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What part of being autistic causes you the most problems?

What's the worst part about being autistic?

  • What I described

    Votes: 11 78.6%

  • Something else

    Votes: 3 21.4%
  • Total voters
    14
I interpreted the OPS diagram to be very much about himself, and how he has experienced himself on this forum, and that he's maybe feeling, wow, autisms effects really tripped me up again, and feeling a bit sad or stuck possibly. Just guessing, but I certainly know that feeling, although for me, most of my life not knowing about autism, I couldn't place how setbacks like this happened.

Everyone's path is different, and all we can do is learn from our mistakes or misunderstandings. I tend to be an optimist and because I have noticed many people who have had difficult lives often underate themselves and seem less aware of their strengths, I like to hear what people consider their strengths too, as well as their challenges.

Where diagnosis has been possible to evade, although many of us feel we would have liked to know sooner, sometimes that may have meant we were offered more acceptance at work for example, than we may have had otherwise. I know that a few colleagues I shared my new understanding of myself as autistic, with, viewed me as different in a problematic way thereafter.

I was cool as a gay colleague, but as an autistic colleague I wasn't, apparently. Such is the effect of stereotypes and labels. It does make me wanna big up our strengths and coolness. Because make no mistake, we are supercool.
 
Progster said:
I put "other" because although this negative feedback loop is common in people with autism, it's not the whole story, at least, not in my case. Not all my problems are about negative thinking patterns or emotional issues. Some problems I have are:

-Feeling of attachment, not able to follow, be part of a conversation or social occasion, and yet being expected to do so. Not able to process a conversation fast enough to do so in 'real time'.

-Not being able to fit in at work, and yet being expected to do so. Not being able to cope with demands of work, socially or otherwise.

-Sensory issues.

-Prosopagnosia.

-Selective mutism. Like the time I was a kid and I was expected to say 'thank you' and didn't because I couldn't speak, and so was punished.

Some of my issues are a problem for me, but not for others.
Others are a problem for others, but not for me.

Some issues have been improved through my being diagnosed. People who know that I'm on the spectrum may not expect me to 'perform' like they can in a social setting. A lot of the problems are, or were, caused by other people's expectations of me.
Click to expand...

I have many of those problems too. I used to avoid saying people's names when I greeted people because I got faces mixed up too often and called people the wrong name because of it. I think most of my problems resulted from the way other people treated me.
 
Anxiety. Depression. low self esteem, sence of self and general well being
Sensitivity to criticism Brain fog and clumsiness exhaustion due to 'masking'
 
Hi. This post is kind of complicated. Not because of you, poster, but because I am Spanish-speaker and I kind of got lost. But I'll try to explain what was mostly difficult for me. For years, I was diagnosed with schizophrenia (those who did that misdiagnosis were wrong and I sued them), even If the lawsuit doesn't proceed, I don't care.

Since I was re-diagnosed as to being within the spectrum, I've come to realise that I mostly have social difficulties, anxiety when interacting with others, and lack of keeping up with daily tasks. I quit like two or three careers (I'm 27) and just settled with the librarian career. Which I find to be tranquil, no noises, and quiet for me.

I hope to have got across to you. My greetings from Argentina.
 
Honestly, the biggest problem I've had is with masking. I used to think that if I masked enough, I would become neurotypical. That's almost impossible, and trying so hard only lead me down a worse path of overthinking every single social interaction.

The interesting thing is that most of the problems on this thread are caused by society and other people's perception of autism rather than the actual symptoms. That's not surprising.
 
Feeling like the po- sometimes feeling like being on the outside and looking in at social scenes. Not sure if l even want to truly belong and then beating myself up because l don't even want to belong, again thinking something was wrong when this isn't so. Just wired differently not be a NT social animal. Needed complicated things to do or boredom sets in. Have quit many jobs once l have figured everything out. But other types of jobs- l enjoy the boring repetition of them. So now- l step back and view the contrasts as something unique to being autistic and l don't need to beat myself up about that either. Really think we need to relate to that there are rather contradictory attributes probably consistent with us and that in itself can feel problematic and cause people around us to think we are lying or just off our rocker,causing us again to feel unaccepted and so on. I can be sensitive to noise, yet some days l want to feel every nuance of the music to totally submerge and surrender myself acoustically, (contradiction).
 
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Everything in the chart plus Executive Function Deficit which includes face blindness and poor memory, disorganization, and getting so overwhelmed. And if course, there are the meltdowns (they'de be enough to 'f' up a life all by themselves, right? ) But the hope is in learning more and more self acceptance, playing to my strengths, and doing more stuff that makes me happy and healthy and less stuff that makes me feel bad or crazy.
 
Doliba said:
The interesting thing is that most of the problems on this thread are caused by society and other people's perception of autism rather than the actual symptoms. That's not surprising.
Click to expand...

This is exactly how I feel. Autism is only a “problem” when I step out my door into a world that, generally speaking, does not welcome or encourage differences in people.
 
Pretty much everything you've mentioned in your handy-dandy chart, OP, specifically when it comes to social uh-ohs in my family. I suppose this is why I've never really got very close to anyone other than my family members? I'm an adamant perfectionist and people-pleaser (courtesy of anxiety and depression) so messing up in my home environment leads to a never-ending cycle of despair (I wasn't aware that I did 'x'; 'x' is brought to my attention; I feel simultaneously frustrated that I effed up and upset that I unintentionally caused pain/hurt for something basic that anyone NT would know; I resolve to try and learn from it but still am confused as to why I was in the wrong so I can't even promise that it won't happen again; feel isolated and more different for a couple of hours. Rinse and repeat)
In addition I would add the continuous exhaustion that comes with masking and not knowing where my limit with that even is.
 
I don’t mask very often and it is stressful when I do but the hardest part of autism for me is anxiety. It stops me doing things and makes it harder to learn.
 
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