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Thirding the "if I didn't have a good support system (rich liberal family) I would have died under a bridge years ago" thing. I've been following this thread for a while but haven't posted yet since it's kind of a hard topic for me and one I don't really know how to talk about. I was diagnosed in 2016 after the therapists at an addiction IOP program thought I was on the spectrum, which validated my mom's beliefs so she sought out a specialist psychologist to diagnose me. Took like an afternoon of testing to come up with diagnoses for autism and dyslexia. Has anyone actually had good experiences with therapy for ASD? The two "specialist" therapists I've tried were garbage. One was convinced that I NEEDED to be on medication, despite me telling her I'd had bad experiences with meds and that I felt my lovely moods were directly attributable to my inability to socialize normally. We literally never addressed anything I felt was important and eventually ended up with me shutting down during our sessions while she doubled down on trying to bully me to see a psychiatrist until one day she unceremoniously "fired" me as a client. The next guy was a quack who literally had a chiropractor working out of his office. He was ASD (Asperger's) but had overcome his condition well enough to get an MSW, get married, and otherwise get on with his life which was cool, but I never felt like I made any progress with him either. He was insistent that I was supposed to "lead the sessions" but I had no idea what to loving talk about and felt like uh isn't this your job dipshit? That was two years ago and I haven't pursued any therapy since.
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Nov 18, 2019 21:36
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Yeah I'm reasonably high functioning and have a job but have very few friends and absolutely zero success in dating. It's extremely frustrating.
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Nov 19, 2019 00:13
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whydirt posted:I actually have millions of questions, but am not even sure where to start. So for the moment I'll just say that I'm glad I found this thread because I was tired of finding non-stop Pinterest Moms with YouTube channels that were nominally about their autistic kids, but actually just a way to leverage the kids into views and likes. Barf. Look for #actuallyautistic on social media platforms, it's used by (you guessed it) actually autistic people and not just Autism Moms. There are also some good groups on Facebook, just pay attention to whether a space is supposed to be autistic only or if allistic (not autistic) people trying to learn are welcome too. I've learned more about myself and living with the idiosyncrasies of autism from the autistic community than I ever did from psychologists/therapists, even ones who supposedly specialised in autistic people. Wrt the posters upthread talking about not being able to differentiate words and sounds... when I went through diagnosis the psychologist also did tests for dyslexia and apparently dyslexia is much broader and more diverse than just the "letters appear in the wrong order" stereotype that's commonly talked about. It's common in autistic people so I think what y'all are talking about might be an auditory form of it. I never had the verbal or reading mix-ups but the psych identified a deficit in my ability to process language.... if there's too much text or spoken word it can be like the words all pile up in my brain while I try to work out their meaning and if it's too much I'll start losing information. I read a lot when I was a kid but stopped as an adult and have always struggled with dry informational texts... I used to think I was just lazy compared to my friends who can read poo poo like old translations of Capital but I've realized I'm just not good at processing that kind of information and have to seek out more accessible forms.
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Aug 14, 2020 16:36
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I used to not brush with toothpaste at all (didn't like the mintiness), and it actually worked fine because I never ate sugary bullshit. When I started working out and eating to grow though my consumption of sugar went up and had to start using fluoridated toothpaste because I was starting to get cavities. I still don't like the taste but idk I just tolerate it. I only brush once a day though unless I have a date or something. There are a lot of good autism groups on Facebook that are more active than this thread and can probably give you better recommendations than me. Look for stuff in the group description or rules about "autistic people only".
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Aug 26, 2020 19:34
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Klaaz posted:Self acceptance and a feeling of freedom as a result of that I guess. This has actually been a huge thing for me, though the psychologist and therapists who were supposed to help me with this didn't do poo poo and I had to find autistic communities online to understand what being autistic even meant
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Sep 5, 2020 00:42
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Assuming your psych actually knows what they're doing, if you're autistic then you won't be able to successfully hide it from them. There are also cognitive tests that go along with the interviews, which can provide some objective evidence for the psych. When I went through testing I was told I scored significantly differently on different parts of the IQ test and that that was common with autism. I was also tested for dyslexia/dyscalculia/dysgraphia and ADHD as part of the testing, which often occur alongside autism
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Sep 8, 2020 17:23
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i know parks and rec kind of sucks but the Ben Wyatt character actually came across to me as being a fairly realistic "high functioning" autistic person, though i'm not sure if he was specifically written as such
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Sep 17, 2020 22:56
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There are better autistic communities out there than that shithole you described. #actuallyautistic is a good starting place for social media (IG, Twitter, tiktok... is Tumblr still a thing?). There are also tons of groups and pages on facebook, though they vary wildly of course. Masking and "unmasking" are pretty common topics of discussion in those communities (as is just about everything you brought up in your post). It's not really something I feel I struggle with personally though
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Dec 26, 2020 01:27
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it's v common for people who don't act exactly like the stereotype of autism to not get diagnosed i didn't get diagnosed until i was like 27 even though i'm obviously autistic??????? women and minorities especially have this problem from my understanding This is an interesting article written by a late diagnosed woman: https://howilostallmyfs.medium.com/when-youre-autistic-but-don-t-seem-like-it-1430209b92d1
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Jan 6, 2021 05:12
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Violet_Sky posted:That bit about not being able to focus when other people are conversing got to me. I assumed I had some kind of hearing problem. https://twitter.com/autisticats/status/1343994411466838016 this twitter thread covers some basics about how autistic people's senses work differently than neurotypical people's, including several references
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Jan 8, 2021 19:35
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The thing about the autism "spectrum" is that it isn't like a linear gradient of "autistic/not autistic", it's a collection of traits that can be more or less present in basically any combination and people who share the same traits may experience them very differently. "If you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person" is a common phrase I've seen in the community, which means that the experience of autism isn't really generalizable beyond a tendency towards certain traits.Organza Quiz posted:Anyway that means I don't deal well with sudden changes of plans because I've been imagining one future so clearly and all of a sudden I have to readjust to the new change of plans. Tbh I've never thought that much into the process of my desire for routine lol. That does sound familiar but for me what I notice most about having something disrupted is that it kind of takes a little while to get into focusing on a task then if something comes up and I have to stop it's like a train derailing... my brain wants to keep going with whatever the thing was and adapting to a sudden new demand is stressful and takes time to readjust turd in my singlet fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Jan 31, 2021 |
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Jan 31, 2021 18:05
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Lol
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Mar 14, 2021 01:38
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I think it's a European thing
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Jun 12, 2021 04:08
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MarsellusWallace posted:Thank you all. This thread has been wonderful. Look for autistic communities on social media. There are many that explicitly include self-diagnosed people or people who are trying to figure things out, since getting a diagnosis can be very difficult. Plenty of FB groups, a few subreddits like r/Autism and r/AutisticPride. Also there is #ActuallyAutistic on Twitter/IG/Tumblr/TikTok ("actually" autistic to differentiate from Autism Moms posting about how much they hate their children). insert "also the Something Autistic forums" joke here
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Jul 18, 2021 13:13
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