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“You don’t seem autistic to me”
Never sure if people are trying to offer a compliment / comfort or accusing me of lying when they say this. Like, yes, I don’t seem autistic, because when I don’t mask my autism people call me weird. Of course I try to fit in.
Yee. “Everyone is a bit autistic” and “autism is an infinite spectrum” really piss me off. Like, I have real symptoms. Trichotillomania and auditory meltdowns and hyperfocus are real things I deal with, people.
In the end, if you don’t share (some or more) symptoms, you don’t share a diagnosis— medical or mental. Autism needs to be understood so autistic people can get support and tools. If that means we need more-specific words than just “autism”, then that’s just how it is.
I think getting rid of the Aspergers label was a big mistake on that part. Yeah he was a nazi eugenicist, blah blah blah, but having a label that both differentiates “people who seem like weird fuckups but are otherwise kind of normal?” from “people who have significant disabilities preventing a normal life” and is widely known was a useful shorthand to have.
Plus “aspie” is a much cuter term than “autist” that hasn’t to my knowledge been used as a slur.
“people who seem like weird fuckups but are otherwise kind of normal?” from “people who have significant disabilities preventing a normal life”
A pretty big issue with this is that the environment has a pretty large capacity to throw you into one category or the other. I’ve been both at the “bright person who exceels in their field and anyone would expect them to have a great future” and “needs someone to look after them on a daily basis or will end up homeless” camps and the difference to get into one or the other was how much abuse and discrimination I was putting up with. It may very well be the case that a significant portion of the people who get labeled as “non-verbal, requires high support” early on in life just had a shit development because their environmental needs weren’t being met.
I’m replying to your comment to find it again later. It really struck a chord with me as it described perfectly where I’m at right now.
That is a concern, but it’s still true that you operating at your best will look very different to someone whose autism comes with intellectual delays/impairments and mobility impairments. And the diagnosis is still graded in “levels”, all that has changed is now you have to explain “level one is what they used to call aspergers”.
On the other hand, moving to ‘levels’ offers the regular opportunity for a dad joke: “I’m autism level 1, hoping to level up to 2 any day now”
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“You don’t seem autistic” That’s because I’ve spent my entire goddamn life trying to act and sound like you, because having no meaningful differences is a requirement to being treated with respect in this culture!
Sometimes people say that without being accusing, like they’re just processing the information and learning what it means that autism is a spectrum. But even then, it’s so hard not to be irrationally pissed when I hear that.
Way too relatable. I’m very hesitant to tell people about my ASD exactly because even if they do believe at me, they always start acting different afterwards. Not even necessarily infantalisation, just different.
I’m just lucky to be high-funtioning enough that I can pass off my social ineptitude as a result of being highly introverted (which is half true), and my tics aren’t very noticible to those who don’t know me very well.
For educational purposes what is a more expected/desired response from a nuerotypical person?
“oh, okay.” is generally a good bet, then if the person wants to they can expand on any special needs they have.
Like if someone’s physically disabled you’d be rude to make a big deal out of it, you just acknowledge that it is what it is and try to accommodate for it.
“Oh cool! Are there any particular triggers we should know about, like loud noise?”
Autism and its effects can differ greatly from person to person, such that the ‘rules’ for dealing with one person might not apply to another.
In the context of revealing your autism, many will not do so simply out of hand because of insert response from OP’s post. Usually the only reasons many high functioning autists will even reveal it to someone they do not trust is because they either have to (eg: there is the potential for the presence of a meltdown trigger, reasonable accommodation requests at work) or they’re relating to someone with their own disabilities.
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I’d just say “hi autistic I’m EuroNutellaMan/dad/Obamacare/some other variation”.
What does that make me?
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You need another pair where they don’t give a shit, because guess what?
That’s what happens when you put so much effort into masking
Yes
I had this happen with my friend group lol. None of them were surprised. I was.
Instead of “I’m autistic” say “I was diagnosed with autism”.
These days there’s no shortage of self-diagnosed, no professional opinion needed, thank you very much youngsters walking around and behaving like world owes them a thing, just because they neither do, nor want to fit into the society. This makes neurotypical people doubtful about declarations like that.
I fully understand wanting to avoid self-diagnoses for attention seeking or blame avoiding purposes, but I tend to lean towards believing people first.
One, because there is always going to be a discrepancy between the population of the accurately diagnosed and people who have a condition, because of poor access to mental health, because of the stigma attached with seeking help for and admitting to having a disorder, cultural differences in diagnoses and because there are poorly trained mental health professionals.
And two, because rejecting people outright when they share what may or may not be a serious problem they’re facing puts them on the defensive and tells people in the vicinity that you may not be a safe person or contribute to a safe place to express themselves.
The average person is going to be doubtful anyways, unless you fit into their understanding of your expressed condition. How many times have we heard “how could he kill himself, he seemed so happy?”
I didn’t get my audhd dx until i was 28 but i feel like i always knew, and i think my life might’ve been sightly less miserable in general if id just allowed myself to accept a self-diagnosis. the attitude of “you just want to be special” seriously fucked me up lmfao.
Completely agree with this. Also, as this meme suggests, most people who are autistic don’t really need to say it out loud for people who know what autism is to know they have it. You don’t need a diagnosis to exhibit behaviors that are obvious to everyone else around you. A diagnosis doesn’t suddenly make you something you weren’t already.
It takes a strong support system to accept and embrace that their child is autistic and a firm commitment for the entire rest of their childhood to doing whats best for the within that context. The amount of parents who simply outright reject that “something might be wrong” with their kid is extremely high, even now. That doesn’t make the kid any less autistic because they haven’t been diagnosed, and it doesn’t make their symptoms any less obvious either.
Yes, hopefully people can get diagnosed, and hopefully your city has adequate resources to help them, and hopefully the parents aren’t jerks, and hopefully the place you live isn’t full of conspiracy theorists and crackpot religious leaders who think just praying for the kid is good enough. Hopefully. But if not, you just might have an undiagnosed autistic teenager who’s life is spinning out of control and the last thing they need is some internet expert’s dumb ass telling them there is nothing wrong because they didn’t get the magical diagnosis. Speaking from experience.
The average person is going to be doubtful anyways
Try it anyway.
Your argument is that self-diagnosis causes the average person to be doubtful of expressed diagnoses. Mine is that it’s not self-diagnosis, it’s expression outside of what the average person understands a condition to be that has them doubting.
And yes, I have been diagnosed and then been told that the diagnosis was wrong because I don’t “fit” what people think. So, yeah, I have tried, and that’s why I’m making the argument I am, because that’s what happened. If your experience has been better…great? Maybe you fit the mold better than I do.
For those that did not get a diagnosis as a kid, self-diagnosing is how they begin to discover that component about themselves (I’m newly there right now in my 30’s, parent present in my life didn’t even know what autism was until the 2010’s, I am going to be seeking a professional diagnosis), so I would be mindful that some of the self-diagnoses may be telling the truth and it’s not all fad joiners/charlatans/attention seekers
To your credit, fakers probably would be somewhat obvious, but I don’t have real life experience with a fake autist, mostly the opposite, autists thinking they’re NT.
💀
So let all people who cannot afford a diagnosis go fuck themselves, right?
nor want to fit into the society
The more power to them. This society is disgusting, and it’s people who want society to evolve according to their values the ones who change it for the better, not the ones who go through life bowing their head to injustices.
So let all people who cannot afford a diagnosis go fuck themselves, right?
That’s very peculiar, and very angry approach, entirely uncalled for. And the answer is: no.
This society is disgusting,
The society is the cruelest thing at its worst and the most beautiful at its best. It’s also very fragile and it tends to protect itself against every chaotic element that tries to enter it.
If you dislike the society that much, you’re free to resign from everything it has to offer and move where it cannot reach you. If you don’t want, or can’t then it’s advisable to study its ways, so that you won’t feel threatened by it.
There’s also no shortage of people who have been on waiting lists for years for a diagnosis.
Mine took almost 4 years between referral and assessment. Two of my friends have been waiting two and four years respectively when both were told the list was “about 18 months long”, with medical professionals asking the latter if they’re sure they want to keep waiting, trying to get them to come off the list. And this is an area that has shorter wait times than average for the country.
When you’re dealing with that kind of scarcity of diagnosis it’s not reasonable to dismiss anyone who has self-identified out of hand. Of course there are and have always been pretenders and misguided teens who want to feel special, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out that a lot of those are some kind of neurodivergent and that desire to feel special is born of trying to find a “right fit” in a world that feels wrong.
Frankly being hot seems to be a predictor for autism, i presume because e.g. routine workouts is a significant part of attractiveness and ooh did you say routine?
So autistic people love routines more than neurotypicals? I’ve been called autistic a few times, but I also have no routines, and my life’s a mess, maybe routines would fix everything?
Well, there are also people who are autistic and have ADHD which is super fun because one part of your brain craves routines and the other one can’t stick to them. Don’t ask how I know.
It’s not guaranteed, autistic people just generally tend to like order and routine more.
I have “light” autism and i tend to do things the same way every time, e.g. when eating i cut everything into bite sizes and eat in a specific order, otherwise it just feels wrong.
I personally find exercise fucking amazing, by getting exhausted i can both get stronger and more attractive, AND i get to eat more! holy shit yes please.
I have “light” autism
Diet Autism™
Really gotta be careful with that stuff, so easy to just do more of it because you feel you can get away with it and then it ends up just being the same thing in the end…
