Kevin Davy on Nostr: npub1mewd5…etau6 For all those who might be interested. I thought I might share ...
npub1mewd58tz390gcnw0ml99alkzzgcuj2yg9tdsjwt45zga54rtsj8qketau6 (npub1mew…tau6)
For all those who might be interested. I thought I might share some of the things I learnt whilst realising I was autistic. These may, or may not, apply to you, but I hope someone finds something helpful.
I started upon the path of realising I was autistic by taking one of the tests. But a single test is only indicative. Taking a number of the tests and repeating the results, becomes, of course, ever more indicative. But, in a sense, it is still not proof. Sooner, or later, you have to do the work and look into it properly. The best sources of information are your fellow autistic's and there are numerous excellent books and websites, YouTubers and places like this, where such information can be found.
But, one thing you must always bear in mind, is that there is no such thing as a one size fits all, autism. We are all different from each other, even more so than non-autistics (allistics) tend to be. Think of it like a pick and mix bar. All the various traits and the manifestations of those traits and we all come away from that bar with our own individual bag of goodies. So it's OK to not see yourself in how others describe themselves. It's OK not to experience the difficulties that others might, or even the way that they may see some things as strengths or positives, when to you, they are not. This is normal.
It's also important to bear in mind that we can often not see traits within ourselves, not at first anyway. Sometimes it's because we see them as normal. Perhaps, we've picked them up from parents, or siblings, without realising that they may have been just as much in the dark about being autistic as you were. Sometimes it's because we've become too adept at not seeing them, at masking our own awareness of them from ourselves. It can also be that we don't think we have them, because we're not affected by them. This can often be because, without realising it, we've either carefully arranged our lives not to be, or have gone to great lengths to create the necessary accommodations that enable us to deal with them and just think of those processes as a normal part of our lives now, without taking the step back and thinking about why they are.
The fact that we all can be so different from one another, is also why we sometimes struggle to see ourselves in the official criteria for autism as outlined in the diagnostic manuals. The thing to remember about these, is that they are almost entirely the product of allistics looking in, rather than the experiences of actual autistics. They can also seem too deficit based and you might struggle to see yourselves fitting them because of that. Mostly because as adults we've spent a long time learning how to cope with the problems and also how to avoid them. But, the thing to remember about this, is that an official diagnosis is far more to do with determining how badly you might be affected by being autistic, than it is about whether you are autistic. And, unfortunately, the less experienced an assessor is in dealing with adults, the more this is likely to be the case.
For this reason and many others, self-diagnosis is considered as acceptable as an official-diagnosis to the vast majority of autistics. And, I suppose, this is the final point I want to make. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that this is something that has to be dealt with by the medical community. That it's something that should be diagnosed by a doctor and this is the appropriate route to follow. That only professionals can help you and that they will be the source of any information and guidance you need. Because, after all, for so much else it would be the route and I'm not saying it's not. For many reasons, getting an official diagnosis is often the right path for someone to follow. What I'm saying is that after doing the work, after taking the time to learn and process it all and having come to the point of accepting and realising that you are autistic, that perhaps taking the next step of trying to get an official diagnosis, is no longer required, or needed.
#Autism
#ActuallyAutistic
For all those who might be interested. I thought I might share some of the things I learnt whilst realising I was autistic. These may, or may not, apply to you, but I hope someone finds something helpful.
I started upon the path of realising I was autistic by taking one of the tests. But a single test is only indicative. Taking a number of the tests and repeating the results, becomes, of course, ever more indicative. But, in a sense, it is still not proof. Sooner, or later, you have to do the work and look into it properly. The best sources of information are your fellow autistic's and there are numerous excellent books and websites, YouTubers and places like this, where such information can be found.
But, one thing you must always bear in mind, is that there is no such thing as a one size fits all, autism. We are all different from each other, even more so than non-autistics (allistics) tend to be. Think of it like a pick and mix bar. All the various traits and the manifestations of those traits and we all come away from that bar with our own individual bag of goodies. So it's OK to not see yourself in how others describe themselves. It's OK not to experience the difficulties that others might, or even the way that they may see some things as strengths or positives, when to you, they are not. This is normal.
It's also important to bear in mind that we can often not see traits within ourselves, not at first anyway. Sometimes it's because we see them as normal. Perhaps, we've picked them up from parents, or siblings, without realising that they may have been just as much in the dark about being autistic as you were. Sometimes it's because we've become too adept at not seeing them, at masking our own awareness of them from ourselves. It can also be that we don't think we have them, because we're not affected by them. This can often be because, without realising it, we've either carefully arranged our lives not to be, or have gone to great lengths to create the necessary accommodations that enable us to deal with them and just think of those processes as a normal part of our lives now, without taking the step back and thinking about why they are.
The fact that we all can be so different from one another, is also why we sometimes struggle to see ourselves in the official criteria for autism as outlined in the diagnostic manuals. The thing to remember about these, is that they are almost entirely the product of allistics looking in, rather than the experiences of actual autistics. They can also seem too deficit based and you might struggle to see yourselves fitting them because of that. Mostly because as adults we've spent a long time learning how to cope with the problems and also how to avoid them. But, the thing to remember about this, is that an official diagnosis is far more to do with determining how badly you might be affected by being autistic, than it is about whether you are autistic. And, unfortunately, the less experienced an assessor is in dealing with adults, the more this is likely to be the case.
For this reason and many others, self-diagnosis is considered as acceptable as an official-diagnosis to the vast majority of autistics. And, I suppose, this is the final point I want to make. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that this is something that has to be dealt with by the medical community. That it's something that should be diagnosed by a doctor and this is the appropriate route to follow. That only professionals can help you and that they will be the source of any information and guidance you need. Because, after all, for so much else it would be the route and I'm not saying it's not. For many reasons, getting an official diagnosis is often the right path for someone to follow. What I'm saying is that after doing the work, after taking the time to learn and process it all and having come to the point of accepting and realising that you are autistic, that perhaps taking the next step of trying to get an official diagnosis, is no longer required, or needed.
#Autism
#ActuallyAutistic