Actually realised NT's struggle too

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Half the population has intelligence below the average-intelligence.

Half the population has a happiness that's below the average-happiness.

Half the population has a memory ability that's below the average level of memory ability.

Half the population has a level of beauty that's worse than average.

Now, realize those there's only partial overlap between those groups, and the vast majority are "below average" in some way. People everywhere are disadvantaged, somehow, and many find distress in their foibles.

Personally, my verbal memory (And maybe other important parts of memory...) is probably below average and you wouldn't believe how this makes me feel inferior to the vast majority of my peers who are cognitively disadvantaged in many other ways (Because, I realize, that verbal abilities depend on verbal memory and verbal ability is the primary ability that communication depends on and people judge you mostly on what you communicate, and so it seems like I can't quite word things in a way that's 'acceptable', many times, and I think it makes me appear much stupider than I really am.).

My little boy has DS and yes, he is happy from sunup to sundown. He has his brief moments of frustration when he can't communicate his needs to me(he lost his speech). Some people(usually uptight NTs) will get indignant and say that we're stereotyping, and that not all people with DS are happy. But from what I've seen(and I've seen a lot), they are bursting with joy much of the time, everyone is considered a friend, and they have no judgements. It's almost as if they have no ego.. I wish more of us had an extra 21st chromosome.

I think it's the Native Americans that have a special reverence for autism. I could be wrong. I think I may have read it or saw it on a video??

Well said.

When I tested my verbal memory, I came in at something like the bottom 6%. My verbal memory is atrocious. It takes me forever to transcribe or copy, and I have the devil's time getting words out if I haven't rehearsed them previously.

I'm not too fussed about it. I could be, but, eh, apparently I've always been like this. I had trouble reconciling it with my vocabulary and reading ability, but it actually does make sense.

Most people are too concerned with their own personal appearance to be concerned about what other people look like. O.k. I laugh, but I'm being completely serious. I really don't pay that much attention to other people's appearances, unless they have like a third eyeball or something. If you don't look like someone featured on The People of Walmart, you're fine...really. Once you're out of high school nobody really cares.

I never really even considered the fact that I have a harder life than most people. If anything, I've thought the opposite.

I take it you don't have severe social difficulties (As in, you irritate everyone for reasons you don't feel like you fully control)? If all the loud girls are attracted to you, I'm guessing you probably don't...

I, too, for many years thought I was pretty advantaged in life (And still do, to a certain extent and in certain ways) and that being a lonely highschool nerd was just a typical social outcome and I would prevail later in life when my peers were more competent/mature/accepting in school and the workplace, but it quickly became obvious that my social "annoying-ness" wasn't limited to high-school and that it pretty much applied everywhere along the intelligence spectrum, and it's pretty clear what a crippled social ability implies as far as future employment and just about anyplace where neurotypicals are involved (Such as graduate school and that one critically important professor who just doesn't like you and he/she's evaluating your thesis...).

Yeah, that's the kicker, every other language measurement says that my verbal ability is well-above average but apparently the one related to "expression"(As in "verbal recall", that is, recalling the "right word" "quickly") seems below average, which sucks! It makes me express myself like a 16 year old most of the time (See the "which sucks" example, lol.).

Yes, this is probably exactly why my ability to write is leagues above my ability to speak. This is also why I really do not love talking.

It seems there's all kinds of conflicting information out there about verbal working memory deficits and autistic people. I have in the past five minutes found declarations that they do exist and that they do not exist.

Last edited by Verdandi on 07 May 2011, 2:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

I definitely have social difficulties, but because I keep to myself nobody at school really knows. People don't think I'm irritating, they just think I'm weird.

The reason why I say that I think my life is easier is because it really doesn't limit me too much. There are two types of socialization: necessary, and unnecessary. Sure I can't do small talk easily but it's small talk, it really isn't that important. I am much more comfortable discussing topics of actual importance, which is really all that matters. That's really the only thing I need to be concerned about, along with some form of executive dysfunction. I hear about people's problems every day, and although I do have my own to deal with, they seem mild in comparison to the idiot who seriously believes that wet grass is more likely to catch on fire than dry grass.

Yes, it's human to "struggle" but it's hard to find people that understand the struggles that are caused by our AS. I know NTs who struggle in the social world or unemployment but their reasons/underlying issues differ some from ours.

"Without suffering, there would be no compassion"

Not having AS or Autism or other disabilities doesn't mean you're always going to socially get on throughout your whole life. Sometimes it's pot luck.
Today I went with my mum for a meal, with my mum's friend (A), who has a 26-year-old daughter (B). She is a very confident, ''typical'' NT who has a 6-year-old child (who is also very confident and loud too). But even A has problems with B. She said that B's husband (who she had only been married to for about 5 months) has moved out and has been sending nasty texts and harassing her, so B had to phone the police to give him a warning. He hasn't been seen since, but now B is on her own, having to bring her child up alone. And B's friends don't seem to want to know any more, even though they have small children too who go to the same school as B's child. The children are all friends, and B found out that the rest of them see eachother, but never asks B to come out. Also A said that B has a lot of neighbours who sit outside their flats socialising, but B never likes to join them. She prefers to keep herself to herself, and her friends are mainly the people who work with her (she only works part-time). And I am talking about a confident NT here.

So being NT doesn't always mean you're socialising 24/7 and you absolutely love it and find it more natural than breathing. No. NTs may be more socially alert than me, but it doesn't mean they use it all the time. I know an NT who wants to work somewhere where he's got his own desk, so that he doesn't have to work in a group with others all the time. Also my 20-year-old cousin, who is a ''typical'' NT too, used to be really worried about the noise of the hand-dryer in public toilets when she was about 3. She used to scream and cry when a loud hand-dryer was set off, and she would cling to her mum's legs and scream. She noise just overwhelmed her. Obviously she grew out of it, but still - a paranoid mother could think, ''oh I will get her diagnosed with Autism - she must have it if she's afraid of the hand-dryer.'' A toddler being startled by a loud noise doesn't necessarily mean Autism.