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It all made sense when we found out we were autistic

bbc.co.uk

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Re: It all made sense when we found out we were autistic

#91

Post by psyc »

gowld wrote: post #22
mercer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was only diagnosed at around 30, and so I also just kind of figured out how to 'pass for normal'. One of my biggest frustrations when I talk about this stuff is that people will 1) insist I'm not autistic, as a compliment of sorts, 2) insist I'm not autistic as a sort of attack/defense, lest I 'use' it to victimize myself, or 3) start treating me like a 'broken' person and assigning all 'oddness' to aspergers. At f…

"Autism" is simply a label for a certain basket of personality characteristics that tend to occur together. It's scientifically interesting but not very relevant to daily life -- especially on the milder end where there's less predictive power (in more severe autism, seeing one symptom makes it likely that you'll see other symptoms, so you can correctly plan to encounter them). The label itself doesn't provide more m…

This is the viewpoint most similar to mine. Sometimes I relate strongly to the complaints of people identifying with ASD, and sometimes not. I have some of the traits to an extreme, and am utterly lacking in other traits deemed central to diagnosis. I didn't have any developmental problems besides socializing - in fact I was precocious about everything. My father is textbook ASD, but nobody else in the family is. We're just all introverted, geeky, oversensitive, and both over-empathetic and a little misanthropic. What to do? I consider the traits by themselves instead of labeled clusters of traits.

Re: It all made sense when we found out we were autistic

#92

Post by mcguire »

ForrestN wrote: post #87
dkarl wrote: post #48

I'm curious why people find the diagnosis to be so important. I can't at all imagine identifying with the sentiment, "Nothing is wrong with me, I’m just autistic," as one of the women in the article says. When I go to a party with my girlfriend, I want to come off well, if only for her sake, and I would like to have some interesting conversations, and maybe (very optimistically) to meet someone I can share an interes…

It’s regrettable that our culture has decided that neurological diversity should be understood in terms of abnormality = deficiency. It would be nice to have a more inclusive society that adapted its norms to the way people really are rather than always trying to adapt people to somewhat arbitrary norms.

"...neurological diversity should be understood in terms of abnormality = deficiency..."

Diversity becomes deficiency (or a diagnosable illness, or whatever) when it interferes with ones' path through life or enjoyment of life. In other words, when it becomes a problem.

If everyone around you is happy behaving socially and you are not, you have a problem.

Re: It all made sense when we found out we were autistic

#93

Post by oarsinsync »

nicoburns wrote: post #62
dkarl wrote: post #48

I'm curious why people find the diagnosis to be so important. I can't at all imagine identifying with the sentiment, "Nothing is wrong with me, I’m just autistic," as one of the women in the article says. When I go to a party with my girlfriend, I want to come off well, if only for her sake, and I would like to have some interesting conversations, and maybe (very optimistically) to meet someone I can share an interes…

I have never had a formal diagnosis, but I have gradually come to conclusion that I have traits which are probably best understood as autistic. For me, it was freeing in that allowed me to understand why I was sometimes failing in some areas and that it wasn't just a personal failing on my part. It's also practically useful as reading descriptions of other autistic people's experiences allows me to predict when I mig…

This, a thousand times this.

I've often struggled in social situations, I've had problems with friends, and I've had friends simply laugh at me "Oh my god, you're so strange some times" and just take the piss out of me and the things I do / I've done.

Sometimes it hasn't mattered, other times it's really bugged me as I've not understood why I'm the one at fault / why I'm the weird one, and why it's not them that's weird for not thinking the way I do.

Getting informally diagnosed has helped heaps, and resulted in a lot of internal turmoil being significantly subdued. I'm a lot calmer and a lot more secure in my sense of self.

I still operate with a "mask" or "game face" in a range of social situations to avoid standing out like a sore thumb, but I no longer feel the need to ply myself with masses of alcohol to drown the inner turmoil, and I no longer fear the occasional inevitable moment where I'm going to put my foot in it, as I now have an easy narrative to jokingly explain my faux pas away ("oh my gosh, I can be so aspie sometimes, sorry!").

I also no longer obsess about events to try and better understand where things have gone wrong, again caused by wondering "what's wrong with me?" as I now understand that there's nothing wrong with me, I'm just wired a bit differently.

I don't feel the need to get a formal diagnosis, as I now feel like I finally understand myself. Ultimately, life just feels better now.

Re: It all made sense when we found out we were autistic

#94

Post by quadrangle »

tzar wrote: post #81
dkarl wrote: post #48

I'm curious why people find the diagnosis to be so important. I can't at all imagine identifying with the sentiment, "Nothing is wrong with me, I’m just autistic," as one of the women in the article says. When I go to a party with my girlfriend, I want to come off well, if only for her sake, and I would like to have some interesting conversations, and maybe (very optimistically) to meet someone I can share an interes…

In my experience, anything that allows one to better model their feelings can have significant impact on life. That might come from a diagnosis, though I haven't experienced that myself. When someone says, "Nothing is wrong with me, I'm just autistic" they might feel as though they can stop predicting how they'll respond in a certain situation—or as a result of a certain decision—based on what others expect of them.…

Or you just get distorted view from the streetlight effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect

Re: It all made sense when we found out we were autistic

#95

Post by dingaling »

sidlls wrote: post #71
isolli wrote: post #3

My wife and I believe our daughter has a (thankfully) mild form of autism. It took us a while, but when the realization came, it was a relief, as we stopped being angry at her and at ourselves: 1) hopefully we did not do anything wrong to cause this, and 2) it is not our daughter's fault that she behaves this way. We did not get a specific diagnostic, and I'm not sure it's worth seeking one. As far as I know, the dia…

For us the diagnosis is a formality and a means to another end: access to resources in our child's school, protection for him from punishing him due to behavior that is a result of his condition, and formal recognition by our insurer to ease accepting claims for his therapy.

> protection for him from punishing him due to behavior that is a result of his condition

That's an interesting and problematic aspect.

My wife is a teacher and has started to encounter that attitude more frequently. "He gets angry because he is ${diagnosis}, you can't punish him for it". But when it disrupts the class, and encourages others to behave similarly, then some response is needed to mitigate the situation. There is a responsibility to the class as well as the individual.

Defining that response is the problem. In one example from a local school the child was given shorter school hours as an incentive towards controlling their behaviour. Which is exactly the opposite of what 'normals' receive, detention for disruptive behaviour.

Re: It all made sense when we found out we were autistic

#96

Post by quadrangle »

dkarl wrote: post #48

I'm curious why people find the diagnosis to be so important. I can't at all imagine identifying with the sentiment, "Nothing is wrong with me, I’m just autistic," as one of the women in the article says. When I go to a party with my girlfriend, I want to come off well, if only for her sake, and I would like to have some interesting conversations, and maybe (very optimistically) to meet someone I can share an interes…

It's notable that people are finally questioning the value of diagnosing every possible thing. In addition to the streetlight effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetlight_effect), learning a diagnosis that doesn't have a treatment can be just distracting.

The value of a diagnosis depends on the situation. For someone already overly distracted by wondering what's going on, a diagnosis provides relief from that. For someone just living their life and doing all they already can to get by and not worrying about these things, a diagnosis that wouldn't change their treatment/behavior seems just costly.

Re: It all made sense when we found out we were autistic

#97

Post by quadrangle »

mcguire wrote: post #92
ForrestN wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s regrettable that our culture has decided that neurological diversity should be understood in terms of abnormality = deficiency. It would be nice to have a more inclusive society that adapted its norms to the way people really are rather than always trying to adapt people to somewhat arbitrary norms.

" ...neurological diversity should be understood in terms of abnormality = deficiency... " Diversity becomes deficiency (or a diagnosable illness, or whatever) when it interferes with ones' path through life or enjoyment of life. In other words, when it becomes a problem. If everyone around you is happy behaving socially and you are not, you have a problem.

For sake of argument, if everyone around you is a sociopath and you are not and are feeling empathy and compassion, you'll have problems too, but it's not you who's deficient.

Having a problem doesn't mean your condition need be considered pathological.

Re: It all made sense when we found out we were autistic

#98

Post by Viliam1234 »

dkarl wrote: post #48

I'm curious why people find the diagnosis to be so important. I can't at all imagine identifying with the sentiment, "Nothing is wrong with me, I’m just autistic," as one of the women in the article says. When I go to a party with my girlfriend, I want to come off well, if only for her sake, and I would like to have some interesting conversations, and maybe (very optimistically) to meet someone I can share an interes…

It's like realizing that you are short... after decades of being told that the only reason you can't reach as high as most people is because you are lazy.

Re: It all made sense when we found out we were autistic

#99

Post by kstenerud »

dkarl wrote: post #48

I'm curious why people find the diagnosis to be so important. I can't at all imagine identifying with the sentiment, "Nothing is wrong with me, I’m just autistic," as one of the women in the article says. When I go to a party with my girlfriend, I want to come off well, if only for her sake, and I would like to have some interesting conversations, and maybe (very optimistically) to meet someone I can share an interes…

The diagnosis itself isn't important per se. The important thing is becoming aware that you are autistic, thus opening up a whole community of people who have had similar struggles to yours.

There are many aspects of an autistic's life that a non-autistic simply cannot comprehend, and so it's unlikely that anyone but another autistic would have figured out ways to deal with them, and how to better fit into the neurotypical world.

I also guarantee that you have many behavioral quirks and ways of thinking that are VASTLY different from the majority, and that you're unaware of them because you haven't yet recognized the difference from a "normal" person. Learning these things makes other peoples behaviors and reactions to you a lot less baffling, and is the first step in improving relationships.

The sheer volume of literature and people that become areas of interest and information once you are aware of your autism is what makes a diagnosis (self or professional) worthwhile.

Re: It all made sense when we found out we were autistic

#100

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

oarsinsync wrote: post #93
nicoburns wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have never had a formal diagnosis, but I have gradually come to conclusion that I have traits which are probably best understood as autistic. For me, it was freeing in that allowed me to understand why I was sometimes failing in some areas and that it wasn't just a personal failing on my part. It's also practically useful as reading descriptions of other autistic people's experiences allows me to predict when I mig…

This, a thousand times this. I've often struggled in social situations, I've had problems with friends, and I've had friends simply laugh at me "Oh my god, you're so strange some times" and just take the piss out of me and the things I do / I've done. Sometimes it hasn't mattered, other times it's really bugged me as I've not understood why I'm the one at fault / why I'm the weird one, and why it's not them that's we…

I'm curious about your "mask" statement. I have that same feeling, and experience with alcohol.

Do you ever imagine yourself to be a robot? Or do you memorize and rehearse things to say in social situations?

I often feel like I am operating a virtual machine at social gatherings. I tunnel in and give myself commands to operate like a normal human being, but I take absolutely no pleasure from the social interactions. I also get EXTREMELY tired, very quickly, even though I am able to function for a brief period at a fairly high level.

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