High functioning

[the_tortoise]

I posted that 3 levels of autism because that's what I found and have always found similar when ever I'ved looked up autism levels. I'm not trying to make this a discussion about how to measure autism, but rather that because we require less support and not as obvious, we don't get the understanding or compassion from others, often not even believed that we Are on the spectrum. And what I posted originally is about myself and how I feel and not trying to cover the entire autistic population. I'm not trying to get anyone mad.

I'm not mad. And I understand where you are coming from and what you meant....I'm just weird and get hung up on details and complexities.

 

[Pats]

And I tend to generalize some areas if that's not directly the subject. We're good!.

 

[AloneNotLonely]

You did get support. You had a psychiatrist pushing you toward behaviours that were difficult for you.

The problem is you can't repeat something that you hate over and over and suddenly love it. It actually works the opposite way. A psychiatrist can't fix "I hate my work" other than maybe suggesting a change in career.

You hate annoying people, work and all sorts of obligations that most could do without. Unfortunately we all have stuff we have to do that we hate. I hate going outside and freezing my nuts off just to get some groceries. The other option is having it delivered but then I have to deal with a delivery person so freezing my nuts off it is. I hate annoying people that are everywhere, I hated going to my job, I hated school and I currently hate the fact that I'm really tired but don't want to go to bed. I hate that I have to floss and brush my teeth. I hate that I have to sleep.

So now I'm going to do some stuff I hate. Bleah.

 

[Pats]

You did get support. You had a psychiatrist pushing you toward behaviours that were difficult for you.

The problem is you can't repeat something that you hate over and over and suddenly love it. It actually works the opposite way. A psychiatrist can't fix "I hate my work" other than maybe suggesting a change in career.

You hate annoying people, work and all sorts of obligations that most could do without. Unfortunately we all have stuff we have to do that we hate. I hate going outside and freezing my nuts off just to get some groceries. The other option is having it delivered but then I have to deal with a delivery person so freezing my nuts off it is. I hate annoying people that are everywhere, I hated going to my job, I hated school and I currently hate the fact that I'm really tired but don't want to go to bed. I hate that I have to floss and brush my teeth. I hate that I have to sleep.

So now I'm going to do some stuff I hate. Bleah.

I hate all those things, too. Delivery person - I hide so someone else has to get the door.

 

[Pats]

You did get support. You had a psychiatrist pushing you toward behaviours that were difficult for you.

The problem is you can't repeat something that you hate over and over and suddenly love it. It actually works the opposite way. A psychiatrist can't fix "I hate my work" other than maybe suggesting a change in career.

You hate annoying people, work and all sorts of obligations that most could do without. Unfortunately we all have stuff we have to do that we hate. I hate going outside and freezing my nuts off just to get some groceries. The other option is having it delivered but then I have to deal with a delivery person so freezing my nuts off it is. I hate annoying people that are everywhere, I hated going to my job, I hated school and I currently hate the fact that I'm really tired but don't want to go to bed. I hate that I have to floss and brush my teeth. I hate that I have to sleep.

So now I'm going to do some stuff I hate. Bleah.

I wasn't getting support that would actually help. That's what I was trying to say in my OP - He was telling me to do exactly what I had been doing for all my life, but the difference was that he was saying it would get easier for me and I'm saying it never got easier - it was just as hard on day 1236 to walk down that hallway as it was on day 1 - so repeatedly doing something is not the support that actually would have helped me.

I went back and looked at my original post and the comment I said about "just didn't want to" could have been misleading - I should have said, I've tried, it don't work and I don't want to try anymore. I'm too old to be trying to force myself to do things that turn my insides upside down and put me in that fight or flight mode. Sorry I was too vague on that.

 

[techteach]

@Pats

And so the one who feels like everyone is better than she is helps me again. This is it, exactly. A dear friend is putting a lot of pressure on me to "get out and it will be easier." But it doesn't. People do not understand and I feel they will never understand.
Sorry, I melted down seriously yesterday and I am still a mess, had to write some thing though, this is just so right on. It really bothers me when people try to fix me.

"Don't try to fix me I'm not broken
Hello, I'm the lie living for you so you can hide
Don't cry"
Evanescence
Hello

 

[Judge]

A dear friend is putting a lot of pressure on me to "get out and it will be easier." But it doesn't. People do not understand and I feel they will never understand.

It doesn't get easier. I push myself periodically in a social sense, but it's true. Repetition doesn't make it any easier. I still come home with a tension headache, short of enough alcohol in my system.

But this is just plain alien to most Neurotypicals. With just no way to make them truly understand. With them inevitably defaulting to what they know about their own kind- not ours.

 

[china autie]

The medical model focus is on "what is wrong with" our behavior/us.
Thus, professional helpers trying to change us, get us to socialize, act like NTs, hide our oddness, differences are a cause for diagnoses. Thus, one of my helping professionals asking me, "Did you do anything social? What social stuff have you done?"

Socializing is exhausting to me on a good day. I don't get energy out of it. It sucks energy out of me. How is deciding to stay home and take care of myself less healthy a choice than pushing myself to do yet another social event?

The social model of disability recognizes that society creates disability. Put me in a quiet corner somewhere and let me do as I wish. I don't then appear to behave much different than the average Jo.

Systems change is tough work and it takes forever to carve out places for us in the world.

 

[Major Tom]

I honestly think the only thing that helps is by changing your perspective on things somehow. Usually this takes serious, life-alterring events, and many of us don't have that happen in the comfy world we live in now. Nobody will ever understand what's in our heads completely, even other autistics, because we are all different.
What changed my perspective on life was becoming a father (my son is also autistic), being diagnosed myself, and some traumatic events and mistakes I've had and made over the past 5 years.

 

[Thinx]

I quite like being in social situations if I can come and go, for example residential conferences and courses. I find that a good way to be social, and I wonder sometimes if living in a community would work well for me, though I think it's too late to do now apart from when I am too frail to manage, if that ever happens.

I have rather given up on hoping to be understood, I find it's too hard for others and I can't spend my life explaining stuff to them, I have just accepted understanding won't happen, mostly. I don't feel satisfied with just staying in, although it's often what I do, outside of work. I have plenty to occupy me, but I miss being with others on some level.

I am not particularly anxious so I can go out and about, I think also I have got used to handling a high level of what seems to me complexity in ordinary life, so I see it as normal? You could call that masking, but it's more like having developed strategies without realising most people don't have to do that. However I question whether their situation is better, apart from that majority experience sets the norms and places minorities on the margins.

I'm reading Philip Reeves Railhead trilogy just now, and in some ways he really captures a possible future where Artificial intelligence develops quickly beyond the capability of humanity, and then looks after humanity benignly, trying to cope with the dominant tendency to have fights and fret about social concerns, setting up a universe that can be easily used by these limited human beings...

 

[inkfingers]

I don't think "high-functioning" means good at masking. I've gotten better at social skills over the years, but am still super awkward and shy. When I was younger, I was generally oblivious to social norms, which I was fine with. I remember that my mom had me go to some sort of therapy group to learn how to make friends, but I didn't get it.
After puberty, I turned shyer, and masked more. I was able to talk to people in a more normal manner, but didn't get anywhere friendship wise. And then I gave up trying to fit in. It is not worth the trouble and stress. I'm fine being a loner, anyways. I'd take my stuffed animals over neurotypicals any day.

 

[Fino]

Pats is certainly an angel!

 

[AloneNotLonely]

I wasn't getting support that would actually help. That's what I was trying to say in my OP - He was telling me to do exactly what I had been doing for all my life, but the difference was that he was saying it would get easier for me and I'm saying it never got easier - it was just as hard on day 1236 to walk down that hallway as it was on day 1 - so repeatedly doing something is not the support that actually would have helped me.

The problem is nothing else helps. He could drug you up to the point of being a different person, but I doubt that's what you were looking for. There's nothing else. He can't wave a magic wand and change the rest of the world.

Things definitely got easier for me so not sure what's up in your case. Either way, there's nothing else to try.

 

[BlueSky Aozora]

High functioning autism has nothing to do with IQ - the IQ's are usually pretty average (I think one of the differences they used to make between HFA and aspergers).

... I thought Aspie = HFA..?

Anyway, i think i get what you mean in your first post. LFA 'can get away' with doing autistic things & people seldomly blame them because we can see clearly their struggle. Nobody will put much difficult responsibility on their shoulders.

On the other hand, if HFA/aspies do that, they will be blamed. Since they look like normal people, form bonds/relationship with normal people, thus they have to shoulder responsibilities like normal people. That's why it's hard.

In addition, since they form the relationship, they also need to fulfill the other party's needs - give & take. If not, the other party will get burnt out. Unfortunately, in many cases, the hfa/aspies dont notice the 'responsibilities', or have difficulties/ overload in performing them; thus the other party/nt/normal people end up shouldering the double responsibility of two people. Both the hfa/aspie and the other party become burnt out. Which is stressful and sad..

 

[Pats]

... I thought Aspie = HFA..?

it does.

 

[Gracey]

I understand the term intelligence to mean the ability to adapt.

If, like me Pats,
You’ve chosen to marry, have and bring up children and work,
You’ll adapt to those roles.

I’m not suggesting it’s easy or feels natural.
I believe The cumulative distress(?) will ooze or leak out in another area of life.
For me, I developed OCD, very mild in the beginning.
My way of trying to control what I didn’t understand at the time.

What I’m trying to say is,
Your beliefs and ideas of what a wife and mother is,
Is what you’ll strive to aspire to by whatever means necessary.

I always thought it was a different ball game when we’re fully responsible for multiple young lives.

I’m not suggesting autism fades or disappears, I’m suggesting the intensity of responsibility felt, as mothers, is a massive game changer.
Biology insists we make sure they survive.
Up against the wire, if you will.

Operating on a completely different level than remembering to mind your p’s and q’s when in company, shopping lists and appointments.

To cut a long rambling post short,
I don’t believe high functioning equates to masking,
(I’d like to get rid of the term altogether)
I think it’s more about learning and understanding in a way that changes behaviour.

To function at a ‘higher’ (?) level than previously.

 

[Fino]

I think "high-functioning" means "isn't a bother". Ignorable. Kinda like everyone else but kinda not. A little off. Weird.

Stuff like that. Of course, I don't believe those things, it's just what I've gathered from my experiences.

 

[Pats]

I think "high-functioning" means "isn't a bother". Ignorable. Kinda like everyone else but kinda not. A little off. Weird.

Stuff like that. Of course, I don't believe those things, it's just what I've gathered from my experiences.

You put it in much simpler terms, that's what I was trying to say. lol I really don't think high functioning means being able to mask - that was a little sarcasm.

 

[GrownupGirl]

High functioning means total BS. It's nothing but a stupid label and every time I hear it being used I just want to rip every strand of hair out of my own head. Having "mild" autism really means *other* people experience my autism mildly, not me.

 

[tducey]

I'm high functioning. It's a blessing of course but also a curse. I'd like to have a job coach with work but because of my high function I can't get a job coach.