Why do other people always word my thoughts way better than I can?
That is EXACTLY what I've been trying to say all along!! Yes I'm sure we all have ''spiky profiles'' or whatever it is, but we don't all have the ''high-functioning when comfortable, low-functioning during a meltdown'' profile. And I think most of where you lay on the autism spectrum comes down to your communication abilities in general. Some autistic people are non-verbal all their lives, or have very limited vocabulary and communication skills. Others develop speech just like their typically developing peers and have no delays or differences in their speech development.Not saying the autism spectrum is divided into just those two types of autistic profiles, because it isn't, but what I'm saying is that there ARE some autistic people who exist in one of these profiles. I watch a lot of videos on Youtube of autistic children and adolescents, and a lot of them have very noticeable communication differences or difficulties. But the ones who were described as Asperger's seemed able to communicate articulately like an NT child, and you probably wouldn't really know they had an ASD just by talking to them or watching them have a conversation. I was like that as a child; sociable, normal eye contact, expressive, articulate, cheeky, funny, affectionate, chatty, etc, etc. My ASD was more complex, more hidden, more internal (I don't mean repressed, because I was very expressive, but what I mean is my ASD symptoms were more internal, like noticing or worrying about things others may not have, or overthinking things or having odd thoughts or phobias, etc). And that is quite true for some ASDers who are affected mildly. That is why I think my type of ''autism'' should have its own name, like it used to (which was Asperger's syndrome).
The way I see it, Asperger's syndrome is like being an adolescent - but I'm not talking about mental age, I'm talking about the position. Adolescents are at an awkward stage between childhood and adulthood, where they aren't children exactly but aren't adults either. They're inbetween, with one foot still in childhood and the other foot in the adult world. They're like ''half and half''. It can be confusing for them. And that's how I feel it is for me, as an Aspie. I'm sitting right on the line between NT and autism (excluding other ND conditions), and this can be very confusing for me, which is why I'm often confused about my own diagnosis. It's like I don't really fit the autism mould like others do on autism sites, but I still lack something because of the way I can't make friends as good as my NT peers (especially during my teenage years). So I have some sort of ASD but at the same time I still don't feel autistic, if that makes sense.
Mods: If this post isn't appropriate for this thread then could you please start a new thread on this topic, instead of just deleting it forever? Because thejuice has made a really, really good point.
