a functioning scale and a trait severity scale, both of which operate independently. That is to say, one can be HFA and have severe traits, or LFA and have milder ones. They aren't fixed for a particular person, either. Many here talk about going from MFA to HFA, depending on the situation.

This is exactly how I feel. Thank you for putting it into words so perfectly. I'm going to quote that verbatim to a few people I think really need to hear it. Hope that's ok.

For the record though, I do still think that there are people with more severe AS. In my experience so far there seem to be people with what I'll call Classic AS - like me and I suspect like Willard. There are some of us that handle it well and there are some of us that don't. It depends on upbringing, disposition, amount of family support and all sorts of other things. Then there are the other people, with what I will call Severe AS. Here I'm talking about that Curious Incident level of asperger's. They aren't fully autistic but they're closer to it. There's no way you can say they're the same as Classics. I know that I do not literally "catch" the cold, it's a virus. I know that no one's leg will be broken if I wish them luck. I can recognise happy, sad and angry. But I have more difficulty than an NT identifying the emotions inbetween and I have been known to tell people how I actually am when they ask "How are you?" What I'm saying is that there's severe AS, which also has its high and low functioners, and there's classic AS with people who work with it and do well and people who don't. Also I'd like to point out that high or low functioning are not fixed. I'd say that about 5 years ago I was pretty low functioning - didn't go out of my house for months, no friends, no job, obsessively indulging my special interest - but I have worked hard on it, greatly helped by being semi-diagnosed, and now I think I'm high functioning.


Disclaimer: I'm not qualified to posit those theories but all the same I posit them. I know there are already accepted terms and theories on this. I also know that every individual person is different and unique. Just my two cents.

I know. Im 43 and so tired of the looks and attitude I get because I feel like a round peg that is being stuffed through a square hole. I've probably experienced much of what others have discribed on this forum. I look fairly NT therefore I must be NT. Nope flawed assumption.

Maybe I should wear a sign that says please be patient as I have Aspergers. I havn't chosen to say much about it as my husband and family know something is wrong Im sure and don't believe me when I say Aspergers so I go into detail about the autistic scale and that is somehow more acceptable. I just thank God I have supportive people in my life and that I'm not trying to do life all by myself as a person and as a person with what the world calls a disability.

As for emotions they have caused me more problems in my life then I would care to admit. Yeah sorry as Im not having a very good day today

Yeah, I get what you're saying.

For those of us who are higher-functioning and better able to cope with AS, it may seem to others that we are faking it, narcissistic, or just a jerk. Often times, the traits of AS are not obvious enough for the average person to notice. Certainly nothing like Down Syndrome or Schizophrenia.

I've dealt with this my whole life. Never being quite right, but not being messed up enough for anyone to really notice or try to help. I didn't even realize it myself until less than a year ago.

Sometimes, indeed, I've wished that AS was something really visible, so that the perpetual confusion surrounding the nature of the condition would be simplified.