People with autism need special care with a sensitive yet non-intrusive approach. The general characteristics associated with autism aren’t as evident for some individuals. This type of disorder is classified as high-functioning autism, often referred to as hidden disability.
Let’s look at a few scenarios to understand better how individuals with high-functioning autism might feel and react to different situations. The minds of autistic individuals tend to work in a very different way compared to neurotypical people. The following will help you recognize and help someone you know with a condition that otherwise might go unnoticed.
Social Disruptions & Reclusiveness
Autistic people can often feel misjudged because of disrupted social interactions. For instance, suppose that someone blatantly calls them out on something that would normally be considered inappropriate behavior. Maybe they sat really close to someone in a restaurant or a bus. While some might ask them to move politely, others could react in much more harsh ways. Such incidents frequently happen with people with hidden disabilities.
As a collective result, they can become quite introverted. They also tend to require more alone time than what’s perceived as normal by non-autistic people. Slowly they will start to distrust or perhaps become wary of other people leading them to be even more withdrawn.
Anxiety, Depression, and Anger
Continually being misjudged and feeling awkward with people will likely hurt their mental health. This causes many autistic people to suffer from acute anxiety affecting their day-to-day functioning. Even worse, chronic anxiety and resultant issues cause depression in autistic persons. Eventually, they develop negative perceptions that may affect the way they view the world as a whole.
You may concur that the above paragraph depicts a behavioral chain reaction. The most common trait among all these individual problems is anger. High-functioning autism and anger are intrinsically related. They tend to completely misunderstand what other people say or might take a simple joke poorly.
Forgetfulness
Autistic persons who are often anxious tend to be forgetful too. Despite suffering from autism, these individuals can lead normal lives with the right support.
However, problems that affect non-autistic people can seem more serious to autistic individuals. Even a slightly awkward situation or the mildest of crises can cause severe anxiety-related problems that make them more forgetful than normal.
Self Blame
Such individuals can also tend to often beat themselves up. This will worsen if people next to them don’t recognize their condition and continually blame them for the shortcomings caused by their condition.
They might feel suffocated as they start to think they don’t have a say in anything, leading them to bottle up these tensions. This can often result in extreme anger. Such experiences can prove to be quite detrimental to their well-being, and the trauma significantly reduces their chances of getting better.
Meltdowns
The above situation can be classified as a meltdown. Meltdowns usually occur when autistic people are under high stress or involved in situations that are really difficult for them to be in. People should not wait until surprise meltdowns come to the fore with a huge display of emotion like anger or fear.
Summary
From a third party’s perspective, you might wonder why certain people lack a middle ground with their emotional states. They’re either very calm or very angry. Anger in individuals with high functioning autism tends to be extreme. It does tend to be very consuming and fills them up with unworldly perceptions.
So you must recognize the possibilities of a disorder when such episodes occur too often and try to help them and consult a professional.
