High Functioning - Blog Posts

something happened and im really sad and also happy.

happy chinese new year to all, but YOU GOTTA READ THIS.

for more than a year (3 yrs almost), i’ve done a self diagnosis on myself with spd (sensory processing disorder) and adhd (few others too)

the man took an hour late to arrive but LOL

went to this place and told the man about how i’ve been bullied and what was going on. so i obviously didn’t say i was gay but my mom did bring up how somebody was gay and was bullying me as a gay person (smart man knew i was gay from how I went 😝✌️ along with saying the word “gay” but he didn’t make it obvious until my mom looked away and he smiled and mouthed “yes good im proud for you”).

since i get extremely uncomfortable when they kept talking about my ASD so then i felt like crying cause yk mental health issues + illnesses, etc shit being exposed and almost cried (they never knew bc i never made it obvious but my eyes watered under my hoodie), and yk I felt really really sad than my mood was today.

THEN THE BIG NEWS CAME.

since you never knew i was neurodivergent, i’m gonna let you know.

i didn’t know HALF of what he said because he spoke fast but

i managed to catch half (idk if half atp cause he got LOADS of diagnosis for me but it was too much and he spoke really really fast)

HE WAS FRIENDLY BUT

i FUCKING KNEW. that the spd was right. I WASNT SURE BUT HE SAID I HAVE IT. YESSS A REAL DIAGNOSIS.

he said im diagnosed with asd, adhd, spd (sensory processing disorder), tics (not like tourettes but he did say something WILL cause me to tic but it’s only anxiety that will cause it a few times but if it gets worse, i must tell him) + my anxiety will cause me to tic (like shivering and form different tics but its not like tourettes that people ACTUALLY have).

he also said my auditory sensory processing disorder as well (+ with sensory processing too), he said i had something sensitivity (idk what it was because he spoke REALLY fast) but i think he said sensory or sensitivity disorder (if you knew what it’s called, PLEASE lemme know).

stuttering disorder + high functioning on asd + low functioning on adhd (lemme know if functioning is out of date or not) and some other stuff.

BUT I GOT AN OFFICIAL DIAGNOSIS GUYSSSSS

i’ve tried to find the “congratulations on the neurodivergency cake” but I found this.

congratulations to me on my further neurodivergent diagnosis :))

Yesterday I was supposed to meet with my case manager, since we’ve never met. I had the address and even confirmed in the morning it wasn’t a Telehealth visit, like the additiona automated call I received the day before said it was. I arrived early and waited in the office. And waited. And waited.

Then I received a message from my wife saying that the case manager was at our house. She never said it was in home. I couldn’t handle anything else after that call.

I cried so much. I never ended up meeting her because I was 25 minutes away from home.

We will eventually reschedule.

Why is life so challenging?

I feel this

I’m diagnosed as autistic, but I don’t really struggle a lot with social cues. I pick most of them up naturally it just takes a while. I have trouble figuring out when I’m supposed to speak so I usually just don’t. And I can’t usually tell when to stop a conversation. But I’m pretty good at all the other social stuff. Can I still be autistic? Is there a chance I was misdiagnosed?

"I pick up on social cues naturally but it just takes a while."

That's not picking up in social cues naturally. That's reading them and interpreting them after you learnt them via study and masking. Allistics don't need a while. It's instantaneous.

Trouble figuring out your turn to speak and stopping a conversation? Autism.

And pretty good at social stuff or you're no longer a child and have learnt the rules and regulations around social interaction?

This is classic imposter syndrome and I can tell you that if you are diagnosed as autistic, you're autistic. We're all different, yes, so my struggles will be different to yours. But reading social cues like an old 1950s radio manual is not the same as allistic understanding of social cues.

*warm hugs*

I just read that asking someone how they are is rhetorical; my mind is blown. Is it really rhetorical? I’m so confused.

Things to think about and ponder

fully personal opinion

see many autistic people online treat someone calling self “high functioning” as a red flag, and some view it more extremely as irredeemable and make immediate assumption about person.

and i don’t… fully agree?

like of course see where they come from. there definitely are autistic people who identify as “high functioning” (high functioning autism, HFA) or “aspie” to separate self from the other autistics because they look down on other autistics. others may even believe HFA is this new evolutionary goal and people with HFA and only high functioning autism is better than everyone else, allistics included. they are yucky.

i carefully curate n select my internet experience because know if get mad, won’t be able to step away. so i don’t see these people much at all online. also because of dominant views in online autism community, these aspie supremacy HFA people don’t really participate in online actually autistic community.

but the reason i say i dont fully agree is because….

for so long me as a higher support needs level 2/3 austistuc and my friends who are similar or have more support needs as me & may be labeled “low functioning”, we been spoken over in online autistic community. dominant view of autism in online actually autistic community say every autistic all the same just mask differently or stuff like that. can look at my other posts for more context.

so, i really do appreciate when… how to say… an autistic respond to my posts say “i’m high functioning and i agree/thank you for bringing light to issue/etc etc.”

like. call themself as “high functioning” to, yes, separate themselves from me, not in the “im better than you i worth more than you”, but in the way of “i acknowledge me being/being seen as high functioning means i have different experiences than you, and on higher support needs/level2 3/low functioning issues i don’t have the lived experience and i need to listen.”

like i fully appreciate the latter, you know?

it’s also okay to say like. “while i don’t identify as high functioning, i do acknowledge i am often seen as high functioning, and that means i get treated better than those called low functioning.”

anticipate some people will say “well there still are better terms out there, like low support needs.” and the thing is, high functioning, levels, and support needs may all be trying to describe similar things, but they don’t neatly translate to each other. they don’t exactly mean same thing. “high functioning” doesn’t necessarily always mean low support needs.

and it not my place to tell other people how to self identify!

also because, i do like functioning labels when voluntarily used as self descriptor.

so, TLDR, i do oppose professionals & other people forcibly labeling autistics with functioning labels, i do hate those aspie supremacist high functioning autistics. but i think there is more nuance (always more nuance) to the “call self high functioning = bad” conversation. sometimes really do appreciate when someone self describe use “high functioning” to note difference in autistic experiences.

idk just personal thoughts. idk make sense.