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.
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. 👍
“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
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.
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.
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
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 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.
In America a diagnosis is a prerequisite for qualifying for services under any kind of insurance.
As a result a diagnosis is generally viewed entirely under the lens of qualifying for services and support billable to insurance.
And the problem with spectrums is that everyone is on them. So there are plenty of people who do not need services or support who are also neurodivergent. Though it appears this is generally what autistic people who aren’t in need of services or support are often called.
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.
Autism and many other DSM diagnosis’ don’t really describe anything than arbitrarily grouped symptoms, if you have those abritrarily grouped symptoms you are “autistic” but that doesn’t mean it has the same cause, effect, or treatment as others with similar symptoms.
This has never been my experience with autistic people. My brother, cousins, and coworkers are autistic. Very often they’re the last to know, and everyone else after interacting with them will then talk to other people and say “I think they’re on the spectrum.”
In my world, the idea that someone on the spectrum would be good in school and be well behaved is largely unrelated to autism. Autism stands out most socially, in my experience, and I don’t mean to shame anyone on that front, it’s just how I notice it.
I have a coworker that was raised by two autistic parents and has an older brother that is autistic, but he’s convinced he’s not. I guess that comes from his parents not wanting their children to deal with being “labeled” autistic. That’s why his brother didn’t get a “diagnosis” until his late 20s.
I’m not a medical doctor or whatever, but treating my coworker like my autistic brother makes things a lot easier for him. There’s no stigma around autism to me, but I know that can be a stigma. I quite like autistic people. You can be much more direct with them and they appreciate it. It’s often a more honest relationship.
People are people, and people be in all kinds of different ways. Try to love all the variations! It’s the flavor of humanity.
I know i am. Makes face to face interaction a dicy deal at best and an impossibility at worst. Makes interviews extremely uncomfortable
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
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.
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
Perhaps she’s on t’spectrum.
Those student loans are no joke.
