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Have to just post this LONG message to share how I felt today

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Ok i Hope I just feel a bit better after posting this on here since there is noone else I could say it to and express how insulted, annoyed and useless I felt about my aspergers and how it effected me today.

I thought I would like to have a lot of fun, hang out with my close friends for the day and just be a normal person to fit in, so basically, we all had a BBBQ round my friends house, I found it quite fun in the morning when we first arrived but later on in the day, when we were playing a board game, that's basically a guessing game where there's a word on a peice of paper then 2 people in the group describes the word for someone to guess it correct then they get a point or something, I just got so p*ssed off at all that point during the board game, my friends were all laughing cos when words were being described to me, I really got extremely confused about how to guess that word and what it meant, I find it extremely difficult to take in information and it HAS to be really clear and obvious for me to understand, That's not what p*ssed me off a lot but it's the fact that my other "friend" who also has aspergers the bloody SAME thing as I do decided to insult me in MANY different ways such as saying "you're not even trying" well, I was trying the hardest I could to understand everything and the wording but I can't because of how my disability effects me, he said so many different stupid things cos I then got really bored, I noticed I wasn't able to fit into the guessing game and all the wording stuff because my brain works differently, but he has aspergers as well but probably it effects him a different way than it effects me, so later on I stopped playing it, my other firneds just told me to look after the timer so I time them to answer the guessing questions and words in a required amount of time, I really felt like they didn't want me in the game because I couldn't guess any words, didn't know hardly anything with logical questions etc etc, I felt useless, then my other friend wiith aspergers later on said to me are you even paying any attention to the timer, do you even know how to use the timer where it is just flipping it over when the sand reaches the other end, that really had me VERY annoyed and p*ssed off with him, I think from today we are no longer ever friends, can't believe he is acting like such a idiot to me and I doubt any of them knew how I felt and how difficult it is to live with this aspergers my entire life.

Yes... I do wish I could just fit in and understand things like board games like nature questions, history ones etc etc and be normal in communication, even before the board game, I also asked questions which I thought were making sense and did actually feel sensible to ask but NO... they all laughed and answered me with a obvious answer apparently their faces looked like they think I'm so weird and a dumbass like almost as if they were thinking who the hell would ask that stupid question?

Ever since I was aware that I had aspergers, it had quite a few positive effects on me as a person but the problem is that it also brought out negative side affects as well which I am more aware of. If only I could just have a normal brain... it does bring me down a lot especially when social situations like that happen and I feel insulted all the time like also today when my other friend with aspergers told me that after I asked them "stupid" questions that it doesn't mean that they were all laughing with me, that probably means that they were laughing at me. If this keeps up, I don't want to be friends with anyone.

  • The problem is how to get NAS to think beyond the Triad of Impairments.  The sensory issues are very important. Better understanding would help many lives.

    On another thread under Living with Autism this weekend, I've raised the matter of the four questions NAS Campaigns want us to respond to rather than address the questions the Government is actually asking as part of the consultation on Social Care. I wont repeat my long monologues on this thread, but just my concern none of the issues are adequately represented on the NAS website - because the website hardly budges outside the Triad..... So the Government may well wonder why these four questions, when NAS doesn't raise them anywhere else....

  • I agree that the sensory side is often overlooked. As I have become more aware of what triggers my anxiety, I am noticing more and more how noise and extraneous information adversely affects me. When I was younger, I put my fingers in my ears to get to sleep, but never thought of it as a sensory problem because I did not understand why it affected me. I still put my fingers in my ears, and I have noticed that I am more overloaded when under stress. The stress then reduces my ability to deal with noise, I get  more overloaded, more stressed, and so a vicious circle ensues.

    Perhaps, autism is at heart, a sensory dysfunction, and the social problems are actually caused by the core difficulty? If so, the triad of impairments will certainly have to be revised.

  • Former Member
    Former Member

    I was really sorry to read your post from yesterday. You have had a rotten day.

    I think it would be good to take some quiet time out for yourself. After a stressful day like that (i've had a few of those!) I know that I like to recharge my spirits by being alone for a bit.

    A couple of thoughts...

    You said that you enjoyed it to begin with but that it got worse towards the end. Did the effort of all that socialising build up to the point where you got really exhausted? This is a common thing to happen to an aspie.

    You said that your "friend" has aspergers too. How much allowance are you giving him (or her, not sure which from your post so I'll use him/her/he from now on) for his poor social skills? I think you have to expect him to say rude and inappropriate things from time to time. Does he need as much help with overcoming those problems as you do?

    When he said "you're not even trying" did he mean it in a harsh way or did he mean it in a jokey, friendly way? I know that we aspies have a tendency to take things too literally and not spot it when people are being ironic or sarcastic.

    Sometimes we have to accept that we are not good at some things. I now know that I am rubbish at following the plot in some films as I often can't work out who the all the different characters are. I don't beat myself up about this and if my wife wants to watch a film like that I will just read a book or go on the internet and not get upset about it.

    What games do you like? I used to like Scrabble when I was little but I don't play much now because my wife can't spell! We all have strengths and weaknesses and sometimes you have to be happy with what you are good at rather than fretting about the things that you find difficult.

  • Since things were going well in the morning and things had deteriorated by the afternoon, are you responding to sensory overload and tiredness by becoming less and less able to connect?

    Most attention to sensory overload is about meltdown. But some people on the spectrum respond to overload by becoming less and less able to take in new information.

    Also if you are trying hard to socially connect, as time passes you get tired quicker than NTs and loose concentration. In such circumstances it is harder to interact with people and follow what is going on.

    Have there been situations when you've been able to do well at board games when it is early in the day?

    It might be useful just to take a bit of time out in the course of a day like this to try to assess whether your ability to cope is diminishing. If you can keep a mental note of how you felt at 11am, at 1pm and at 3pm you might better understand. Just sit for a bit somewhere to the side of the noise and action and judge whether you are really still switched in to what is going on.

    Also I keep preaching this point on here, though NAS isn't listening, that there is not enough attention paid to sensory overload in the triad of impairments based explanations of life on the spectrum. 

    Health and medical professionals often make the mistake of determining someone on the spectrum hasn't any problems based on a short meeting at some random time in a day - out of context and hardly long enough to judge.

    They make the assumption because they believe all autism problems are always obvious at the same level of manifestation all the time. So if you don't show expected symptoms in a short period you haven't got any problems. They get this off autism websites that explain autism symptoms as if the problems are constantly on display.

    There is not enough understanding of environment, sensory overload, tiring and other contexts. I wish NAS would take these things seriously.