The ND-radar is real.
There are so many undiagnosed people walking around just wondering why they can’t seem to get their life together the way NTs expect them to, blaming themselves for it. I try to promote self-acceptance in the broadest sense and see what happens.
Wow, that last sentence really hit home for me. Maybe one day I’ll get my life together… one day…
Yes, my psychiatrist told me how his adult patients had some patterns in their lives. I started to pay attention and I can’t believe how similar our stories can be. Anecdotes that are the same, the same challenges… Now I can kindly suggest an evaluation when I see someone struggling 👍.
Edit: I just realized I posted on the autism community. I am not autistic, sorry. I hope it’s okay.
It’s a community to discuss autism and autism related issues, not an exclusive club for autists, so your perspective is welcome :)
Yeah, there’s already an exclusive club for autistics, it’s my friend circle apparently
Secondary club: Factorio LAN.
I say self acceptance, as in love and forgive yourself, but also self-improvement, as in practice useful skills and habits a little bit each day to transform what one is capable of.
in many cases autism is what makes me such a good worker
The ability to hyperfocus on a problem to the detriment of my relationships and physical health is definitely something employers value
not enough, I’d like to be paid proportional to the exploitation of my self sabotage
Hazard pay.
Except for when they value pivoting 8 times a day.
Oh yeah, I’m real bad at pivoting. Both literally and figuratively, because I’m autistic and I can’t walk.
I met a friend with autism when we worked together years ago. One day he came to me and said “I’ve been talking to some people and doing some tests and it looks like I might have autism.”
I looked at him for a few seconds and said “wait, you didn’t know?”
“You knew and didn’t say anything?!”
“Well I thought you knew! It’s not really casual work chat ‘hey man, how was your weekend? BTW looks like you’re a bit autistic’”I have a similar thing with a friend. He’s mid 30s and at that point I am very sure he is on the spectrum. But I don’t know how to speak to him about it because I think he doesn’t know. He had a lot of difficulties in life, both social and academic, and it feels like it could go one of three ways. Either he will be surprised, look into it, and finally make sense of everything. Or he will be surprised and then be even sadder because someone saw him as autistic. Or he actually does know and will be sad that it is so obvious that I noticed.
First of all - don’t think of autism as a bad thing. It’s a perfectly normal (and even valuable) way for someone’s brain to be wired.
Second, a kind and casual way of approaching it is “Hey, have you ever been checked for ADHD or autism?” It’s especially useful if they bring up any of the usual difficulties that ND folks experience far more often than our NT peers.
That’s really not true beyond the mildest of mild cases. I worked with autistic adults and it really was not helping them.
Yea, exactly. It’s a tough one, but I do often wonder if I should have mentioned something
“I think I’m autistic”.
“After all the effort I took to beat you into pretending you’re normal?”
This hits home hard.
My mom (says she) is still in therapy because when I was young I didn’t cooperate with the therapy she wanted for me. As a kid I didn’t understand that of course. So despite doing therapy it was always about her, not about me, and I didn’t get any kind of diagnosis because she pulled the plug before that could happen. Kind of a shitty thing to find out a few decades later.
Remind her that you’ll forget her in a retirement home or something so she realizes she fucked up
It actually happened yesterday in a short chat. I’ve already had a feeling something was wrong, because she has been gaslighting me for years. But I wanted (needed) to know what happened at the therapist(s) in the 90s. All those docs have been destroyed, the referring GP is dead. I live abroad, it’s hard to get access to anything and everything is either empty or closed off.
Finally the narcissism came through, shining bright in 1 short message.
Edit: Forgot to say, that I won’t weep.
Hmm, wait I am confused. Did you let her know that she fucked up and she’s on her own or did you find out why the psychologist sessions were cancelled back then? 😅
Sorry for the ambiguity. Not that this post is gonna make it any better, but I’ve tried.
Just last weekend she told me she cancelled those sessions in the 90s. I didn’t retaliate yet because I am better than that. But it was news to me.
The last few years we had hardly contact, because I already knew she was manipulating me and other people. I’ve been living abroad since 2011 and I haven’t seen her since 2017, but once a year we’d call or chat via WhatsApp.
There’s more to the story of course; like my little brother who seems unaware of her evil spirit and our dad who she divorced because he is (undiagnosed) autistic, and he is actually doing better now.
I am not the only one who has “issues” with her for weird reasons. Her last boyfriend hanged himself on the swing at the little playground in front of her house. He took her to visit me in 2017. He wasn’t square though: alcohol, drugs, crime. I can only imagine what she’s been telling him for that to be the last drop in the bucket. I’m not gonna be a victim of her.
This world is messed up. Some people who shouldn’t be parents end up being parents and ruining the lives of other people :( I hope things end up well
Thank you for your kind words.
I’m not one for self diagnosis, so rather than saying I think I’m autistic or have ADHD or depression, I just acknowledge that I exhibit so many traits associated with those things that if I didn’t have some combination of them, I would be flabbergasted
Yes, so if something is yellow and quacks, it exhibits so many traits commonly assiciated with a duck, that I would be suprised if it wasn’t a duck.
…ducks aren’t typically yellow.
THE DUCKS IN MY MIND ARE. Hmpf…
quack
And those that are aren’t for long.
Why use more word when less do job
Less sometimes misleading
Extra words to disambiguate meaning down to one possible interpretation are energy-savers, not energy-wasters.
Nailing down each meaning precisely by the end of each sentence leads to writing and speech that takes very little energy to interpret, leaving more of the listener’s attention available for the processing of the next sentence.
The author or speaker should figure the shit out completely so the audience doesn’t have to waste their own mental resources doing so.
The author or speaker should figure the shit out completely so the audience doesn’t have to waste their own mental resources doing so.
Don’t make the poor audience think. Where would society be if we required ordinary people to think themselves!
(/s/2)
But anyway, nicely put. When I saw the length of your reply, and in this context, I expected much pointless verbiage. But it was well put.
Thank you! My verbosity is vindicated! Verily.
ADHD.
There it is.
Fun story: Apparently basically everyone in my family highly suspected it but I never got referred for an assessment when I was younger because my mum thought all children acted like that. So whenever I was telling people about my diagnosis they really weren’t surprised 🤣
(I love my mum, she did what she thought was best given the circumstances, and that’s okay)
My mom told me when I got diagnosed as an adult that they suspected it when I was a kid, but never had me tested because my speech development wasn’t delayed. In fact I was unusually well-spoken for someone my age as a child. What they didn’t realize is that this is the main distinction between the former Asperger’s diagnosis and the former “high functioning autism” diagnosis.
Yeah my first sentence is an oft-mentioned story because I rarely spoke at all, then said “please pass the margarine” at a family dinner.
Never tested though lol
Sounds like my kid, who is diagnosed AuDHD and did this exact thing.
No Shit!?
Validating af. Thank you :)
A psychologist at a separate occasion once told my mum that it might be a good idea to have me assessed. Never happened, though I don’t blame her, she had a lot of stuff to deal with herself.
It’s kind of a joke at family gatherings that most of us are on the spectrum.
Because:
- neurotypicals think it’s an insult
- neurotypicals won’t acknowledge a fact that could be insulting, unless their intension is to insult someone
- seeing it as an insult leads to them thinking you’re insulting yourself
- they think you’re looking for validation by asking for a self-insult-countering from them
They think it’s this convesation:
“I’m no good”
“I think you’re great”
“No I really think I’m no good”
“No I really think you’re great”
“Aww thanks you’re such a good friend” <-- this part is missing for themThen you failing to acknowledge their support gets interpreted as an insult to them.
I know, it’s exhausting. But we just gotta keep an open mind and remember that neurotypicals can be great friends and productive members of society with a little understanding and love
But we just gotta keep an open mind and remember that neurotypicals can be great friends and productive members of society with a little understanding and love
😆 Nice. 👍
As a (I assume) neurotypical person, this seems somewhat insulting to me. I like to think I’m a very conscientious person and have a reasonable understanding of neurodiversity - I don’t think I’d respond in the ways portrayed in this cartoon.
That said the cartoon itself I found amusing, but your comment seemingly to paint us all with such a broadbrush seems insulting.
Does nobody /s on Lemmy?
My mom was just like “do you think you could get more scholarships with an official diagnosis?” after mentioning a friend suggested I was autistic. Don’t think I’ve ever had someone doubt it. Guess I’m just too weird. 😨
I like how practical your mom is lol
Those student loans are no joke.
Perhaps she’s on t’spectrum.
The same day I got my diagnosis (in my 40s) I told both of my parents.
My Mom’s response: “Well, I always knew you were special!”
My Dad’s response: “That’s bullshit!”
You probably don’t want to hear this but maybe self-diagnosis among youth is getting out of hand. Maybe in your desire to feel special and explain your limitations has lead you to the conclusion that no normal person could possibly be as neuro-atypical as you.
It’s a byproduct of our lack of a mental health care system. While I do agree that it can be dangerous, self-diagnosis is necessary because there is no mental health system in place. Be it America or Canada, mental health is not considered Healthcare. Therefore, the only way for a person to explore mental health related issues is for them to diagnose themselves first, and then go exploring for professional perspective afterwards.
Claiming that self diagnosis is “seeking special treatment” is incredibly cynical. Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to incompetence. People aren’t wrong for taking part in self-analysis. Examining your behavior and seeking to understand why you act the way you act is how you learn to reflect on your behavior and become a better person as you age. If your initial reaction to this post is to assume a malicious motive, then you could do with some self analysis as well. Why do you think you automatically assumed the worst of reasonings behind self diagnosis? That’s something that may be with exploring about yourself.
Self-Diagnosis is the first step in that process. Until mental health care is considered Healthcare, something our General health practitioners prioritize just as much as physical health, self-diagnosis is necessary.
For some reason you’re the second person to misconstrue my statement as “seeking special treatment.” That’s not what I said. You’re arguing against a fictional person.
Maybe it was unintentional, but there was a condescending and belittling tone to the phrasing you chose. You don’t get to hide behind the literal wording of your statement when there was condescension within your phrasing.
Being accused of making a mistake absolutely can be seen as belittling. That doesn’t mean it’s not a logical statement with weight to it.
You literally said:
Maybe in your desire to feel special
That is condescending.
It was very accurate and I stand by it. Everybody wants to see themselves as an individual and not a part of the crowd, that applies to every living person on earth.
It seems to me that you are approaching this complex topic from an oversimplified view. Human behaviour isn’t as simple as you put it.
Who are you even putting on this performance for? We all read your comment. You’re condescending, judgemental and not at all subtle.
Judging faults is not a crime, letting it upset you is not rational.
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I guess it could be that way for the young. I’m 53 and I had months of anxiety attacks when I started considering the reason why I’ve always had trouble with certain types of people was that I was autistic and they the worst kind of neurotypical.
The last thing I felt was ‘special’.
What was it specifically about this notion that gave you anxiety attacks?
When I learned I was autistic at age 30, it didn’t really affect me much because I knew my overall life game hadn’t changed. I was still the same person with the same skills, facing the same reality, just with a new label.
Were you afraid people would see you differently and give you less respect? Or did you think you were going to psych yourself out, or that you had a hidden disadvantage? Or something else?
The anxiety came from the idea of what others would think. This goes with the abuse that I went through with my parents. They were always worried about what others would think. Turns out several people over the years tried to get them to have me checked out. They let the shame of what I might be prevent them from helping me.
I was 39 when I started considering it. My son had been diagnosed and I was reading a huge amounts of information on autism. So many things in the books perfectly described the problems I had always had. I had already been diagnosed with ADHD and unfortunately nothing I could take for it worked. My parents who I stupidly still trusted were completely against me getting any help. They didn’t like my son taking Adderall. The more I questioned it the more belligerent they became with me. I finally cut contact with them and started getting help. Turns out they were always aware of my difficulties and somehow my getting help would hurt them. They were/are narcissists. Now I use them as a example of what not to be. These days I don’t care what others think of me. I’m just thankful I didn’t become them. I broke the cycle for myself and most of all for my kids. I would rather my son be happy than spend every day masked up and hurting inside.
Yeahp, I was explicitly referring to the young.
I think these problems do go underdiagnosed at large scale, but when half a classroom “thinks” that they “might be” autistic, then clearly it’s an issue of mentality.
It is half the classroom, or is it more like 5%? Because the autistic rate is somewhere around 2%, so you would probably expect a slightly higher rate of people to guess they’re autistic when you’re dealing with a population known for struggling to understand themselves.
That’s the core of my statement, if it’s only 5% then that’s good and we can work with that. If it’s half then something is wrong with what the class thinks.
You’re not making any sort of factual statement, you’re making a series of suppositions about people you’ve not met without any underlying evidence or even a firm idea on what problem you say you’re identifying.
You’re sharing your (uninformed) opinion and expecting others to give it weight.
They’re neither factual statements, nor suppositions. They’re conditional statements.
This person is stating a fact about the overall landscape of the possible realities.
IF we ever find ourselves in a situation where 50% of people think they might be autistic, THEN we have a problem with the mentality.
The word IF removes a clause from the role of assertion.
The opinion is the entire IF-THEN connection, not any of the clauses inside it.
Yeah, I agree. This isn’t to say that everyone who self-diagnosis is wrong, but it feels like everyone today needs to have some mental illness or disorder. I don’t think it’s healthy. Every person is different. Being different doesn’t mean you have an actual disorder that would need treatment or special care. It really only serves to diminish the response to real disorders.
as someone in a position to offer professional diagnoses, here’s my perspective - diagnostic labels can be useful, and i view them mostly as tools. their utility to me might be to communicate to another professional a cluster of traits, behaviors, indicators i’m seeing in short-hand. it might be helpful in determining which approaches could bring relief.
it can also be helpful in validating an individual’s subjective experiences, like “oh, everything is hard right now because i am dealing with depression, i’m not actually a worthless piece of shit.'” it’s also helpful to me when someone shares a self-diagnosis - i can explore what they think that means, and sometimes they’re right on the money. sometimes it means “i don’t feel i am coping effectively.”
sometimes they’re not right, but the label they have adopted can offer hints as to what’s not working. a word like autism can mean “i have a hard time connecting to others or communicating,” and maybe a another label is more appropriate or maybe the issue is their social environment.
some diagnostic labels can be verified objectively and scientifically, but in practice many are based on self-report/informant-report/observation and best fit. the fact is that diagnosis is often as much art as science when it comes to mental health, and the best diagnosis is the one that leads to improved well-being.
of course, some folks don’t like labels at all. “i’m just myself.” if they are generally happy, healthy, and functioning well, i don’t mind that either.
tldr - diagnostic labels are helpful tools that can be useful in a variety of ways.
caveat - diagnostic labels can be dangerous when they interfere with well-being or efforts toward well-being, or when they are used to harm, control, or oppress.
Thanks for this statement. I read it as “diagnostic labels are a tool supposed to be used in professional communication but it may be harmful when used otherwise”.
IMO, much of that harm could be avoided by just not pathologizing and labeling personal caracteristics as “disorders”, though, which are characteristics certain societies could greatly benefit from if such people would just be given the right respect and task.
but it feels like everyone today needs to have some mental illness or disorder
What causes this impression?
Many things. I’m not on TikTok, but my impression go that is there’s a lot of self-diagnosis things on there. I know on YouTube I’ve been recommended self-diagnosis related things for ADHD and ASD. ime pretty confident I don’t have ASD and I don’t think I have ADHD, but I do have many symptoms of both because most people do.
I know Tumblr had it’s own massive mental disorder as a personality trait thing. I never used it, but it always seemed potentially harmful to me. No one should want a mental disorder. They should just have one if they do and handle things as best a possible for them, whatever they have or don’t have. It shouldn’t really be a point of identification to fit into some in-group.
I think there are a few factors that could create that impression even without the numbers being that high.
On the Internet there are lots of people. Something that affects 20% of the population or even 2% is going to have tons of people available to talk about it.
There has been a push for mental health awareness and understanding for many years now. People are open about it and about relating to others with similar experiences.
The world has been insane lately, especially for young people, and folks are used to complaining online and collectively blowing off steam about all the bullshit.
Plus between everything from income inequality to Covid, mental health issues could actually be on the rise recently.
Also just the culture of lying which can grow or shink in any society, if it grows, will lead to everyone having more anxiety as a result of not being able to trust the information they’re getting. People being unreliable, breaking promises, it can all feed on itself. Other’s mental illness makes them less predictable, less conducive to support and healthy interaction. So it can spread. There can be epidemics of mental illness too.
Any kind of stress increase can degrade and eventually break a person’s mental health. Complexity is a source of stress, and as our own mental health breaks down, and our own ability to be there for others consistently breaks down, we add complexity to their lives.
When others can trust us, we save them mental energy. They can make one plan instead of having to make two – one for if we fulfill our promises and one for if we don’t. And when we can trust others, they save us mental energy in the same way.
So culture and even overall levels of mental illness themselves are inputs into the question “how stressful is it to live in X society?”
I think the inequality feeds into this with a lack of respect. When you have to big groups of people who aren’t mixed socially, ie distinct social classes, it can lead to contempt and distrust. That contempt and distrust means we’re all surrounded daily by people we can’t count on. Situations we can’t count on. Jobs that we don’t know will be there next month, because what if they break their promise not to lay people off, or they break their promise that “These are your duties: X, Y, Z” and try to add “A, B, and C” to our duties.
Poverty itself is bearable, if the systems one is interacting with are reliable enough that one can know exactly what the relationship between effort and output is going to be. But when those systems change all the time, and the same paycheck could require more and more work to the point we can’t keep up, or whole divisions are being shut down or bought out or whatever, or the value of the dollar keeps dropping so the same grocery budget suddenly isn’t enough, or the electricity goes off and you can’t get your work done, or they suddenly don’t have hours for you, those kinds of things are the real source of stress in poverty.
The level of disrespect, manifested in a constantly-changing environment one has to adapt to when poor, in order to keep from getting drastically more poor, the constant changing of thee rules, these are poison for people living on little.
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Very well put!
Your conclusion of respect being so central is exactly the conclusion I reached when traveling to Scandinavia as an American. The little differences all over the place have this feel to them - a feeling like “this would never work at home, but why?” But then I realized it was respect. They respect the people & world around them, and in the process respect themselves more as well.
I think we’re going to find that neurodivergence is a lot more prevalent than we ever assumed.
Traditionally ND numbers are based on those who are dysfunctional. The ones that get ‘seen’. Those of us who are just ‘a bit odd’ and skate by? Yeah there’s a reason why so many of my generation are getting diagnosed in their 30’s, 40’s, 50’s. Because when we were kids if you weren’t in a soft helmet and nonverbal you were classified NT. Millenials and genz are paying a lot more attention to their mental health and trashing the stigmas around it and it’s a good thing.
What’s the worst thing that’s gonna happen if we have a higher rate of perceived NDs anyway? Society becomes more accomodating? Oh noooooo
What’s the worst thing that’s gonna happen if we have a higher rate of perceived NDs anyway? Society becomes more accomodating? Oh noooooo
The worst thing that can happen is people who need assistance don’t get it, because everyone claims they need it. I don’t think that’s the most likely outcome, but it is possible.
Everyone is different to some extent, so just being “atypical” doesn’t mean you’re neuro divergent. I don’t have an issue with it in general, but I do have an issue when it starts becoming a personality trait. I saw that happening on Tumblr at least. Teenagers in particular have a hard time fitting in, and they can see this as a way to have an identity that makes them feel like a member of a group. It’s a similar appeal to smoking or anything else teenagers tend to do just for the social appeal. Is it unhealthy? Only time will tell.
Extremely unlikely. Assistance isn’t handed out like candy, it’s notoriously hard to gain.
I mean, everyone gets the flu. Autism is more permanent, but the term “mental disorder” refers to one of many differe disease states, some of which are temporary.
Autism, psychopathy, cluster B personality disorders, these are sort of permanent things.
Depression, anxiety disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder, addiction these sorts of things can be induced by life conditions crossed with mental resources, and later cured completely by changing those two inputs.
(I may sound drawing a very binary line here; my intention is less of a clean division between “permanent” and “temporary” mental illness. I think for example autism can decrease in severity over time, making some of its aspects temporary while other aspects are lifelong)
The only problem with self-diagnosis would be if we give autistics an easier time. If a diagnosis or label of autism leads to less responsibility, that’s a problem because it will attract those people who don’t want to take responsibility, which is most of us at least at one time or another.
On the other hand, there are things autistic people can really use to help them out. Just like neurotypicals need things autistics don’t need, autistics need things neurotypicals don’t need.
So it’s about correctly identifying what you need in life.
The key dividing line between the important categories is: things an autistic truly needs and truly benefits from, and things that are nice to have but which autistics don’t actually need, or actually benefit from.
Clear articulation and someone willing to answer questions without knowing how the question connects to the context, I think is helpful for an autistic person.
An easier ladder to climb, less responsibility, and treatment as if they’re a child might be attractive in some cases, but it’s not something autistics really benefit from or need.
So if we properly respond to a label of autism with only the things that actually help, there will be no incentive to convince oneself of being autistic.
Sort of like how insulin isn’t really that helpful for non-diabetics. And we don’t give diabetic people special social status. We give them insulin. Because our set of appropriations to a diabetic person is well-organized and contains only the things that truly help with the things unique to diabetes, and not more than that, we don’t really have to worry about people self-diagnosing as diabetic.
Now, the thing is, something like “attention” or “acceptance into the group” is something that we tend to give people who have a label like autistic, these days. Does that mean we should take these things away from autistics, other neuro-atypicals, etc? No. It means that those things are useful to everybody, so we should give them to everybody. Even the really normal people who aren’t in any marginal group.
The problem is that we have a mismatch between what is needed and helpful, and what we provide to people. That creates an incentive to report or perceive things differently than reality.
In an Idealistic Utopia I expect psychotherapeutic drugs to only be assigned as needed, but for the world we live in they hand out Ritalin and Stimulants like Amphetamine to the point of shortages.
I agree with you. I was diagnosed a few years ago with autism and I now look back with a feeling of second-hand embarrassment. I found myself in a phase where I needed to explain why I feel so different to others, I spent hours reading up on autism and other disorders, and might have subconsciously “hoped” I had the disorder. I am actively trying to get rid of the diagnosis. I know this isn’t a generalised statement I can make and apply to every single person who suspects they might suffer of something, but the popularised liberal concept of self-diagnosing and using shitty online quizzes to prove so is ridiculous. +I know some people won’t like this comment, but the other side ought to be heard too.
Congratulations, that’s most ableist ignorant boomer garbage I’ve heard all day… and my inlaws are visiting.
Hi. I have ASD, diagnosed proper years ago. I have grown up around more ASD individuals than you have, full stop. I have shadowed ABA clinicians for years.
I strongly attest that the statement that younger generations self-diagnosing is all-around harmful is 100% factual and indismissable. There is nothing ignorant about the provable truth.
Ah yes, your personal anecdotal “provable truth”. Please do better. For all our sakes.
Alright, please link your peer-reviewed study on this as soon as you were able to prove the generality of your personal impressions.
Except for this guy, this guy clearly has Asperger’s or something equally debilitating and socially awkward.
Yeah maybe don’t use ASD as a derogatory? Thanks.
That’s fair. I saw an opportunity for comedy and I was temporarily possessed by the spirit of Norm McDonald, rest in peace.
Asbergers is a nazi term and should not be used. And yes, I’m AuDHD.
“People just pretend to be autistic so they can get special treatment” is a toxic, ableist stereotype and absolutely unacceptable. I assumed that would be a given in a space about autism. Silly me.
That’s not even remotely what they said lmao
It’s pretty clear that there tends to be a lack of differential diagnosis and inability to judge severity of symptoms when it comes to self-diagnosis. People see some matching symptoms and go “I must have this!” when it could be 20 other things.
Though i also dunno if needing treatment or special care is the best metric to use since it’s very possible to have ASD and just get by with masking (obv not in all cases).
That’s not a thing, though… there is no epidemic of people self-misdiagnosing disorders… which is why I called it ignorant boomer logic.
But moreso, it’s harmful, because perpetuating this non-existent problem harms those of us fighting for acceptance by encouraging that we be questioned and distrusted (let alone having to deal with the usual stigmas).
Neurodiversity shouldn’t be seen as a “disorder” at all… we need to accept that different people just work differently, and that’s okay, and one set of expectations/assumptions doesn’t work for everybody.
If someone is having a hard time, trust them. If they suspect it’s because of an undiagnosed neurodiversity, support them and help them. Calling ANYONE a fake is - again - extremely harmful and must not be left unchallenged.
Even your use of the word “special” is problematic, and goes right back to the original comment I responded to. ND people don’t want or need special treatment, just different treatment. We have to get past this mentality that something is “wrong” with ND people or that treating people as unique individuals is “special”.
Oh yea, I’d never question anyone having a hard time. In the context of the meme specifically it doesn’t make much sense to question things, now that I think about it. If only autistic people go “yea sounds about right” there’s a good chance you’re autistic anyway.
But I’ve seen it personally where ppl match some symptoms and become utterly convinced they must have a specific disorder, and it doesn’t make sense either. There’s no huge harm to it but esp an awareness of differential diagnosis seems to be lacking.
Sure. These days, at some point, almost everyone has searched for symptoms on the internet only for WebMD to tell them they have cancer. I’m saying that’s not an actual epidemic… and when I said we need to help and support others, encouraging them to seek a proper diagnosis is part of that. And mind you, pursuing a formal diagnosis can be a REALLY difficult thing for ND people (and especially for adults).
It doesn’t help that there are a lot of really ignorant, harmful doctors out there (e.g. those that think ADHD doesn’t exist or that Autism isn’t a “spectrum” and only “severe” cases are “real”). So yeah, if people think they have something, lets support and encourage them, and help them to get what they need. Perpetuating stigmas and spreading distrust doesn’t do that.
I think it’s best to encourage people to go see professionals if they suspect they might have a disorder or any kind of illness. But I think it’s detrimental to tell them they are just imagining things as this might lead to serious issues flying under the radar.
Let the people decide who studied this.
Since you mentioned the need for treatment and special care, I’d like to take a moment to add onto my previous statement a little bit about what I meant. I do think some level of treatment and mental health care should be readily available to everyone unconditionally.
I just don’t think as many neuro-atypical children are as atypical as our current society is leading them to believe. Especially when you consider some companies are actually marketing corrective medications directly to children and young adults, then there is added pressure for them to be this label they assign to their urges and stresses so that they can obtain the “magic candy that fixes everything and definitely doesn’t cause problems later in life.”
That should all be in very stark contrast to everyday disabilities and developmental disorders.
As an Aspie myself, fuck letting other people take away the term I grew up using that accurately described my life experience and allowed me to access the resources I needed just because the person who coined it had a shady history. Thats prime reclaim territory as that fucker NEVER had anything to do with the term for me, nor I imagen it did for the vast majority of other people with the Asperger Syndrome diagnosis.
Are you familiar with Hans Asperger?
Hans Asperger was a Nazi “racial purity” scientist who was personally responsible for the “euthanization” (murder) and experimentation (torture) of dozens-to-hundreds of children. Children who were like us. Aspergers name was not attached to the diagnosis until 1994 in the DSM 4 (without the usual due diligence in naming) and then removed in the very next edition (DSM 5). Asperger wasn’t even the first to describe the condition, that honor goes to Grunya Sukhareva (1925).
Now, if you want to honor a Nazi mass murderer whose specialty was murdering and torturing people like us by carrying his name as part of your personal identity… well, that’s on you. But I really hope to god you don’t casually use that name to refer to others.
Aside from him being a Nazi? No I dont, and Im going to stop reading past your first sentence because I have no interest in learning anything further because a shitty nazi has “practically” nothing to do with my diagnosis and never did. You are the one honouring him by tying the diagnosis to him. He has NOTHING to do with my diagnosis to me, and never will, and I imagine this is true for the VAST MAJORITY of Aspies.
My apologies, the term was replaced by ASD in 2013 when Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition was released. I thank you for your patience as we all transition to the new terminology.
I didn’t say they wanted special treatment, I said they wanted an excuse to rationalize their human weakness, as do we all. We should not let it interfere with real diagnosis and treatment, as the term’s associated symptoms can expand, it’s use can become muddied and controversies can arise amongst medical researchers.
I too have an upward facing triangle mouth.
(`-ㅿ-´)
I can usually tell from the rarely looking at me when they speak, having an unusual depth of knowledge on weird facts, or problems with competitive games. My stepson was ASD. That also helped.
What’re the issues with competitive games?
I can’t speak for them (obviously), but I hate competing because I feel guilty if I win and a failure if I lose
Fucking hell. Yes. And if we lose and I know I wasn’t giving it 100% focus I feel even worse.
Interesting. I remember intentionally slowing to come second in a race when I was younger.
Oof. I hope you can get over that to some degree. I did and when I realized competitive games are just fun, it’s so much fun I can’t believe it.
I think the trick is to play against people of the same skill level, or if playing with someone of a different skill level give them or yourself a handicap to make it a good even game. Or, if they’re a different skill level and refuse to allow a handicap to make it even, just don’t play it with them.
The culturally accepted thing is to handicap oneself clandestinely, to let the other person win sometimes, to make it seem even. But autistics tend to be worse at that kind of thing.
In a conversation my wife implied that I was autistic. I never thought of myself as someone who was. It had never been something I considered previously until up to about a year ago mainly because I’m not a very social person and so I found labeling myself to be unproductive, uninteresting. It doesn’t help me at work or in my home projects. I understand that that’s a naïve point of view because we can learn from the experiences of others, but it was my point of view at the time.
I asked her about that comment later and it was returned with an oh honey you poor thing… I know you are with certainty because I am one too. You’d have to be blind not to see that.
It’s not so much being blind as it is having built an identity and seeing a lot of people checking the marks. It wasn’t until many years after having been diagnosed that I started realizing that many of the people who had been either my closest friends or partners were likely also autistic, after I had gotten a more ample experience of what the spectrum was, distanced from the stereotypes and extreme cases that I had been shown when I was first diagnosed.
A lot of people still think autism means “mentally handicapped”
It’s important to understand this nuance. Some autistic people are also mentally handicapped, but most autistic people are like what you see above. Where almost no one can tell unless they know what signs to look for.
I did really bad in school, but most people seem to think I’m smart. I did notice that all my classmates who did really well in school were really dumb, I had to explain every implicit statement in verbose detail to them, but all my classmates that got shitty grades along with me were very easy to communicate with.
I was diagnosed with autism and I don’t believe it. But that’s just the ADHD balancing shit out.
I remember watching some shitty reality show on Netflix and one of the contestants was very obviously ADHD and out of control because of it. And all I could think was… I’m so glad I have Autism to balance out the ADHD, otherwise I’d probably be like him
please excuse my ignorance but how do they balance out? my understanding was that adhd makes it hard to pay attention to things and you tend to be hyperactive while autism makes it difficult to understand social norms and situations, how would it help your deficit in attention to be less aware of how to interact with other people? wouldn’t it just make it worse? or is it just because you just don’t care if you’re hyper and not paying attention because social norms don’t interest you? genuinely curious and eager to learn
This chart explains it better than I could, but basically you are right in the sense that some things can definitely be worse with both. However, some things can somewhat balance each other out as well.
In the show I watched, the dude seemed to have such bad ADHD that (for example) he’d be in a serious conversation and suddenly hold up a fruit and be like “Man, tangerines are so good. You wanna bite??”, and it was like he wasn’t even serious about the conversation at all. He did shit like that constantly, and didn’t seem to be aware of how much he was pissing people off because of it. For me… I definitely start to get antsy and semi-checkout of a conversation if I’m not interested or knowledgeable about the topic at hand and it’s going on too long. However, because i’ve learned to mask in social conversations and gotten really good at reading people’s reactions, I can usually tell if I’m doing anything to annoy someone. And so, I can pull myself back on track through a conversation without too much difficulties, most of the time anyway. At the very least, I would never just let myself do what the guy in the show did, as I know that would piss people off!
interesting, thanks for the detailed response! So it seems that learning to live with autism you have trained skills to compensate and these skills have helped you in other parts of your life like dealing with ADHD?
I figured out I was on the spectrum in my late 20’s. A few years later we learned that my young nephew was diagnosed with it as well.
I’m now realizing that about half of my aunts and uncles on my mother’s side tend to be quirky loners. My sister herself (autistic nephew’s mother) has some serious personality quirks of her own that could be attributed to being in the spectrum.
Knowing that genetics can increase the probability of being on the spectrum, I’m starting to wonder if I’m the only one to suspect how widespread it could be in the family. I don’t know what to do with that information.
