6 Obscure Signs you're Actually Autistic

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📹 My Videos mentioned 📹:

📒 Sources 📒:
Different not Less by Chloe Hayden (read if you want to cry):
Eating Disorders & perfectionism:

📖 *Books I'd Recommend about Autism 📖 :

Aspergirls by Rudy Simone:

Different not Less by Chloe Hayden (read if you want to cry):

Unmasking Autism by Devon Price:

00:00 Some things are missing from the DSM-5?
02:40 Can you handle mistakes?
06:23 The Most 'Disordered' Trait? (Skip here if you want to avoid ED talk)
11:30 Are you exhausted?
15:03: Should these two things be a separate diagnosis?
17:29 The most disabling part of being autistic?
19:39 Doctors need to learn about this...
22:29 Too social to be autistic?

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DISCLAIMER: I am a second-year psychology student and a late-diagnosed #actuallyautistic individual. I am not a qualified healthcare professional.

[imautisticnowwhat]

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.”



Hope you’ve had a good Thursday!! 💛 See you soon!

[PurpleAmharicCoffee]

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! 😆

[jenniferfootman]

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.

[hugbunnyaudio]

"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.

[kevinbyrne]

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

[Xacris]

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!

[laurencewinch-furness]

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"

[HappyHoney]

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.

[biscuitwithtea]

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)

[Beyondthebinarybrain]

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

[bernard]

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.

[MrCorpsy]

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.

[patriciakali]

Failing something is so utterly unacceptable that I freeze and am unable to even start something new.

[Hexane]

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

[Fenix_Kage]

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.

[craiglaing]

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.

[coolchannelat]

One of the funniest autism symptoms that comes with mine is that I’ll literally forget that I’m hungry, or forget that I have to use the bathroom. Idk how you forget something like that, but I literally do LOL

[blackjackel]

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.

[mordaciousfilms]

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.

[EminayDrackoness]

perfectionism is also another reason a lot of us went undiagnosed. When you feel the pressure to perform perfectly and end up getting good grades, home work is being done, and chores are handled.... no one is really thinking at that point about your needs unfortunately. So why would there need to be a "label" when they think nothing is off? People assume that you only get a diagnoses if your life is falling apart around you and it shouldnt be true.