As the the sister of, mother of and now grandmother of autistic kids, thank you for getting it.
I prefer neurospicy =)
I got dx at 3 and a few months, back in the 60s and my parents were told to place me at Sonyea [old ‘loony bin’ here in western NY] but my mom took the time between then and going to school training me how to behave normal and blend in.
It fits me in some ways but not others, but that could easily be a function of ADHD. When you have both, you could be all over the map. For example, I have a desperate desire for sameness, order, and routine, which leans autistic. But because of my ADHD I have never been able to achieve that for myself. And that’s characteristic of people who have both disorders. (The comorbidity of both occuring together is also very high.)
However, people with early childhood trauma have a lot of similar characteristics. I briefly posted on a reddit board for AuDHD women and sooooo many of them had been diagnosed with PTSD from early childhood trauma that it raised my eyebrows, as in, how are you so sure it isn’t PTSD? Many of them were self-diagnosed.
On the flip side, PTSD can obscure neurodiversity, too. It works both ways.
At this point in my life I’ve had so many diagnoses I’ve been though all the cycles of obsession with each new diagnosis and this is just me. Whether I’m autistic or not, this is just me. Introverted, socially anxious, flighty, emotionally (over)sensitive, but also creative, intellectually engaged, and nurturing, and I’m fine with that trade-off, really.
Whether we are diagnosed or not, I think people need to learn to be more comfortable with who they are and embrace what makes them unique. I know that can be extra hard in youth because kids are often targeted for what makes them unique. But those things you are singled out for may be inconsequential ten years later, or even a strength you can translate to some success. It’s really impossible to judge when you’re stuck in middle or high school.
Otherwise known as:
Craig Colony | Livingston County, NY - Official Website.
Craig Colony for Epileptics, then during the ‘60s the Craig State School and quickly thereafter Craig Developmental Center. Never seemingly a mental ‘asylum’.
I have a friend who claims that all mathematicians are at least somewhat autistic. That includes him and me.
Well, probably not all of them. But one of the “risk” factors for being diagnosed with autism is having engineers in your family. Wouldn’t be surprised if it holds across mathematicians. Autistics are slightly better at math, as a group, compared to the general population. But not as much as you might assume.
Love this conversation:
“What’s your son’s special ability?”
“Actually, ma’am, it’s really something of a myth that autistic people have special gifts, they are no more likely to be gifted relative to the population as a whole… but it’s math. His special ability is math.”
I think there’s a fairly good chance my kid ends up a theoretical mathematician. Either that or an astrophysicist.
But you know, first he needs to learn how to behave in kindergarten.
Right. And really, even most high functioning autistic kids are actually likely to be further along the spectrum than anyone who’s actually social enough to be the target of, or included in the mockery/cruelty. They’re going to be that odd kid who just doesn’t interact for whatever reason, and when they do, it’s strange.
It’s the rare autistic kid who’s actually social enough to be normal enough to be considered “weird” or a “spaz” or whatever, without actually being so much so, that they’re socially invisible.
I mean, I see it in my sons’ scout troop. My son is mostly in that latter category- he’s annoying,responds inappropriately (way too loud, off topic, etc…) and just flat out weird a lot of the time, but he’s also capable and more than willing to carry on a conversation and be part of the group. He’s also got a sense of humor, but doesn’t always get when certain jokes or types of jokes are appropriate. He loves it and tries hard, but he’s the weird dorky kid who’s too loud, too enthusiastic, and generally doesn’t “get it” in a social sense.
Contrast that with another kid his age in the troop who seems to be more classically autistic. He’s withdrawn, doing things according to the beat of his own drum that only he can hear, and generally doesn’t interact. He’s smart, and he can talk to you, but he’s just not interested in actually talking for its own sake; it’s all about the minimum number of words/interactions necessary to convey the information to or from him.
Thankfully, the boys in the troop are generally all good kids and are remarkably tolerant of both of them, but it’s obvious that my older son is something of an outsider a lot of the time, even if he doesn’t seem fully aware of that.
Most people who get called “autistic” even as adults are probably just socially awkward in some way, or they’re just weary of having to act a certain way and are just not bothering. I mean, I’ve been described as probably being neurodivergent in some way (if I had to guess, it’s probably mild ADHD), and my internal monologue(?) is that some social situations are utterly mystifying, even though I’ve learned rules and behaviors for how to navigate them. Combine that with the fact that I’m well regulated emotionally, to the point where my brother thinks I’m either a Vulcan or a robot, while I think he’s dramatic and performative and needs to rein his shit in, and I wonder if maybe I’ve got a touch of autism myself.
But then again, the defining thing of my career in the tech industry has been having “great social skills”, rather than intense technical ability or acumen, and I’ve never lacked for close friends or even struggled with being friendly and meeting people. So I don’t know. My therapist (a psychology PhD) doesn’t think I’m autistic, but my wife does, so who knows?
In New Zealand they won’t let you immigrate there if you’ve been diagnosed autistic.
Absurdly, I’ve heard this as an excuse for not getting your struggling kid diagnosed.
The only time I found it hard to judge was when RJK Jr. took control of DHS. He has horrifying ideas about autism, and going after autistic people’s medical records without consent is worth freaking out about. It was already hard getting parents to get their kids in for an evaluation. The the thing that pisses me off is that idiot is going to result in fewer autistic kids getting diagnosed, and then will claim that rates of autism are going down.
Fucker.
(Haven’t read through the whole thread yet)
I thought ADHD was part of the autism spectrum?
No, but they are both neurodevelopmental disorders, so they often get lumped together. They have a few overlapping presentations. People with ADHD and autism may both have sensory issues, may struggle socially (for different reasons), and are prone to hyperfixation on a certain topic (usually the hyperfixation is more short-lived for people with ADHD, because we lose interest. To give some examples, I have been temporarily obsessed with the 1996 Mt. Everest Disaster, candles, Zen meditation, the dangers of treadmills, cleaning my house, and a bunch of other random shit. It usually passes in a few weeks.) Impulse control issues aren’t uncommon for both, either.
But the primary difference is that ADHD is a problem of attention regulation - we cannot control what we pay attention to – and autism is a problem of social functioning and repetive/restricted interests or behaviors. (When I say “problem” I’m using a medical deficit model, my true alignment is somewhere in the middle. There are real challenges but also strengths.)
Until relatively recently, you could only be diagnosed with one or the other, not both. They are not the same thing but they are similar in the sense of having a brain that works differently, so we often find company with each other. Most of my friends are ADHD or autistic, and I didn’t plan it that way. We seem to have an uncanny ability to find each other.
!
Oddly specific but valid. What was the dominant danger you focused on?
As one who had to run hundreds of miles on a treadmill when Covid shut down public facilities and parks, I was deathly afraid of one of the cats getting near the back end and getting sucked through the mangle. There was a whole cat eviction procedure I went through before I would dare turn the thing on.
Mrs. H thinks I’m “on the spectrum,” as they say. I don’t know, maybe she’s right. I do notice some tendencies in my life that are typical of the neurodivergent.
There is absolutely no point in getting tested for confirmation. At this stage in my life, all a diagnosis will do is enable me to say, “I’ll be damned, I’m on the autism spectrum.”
Danger to my cat at first, but when I got pregnant I sold that thing quick. We didn’t have a gym room or anything, it was just sitting in our very large living room. Of course I started obsessing only after I bought it. 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJDKjH6rHhw
The couple that created the video linked above have created a bunch of autism and ADD-related videos that I think help non-autistic people better understand aspects of the conditions, from both the inside and outside. Several of their videos have a sort of ‘might you or someone you know be autistic’ type theme.
Can anyone watch his ‘sign #1’ (having a particular preferred/designated spot to sit) and not think of Sheldon on Big Bang Theory?
EDIT: can anyone tell me why I can’t post or embed the Youtube video preview thing as opposed to just the link?
It has to do with the board software. You can get away with it if you post the YouTube link as the very last thing you do and then hit reply before it loads. Gotta be quick!
Experimenting…..if I do it real quick I don’t see all the http:// blahbah stuff and see the video title, but no actual video preview. Huh. Oh well, not important.
If you’re having issues you could post in About This Message Board and they will help you work it out. This comes up a lot.
I always thought this was really common among all people. I know at my various workplaces over the years, people would tend to sit in the same places around the conference table at meetings (for example). Now, being really inflexible about it like Sheldon Cooper on TV, no.
(my ellipsis)
