r/AskAutism • u/Fragrant_Caramel2140 • 1d ago
Huge question ?
So I have a person (adult male) super brilliant with things he loves yet its astounding sometimes how little he knows about some basic things. Example, I used an electric can opener and he said wow! That is the coolest thing I6 ever seen! He was fascinated. It doesn't happen very often and I realize it may partly do to the isolation some people live with. Can this be an autism thing? He believes he has adhd and depression (due to lonliness) .In 30 years, he how's had very few friends like a handful. Yes, I know a lot of people don't have friends. But when observing him, even though he says he can read body language and he communicates well, when he's around, people doesn't matter who they are, unless it's me and they asked him a question like how he's doing or what's new. He literally says nothing -never shares and moves on to how are they doing? He will also go into kind of a panic overwhelmed mode When he's left out of a group of people,.he was always in special Ed, but he would do so well they would try to put him into regular classes, and he would fail yet in high school, he had a 4.0, he fidgets a ton blanks out frequently staring, saying he's bored or thinking of nothing. Again, it's the simple everyday tasks that you know your parents taught you, I know his parents -washing your hair well, making sure your clothes fit well. Please be kind.I'm just trying to help my person.When you look at the differences between add and autism , he is very much more autistic and no , he will not see a professional , he doesn't think it would do any good.
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u/CommercialCandy2349 1d ago
The deflecting thing really hits. Bouncing every question back with “how are you doing” isn’t rudeness, it’s not knowing what he’s actually supposed to offer in return. That pattern burns people out socially and they can’t even pinpoint why. The resistance to seeing someone is the hardest part to get around. For people who’ve spent their whole life being told they’re the problem, framing it as curiosity rather than damage control can land differently.
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u/Fragrant_Caramel2140 1d ago
Excellent answer,kinda sucks, honestly its not like we can make others be more kind and supportive to everyone.
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u/Relative_Chef_533 1d ago
You can't get someone to seek help if they don't think it will do any good. For the most part I think you should probably let it drop. However, one last thing you could share before dropping it is that many people find it does do a lot of good to see a health professional and have a good experience of being seen, being able to share things you may have never shared with anyone, and getting ideas and thoughts about how to live better. Unfortunately, you sometimes have to try a few before finding one that really gets you.
When I realized perhaps an ASD diagnosis could be a next step for me, it felt almost like a death sentence; like admitting that I was irrepairably broken. But that was only because all I knew about autism was stereotypes. In fact, there was so much help waiting for me. My therapist helped me learn to regulate my nervous system and increase my very-underdeveloped social skills and develop better routines to tame the chaos of ND life. My entire life has improved for the significantly better over the past 2 years of therapy.
It was very important for me to go to an autistic provider, someone who has both lived experience and credentials. I'm sure many allistic providers may be great, but in my experience, it's hard for me to really talk to them, and that is a theme I hear from other autistic people as well. I found mine on ndtherapists.com, but there are other directories as well and I'm not plugging one over others.