Specific examples

I thought that things like friendships and social interactions were going by a set code that other people knew that I'd somehow missed being told. When I was little I spent just over a year minimising my interaction with my peers and just observing how they were interacting and in particular how people flowed in and out of the different 'friendship groups'. I then tried to use these observed patterns but I was very blunt about it. 

This led to a conversation where I asked two girls in my year that as their third 'best friend' had left the school and that the rules (my observed patterns) said that they would then find a new third, could I be the new third best friend.

They looked at me like I was crazy and told me that wasn't how it worked.

I was not made the third best friend. 

I'm just generally not great at understanding a lot of stuff which is some how being passed on in a way that seems to me to be telepathic.

I think we must be of a similar age. And i have always found the same. I know that i am human. Its the rest of the people around me that i am not sure about! I am a very happy person. And can amuse myself for hours. Yes i like to occasionally talk to someone else but I just couldnt do it all the time.

Others seem to be hyper social. My ex would say "hay great we are going to a party" and i would have a meltdown at just the idea of it. I would go and have a nice time, for a while, then my "battery" would become flat and i would want to go home. but she would need to stay there until the very last person had gone. Oh, how lonely you can feel at time like that.

I take things too literally and cannot read between the lines.

An example, someone says to me, perhaps you should speak to this person, they are actually saying, go and speak to them.  I miss the meaning completely and i ignore the 'suggestion'.

My struggles are usually from expecting people to behave rationally and logically and reasonably. The mistake I have made is basically to think everyone thinks like me, so I have great difficulty understanding why people do the things they do and I keep getting hurt by people.

But I would also add that it was apparent from almost Day 1 of my consciousness that I wasn't doing it right. It took another fifty years to figure out why. Yes, I feel almost like part of a lost generation; even though I have always considered myself more of a human than an alien.

JT said:

but I literally just point out obvious ways to solve problems.

I didn't understand that there was any other way 

I also cannot understand why some problems are left "parked" for years or conversations are continually had about them when solutions are readily available. 

I think expecting my managers to read up and become experts in my diagnosis once I got it and made full disclosure. I've had some terrific support from individuals but also my current work environment can be very challenging - just because of where I'm situated and what I do. Realistically, some of the things I need would be very, very difficult to embed within my working culture.

I had similar expectations as Plastic. In addition I also assumed that everything could be "reasoned out" and that the rules I worked to somehow applied to everyone which left me very frustrated (I'd either explode at someone, bottle it all up, or be unable to process situations then have a meltdown). I could never figure out people's motivations - and still can't. 

My big "wrong" was not exploring the possibility of my being on the spectrum earlier. I spent a lot of time investing in lots of things that I thought were going to lift my depression and assumed that they weren't working for me because I wasn't doing it right. I reckoned if I could somehow understand the world, or get the right philosophy, then I could get a perspective on life and everything would fall into place. Took an assessment and diagnosis to do that.  

If you go through school as an outsider, it is almost inevitable that you don't have the faintest idea how to do office politics. I reckon I was marked down as an outsider before I even got to Primary School.

We didn't have nursery schools in those days, and I was too ill some of that time to go out and play with other local kids. (They were actually a really bright bunch!) Let me see. Primary school, two secondary moderns, strict grammar school top stream, a glitch-rich brand new comprehensive school and technical college; all before I left home, having lived in about seven different homes during the same time. and then an endless stream of different dead-end jobs because my face didn't fit anywhere and no one really could be bothered to take any notice. This isn't really an exaggeration: I still get PTSD-type dreams from my education and work. I frequently wake up believing I still haven't fulfilled an academic or work requirement that I actually completed decades ago.  And somehow I remain relatively cheerful.

As somebody who has only found they are probably Autistic 18 months ago I think I have learnt where I screwed up. I have learnt not to be hard on myself about things I did in my past. i now know why I utterly failed at relationships in my teens and 20's, but have been married for 15 years. I know my limits when it comes to work and not pushing myself to bet a better job. I have to be satisfied with what I have . I do wonder what my life had been life it I had been diagnosed as a child. Back then I would have probably been sent to the local 'special school' and the stigma of that in the 70's and 80's was massive. Who knows if it might have helped me? At school I was very much the average kid with no visible issues. The subjects I was really good at outweighed the ones I was very bad at, with no much in the middle.

intestting to hear about your work. In my job HR know me as the awkward one! I am never shy when coming forward. I try and be constructive, and respectful and actually some others look to me to ask the awkward questions. I am still working there after 12 years and thee lots of redundancies so can't be too bad.

After 15 yrs of working in different industries my career has shown me the same. Sadly I feel the common goal is personal progression, but often they don't care about the people around them. I have a particularly tough time with being managed, I've only met one manager that cared about their staff genuinely - and I'm 99% sure he's an aspie. I remain friends with him to this day.

Thank you for your input guys, so important to hear these examples.

I don't engage with office politics, and am quite outspoken against playing 'the game'. It has often made me unpopular, but somehow has elevated me amongst my peers in some instances. Seen as being a sort of renegade of sorts, but I literally just point out obvious ways to solve problems. Seems simple to me.

I've learned about picking my battles a bit more carefully though, as I have always just said it how it is and got into trouble, I now take a breathe and sometimes just keep it in go avoid the problems that have always come up.

It's tough though because often you can see the answer to something in B&W, and seems logical to me to just say it, but I know the NT culture is based on some bizarre game of facade making.

I always like to take lunch alone. This is never an accepted decision and makes me seem unsocial, but is when I can recharge a little from the overstimulation.

I can't handle florescent lighting, bright screens, of any type of distraction behind me.

I suffer panic attacks in meetings if I can't easily leave, I always sit near the door.so I can if I need to. This causes problems, especially if I ever have to lead a meeting or do a presentation, as I know I can't leave then, so I immediately start to have a panic attack. They are the bane of my professional life, and have slowed my progress. I think my IBD flares due to the stress of this sort of situation

I screwed (pre-diagnosis) up by thinking I was like everyone else - I had no idea how different I was until it was pointed out to me.

I thought that everyone worked hard with a common goal - wrong.  

I thought that hard work gets results and promotions - wrong. 

I had no idea about office politics,

I agree with this too. My difficulties are definitely around other people's responses/reactions to me and my being. Most if not all of my difficulties could be resolved with patience and clarity from other people. 

Personally I wouldn't say there's anything wrong and I don't view them as traits, I simply view them as difficulties knowing that nonautistic people have difficulties as well.

So it's not our as they say traits that makes something wrong, it's the society's unacceptance of differences in people and fear of what they don't understand. 

Things like social matters, I wouldn't say it's because of autism, I believe it's because the majority of people won't learn to understand autistc people.

So basically it's actually the society that creates the difficulties/traits.