How surprised are people to find that you're autistic?

Post Reply New Topic

^^^
In fact, I would definitely question it too if I perceived something different from the diagnostic status you're classified as.
Which doesn't mean the diagnosis is completely wrong.
You could be/be someone other than the one diagnosed.

Interactional stress, for me, is always a burden, even when it's positive, but at my level.

It causes stress.

§
Consider that, like you, I enjoy interacting with people.

For years, I lived completely isolated.

My neighbors didn't even know what I looked like.

Nor did I know theirs.

In this, I continue to stand out: I don't even care what they look like.

If I meet them somewhere, they say hello, I say hello.

Now I also add a smile: it doesn't matter if I haven't figured out who they are, but it makes them so happy and it's as if I've truly recognized them, you know?

Even looking people in the face: I owe it to the drugs, and to the work I always put into it.

Sometimes I don't look at anyone on the street or in other places.

Other times, when I realize I can be helpful, I do it by helping people.

I'm, deep down, a very human alien, I think.

I even come across as empathetic to them.

§
The point is that there's no reciprocal contact.

And it's always to my disadvantage: I think I'll reduce those interactions to the bare minimum in the future.

I already do it with some people.

Which doesn't mean I'm unkind: they're kind but detached with strangers.

Coworkers are strangers.

So are people you meet casually.

Some, on the other hand, don't give you a feeling of stress: you, for example, give me a great feeling.

*Perhaps you could take some self-monitoring tests: they exist and are useful.

In the meantime, you can better understand how it works.

And if you have something else other than what they think, or confirm it!

§
The difference between social anxiety and avoidance is clear.

Please clarify that you are not avoidant.

That it is a disorder of another group that is very difficult to treat (if not impossible).

Because it is a personality disorder.

Please clarify one more thing: you don't have panic attacks, just severe social anxiety.

For that, you can do one of two things, or both.

a) Cognitive behavioral therapy aimed at eradicating pathological anxiety.
There are others; yours seems more trauma-related than social anxiety alone. I'm just guessing and trying to make sense of the words you've written so far.

I could be wrong, though!

B) There are specific medications.

Conventional therapy based on SSRIs, chosen by the doctor if he deems them useful, is the one that should last a year.

Other drugs are anxiolytics with a long plasma half-life.

Not the ones that last a few hours, which are simply problematic.

But the socially disinhibiting ones.

There's an interesting one with a 72-hour plasma half-life, a nitrobenzodiazepine.

Excuse the medical terminology, but this way I can't avoid using commercial names.

You can also ask if one of the psychological therapies is potentially helpful or if just one is enough.

You can also do all three at the same time.

To see if they're useful to you.

They've changed the course of my life.

Many autistic people love socializing, but the result is that they don't know how to manage social interaction, and they go into a total crisis.

Try taking the online tests yourself.

They're safe for an initial self-assessment.

I've written about them and I know their importance.

*They're not useless or inappropriate. On the contrary!

Then request another medical evaluation.

In order to improve.

If you resolve your social anxiety problem, in my opinion, you won't think negatively about these aspects.

Consider that almost all autistic people have doubts about their diagnoses.

For me, it took four, and only after the fourth did I realize the true level of my social impairment.

You have the ability to experience feelings and to describe them to yourself and understand them.

Your starting point is excellent.

Even age can still help you improve.


I don't know how long I'll be here.

You're staying, but it's a place that will be of enormous help to you.

I'm sure of it!

Huck

My experience is similar.

I've had people tell me that my dx explains things about me, others thought I already knew. Sometimes people seem pleased by it...they know something is off with me, and me telling them what it is appears to put them at ease or something.

I think I don't cover my ears with hands specifically (I wear headphones or earplugs), and I don't flap hands when someome sees, but I catch myself rocking in front of people sometimes (impossible to monitor yourself all the time if you're spending a lot of time around people), don't make a whole lot of eye contact, I'm an introvert, the quieter type of person, and I have nerdy interests that I'm very knowledgeable about.

I don't think anyone recognises sensory sensitivities as a part of autism, if they don't know much about the topic. More the whole rest. I also get called out on stimming as ADHD.

Therefore people seem not to understand the sensory struggles and the struggles with routine. Which are what I struggle with when it comes to ASD.

Answer: Are they surprises?
For them, autism is like The Rain Man.
Even though some films now depict us in unlikely, or at least very personal, situations.




Many of us in my family had Asperger's.
My mother had Asperger's.
I'm writing because she's been gone for five years.
My father thought I only had qualities, not deficits: his question was, what did I have?
I don't know, I answered.

Actually, I was autistic.

Three phases at school.
My classmates were excellent until I was 10.
Then, for three years, I was bullied by half the class.
I had the other half of the class, the girls, on my side.
I don't know the reason for either.
Maybe it was my way of doing things; I didn't recognize myself in male mentalities at all.
Then my neotenic aspect was useful. Then the rest came when I asked for my first diagnosis 14 years ago.
Until the last one last March.
Now level 2 (DSM 5).
But with the wording: severe.
Because it's comorbid with both major depression and avoidant personality disorder (the cluster change isn't simple social anxiety like a phobia, but a specific personality trait; they're not the same, but just to explain).
With others: I get stressed and anxious.
I find about 90% of social interactions quite pointless.
Chatting: I find it a waste of time.
I get nothing out of it, only intense social stress.
It doesn't fill me with joy and comfort, but with stress and despair.
I've never experienced joy as a feeling.
So: diagnoses are always reliable.
You can ask for another one if you have any doubts.
I've had them, without ever mentioning previous ones, from different facilities, in different cities.
Always the same result.
Identical.
I thought I was improving on the tests, that is, reducing my scores, but they're still high.
In fact, I don't function socially.
There were three of us autistic people on a forum; no one knew about me.
A guy with Asperger's recognized my writing style.
And the similarities with him.
Even some moderators wrote that our two cases were very similar.
So: before the actual diagnosis, I denied the condition.
It wasn't confirmed, it didn't make sense to me.

Afterward, I told my family... the responses... they apparently understood everything.
Okay, fine, I thought.

Then, seeing that even today I still have to explain why I am the way I am or behave socially...
I'd say it's disheartening.

At first, I told a few people.
Bad idea.
Now I don't tell anyone anymore: at most, I say what they're able to accept... I have severe anxiety, I'm depressed, I'm very stressed.
The end.
The look of a Level 2 Asperger's is obvious to an NT.
Even if they don't know a thing about autism.
They understand that you're different, and it often becomes a problem.
It's better to keep it to yourself: everyone will have their own ideas about it.
That's fine by me.
I accept what others think.
Others always have criticisms about things or people they don't even know.
Without doing the slightest bit of research first.
They talk or criticize people nonsense.
They often have one idea, just one, and that's more than enough.
They frame you within their mental frameworks, and you'll always remain the same.
It's just that everyone, including them, is in constant existential flux.
Not one day can be the same as the last; something different will always happen even if we move in the same spheres.
Most people don't seem to notice.

most people I knew prior to diag would say "so that's what's wrong with you."

I'm sorry for how they treated you.

Always remember: there's nothing wrong with you.

If anything, there's something wrong with them, and I won't write what it is.

Every person has a lot of flaws.

Because we're human, and we have plenty of flaws.

Now, mistaking a condition for "Something's wrong with you"
I find it not only enormously wrong, but also downright rude on their part.

A fair comment (but sometimes you can also not comment) would have been: "Now we understand you better and your difficulties, and how much you've struggled to live with people like us, who find everything easy, while you have to work so hard."

Here I comment on posts.
In private, in many cases, if not always, I tend to keep quiet in many cases.

Only once did I ask if I could stay quiet with a friend of mine whose father had died at 16.
He certainly said yes.

We spent many hours in silence.

And I'm alexithymic.

I don't know what to say.

When I tell People I get no reaction. They just accept it.

They don't know, unless I tell them. I've been masking from a very young age.

It seemed strange to me, too, as you wrote. I'm glad you feel that way; I find it beautiful.

§
At least I...
I've realized that:
a) They don't accept it
b) They don't understand it
c) They're surprised: they think I'm just shy or peculiar.
d) At least in my case: I remain a sort of alien being.
e) I've lived in Sweden and traveled: it doesn't happen only here.

The example is about other autistic people, not my own.
d) There's a complete lack of a clear and easy explanation of autism from professionals.
We can't expect others to understand us, therefore.

It doesn't happen by magic.

e) Our associations are very active, but they don't do something truly useful: explaining it.

Autism days are useless, as are conferences, because at most, only people from the sector attend. If others go, it's to show they're going, to increase their presence and numbers.

The mass media distorts who we are: look at movies, news, and anything else that has a significant social impact.

f) Non-autistic people use the mass media, or are used by the mass media, to get information.
The only source of information is that if it's not at all clear...
§

I think it's simply disadvantageous to say so and quite socially counterproductive.