#pddnos

[studying-roxas]

fellow elopers, have you noticed that your elopment as an adult is different than when you were a kid? as a kid i just would not notice that i was separated from my group, but now as an adult i can notice and usually end up calling whoever i was with on my phone. its like, i still just walk the fuck off, but now i can catch myself

(idk if this even counts as elopement anymore because i can eventually notice that i've wondered off)

edit: i did elope regularly as a kid, and my parents even had to call the police a few times as they thought i was kidnapped. one time an entire park was looking for me. i know i used to elope, i just don't know if what i described above even still counts since i can catch myself before i get too far now.

[jirai2kei]

i still think it’s crazy how easily i was accepted in the autism community despite openly using the outdated label PDDNOS: anyone at anytime could have looked it up and discerned:

A. i no longer have an “autism” diagnosis.

B. am much older than i claimed to be on my old blog and told many stories specific to being diagnosed in the early 2000s.

[wemovedtodiscord111]

Account moving and will deleted soon

Please follow my discord and my discord is TherFren

So please follow my discord account and join my server.

Goodbye Tumblr

Have a nice day.

Please join my discord and follow my discord please.

[so1987]

tfw “yeah, i’m autistic, but what do you mean by autistic?”

[formerlyservedonslicedbread]

Shoutout to nonverbal people, semiverbal people, and people with IDs and high support needs. Hi

[autisticpride]

Something that a lot of people miss is that in diagnostic manuals, everything, in order to be diagnosed, must cause problems. That's what makes it a disorder.

This is usually phrased, in the DSM, as "Symptoms cause clinically significant [distress or] impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of [current] functioning." with very little variation, and seems more varied in the ICD, but is still present.

This is a requirement for diagnosis. You can have all the symptoms/traits of something, but if it doesn't cause problems, it isn't a disorder, and can't be diagnosed.

The pressures of society have been increasing, and the ability to take time for yourself has been decreasing (see: the expectation that everyone is available all the time), as has privacy.

That is why "more people" are neurodivergent now. Because more people are hitting their threshold.

Someone in an autism facebook group I'm in just asked "How am I supposed to earn enough to make a living without burning out?"

Someone replied: "You're not. Even neurotypicals can't right now in the system designed for them. We're the canaries in the coalmine. When we start failing, they know something is wrong."

[narcissisticpdcultureis]

pddnos/npd questioning culture is ironically empathizing with other people's experiences with low/applied empathy.

.

[autismaccount]

Autistic Experiences with Low Support Needs

This post is to summarize some of the preliminary results from an informal survey about autism-related support needs on Tumblr. I gave versions of this survey separately to both Reddit and Tumblr users. Now that the Tumblr survey has surpassed 500 responses, I'm giving an overview of what Tumblr users mean when they claim different support needs labels. For example, what does it mean to be low support needs versus high support needs?

I used the following groups: (very) low support needs; low-moderate support needs; moderate/medium support needs; moderate-high support needs; (very) high support needs. This post is summarizing the Tumblr group that self-identified as having (very) low support needs.

The next step will be to analyze both datasets to see what factors predict each support needs label in the Tumblr dataset, Reddit dataset, and overall. I'll also use graphs/figures to highlight major findings.

The survey can be found here:

Out of 532 people on Tumblr, 235 people identified as having very low (20%) or low (80%) support needs autism.

Demographics:

Ages varied but skewed young. 30% of respondents were between ages 13 and 18, 21% were between 19 and 21, 25% were between 22 and 25, 17% were between 26 and 30, and 7% were over 30.

Most participants were AFAB nonbinary (44%) or transgender men (30%). Many were cisgender women (20%). Minorities were cisgender men (3%), transgender women (2%), intersex (2%), or AMAB nonbinary (1%).

23% of participants were racial/ethnic minorities. Of these, the most common were Jewish (9%), Asian (6%), and Hispanic or Black (both 4%).

45% were diagnosed with autism after a full assessment. 21% were informally diagnosed by their therapists. 2% had an autism special education eligibility label. 12% were seeking a diagnosis, and 20% were undiagnosed and not seeking a diagnosis.

Current Diagnoses:

At the time of the survey, 53% of those with diagnoses were diagnosed with ASD without a level, and 28% were diagnosed with level 1 ASD. 11% were diagnosed with "mild" autism.

Historical Diagnoses:

16% of those with diagnoses were at one point diagnosed with mild autism and 1% were diagnosed with severe autism. 3% were diagnosed with classic autism, 21% were diagnosed with high functioning autism, 29% were diagnosed with Asperger's, and 4% were diagnosed with PDDNOS.

Age of Diagnosis:

Those with diagnoses were most often diagnosed between ages 16 to 18 (23%) followed by 13 to 15 (20%).

12% were diagnosed before age 8, 11% were diagnosed between 9 to 12, 15% were diagnosed between 19 to 21, 12% were diagnosed between 22 to 25, and 8% were diagnosed after age 25.

Most considered their diagnosis somewhere in-between early and late (34%), late (47%), or very late (1%). 15% considered it early. 4% were unsure.

Understanding of Support Needs Labels:

The most common reasons they identified as having (very) low support needs were the intensity and types of support they needed (91%) or the frequency of support they needed (76%). Less common responses were their intellectual or language functioning (36%), the community they fit best (33%), their DSM-5 level specification (9%), professional opinion (7%), or their diagnosis (e.g., "high functioning autism"; 6). 3% said it changes too often to say, and 9% weren't sure.

In general, people thought support needs labels should be based on the intensity and types of support needed (92%) or the frequency of support needed (86%). Less common responses were their intellectual or language functioning (34%), professional opinion (20%), the community that fits best (16%), or DSM-5 level specification (14%). 6% said should be based on diagnosis (e.g., "high functioning autism"). 6% said it changes too often to say, and 11% weren't sure.

Frequency of Help Needed:

A minority rarely need any help or support (9%). Many only need accommodations and mental health support (25%). Most would benefit from (53%) or need (6%) help weekly. A minority would benefit from (5%) or need (2%) help daily.

Type of Help Needed:

Most needed no help or sometimes needed some help for basic life tasks. Almost all toileted without help (96%), and most could also independently groom (70%), eat (61%), manage hygiene (59%), cook (55%), shop (52%), and access the community (50%). Most needed some help sometimes with planning (63%), cleaning (55%), managing health (53%), and communicating with professionals (51%).

Intensity of Help Needed:

On a scale of 0-3 (needing no help to cannot do at all), they averaged 0.59 (standard deviation: 0.66), indicating a need for some help sometimes.

Severity of Autism Symptoms:

On a scale of 0-3 (not having a symptom to it being severe), they averaged 1.44 (standard deviation: 0.66), indicating low to moderate autism symptoms.

Overall restricted-repetitive behaviors (1.36) were slightly worse than social-communication (1.33).

The highest rated symptoms overall were sensory processing (1.75) and special interests (1.57), and the lowest were nonverbal communication (1.31) and socioemotional reciprocity and stimming (both 1.35).

Intellectual Disability or Language Impairment:

1% had borderline intellectual disability and 1% mild.

1% had mild and 1% moderate receptive language impairment. 2% had mild, 1% moderate, and 1% severe expressive language impairment.

99% were fully verbal and 1% semiverbal or semispeaking. 3% were part-time AAC users.

Masking:

Almost half come across as "off" instead of autistic (49%), but a sizeable minority can pass as neurotypical (18%). Others can only mask well briefly (10%) or can't mask well or for long (7%). A minority want to mask but can't (3%), don't understand masking (6%), or deliberately don't mask (7%).

Autism Symptoms:

The most commonly endorsed symptoms were shutdowns (73%), alexithymia (66%), difficulties with interoception (66%), meltdowns (58%), echolalia (57%), and autistic mutism (54%).

Less than half tended to be logical compared to emotional thinkers (41%), think in images (29%), have splinter skills in science, technology, engineering, math, music, or visual arts fields (28%), have splinter skills in language or writing (22%), have synesthesia (22%), or have aphantasia (lack of mental imagery; 17%).

Less than half endorsed hyper-empathy (44%), pathological demand avoidance (40%), difficulty with autobiographical memory (40%), poor gross motor skills (39%), ARFID or food selectivity (38%), low empathy (33%), difficulties generalizing information (32%), poor muscle tone (27%), poor fine motor skills (26%), selective mutism (26%), poor theory of mind (16%), psychosis (14%), and catatonia (10%).

Symptoms Worsened:

35% had experienced their autism symptoms getting worse. This was most often due to burnout (23%), puberty (15%), trauma (14%), or regression (3%).

27% hadn't experienced their autism getting worse, but their symptoms were more obvious or difficult when there was more demands on them. 15% had temporarily been worse during burnout.

4% claimed this changed their autism levels from 1 to 2. 1% were in the process of re-assessment to confirm this.

Symptoms Improved:

42% had experienced their autism symptoms getting better. This was most often due to their environment improving (25%), naturally with age (20%), medication (11%), learning to mask (9%), intervention (7%), or puberty (3%).

8% said their symptoms were temporarily better in a more supportive environment.

7% claimed this changed their autism levels from 2 to 1 and 1% from levels 3 to 1. 1% had been re-diagnosed to match this.

Views on Self-diagnosis:

Most thought that autism can be carefully self-diagnosed (69%). Many thought that autism is almost always (35%) or always (27%) okay to self-diagnose. 42% thought it's okay to self-diagnose if an assessment is impossible to obtain, and 9% thought that it's okay to suspect autism but not self-diagnose it. 1% thought it's never okay.

Most thought that autism levels can be carefully self-diagnosed (62%), and 33% thought it's okay to self-diagnose if an assessment is impossible to obtain. Many thought that it's almost always (25%) or always (15%) okay to self-diagnose autism levels. Many thought that it's okay to suspect autism levels but not self-diagnose it (13%), and 2% thought it's never okay.

Most thought that autism support needs can be carefully self-diagnosed (57%), and 32% thought it's okay to self-diagnose if an assessment is impossible to obtain. Many thought that it's almost always (30%) or always (23%) okay to self-diagnose autism support needs. Some thought that it's okay to suspect autism support needs but not self-diagnose it (7%), and 1% thought it's never okay.

Preferred Labels:

Most preferred to be called autistic people (92%). This group preferred to refer to their autism and ADHD separately (31%) compared to use the term AuDHD (21%).

Disability:

63% considered themselves disabled from autism, and 16% from another condition but not autism. 6% didn't consider themselves disabled, and 16% were unsure.

Mental Health Comorbidities:

The most common mental health comorbidities were anxiety (75%), depression (57%), and ADHD (55%).

PTSD (29%), dissociative disorders (22%), OCD (21%), sleep disorders (19%), and eating disorders (16%) were also notably elevated.

The least common mental health comorbidities were learning disorders (12%), personality disorders (11%), tic disorders (8%), bipolar disorders (5%), schizophrenia spectrum disorders (5%), and substance misuse disorders (3%).

7% had no mental health comorbidities.

Physical Health Comorbidities:

The most common physical health comorbidities were gastrointestinal issues (31%), neurological disorders (25%), connective tissue disorders (25%), musculoskeletal disorders or injuries (17%), and autoimmune disorders (15%). All other conditions were below 15%.

2% had no physical health comorbidities.

Overall Support Needs:

Considering comorbid conditions, 13% remained very low support needs and 46% low support needs. 32% had low-moderate support needs, 7% had moderate/medium support needs, and 1% had moderate-high support needs.

[buntismz]

WOAH, you're also level 2??? i'm not professionally diagnosed with a level myself (i was diagnosed at 11 at around 2007, way before levels were established, with autism, pddnos, and "asperger's disorder" at various times), and i believe my level of social and repetitive behavior disability would qualify as level 2 (with my verbal and communicative sharing qualifying potentially for level 3 in an extroverted version because as you can see i literally do not understand what are proper boundaries to share with strangers aside from the obvious stuff like sexual things most of the time, and with everything except for schedules and sensory sensitivities being level 2, with schedules being level 3 and sensory sensitivities being level 1 because 1.) therapy helped me tolerate loud noises better and i don't scream as often as frequently at loud noises anymore, i can tolerate more textures though i still struggle, and i am in fact heavily sensory seeking --- i like touching different types of textures from tables to walls to fuzzy things to goo, and i like listening to music with weird amounts of textures which is why uk bass, hyperpop, glitch pop, glitchcore, and other music like that is VERY sensorily satisfying to our system) but i can't get a re-evaluation for my autism levels specifically because it'd be a burden on my mom's finances. all i know is that because i'm probably level 2 middle support needs, i can't attend in person classes because of my extent of my disability even part time, have to attend classes even with subjects i'm good at part time because more than one assignment at once stresses me out so bad i regress to a level 2.5 or 3 but hyperverbal type state, and i am...not trusted with most household appliances or even food (both because i'll gorge myself on anything tasty and edible, and because i have a tendency to either make a mess at the lightest or almost cause a house fire at the worst)

so yeah! i'm glad someone actually diagnosed level 2 can relate because...it makes me feel like i'm on the right direction with my diagnosis

im not offically diagnosed with level 2 actually my country has no where that uses levels so im not able to be assessed even if i wanted to, im just diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.

my level also self assessed but ive had input from my gp, mama (carer) and therapist who agree i fall under level 2 because ive never had any idea how social interactions work, im an extrovert and would talk to strangers the same way i would with friends (tho i never had many in the first place, apparently other kids were scared of me) i make better friends online because irl its so stressful to try be aware of others, i used to be able to mask but i burntout and now im back at having very little awareness of others social cues like body language, facial expressions, tone or even like implied meaning to words idk how that works i never have. even when i masked my autism was extremely obvious but since im (hyper)verbal with a high iq (top 19%) i wasnt noticed as autistic until i was 12 then diagnosed at 16.

i cant go to school either, i can do online schooling okay since its all done in my pace and its subjects i really enjoy (psychology is my special interest and what im studying but i also wanna study biology or medicine, also spIns) i cant clean or cook, i do have chronic illness that stops me but even if i didnt that stuff would be extremely overwhelming, i could cook maybe once every few days and i can make basic stuff like instant noodles n cup snacks. my mama has to pick my clothes out and tie my shoes because idk whats appropriate or not to wear, id wear pyjamas everywhere and change clothes like once a week if i wasnt told to.

[dazzelmethat]

Update!! I got the letter! Yayyy!! She had to go back and talk to her peers to look at the criteria again.

Teet Yeet fetchquest 1 completed!

"What you have is body dysphoria not gender dysphoria. Psyc eval letter failed. Give me 100 dollars."

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[system-of-a-feather]

Small update cause I never posted on it but regarding PDs we did stop actively investigating it with our therapist cause we got what Chunn needed without it and it was unreliable as our DID just had us flagged in many extremes in many ways with the only consistent things being narcissism, detatchment and antagonism being high and submissivity being basically 0 - but that was also excluding a lot of our more docile parts by design so even thats questionable

So PID wise we have a lot of statistically significant symptoms but none that form to signify any specific PD other than possibly PDDNOS

DSM wise we meet the criteria for SzPD and are on the fence (as in depending on how you count our symptoms would put us above or below diagnostic criteria) NPD

That said, for SzPD - at the time of discussion - we are too prone to attention seeking behavior (its episodic and a trauma defense thing) and for NPD we are far too unaffected by criticism or praise - both aspects being considered pretty large aspects of the concept of SzPD and NPD so while we technically match DSM standards we are kinda "ehhh" on it. I forgot what the talk on ASPD went but tendencies absolutely, but similar thing of "but not quite"

We got some insight though to us and hpw we are and so we decided it wasnt worth the time, effort and mental sweat to try to continue investigating it beyond tendencies and traits - especially when we honestly needed to look more at untangling the complex autism web

That said though, what with sitting in Fei more often, I am really thinking NPD is less likely and if we do have a PD itd probably be SzPD as like... most of our disordered narcissism goes way down as Fei as well as a lot of our antagonism leaving really just our lack of raw social drive and detatched nature but THAT even then is probably better explained by Autism so 🤷‍♂️

Its a saga we dont care for at the moment. Maybe in a year or two or three itll be a topic of interest but for now, eh.

[gruxpin]

Introduction

What's going on! This is my second main from @abigblueworld2007 since I don't have the email connected to that account anymore.

I'm a cisgender asexual girl who loves toys, music, and cartoons! Currently my main favorite cartoons are All Grown Up, Rugrats, SpongeBob, and Max & Ruby!

I am from the state of Maine, and mainly I collect Toys, vintage collectables, and DVDS, program things in Python and web-based coding languages, fixate on things, and more!

I have autism and it is not an aspergers diagnosis so please be aware of that, it is PDDNOS.

I own 2 1985 Teddy Ruxpins (One is from my childhood so that's why), a Grubby, a 2017 WCT Teddy, a hug n sing Teddy Ruxpin, a Big Bird Storymagic, a Cuddle Barn Mother Goose, Hatchimals, a Furby Connect, and a bit more!!!

I am an adult so I may post some things that are for older audiences, but if you want mainly all ages things, check my 1998 Teddy Ruxpin archive @1998ruxpin!

[wemovedtodiscord111]

My discord https://discord.gg/zC54aafwFD and it’s Therfren

Made this for someone on a friend's discord server I’m in.

Here’s my oc Douglas LoveFace in the style of Jellybox (i believe?)

[ethan-elliott]

Not only does this sicken me, but it downright angers me especially as a neuroscience student who has spent the last three months delving into research just on one specific part of autism. The blatant ignorance when it comes to basic science isn’t surprising, but still manages to astound me.

By very definition, autism is NOT a disease.

To put it simply, a disease is an abnormal condition of an otherwise ‘healthy’ body, usually in response to some kind of external factor such as bacteria or viruses. Usually, the cause of a disease can be identified and prevention, treatment, and/or cure can be made. If a (usually infectious) disease spreads or is highly prevalent throughout a particular place in a short space of time, then it’s an epidemic. (And if it spreads over/across different countries, then it’s a pandemic, like Covid-19)

The mere fact autism is diagnosed via the DSM (or the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), never mind the fact ‘autism’ is just the shorthand for ‘autism spectrum disorder’ highlights how it is not a disease. A disorder doesn’t have a clear cause, and is generally an inherent functional disturbance of the body rather than a specific, short-term reaction to something. They very often can be disabling, but it isn’t necessarily something to cure, rather to provide therapeutic frameworks to support people with those disorders.

Crucially, a disorder CANNOT physically be an epidemic. It’s true that the prevalence of autism - as measured by diagnosis - is increasing. But that is largely considered to be due to the fact of increased awareness and expansion of the diagnostic criteria (including creation of ASD rather than the separate distinct diagnoses of autism disorder, Asperger’s and PDDNOS which existed before). This whole concept of an “autism epidemic” is just blatant fearmongering — if you didn’t develop autism early in life, you physically cannot ‘get’ it.

The idea that they will magically find the “cause” of autism in as little as five months is utterly laughable. Science never works like that, for one. For another, there is absolutely not one clear cause of autism. The prospect of “eliminating exposures” is similarly ridiculous because it’s a highly genetic condition that is often heritable but isn’t always. And considering that we can’t detect genetic mutations before they happen (at least, not to my knowledge) then you just can’t stop that. Not to mention the fact it’s very very likely that multiple genes are acting in combination and some people with the ‘autism risk’ mutations don’t develop autism — genetics is insanely complex if it isn’t one known mutated gene that causes the condition. Some environmental factors have been linked to autism, but even then it’s not as simple as “if we remove this environmental factor then no one will get autism.”

This isn’t even to touch on the horrific and degrading things said about autistic people. As someone who is white, only suspects they’re autistic and is definitely not high support needs, it isn’t my voice you should listen to in that respect. But I will absolutely call out when people are being attacked on the basis of purely wrong ‘science’ because that is my responsibility as a scientist.

RFK Jr is a threat to public health and civil rights. Of course, First Felon empowers him.

[narcissisticpdcultureis]

pddnos/npd questioning culture is wondering why other roleplayers that like you and your partners threads don't follow you if they like them so much. Then you realize they most likely like your other partner's responses better than yours and you're caught between thinking 'fuck yeah my rp partner/fp is the best!' but 'why am i not good enough for you to follow and rp with me too?'

.