My first client is late today, so y'all get my braindumps this morning. I am 46. I guess that's in the window of possibly starting to experience #perimenopause. I haven't been able to determine if my temp regulation issues are because of #autism#anxiety or perimenopause. But they started getting really bad last yr. My husband had bought this same #Embr Wave Cooling Bracelet for his dad when he was going through chemo. It had helped him, so he bought one for me. 1/
@Susan60@actuallyautistic
🥹 I understand. There are generations of patriarchal socializing and shaming 😒 that produce an unsafe and female body shaming environment. It's in the water as the say...#feminism has come a ways, but there's a ways more to go.
@Ilovechai@actuallyautistic
Left school thinking 2nd wave feminism had fixed everything. In my first job in a bank, 1977, ascthecjuniorci made coffee for everyone when the doors closed at 3pm. When we got a new junior, it was still my job. The new junior was male. And when the female advance clerk got a promotion, I heard someone ask who she’d slept with.
Two different psychs now told me I have "autistic traits" significant enough to have fucked my life.
I'm functional enough that I don't qualify for state help, and won't be able to afford private care for a while, so I have to DIY.
Could anyone recommend resources on how autistic adults can learn to deal with the condition, especially when it comes to socialization?
Thank you <3
@xarvh
You are welcome in the #ActuallyAutistic community here. We talk about all types of things, including our life experiences, which can be very validating.
I have just watched the 1st episode of A Kind of Spark thanks to @PetitPas
It’s a Irish British American Canadian series. In Canada I’m watching it on CBC Gem, in the UK it seems to be on the CBBC channel, for the others countries I don’t know.
I like it because the 3 autistic sisters are played by autistic actors, use of the words autistic, masking, meltdown. etc. Shows sensory overload, etc., ignorance and bias.
@adelinej@actuallyautistic oh US, I used to be a kind of a bad consumer of less then licensed goods mostly movies and music books on demand until I had a run in w some malware, particularly nasty, I blame that so I swore off content pretty much unless I really want to watch it. I just was thinking of trying an episode just to try it out .
We've been sent a huge questionnaire from our daughter's psychologist about her childhood and we are meeting with them in a few weeks time for an in depth interview.
There's some suggestion that she may be #autistic and this has played a major role in her troubles over recent years.
I'm suspending judgement because I don't know enough about the subject and Internet research on #autism in adult females isn't particularly helpful. I'm leaving this one to the professionals
Do allistic people really need constant interaction with others? In person? It sounds horrific. I lived with other people for years. Often they want interaction. That's just brutal for the autistic mind isn't it? #Autism#autistic#neurodiverse#lgbtqi#ActuallyAutistic
@ideogram@actuallyautistic Gvt as well, opposite side of the planet but same King. ;)
Somehow they can talk effusively about Equality-Diversity-Inclusion and how important "these people" are to the organization... and on the same breath discuss authoritatively (with wide nods all over the room) on how they value networking and how they all need to push back on promotions (even on the technical path) until someone has developed better social skills. 🤷♂️
After 20 years at my current job - and 20 years of evaluations that say I'm wonderful, but need to work on my communication and social skills - they've come around. I told them flat out, if you interrupt me I'll be brusque, even rude. Schedule a meeting, let me know what it's about so I can prepare, and I'll talk your ears off. Don't spring things on me.
Many children with autism thrive on routine and predictability, which can make vacations challenging for them. Here's a story from USA Today with tips on how to plan a trip, choose an airline that provides accommodations for autistic children, and details on what to expect from an autism-certified resort.
Training lunch break & watching vids as a brain palate cleanser of sorts. I found this fascinating. Such parenting supports weren't available 20 yrs ago. It's wonderful to see #autism#parenting#pda communities offering validation, support & education. This video reminded me of a time I visited my sister when my niece was a baby. She couldn't stop playing w/a toy that was frustrating her, she cried every time she hit it but kept doing it. #cognitivepsychology https://youtu.be/1ozg_e2XHvI?si=c_CebRLvpPZMvjOr
My doctor wasn't interested in giving me an #autism diagnosis.
I've had him for 10 years, have only seen him for 3-4 appointments during this time, and In our 45 seconds discussing autism, he stated, after literallylooking me up and down, "I don't see it."
Well, you wouldn't. I do eye contact for important short meetings like doctors and lawyers, I am a chameleon and can dress myself for any role, including, "older dude going to doctors office" and I can read, write and speak fairly eloquently, so in these meetings, what would he even be "seeing"?? 🤔
I'm assuming that some people shop for diagnosis for long term disability or other reasons, but I just wanted to know if I suck at Being Normal for any particular reason besides I Suck at Life, which I'm ... oh, whatever. There is no easy path for a second opinion, so I guess it dies here.
Apparently not #actuallyAutistic after all, and as I don't see any other path to diagnosis, I should probably shut the f about it
@Tim_McTuffty@BernieDoesIt@actuallyautistic apologies for the late reply but this is totally relatable, and I'm glad you got assessed. I am probably going to do a serious set of self exams, and maybe see if there is any path to seeing a more qualified professional here (as with many places, the medical profession here is still stressed by echos of the covid crisis, and there are doctor shortages and waits for certain specialties.)
@hooves@BernieDoesIt@actuallyautistic I got lucky, the NHS has a horrendous waiting list , but there is a little know bit of legislation that allowed me to use a private provider (after much soul searching) & it was done & dusted within 6 months.
I wish you luck with your journey mon ami, if you check out #TimsASDjourney there maybe some vaguely useful nuggets of info buried in the dross of my daily ramblings about ASD & life in general.
I’m a cis male, but my autistic traits correlate with those of cis female individuals.
The study of autism is plagued with sexism, even to this day. There is definitely more awareness of the problem nowadays, but the prevalent view of how autism presents in people is largely based on antiquated stereotypes. If you are white, male, and you annoy your parents, you are more likely to get diagnosed by the professionals, than if you are not white, not male, and manage to mask your autism.
(A quick note on my terminological choices. I have no idea how being trans or nonbinary may affect autistic presentation. I don’t mean to exclude, but I also don’t want to speak about things that I’m not familiar with. I’m sorry about this.)
I believe now that my own deceased mother was autistic too, but went undiagnosed because of this sexism. She was bipolar, and alcoholic. These are often the conditions that women who are not diagnosed experience. She was treated for both conditions, but no treatment took. These treatments did not take, because they were dealing with the symptoms of autism, without dealing with the autism itself.
Early on in my research about autism, I came upon this site:
I’ve taken many of the self-assessment tests there, and I always end up neurotypical or borderline autistic. The DSM-5 is not helpful either. Actually, I think it is a step back from the online self-assessment tests. No psychiatrist of mine has ever suggested autism as an explanation for my mental troubles. I’ll remind you that I’m self-diagnosed.
Fediverse user @ImmedicableME recently posted a link to this page:
It is not the first time I find that the female presentation of autism is more reflective of how I present, too. In the book Unmasking Autism by Devon Price, the author talks of a period of time during which doctors talked about male and female autism. When I was reading this book, I could easily see my traits listed among those that doctors assigned to females.
In fiction, too, I find myself closer to the female autistic characters than the male ones. I am nothing like Rain Man, or Sheldon Cooper. I’m not rude, nor do I have an obsession with trains. The character I compare myself readily to is Quinni from Heartbreak High, an autistic girl.
For the record, I do not think that it is scientifically valid, or useful to talk about “male” and “female” autism anymore. I do not have a problem with the page I linked to above, which gives a list of traits generally linked with being female. It is important to raise the awareness that autism in females may present differently than the stereotypes.
However, once the awareness has been raised, it is better to drop the labels male and female. I am a cis male who presents mostly like a female. I think, just like my mother was undiagnosed because she did not present the male stereotype, so am I have been undiagnosed by the professionals because I do not present as the male stereotype either. Still, again, once I’ve given this explanation, I no longer want to use the binary to explain autism.
Now, I don’t have a great explanation for why I present the way I do. I suspect the pressure of living with a narcissistic father are partially to blame. I sometimes say that I don’t experience meltdowns, but this is not correct. I do experience them, but very rarely. My father, however, is an expert at triggering meltdowns in me. He knows exactly what buttons to push. Therefore, to avoid presenting too big an opportunity to him to press my buttons, I’ve learned to camouflage my autism.
My mother’s and my case are direct examples of how sexism hinders our access to medical care. We’ve both been bitten in the ass because of our manifestation of symptoms did not conform to the stereotype.
@yourautisticlife@actuallyautistic Perhaps it’s not really traits found in female autism and simply lesser-recognized traits or traits more often seen in autistic people who are able to mask or in those with a certain type of social/emotional intelligence.
I’m not familiar with research addressing why these are ascribed to females, but it seems that traits attributed to sex (and to some extent gender, since some of this could be due to sex-based socialization) are becoming irrelevant.
I think as well as sharing my Autistic experiences I'm going to also try and share information about my combination of chronic diseases and what it does to an individual's body over time... It seems many people I am close to have never even heard much about Celiac's or especially Graves' disease...
Alert #autism folks. A friend is mentoring a founder going through a startup accelerator program. It’s for idea stage founders. He’s wanting to do customer discovery interviews to validate his idea, which is a mental health app to support adults with autism.
@kcarruthers@actuallyautistic Check this out
👆👆👆in case you’re interested participating in a customer discovery interview re: development of an app for autistic adults