autisticproblems

[autisticproblems]

Source ~ Unknown

[Begin Image Description: Black text on pale pink background.

Title: "What Does Masking Look Like?"

Suppressing stims

Hiding your emotions

Acting like your peers even when it's uncomfortable or doesn't make sense

Putting on fake facial expressions

Not asking for help

Pretending to enjoy something you dislike (or vice versa)

Withholding meltdowns (extremely dangerous)

Finding yourself lying more than usual (covering up bluntness)

Forcing hurtful eye contact

Apologising excessively for poor memory or any other autisic trait you have that is impossible to mask

Having to forcefully stop yourself from oversharing on a special interest

Attributing certain unmaskable traits to "being a perfectionist" or "just anxious"

Having to pretend to not be overstimulated (leading to burnout)

End Description]

[autisticproblems]

My mother sometimes says that while I am on the spectrum I probably shouldn't call myself autistic because I "mostly only got the positive traits" and like I can't force myself to do anything I don't want to(I think that might be executive dysfunction and not me just being lazy), my real life social skills are trash... Do you know how to deal with that? My mother has a PhD in psychology btw.

I’ve debated how to answer this since it came in. I’ve written and deleted two long responses and four short ones.

In the end, all I can say is that I don’t have any practical advice because I do not have any experience with this situation beyond limited education and hearing bits and pieces of other experiences that are similar.

What I can say:

The only person who gets to determine the “positive” aspects of a disability is the person with the disability. It is dismissive for a parent to suggest that you are not “disabled enough” when clearly you have difficulties. Autism is a disability, it is disabling, and if it is not then it is by definition not Autism*. It is unreasonable and unethical to deny a diagnosis to a person because they are “only a little disabled.” They are still disabled.

Your mother is denying you a diagnosis because you aren’t disabled enough, using reasoning that is questionable at best, and the fact that you felt the need to mention she has a PhD suggests that she uses the authority of her degree and/or license to make that point. “I’m a psychologist, I know the truth.”

Furthermore, there is a very specific reason that medical practitioners of any kind should not be making final determinations for loved ones with regards to disability. A person will always have a very hard time being truly objective about family, particularly those they raised or took care of. For a perfect example of why this is, see the above two paragraphs.

The reason I have no advice is because experience tells me that you are probably up the proverbial creek without a paddle (especially if you are a minor!). Experience tells me that a medical person with a PhD that has Opinions about family can only be swayed by one argument: a diagnosis by a colleague that specializes in that diagnosis.

Obviously, you have a much better idea of whether or not this is the type of person your mother is. Maybe pointing out all of this to her will make her say, “You know what, you’re right, I’m not an autism expert. I think you’re wrong, but that isn’t for me to decide.” Maybe she will say, “I’m your mother, I know best, I don’t want to hear your excuses.” Experience tells me it is much more likely to be the latter if you are a minor, and still likely if you are an adult.

In the end, I can’t tell you what to do. I don’t even have practical suggestions. But maybe, hopefully, knowing the sort of problems involved well help you find the people who have been through this sort of thing and will have practical solutions. Whatever those solutions are, they will be very different depending on whether you are a minor, dependent adult, or independent adult.

In the meantime, please seek support and understanding from the autistic community. Even if your mother is “right” in that your issues are not autism related (maybe your executive dysfunction comes from depression or ADHD, I don’t know!), if our support helps you while you figure it all out then you are absolutely welcome here.

[*insert side rant about “what do you call an undiagnosed autistic who copes well enough with autism they seem allistic? Autistic.]

[autisticproblems]

“That’s right…. my son’s paediatrician says that my autistic way of parenting supports my son too well for him to be traumatised enough for a diagnosis, so we should let school traumatise him and come back later…

…Which brings me to thinking about how we identify autism in the children who are now being raised by autistic parents in a respectful and supportive way. The children who have experienced acceptance of their autistic neurology from birth and who have never been exposed to harmful therapies.

Autistic children raised by accepting parents, often autistic themselves.”

[autisticproblems]

What gets me about the anti self-DX crowd is the consistent argument that the professionals spend years learning about this stuff, which is why they know more.

Except… they don’t.

Do you really think that every doctor spends years learning about every single disease, disorder, or whatever? They would literally never graduate. Ask any psych student how much time they spent actually learning about something like autism. Like, the actual number of concrete hours they spent studying autism.

I promise you by the time I am done with my psych degree, I will have spent way, way, more time on understanding autism on my own then I ever did in class, and that’s if I take a class specifically for developmental disorder. And way, way, way, more time understanding my autism in particular than I ever did learning about it in school.

[autisticproblems]

sometimes I think about how the autistic experience is literally defined by trauma and get so angry it’s hard to speak

[autisticproblems]

i support the radical idea that the ICD and DSM—medical authorities—don't determine what communities i belong to

[autisticproblems]

so we decided having a comprehensive, in-depth explanation of why we’re pro-self diagnosis & why you should be too would be good, so we have something to refer back to when needed.

tl;dr: self-diagnosis is a result of the professional diagnostic system being broken & ableist, & society being ableist in general. the problem isn’t self-diagnosis; the problem is the ableism & other bigotry making self-diagnosis necessary.

so, in order to get professionally diagnosed as autistic, several things have to happen:

Keep reading

[autisticproblems]

it’s wild that there are people who still think that non-autistic people who might not even have taken a single class about autism (and if they did, it was about autism from a non-autistic, behaviorizing perspective) can recognize autism more accurately than actual autistic communities

it’s wild that they still think this even after a bunch of researchers literally confirmed that autistic people are, in fact, experts on autism because of lived experience of autism

[autisticproblems]

I hate that this is the way it is, but if you’re questioning “is this an ‘everyone does this’ thing or is it an autism thing?” this rule is pretty much ironclad:

If you got bullied for it, it is NOT an “everyone does this” thing. “Everyone does this” things are, by definition, things that people don’t get bullied for.

[autisticproblems]

HELLO AUTISM COMMUNITY!

I’m sorry, but I’ve gotta rant. The other day I was in New York, and I saw this billboard:

Look a little closer:

Yep, you’re seeing this right. Autism Speaks. On a billboard with Julia. Sesame Street has joined forces with our “pals” (and by pals I mean enemies that we wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole) over at Autism Speaks. Julia, a character who has been embraced and loved by the autism community, is now the face of Autism Speaks, an organization that has hurt our community more than it has helped. I am heartbroken. This character has made me, as an autistic person, so happy and gave me hope that autism is starting to become more accepted by society. And although I don’t speak for everyone in the autism community, I know that there are many people who felt the same way. But now that this character is the face of an ableist movement which pushes the idea that autism is a disease in need of a cure, that hope is gone. PLEASE reblog this to get the word out, whether you’re on the autism spectrum or not.

[autisticproblems]

Self diagnosis

You cannot self diagnose yourself with autism. You cannot diagnose yourself with ANYTHING unless you are a certified doctor.

Why is it that a majority of tumblr all of a sudden wants to have autism 2019??

A fake autistic (it’s so weird to say cuz there just shouldn’t BE fake autistics) telling someone that they’re “privileged” is honestly mind boggling.

Like why? Why would you want autism?? It isn’t pretty, it doesn’t make you quirky or cool or a special little snowflake. It just makes you mentally disabled. Which is also not cool. It’s just so not fun. Like not fun at all. I wish it were as fun as people are hyping it up to be 😂.

The only person who ever hyped up autism for me was my mom. She would always tell me “Einstein had autism and he wasn’t dumb”, or “autism does not equal retarded”. (Her words not mine).

Hell if you have autism, you usually don’t even know or notice unless a doctor tells you. I was pissed when my doctor told me that shit. I was young as fuck when I was first diagnosed but hearing it again and again as a teen isn’t the most joy inducing thing. I’ve never in my life seen autism as a cool thing. I’ve always seen it as a thing I should keep quiet about or else I’ll be bullied or just an unwanted weight on my shoulders. A shitty label that I can’t just rip off.

Next time a self diagnosed autistic tells me to check my privilege I’ll tell them to check up with their doctor because they obviously have something and it’s not autism 🙄

( not trying to be rude because you may actually have a mental illness that’s not autism. Always see a doctor if you’re medically questioning something )

[autisticproblems]

Might have these out of order but just a good thread to share.

[autisticproblems]

Pretending to be Normal by Liane Holliday Willey is a memoir of a woman figuring out she’s autistic after her child was diagnosed with autism.

Though she doesn’t use the phrase “self diagnosis,” it’s essentially a memoir about her self diagnosis process. It has a forward by autism researcher Tony Attwood, who was supportive of Willey’s self diagnosis. There’s a note where Willey expresses that she’s not interested in professional diagnosis at the time of writing.

This book was published in the 90s. Acceptance of autistic self diagnosis in our community isn’t new or exclusive to tumblr. And lo and behold, it hasn’t harmed anyone!

If a person learns about autism and thinks “that sounds a lot like me and would explain a lot of my experiences and struggles” that is not hurting anyone. Not even if they decide not to pursue a professional diagnosis. If you’re pretty sure you’re autistic, you’re not hurting anyone by saying “I’m autistic.”

[autisticproblems]

What gets me about the anti self-DX crowd is the consistent argument that the professionals spend years learning about this stuff, which is why they know more.

Except… they don’t.

Do you really think that every doctor spends years learning about every single disease, disorder, or whatever? They would literally never graduate. Ask any psych student how much time they spent actually learning about something like autism. Like, the actual number of concrete hours they spent studying autism.

I promise you by the time I am done with my psych degree, I will have spent way, way, more time on understanding autism on my own then I ever did in class, and that’s if I take a class specifically for developmental disorder. And way, way, way, more time understanding my autism in particular than I ever did learning about it in school.

[autisticproblems]

Another post about why I support self-dx folks

Let’s say we have 2 people, Bobby and Betty.

Bobby does not have autism. Bobby is 13 and Bobby thinks he has autism. Bobby identifies with a lot of the posts in the actuallyautistic tag and it makes him feel good to be part of it. He took a few tests online and some of them said he’s autistic, although not all. Bobby will hang out until he grows up and realizes he wasn’t autistic after all, and it was all just circumstance, but at least he found a community that made him feel better when he was unsure.

Betty does have autism. She’s 22 now, still noticing symptoms in her everyday life. But she was never officially diagnosed and struggled enormously with the lack of accommodations and lack of knowledge of how to deal with her symptoms. She has read the DSM-5 and a whole heap of information available to her online and after weeks of research and note-taking on her behavioral patterns, she has come to the conclusion that she is autistic.

I’d support both these people, because you never know which one is a Bobby and which one is a Betty.

Maybe they’re faking it for attention, but who cares? If some kid is faking it for attention, I guarantee they’ll grow out of it. But if you act like a jerk to every self-dx person you come across, you’re being a jerk to a whole lot of people who actually are autistic. 

Personally, I’ll always give self-dx people the benefit of the doubt, because they could be autistic, and that’s enough for me.

[autisticproblems]

Hey everyone, I am a 25 year old autistic guy with ptsd and fibromyalgia. I am currently living with my ex, we recently split up. I am most likely moving to a housing facility through my therapists office in about a month and am applying for a grant for that as well as rental assistance for next month at my current place. My ex is also mentally ill and her last job treated her poorly so she started a new job, but will only get one small check this month. I will.not make enough to cover rent, so I am begging you to help in any way you can. If I get approved for rental assistance I will gladly refund you if you leave contact information. I am not looking to make extra money or anything, just enough to live and be able to afford medication. Anything helps. Thank you.