Discussion Could I Be Autistic?

[scaleless_serpentin]

Hello there, I was diagnosed with ADHD within the past few months after struggling with it for pretty much most of my life and going under the radar. Now as I assess other parts of my perception of the world, I'm really starting to wonder if it's significantly different from that of the people around me.

As context, I come from a country where the understanding of mental health is still greatly primitive, and at times even vilified outright. The tests for any mental condition are, at best, far too vague and generalized, and at worst, gravely misleading. My ADHD symptoms had been misdiagnosed multiple times before, and I've somewhat become a bit jaded with the ability of my country's psychiatrists to accurately diagnose anything.

I'm well aware of the perils of self-diagnosing myself with any conditions, but right now I really just want to try and get a sample of whether or not it might be part of my issues. It seems to be a fairly broad condition, and I'm not making any headway in my general research into it.

If any people with autism, or have had ample experience interacting with autistic people can share what traits or behavior I should keep an eye out for, that would be greatly appreciated.

 

[spinningship]

My experience of it is that I have no idea how any of my actions will affect other people emotionally. I'm completely blind in this area. This is what they mean when they talk about lacking empathy in autism it's referring to cognitive empathy, whereas a psychopath lacks affective empathy. I feel bad for people often more intensely than neurotypical ppl I know, but only if I know they are hurting, which I don't always.

I find this emotional blindness also applies when thinking about myself. I often can't name the emotion I'm feeling, or recognize that what I am feeling is an emotion rather than some logical deduction about the world. This makes it hard for me to get myself out of suicidal spirals when I'm in them. Whereas normal people might try things to cheer themselves up, I kinda think it's just the way things are and nothing I do will help because it's as logical as 1+1 = 2 that I should kill myself.

Sensory sensitivities in autism you might not even be aware you have because how would you know you experience things more intensely than other ppl, you can't put yourself inside their brains lol. Things like do you prefer having lights off. Or maybe you find it difficult to listen to someone if people are speaking in the background. Some people are sensory-seeking, which means they might like listening to music on repeat or staring at moving things.

Special interests are things that an autistic person becomes obsessed with and just can talk about for days. And often it gets used as a crutch in conversations. I'm really lucky at the moment in that I'm kinda obsessed with AI and it's at least somewhat socially acceptable to talk about given it's in the news so much. But there's almost this compulsion inside me to insert it into convos and I have to stop myself sometimes if I've spoken about it too much with someone. As you can probably tell from the length of this post I have a similar intensity interest in autism lol.

One thing I dislike about the clinical criteria for autism is it's often framed from a deficit perspective. Every behavior listed above is treated as a pathology. It's quite hurtful to be analyzed like some clinical specimen rather than a human being. I start to feel like I'm not in control of everything in my life and that everything I do is just autistic behavior. But if someone wrote up a similar checklist pathologizing the natural ways neurotypical people act, I'm sure you could make them feel subhuman as well.

 

[26mmmm]

My experience of it is that I have no idea how any of my actions will affect other people emotionally. I'm completely blind in this area. This is what they mean when they talk about lacking empathy in autism it's referring to cognitive empathy, whereas a psychopath lacks affective empathy. I feel bad for people often more intensely than neurotypical ppl I know, but only if I know they are hurting, which I don't always.

I find this emotional blindness also applies when thinking about myself. I often can't name the emotion I'm feeling, or recognize that what I am feeling is an emotion rather than some logical deduction about the world. This makes it hard for me to get myself out of suicidal spirals when I'm in them. Whereas normal people might try things to cheer themselves up, I kinda think it's just the way things are and nothing I do will help because it's as logical as 1+1 = 2 that I should kill myself.

Sensory sensitivities in autism you might not even be aware you have because how would you know you experience things more intensely than other ppl, you can't put yourself inside their brains lol. Things like do you prefer having lights off. Or maybe you find it difficult to listen to someone if people are speaking in the background. Some people are sensory-seeking, which means they might like listening to music on repeat or staring at moving things.

Special interests are things that an autistic person becomes obsessed with and just can talk about for days. And often it gets used as a crutch in conversations. I'm really lucky at the moment in that I'm kinda obsessed with AI and it's at least somewhat socially acceptable to talk about given it's in the news so much. But there's almost this compulsion inside me to insert it into convos and I have to stop myself sometimes if I've spoken about it too much with someone. As you can probably tell from the length of this post I have a similar intensity interest in autism lol.

One thing I dislike about the clinical criteria for autism is it's often framed from a deficit perspective. Every behavior listed above is treated as a pathology. It's quite hurtful to be analyzed like some clinical specimen rather than a human being. I start to feel like I'm not in control of everything in my life and that everything I do is just autistic behavior. But if someone wrote up a similar checklist pathologizing the natural ways neurotypical people act, I'm sure you could make them feel subhuman as well.

Hey, I've made a post with the exact same title, could you check it out? I've found out some more symptoms since but cant really update it effectively so I might just post again soon.