In between

After I briefly discussed my high vs. low-functioning moments last week, I want to take a minute to elaborate a bit more on that subject.

I have never, to the better of my knowledge, met any other autistics. There is a professor at my uni who seem very autistic (gait, how he seems to have planned every single moment of the lecture, his lack of eye contact, how he sometimes doesn't get it when the students make jokes) plus another student who someone said has Asperger's. I cannot confirm either, and I don't fit either of them, if that's a good way of putting it.

Due to the extensive criteria for Aspergers/HFA and the diversity of autistics, I have yet to find someone who I can really relate to. The stereotypical Aspie doesn't fit me; everyone seems to think that Aspies are geniuses who are brilliant when it comes to numbers, are unable to carry a conversation, will never marry or even have a girlfriend (note the word) and behaves oddly. Judging from the number that 1 in 150 is somewhere on the Spectrum, I don't think this is the case at all. Hell, I know that's not the case. Aspies are just as diverse as normal people, or NTs as I prefer to call them.

Let's take a look at the stereotypical aspie I just described and compare it to me;

1. I am definitely not brilliant with numbers. I was good at maths during elementary school, but struggled with it all through high school. Today I'm terrified of numbers (due to a sense of failing, I don't know) and can barely do the shopping by going by very rough estimates.
   
2. I can indeed carry a conversation. However, I struggle to do so in a new, social situation and I tend to focus it back on me (which I've heard is a typical aspie trait). There's also the odd pauses at times where I have to look for unscripted words.
3. Will never marry or even have a girlfriend. Although I have no objection with homosexuals/bisexuals, I've used this sentence to prove yet another point. Most people think that only boys (yes, boys, not men) can be autistic. The current number is that there is 1 girls diagnosed for each 4 boys, but my opinion is that more boys than girls are diagnosed due to Hans Asperger doing research on boys only as well as that the diagnosis criteria are written to suit males. Girls and women are under-and undiagnosed due to a lack of knowledge about how autism affects us. Further, it's not true that autistics can't find and keep a partner. I've read and talked with several, both male and female autistics, that have been married and have kids. I'm one. But without the kids.
4. It seems that some people think that you can spot an aspie by the way he walks and acts and talks. I'm not saying you can't, but it's a too big an assumption to ignore. I haven't come out to a lot of people, but the first person I came out to who have only known me for a very limited time had a reaction saying this is not the came. She was surprised, maybe even shocked, to learn of my aspieness.

   But! You're so outgoing!

The gist of this post has yet to come.

My point is that there are so many different ways to be autistic. I'm one. You might be another. And neither of us are just as another. However comforting this may be, it also makes me doubt myself at times because I don't see myself in the autistics I see in documentaries or in most YouTube-videos (there are always exceptions).

The world seems to be too busy looking for the savants or the "low-functioning" to notice the "normal ones" that hide in their midsts. I don't think I talk for myself only when I say this, but it's kinda lonely. After first being defined as different, not normal, etc, it's hard not feeling that you fit in with the one's you're supposed to fit in with, either. Just as any other person I'm searching for someone that's like me, that can validate me as an autistic person.