Simon Baron-Cohen can stuff right off

[Smunder Woman]

Bats will be sad she can't experience my bad attempt at hiding my lack of surprise. :lol:

I have described it :)) Actually, it was helpful, because it was obviously genuine that you didn't think I was just being a fanny.

[Bat Macdui]

Bats will be sad she can't experience my bad attempt at hiding my lack of surprise. :lol:

I have described it :)) Actually, it was helpful, because it was obviously genuine that you didn't think I was just being a fanny.

:)) Lovely, almost-head-tilting Shoe. I actually felt pretty much the same when Ruby said 'I wouldn't be totally surprised if you were possibly Aspergers.' :))

Thank you everyone. That was hard to do but you've all been so lovely. And I love that you're interested. I would also like to give a shout out to the NW Posse, who when I was going through the very bad times six years ago were brilliant and took me out and Occupied Me and did my make up and tried to feed me cake when I went a bit eating disorder again. :)) And I am so looking forward to my sociopath cake. :))

From a nosey place, I’d really like to know in what way it makes you feel different. How do you feel you operate differently to others, if that makes sense?

There's so many answers to this. :)) I will try and do it justice. And probably add loads. And I'd be really interested in Smunder chucking in her experience as well. That thing Sally quoted is so true - if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person.

I really like this cartoon/explanation, which some of you might have seen as it does the rounds on social media a lot. If you (generic you) can't be arsed wading through my waffling, it's a good primer.

I feel like I have never quite fit or got people. In particular, with social stuff. I like people, I like being out and talking to them. But on my own terms. I find eye contact incredibly uncomfortable. I look at mouths and foreheads. I have never found a conversation easy, or flowing (except with other autistic women, actually). It looks from my perspective that people just intuitively flow into conversations. I don't understand how. Which is why I can seem abrupt, or rude, or like I'm sticking an oar in - I just don't understand where the natural flow sits. When I was at university people just seemed to flow together and talk and become friends and I just genuinely didn't understand how, or how I could do the same. If I am in a social situation, I am actively working at it. I am judging eye contact, I am processing language (this takes a bit longer for me than a lot of people) and it's exhausting. So now, I pick and choose when I have to do it. Because whilst I enjoy it, it's hard and I need to recover afterwards. Especially if it's in a noisy place. If I am also trying to batten down how much I can't cope with noise at the same time as working at conversation, I run out of energy quickly.

The noise thing is interesting. My hearing is enormously more acute than a lot of people's. (R went for a hearing test after he moved in with me, as he thought he was going deaf). But also, I can't filter out sounds. So in a coffee shop, I can hear the conversations at the next few tables perfectly, plus the serving staff, plus the clatter of plates and the scream of the coffee machine all at the same intense volume. I used to sit in places like that and wonder how everyone else wasn't going mad, because I genuinely thought if I had to endure it for long I would scream.

That's sort of a bit of it. I will add more later (if you're still interested). I see being autistic as being made up of a lot of traits, that affect me in ways that make me different. So the sum of the whole - the sensory stuff, the social, the black and white thinking all combine to make me just different enough to not 'fit'. For other autistic people it might that their sensory thing is touch, or smell. Or that they can work with their black and white thinking but their anxiety about routine and new things is off the scale. I like a lot of comforting familiarity, for example, but I can cope with a new building, new place. I know women who need a floor plan to go anywhere new. :)) I know someone who is sunglasses inside but doesn't mind noise too much etc.

[Bat Macdui]

pleasingly bloody minded

I would also like this as my title please. :lol: GANNET!!! *summons* I think Bean's too busy painting things at the moment.

[Luce]

Yes, I'd love to hear more, please.

Also, I liked that cartoon and I always saw the spectrum as linear in my head. But does that mean that everyone is on the spectrum but just some are placed in neuro-typical ways and some not? I can't figure out how to make that sentence make sense, soz.

[Loralei]

That is really, really interesting and enlightening, as is the cartoon. The more I learn about autism the more I realise how little i know about autism.

[Pippedydeadeye]

I can’t do eye contact comfortably at all. I look at teeth.

Same as what Lora said.

[Bat Macdui]

Also, I liked that cartoon and I always saw the spectrum as linear in my head. But does that mean that everyone is on the spectrum but just some are placed in neuro-typical ways and some not? I can't figure out how to make that sentence make sense, soz.

I think you're getting at the 'so everyone is a bit on the spectrum' thing, yes? :))

The best way to look at it, is that everyone can have some autistic traits - and autistic traits are just human traits, really, anyway. But to be autistic, you have enough of those traits, they are strong, and they are there from birth. They are enough to make you different is one way of looking at it. Another would be enough to make you disabled, or significantly disadvantaged in our current society (which is where you get to medical vs social model of disability). I am still working through my thoughts and feelings on the whole disabled thing. I don't think I am, but society thinks I am. So that's an interesting one to process.

The diagnositic criteria are continually evolving, as are the ways we see it, especially now as more and more gobby adult autistics are speaking out. :))

[smalex]

That's really interesting Bats. Thanks for sharing it. Some of the things you described sounded like things I associate with being an introvert but I can see what you mean about enough separate things conspiring to make it something else. Not being able to filter sound alone sounds incredibly hard. It's interesting because my old boss (the architect guy) was, I'm sure, some what autistic (We office shared with a guy who's son had significant ASD problems and he thought it too, I didn't just invent the idea). He wore a hearing aid and really really struggled in noisy environments which I always assumed was because of his hearing loss (and maybe it was) but he always looked... how you just described it, really.

eta: crossed with your last post!

[Smunder Woman]

Im not sure I believe in neurotypical, as it's used now tbh. There's still so much to learn about autism, and so many undiagnosed people, that I don't think it's as simple as neurotypical v autistic. Or that autistic isnt actually the typical.

As an aside, I've been doing some really grim research into the history of autism and, aside from the Asperger was basically a Nazi bit, it turns out that gay conversion therapy was originally designed to cure autism. So I'm not sure I trust that the work that has been done so far has been based on actual impartial science. And don't get me started on Autism Speaks and this fucking blue shit (they are actively seeking a cure, so everyone can be nice and normal :ella: )

[Morganna]

That is really, really interesting and enlightening, as is the cartoon. The more I learn about autism the more I realise how little i know about autism.

This, absolutely. My nephew is currently being tested (if that's the right term) for Autism/ASD, and I have been reading around it lately. The eye contact thing rang huge bells in his context, as (particularly when he doesn't want to listen) he actively looks around or covers his eyes. As he's only six, it's not easy to tell how much is just being six, but the behaviour is often treated as 'naughty' or insolent, which would be a real shame if it is something he can't help.

Did you self-diagnose, Bats, and then seek help, or did the diagnosis come out of more general therapy? Either way, it's great that you have something to work with, and that more women are being diagnosed too.

[Luce]

That makes perfect sense, thank you!

[Mrs Danvers]

I don’t have much to say Ms Batvia except well done you. It should never have been this hard but a woman who can climb mountains was never going to be defeated. All power to you from here on in.

[Heebie Jeebie]

I saw that cartoon years ago and have tried and failed to find it so thabks for posting it. I find it all so interesting, the variety of shapes and sizes humans can come in, and the way we are starting to accept that means on the inside as well as the outside. Seeing autism as on a proper spectrum instead of linear is so enlightening.

[Cerise]

Thank you for sharing. The cartoons are very interesting.

[Turtle Bean]

That cartoon is really good. I hadn't read this before you popped round otherwise I would have given you a friendly thump on the shoulder. And I know Zirk hugged you but I am unable to stop him doing that.

Anyway good work being shouty about it all. That's how it should be.

[Marth]

I think SB2 might be autistic. My friend who works in SEN and has an autistic friend also thinks he is, and thinks his dad is too. (Well previously Asperger's - both of them) She reacted like Ruby "well duh" when I spoke to her about it.

However I can't raise it with him, as he will react really badly. He's reacted terribly to other input in the past, when he tried to self harm and when he would lose the plot at school. I try and take things into account, and to be aware so I can take his needs into account.

I agree with Bean, you are the perfect person to be shouty about this issue regarding women and girls, as you are properly thoughtfully intelligent about stuff.

[Bat Macdui]

I don't actually mind being hugged. :)) I just mostly find it a bit of a shock when it happens (a lot of touch to me feels like a mild electric shock). And I don't get anything out of it, no sense of comfort or anything, so I remain mildly baffled about why you huggers want to do it :)) There are autistic people who love hugging, too. It depends on where their sensory issues/sensitivities lie. I can't stand light touch, or tight fitting clothes, or labels in clothes. But I can cope with a hug, I like it when R hugs me etc.

Did you self-diagnose, Bats, and then seek help, or did the diagnosis come out of more general therapy? Either way, it's great that you have something to work with, and that more women are being diagnosed too.

I have always thought I was, a bit. Then whenever I looked into it, in my 20s and 30s, I hit straight up against men, and maths and science and question like 'do you like strings of numbers and hate people' (slight hyperbole on the latter). So even though I'd done lots of the tests (see here for intro to them, if you're interested) and come out as autistic, I didn't believe I could be. Then 2 years ago I read a Sarah hendrickx article in Standard Issue and it resonated with me completely, and set me off looking at female presentations. After about a year of research I asked my GP to refer me. Then about 8 months after that, I went for private diagnosis, as it looked like the NHS wouldn't get round me for another year at least and I was impatient by then, I needed a confirmation. Not long after the private one, I had my NHS diagnosis and both of them, obv, were like 'SCREAMINGLY autisttic. SCREAMINGLY. :))

I read the Sarah Hendrickx article, then book, when I was in my last job and struggling enormously and it helped me work out why I was struggling. I couldn't cope with the networking requirements, the endless meetings, sitting face to face with people. The total lack of structure, where no-one cared when I came in etc. A vague boss, who gave vague instructions, rather than nice, concrete things to do. Combined, it was making me really ill.

The job I have now suits me miles better. I have a regular routine, I go in and do whatever bid I'm on that week, I rarely do meetings, and when I do they're structured and I am the expert there, so I know my role and don't have to be spontaneous. I sit in the corner with my noise cancelling earphones on and crack on. If the office gets noisy, I bugger off with reading material and sit in a meeting room. I am much, much less anxious, stressed and upset.

[Bat Macdui]

Im not sure I believe in neurotypical, as it's used now tbh. There's still so much to learn about autism, and so many undiagnosed people, that I don't think it's as simple as neurotypical v autistic. Or that autistic isnt actually the typical.

My therapist told me last week she didn't like neurotypical because she didn't like being labelled. I was all 'mate, how do you think I feel, I've got a bunch of ones that start with A now'. :lol:

I think I will do a labels and diagnosis 101 tomorrow (you lucky sods). It will help with the whole conversation. :))

[Livilla]

Gosh Bats, what a thread to read when I opened it expecting a rant about gotcha comedy. :lol:

Add me to the list of those who had no idea you've had so many difficulties to contend with Bats, brava for dealing with your issues and pursuing what you knew you needed. I had always just seen you as someone with strong opinions who wasn't afraid to defend them: just as it should be. :)) I am so glad that you have got the clarity you were looking for (and that your job and life and all that is so much better for you now).

It doesn't surprise me at all to learn that women are tragically underserved in this area of medicine at all. Par for the bloody course, isn't it.

[baargain]

Smunder! I remember my question! Tell us about your PhD please.