6 Obscure Signs you're Actually Autistic

The War on 'Autism Moms' Needs to STOP.: https://youtu.be/rKNEwlQCi7c 6 traits I’m always surprised to find are not actually in the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for autism! Some of these are alluded to within the additional information in the DSM-5 e.g. for meltdowns it mentions “disruptive/challenging behaviors are more common in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder than other disorders, including intellectual developmental disorder.” And there is quite a bit about masking – so all these doctors saying the no eye contact thing need to have a re-read 👀 “Many adults report using compensation strategies and coping mechanisms to mask their difficulties in public but suffer from the stress and effort of maintaining a socially acceptable facade.” If you’d like to know more about what masking can look and feel like, you might like this video: https://youtu.be/36-K-HW3syc And here are 9 Signs you’re Probably NOT Autistic (the non-invalidating version): https://youtu.be/0ZomGtlmfXE Hope you’ve had a good Thursday!! 💛 See you soo

that quote about perfectionism, the "even minor mistakes can have serious consequences" is something that shows up in my job as a web developer/programmer constantly. One little typo WILL break EVERYTHING! I've seen it happen, I'm not crazy!

My perfectionism came from a sense of acceptance. I thought that if i didn't make a mistake, I wouldn't give anybody else a reason to reject me.

"A lot of autistic traits are kind of like normal parts of the human experience but with the volume turned way up." I like that description a lot.

1. Perfectionism 2. Meltdowns 3. Burnout 4. Motor skills (dyspraxia) 5. Inertia 6. Masking

Me, as a child, reading that autistic people can have black and white thinking: No, I don't think in black and white, I think in full colour! 😆

I was describing what a meltdown feels like yesterday and said "there's not really any emotion like fear or anger, it's more a sort of primordial anguish - which is a phrase I shall be adding to my list of good names for rock bands"

My meltdowns had always had the form of an incontrolable crying. It's like... my eyes were throwing up their tears, I simply can't stop until everything is out.

I was diagnosed as a child, I'm 60+ now. I was not told, because they didn't want me to limit myself by having the 'label'. I've also got dyspraxia. I was not told, so I never got any accomodations or help in life, after leaving home. The focus was on teaching me to move and act like NT's. It was so hard to go through life without knowing. I'm not surprised so many decide to not deal with it all, and end it. Don't keep it a secret from us. It's too much a struggle to do it blindly.

Me when my doctor said I was “too empathetic” to be autistic and made me fill out an empathy quotient with the question “did you cut up worms for fun when you were younger?” (The correct answer was apparently yes….) don’t even get me started on the “library or party?” Question lol

I hadn't heard about autistic inertia, but that describes me very well. It's incredibly difficult for me to start doing things, but when I do, I just keep going.

The DSM is not about classifying people based on patterns, as lots of people (including some psychologists/psychiatrists) may think, but it is about classifying people based on patterns that negatively affect either their life or the rest of society. Hence an autistic person may not be autistic from the point of view of the DSM if their life isn't particularly filled with "uncommon" issues. There is, by design, a negative bias in the DSM; it is about pointing out problematic issues, not about pointing out eccentricities.

Wow. The part about internalizing until you reach your safe space at home is spot on for me. Now I realize why I become very detached from everyone when I get home. Explains why I feel suffocated when I’m in a long term relationship, so I generally bail out after 6 months as I need a lot of “me time” to recover and reset for the next day out in the wild.

I feel like there is so much emphasis on the social aspect because that's the part that impacts NTs, not just the autistic person, so they notice it more. I might be being overly cynical though.

I think the Borderline and Bipolar criteria including references to meltdowns is why female children/adults are more likely to be undiagnosed as autistic and misdiagnosed as one of those two. It fits perfectly into the "males stoic, females crazy," societal narrative, and dovetails with/bolsters the "gurlz cnt b autistic!!1!" narrative. It's harmful and frustrating and causes all sorts of unnecessary suffering for thousands of people

The not wanting to go to the toilet because it interrupts thing is a massive one for me. my partner occasionally prompts me. literally this conversation last night: "Emma, do you need a wee?" "Yes." "then go." "BUT I DON'T WANT TO!" "I know. but you still have to go."

That comment about "postponing“ a meltdown really hit. Because I used to "breathe the emotions away“ when at school and in public and had a designated "crying time“ in the evening, where I laid down, put on fitting music and let the emotions out. I just kinda unmasked. In retrospect this felt so weird, because I planned it. Like I would think: "Oh okay, so first I feed the bunnies, then I watch the daily news with my parents, then I cry and after that I can watch Netflix.“ (I’m not diagnosed or anything, it just reminded me of when I used to do this)

FYI, The idiom "Out of thin air" doesn't have a lengthy, historical etymology. It was just a phase that Shakespeare invented. You could say he just pulled it out of thin air.

I wish people understood that it does not help me at all when I'm overwhelmed and already dysregulated, yelling at me, screaming at me, punishing me doesn't make me "stop acting like this" - it probably makes it WORSE and I get EVEN MORE overwhelmed and heightened.

Yikes, that quote on perfectionism is real. It gave me the excuse to blame everything on myself, even other people’s feelings. “If I comfort everyone well enough then they won’t feel sad anymore”