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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

#151

Post by dandersh »

TomK32 wrote: post #82

Haven't got a diagnosis myself but I tick a lot of boxes for mild autism and a few articles I read about it 5 years ago (31 at that time) made me realize it's a pretty good explanation for me. I'm not surprised that women are diagnosed less, they are integrated into the social web of family and friends a lot better and from early on. I'm pretty sure I didn't have even a 10th of the social interactions my little daugh…

I'm really sorry for you to have to go through this. Struggling with social interactions and the fallout is not easy, and it does not sound like you have the support you need.

Have you tried talking to your wife and explaining that social situations are like other life experiences where some people enjoy/excel at them while others do not? Not everyone enjoys video games, sports, reading, etc. Not everyone is a social butterfly, and those who are not shouldn't have to feel embarrassed because of it.

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

#152

Post by TomK32 »

southpawflo wrote: post #147
ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 am constantly 'running a social simulator' in my mind. I was diagnosed as autistic a few years ago in my mid twenties.

one sim game i wouldn't play. and i'm german :) (we do love our sim games)

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

#153

Post by TomK32 »

rmah wrote: post #146
cacrawford wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it pretty common for people to tell me I'm not on the spectrum when I reveal it, as if in 5 minutes they have a better handle on me than I do. It's helped me understand just how annoying "mansplaining" can be (even when it's done by a woman.)

What I don't understand is why it matters if people believe you or not. Could you provide some insight?

no OP here, but it matters. for example, in a relationship there's guaranteed to be problems, something observed with aspies is that they are less romantic once a set goal has been reached (sounds weird, I know). if your partner does not belief or accept you, then it turns into hell, at least for me. frustrations on both sides because expectations are not met, communication problems, that not-looking-into-eyes bug, all of that could be lessened with some understanding.

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

#154

Post by fhayde »

jeandejean wrote: post #145

"Five times as many males as females are diagnosed", but the problem is of course that women are not diagnosed enough... What about there is a big problem in our society that make males more prone to autism that we should fix first? That article seems to be political rather than informative to me.

I'm inclined to agree.

Perhaps I'm just getting old and cynical but it seems like a lot of people consider it a badge of honor to be diagnosed with some sort of neuro/psycho disability. Granted, that's not a terrible thing per se, because if nothing else, it means there's a significant shift away from the stigmatizing perception of the past. I just have a hard time accepting the celebratory nature of things like this. Similar to the body positivity movement, which itself is a healthy shift towards acceptance and responsibility, there's always a fringe element who seem to romanticize and glorify something. I personally believe it's because many people want to feel included in "something", and that's fine, I don't have a problem with that. I just get grumpy when the initial context goes from understanding the way a disorder can impact your life and raising awareness to "let's make an exclusive group to carve out a little island only me and other special people like me can hang out on". It feels a lot like the reason and purpose are hijacked and unfortunately the message gets lost and tainted, creating more of a backlash than anything else. I don't have a problem with exclusionary groups at all either; my issue is when they use the growing awareness of something else to piggyback off of. I dunno, that's my $0.02 that no one asked for lol.

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

#155

Post by emodendroket »

dkarl wrote: post #135
emodendroket wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because getting the diagnosis explains what's going on, gives you access to a wealth of resources to understand things that were previously mysterious, and unlocks a community of people with the same condition as you who will understand. These testimonials talk about spending years in the wilderness with no idea why you don't fit in.

I guess I've already been taking advantage of some of the resources. I've read a couple of books by Temple Grandin and read a lot of things people on the spectrum have written online about how they deal with social situations. I started doing that long before I entered therapy on the theory that maybe I'm autistic, maybe not, but either way I should be able to learn something from people who are solving the same prob…

It seems like for the women in this story they kept being misdiagnosed with other issues, so their experience has likely been different.

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

#156

Post by i14ng »

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…

There’s a very popular way of talking about autism as “explaining” or providing a “why I am different,” that to me doesn’t make sense: https://intellectualizing.net/2015/03/31/not-explaining-auti...

There’s a misunderstanding that diagnosis of autism is finding a cause for some traits. The reality of the DSM is that autism literally is a list of traits - a shorthand renaming of the list. There’s no implication that it’s a single condition, or a discrete condition, or has any known cause, or explains anything. https://intellectualizing.net/2013/12/17/book-rethinking-aut...

Naming or categorizing isn’t the same as explaining!

Anyway kind of a pedantic point I guess but maybe autism explains the need to make those :-)

I do think there’s value to finding kindred spirits and community, which categories and names can help with.

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

#157

Post by miceeatnicerice »

mcguire wrote: post #114
quadrangle wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

By "everyone around you", I meant the majority of everyone else in the world. The majority is always sane.

If everyone's got the plague does that mean they're all in tip top health? Nope. Festering, bulbous pustules are what they are, and don't magically transform by force of numbers.

The same goes for the tendency to mechanically pigeonhole others - it is what it is, a mania for rigidly organizing the (supposedly) rigidly organizing. It sees its own whimsical image in the mirror and explodes with delight.

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

#158

Post by quadrangle »

mcguire wrote: post #114
quadrangle wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

By "everyone around you", I meant the majority of everyone else in the world. The majority is always sane.

That's a naked (and unconvincing) appeal to total-relativism.

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

#159

Post by quadrangle »

tzar wrote: post #103
quadrangle wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I'm not sure which you're thinking of as the streetlight, the diagnosis or normality? Both are saying, "What you're after is here." It's up to oneself to follow the lead that resonates the most.

The diagnosis.

Normality puts bias mainly on the WHAT in "what you're after". The streetlight-effect is about the idea that you think you'll find what you're looking for by looking at the available information.

The concern is: a complex human being with a ton of influences and factors cannot be diagnosed in ways we don't know how to diagnose. So, diagnoses represent the street-lit areas of knowledge, the stuff we understand somewhat. It's possible that the deeper insights come from places that we don't understand well and don't know how to diagnosis (so are like the dark areas where it's harder to find what you're looking for, but where the thing you're looking for might actually be).

The point is: if a diagnosis really is the insight you need, then great. But it's not NECESSARILY. So, it's not true that getting the diagnosis is always worthwhile. There's a cost to spending time getting diagnosed for things and it might be at the expense of not spending time elsewhere. And in SOME cases, the diagnosis doesn't even approach the area where the real issues are.

In short, the street-light-effect says: "if we figure out how to measure something, we can risk ignoring the enormous significance of all the things we don't know how to measure".

The "streetlight effect" isn't about the light it's about the searcher being silly by looking only where things are already lit up even though that's sometimes not where the thing they are looking for is.

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

#160

Post by holografix »

_b2lj wrote: post #124
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'm Autistic. Diagnosed at the age of 16 with moderate-severe Asperger's in 2001. I struggled all throughout middle-school high-school and even some college to understand other people and to make friends. Middle school was the worst, because I was endlessly bullied, very depressed, extremely lonely, and constantly told that I was "weird". Before my diagnosis I remember breaking down in my school's counselors office b…

Thank you for your touching honesty.
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