Mild Aspies

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I don't know what it is, but whatever it is, it seems severe. The nearly universal "OMG, weird!" reaction for seemingly neutral responses seems to suggest I'm not exactly 'normal'.

However, I can drive, I'm excellent at math and planning and my movements are at least somewhat elegant so I don't seem to fit the stereotypical "severe aspie" profile. Maybe it's autism or possibly schizo.

(Gosh, my cat avatar's eyes are kind of freaking me out. Does anyone else think they're a little creepy?)

Exactly how I feel.

Officially I'm diagnosed with PDD-NOS and the OP should have put HFA or this ugly vague term into her opening post (sorry, my pet peeve).

So, as much as having a job and living independently (or so), I'm struggling with relating to people so much I couldn't consider my condition "mild". I just can't grow up to the expectations, just like in the above quoted post. Informally the psychs who dx'd me told me that I may consider my condition as having "mild HFA" and at the same time I may feel that it isn't mild at all, and it's quite normal. They told me that I'm definitely on the spectrum, so I voted "Not aspie, but very mild on the spectrum", but "very" is an exaggeration (option missing).

A little.


Same what Verdandi wrote. You are welcome here.

You forgot PDD-NOS, which even though it's heard about the least, the statistics I saw show that it is the most common diagnosis, which supports my theory. I also think that every single person here is using a different diffenation of mild. I say I'm definately mild; I've actually been diagnosed, but I seem to lack a lot of the problems that even undiagnosed people here have. However I'm just a teenager, so I can't apply myself based on ability to live independently.

They're adorable and make me want to cuddle my cat.

If they were aimed more directly at the camera, I think I'd probably agree with you.

Like this, although she's not a kitten:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/ ... 7&index=11

I have the impression that lot of people seem to think mild means not to struggle much but mild aspies can still struggle. People can have mild in anything and still struggle. I used to think I wasn't mild when I was first diagnosed because my problems didn't seem mild. I thought if I was so mild, I wouldn't be struggling in school everyday. I just didn't know what it was. I was rating my problems as severe when I have never met anyone with severe AS or anyone else with severe problems nor anyone with moderate AS or anyone with moderate problems. Until someone has met someone worse off than them, they then realize they aren't that bad. I think it's possible to have mild AS and have some traits that aren't so mild or have comorbids (sp) that aren't mild.

I find it rather difficult to answer this question. First of all, I am not really good at recognizing my condition, it would be better to ask people who know me.
As far as I can tell, there are situations where I can function pretty much ok, and other situations where I can't function at all. For example, I had a job (and will probably go back to work next year), on the other hand, I don't drive a car and never learnt to.
I have friends but I never belonged to any group, club or organization. So, since it is very mixed for me, I voted mild..

I don't think mild means to not struggle much, but I really do only have to compare what I deal with daily to what people here say they deal with daily and I can see that I deal with a lot of problems many posters here do not, and that's not even getting into what people have told me face to face, or what one can logically deduce from my living conditions as compared to the effort required for me to achieve those conditions - and I have had others tell me the same after they've read my posts. Just to be clear, I don't think you meant me when you wrote this post, but I'm using myself as an example.

Early on, I think it's easy to decide one is mild or severe due to lacking a frame of reference, but you're eventually going to pick up a sense of what other people have as problems, as well as what other people say they perceive in your own descriptions (or from meeting you) that eventually you'll have a better idea of what you're dealing with compared to others.

Sorry about that.

I'm a moderate- high functioning autie who occasionally becomes low functioning due to sensory stress and shut downs and seizures - oh my! I don't think many people have been temporarily paralysed so many times it just feels like clockwork, just another procedure to go through.

I'm sure people who are mild still struggle just in different ways. It took me awhile to realise that people had issues too and responded to them like me (got stressed/upset/depressed) but it was for something completely different. I still have to consciously remind myself of this fact. I've had anxiety to and it's horrible. I would rather be sensory overloaded and shut down completely than experience social anxiety.

I'm sure mild aspies have more responsibilities and so get stressed by them. I'm trying to live independently but I seem to breakdown every couple of days. When I run out of food, cat litter, can't make dinner, have a phone company accuse me of credit card fraud - I just want to crawl under my bed. I've had so many meltdowns and shutdowns today and now I'm getting a migraine.
I've been in my new town a month and only stay around the street and the street around the corner. There's a whole city to explore but I won't do it. I won't buy Christmas presents because I'm don't know where to buy presents to start with. I get told everyone is scared of new areas. I have panic attacks over it. I'm paranoid about so many things like running out of money or starving.

Like someone said about not having ADHD mild, yeah that's me too. Today I decided to not take my meds and just got stressed out so easily. I was forgetful and unable to string a coherent sentence together. I tired easily and had about 11 thoughts in my head at once, mostly about me arguing with someone. And I just really had to force myself to do simple tasks that had more than one step to them.

I feel pretty detached from people even if I can sometimes talk to them. It's the meds that do most of the work anyway. I hardly put any effort into choosing clothes to wear or meals to eat.

I've got co-morbidities too. The epilepsy which feels not like one type but a mixture of the whole epileptic spectrum; the hallucinations make me paranoid at night. I have PMDD which is sever pms which makes me extremely angry or suicidal. I have primary dysmenorrhea which is severe period pain and I need to knock myself out with a muscle relaxant to get relief and it keeps me in bed half the day. I have hyperglycaemia which I almost collapse from today because I was so upset when my mum ate lunch I didn't feel like eating. I get light sensitive migraines too, very crippling ones. They make one side of my face droop.

My psychiatrist says I'm bright and that if I went to an Asperger's group it would have to be a bright Asperger's group. I've seen bright aspies here, every time they talk I feel the need to pick up a thesaurus so I have a bloody clue what they're talking about. Just put me with the average group.

What else is there to say? Routines are a must. I cannot function without them. I'd just watch TV all day or be on this forum. I need medication for those highly productive days (reading, writing, doing dishes).

Everytime I see your kitty I melt inside.
But now when you told this it's kinda ruined it D:

Yep. You still need to satisfy the clinically impaired part directly due to the symptoms.

Of course, you can over come the clinical impairment part after the diagnosis, which is how people claim to out grow AS.

You can't really overcome an ASD (work with, yeah; outgrow, sometimes, yeah. It's not like mental illness that can get better with treatment).

Since ASDs appear to merge into a normal variant of human personality, and since their severity often fluctuates over their lifetimes, it's easy to see why some later lose their label. Most probably don't, but it happens. They're most likely mild in all symptoms in the beginning.

(Gosh, my cat avatar's eyes are kind of freaking me out. Does anyone else think they're a little creepy?)[/quote]

Nope my cats stare at me all the time, so I stare back . It's funny because when I stare at them they feel it's a sign of affection and come running to me to be pet. Cats aren't creepy they're the hugest sucky babies on this planet.

Well none of those quite work for me I think I would have to go with moderate.

I'm going to second this.

I thought I was a very mild aspie, why else would I have not been diagnosed yet, until I really participated in these forums. It wasn't until after that point that I realized that, no, there were reasons other than being mild that I wasn't diagnosed and for the people labeled with 'Asperger's' instead of something else on the spectrum, I was not a 'mild' case, just a very hidden case.