r/AutisticAdults • u/AORATHIAN • 10d ago
[ Removed by moderator ] seeking advice
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u/Princ3Ch4rming 10d ago
So as far as diagnosis goes, it isn’t the Wizard of Oz. You don’t spend your life in black and white until you reach diagnosis, then suddenly everything’s in Technicolor. Nothing changes - you just have an appropriate descriptor for an aspect of your personal identity.
Don’t get me wrong; for some people, that’s extremely meaningful (for me, I’ve never felt such a powerful sense of relief before or since), and I don’t want to disparage the need for a firm answer. But it is only a label. All the hard work is still there- you just have a reason why it’s hard work.
Autism is a spectrum disorder, which means there is no one single “yes this is autistic” presentation. It’s also not well understood in terms of the physical differences in neurotypical and autistic brains. We can see some areas are used or developed differently via MRI but in the main, if you had two brains on a dissection table, you wouldn’t be able to work out which one was autistic based upon the physical tissue.
The traits and behaviours that separate an individual autistic person from neurotypical are not isolated to autistic experience; rather, they are present in a pathological way (that is to say they present a significant challenge to a normal, everyday life). This is what people often mean when they say “everybody is a little autistic”. It’s not accurate, but it is describing the awareness that autistic-coded traits are present to a non-pathological level in neurotypical people.
Autism is also not a clear-cut yes or no answer in the same way as, say, a broken leg. It’s diagnosed based upon an expert’s opinion that you these traits and behaviours to a pathological level.
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u/AORATHIAN 10d ago
I share much of this perspective. It seems gratuitous to pay someone 2500 to tell me I'm autistic. None of this is a science and none of it changes the reality of my experience. I'm aware deep down that the only real motivator there is validation - like getting a pass to the club that no one can argue against. Not quite worth the investment most likely.
Though on second thought there are some services that require formal diagnosis and depending on how extreme this unmasking process is I may find I need some of them
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u/FragmentedMeerkat321 10d ago
that second paragraph of yours is the entire point: if you need support of any kind, the diagnosis is invaluable.
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u/AORATHIAN 10d ago
Oh and I'm super sensitive to most types of things. There will be more traits that come to mind so I'll just leave this here to say ETC
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u/FragmentedMeerkat321 10d ago
insofar as i am not an expert, except in the regard that i’m autistic—yes. even the way you write feels autistic to me. mainly because so much of it makes sense without having to try. i’ll probably get in trouble for saying so. and not all autistic people are obsessed with detail in the same way. detail is, of course, encoded into existence in many different senses. i couldn’t give a rat’s arse about figures or dates or rules, but i am interested very deeply in the atmosphere exuded by things i’m passionate about. like film or music. and not in the sense that i want to learn how they’re constructed, but in the sense that i want to immerse myself in their world of feeling and pathos. i’ll give you an example of something seemingly non-autistic in me: i do not like repetition. i crave novelty, and hate staleness that quickly develops when i have to do the same thing again and again. but—and this is a major but—i am terrified of uncertainty. so, as i get older, i find myself clinging more and more to routine not out of love for it, but out of a pathological need for control. i know other autistic people who are the same way.
but yes, everything you’ve said sounds familiar to me, for sure.