#maybe my autistic traits are just easier to spot to other people than my adhd ones

[steakout-05]

i was ranting to myself in a really disorganised fashion just now about how Barry has ADHD and like. dude. he absolutely has it. there's no way he doesn't. i myself am an undiagnosed ADHDer and i see so many traits in Barry. like.

in the rock opera 'The Very Last Minute', Barry spends the entirety of it procrastinating on training for the monster apocalypse and literally having almost every trait of ADHD ever. like when i watch this video and see Barry legitimately trying to do what he needs to but repeatedly getting stuck in a loop of jumping from task to task and struggling at actually get started on The Big Task™, i see me. like. that is me.

Barry tries to train. he really does. he really does try to take a crack at it, but he just can't focus on it. he just keeps getting distracted by it over and over and avoiding what he needs to do with other little tasks to keep him occupied at every single moment. and like he knows he really needs to do it. he knows that it's super important that he gets started on it as soon as he can. in fact, there are several lyrics to this effect: "Gotta keep focused, gotta keep training, but I just can't seem to stop procrastinating" and "I should probably stop working on this rocking theme song" are a couple that come to mind. but for whatever reason, he just can't focus on it properly and it ends up with him looking like he's "lazy" or "not putting in the effort". like, you see him get exhausted by doing a single skiprope jump, and that is how i feel whenever i try to do a big task when i'm not ready for it or focused at all. it's really really heard to focus on something that seems so big and overwhelming when you have ADHD, so you often kind of try to avoid it and ignore it because it's super daunting by doing smaller tasks. the difference between executive dysfunction and perceived laziness is that if you were being lazy, you wouldn't care and would likely be having a great time slacking off, even when you are reminded of the task at hand. but with executive dysfunction, you can forget about it for a while, but deep inside you likely still care and know you NEED to get the task done soon, and when you're eventually reminded or suddenly remember, you feel a crushing sense of dread. at least, that's how it is for me. and all the excessive task switching and getting everything else done except The Big Task™ you need to get done the most? i do that! i do that!!!

Barry literally does the ADHD thing where he sets an alarm that tells him to do what he needs to do, but the thing is that he was already doing something else on his phone beforehand and presumably forgot about the alarm, so when the alarm goes off, he just feels like he suddenly can't and that it's way too daunting to actually start because it feels like an intrusion. like. that's the ADHD thing!!! he's doing it!!!! he's doing the ADHD thing!!!!! his executives are NOT functioning!!!!!!

Barry also shows a lot of ADHD traits in 'Rainbow Barry' as well, as they're the most prominent in that specific short. in fact, he shows literally every single inattentive trait in all of the shorts together. impulsiveness, distractibility, impatience, forgetfulness, commitment issues, not following instructions properly, he's even got the emotional problems that come with it like being easily angered and frustrated. he EVEN shows the same traits in the JJ2 event dialogues!!! like!!!! look at the dialogues on the JJ wiki and tell me he isn't having ADHD traits!!!!! bro is clearly showing each individual ADHD symptom in everything he's in and either no one is noticing it or no one is talking about it and i'm just SO obsessed with this headcanon/theory of mine. Barry Steakfries is an undiagnosed ADHDer and nobody can convince me otherwise

[not-poignant]

pardon this question, you definitely don't have to answer it, but how did you learn or realize you were autistic? I've been researching symptoms and experiences and i know a few people who are on the spectrum, and i've been wondering if i am even though it doesn't present conventionally in some ways? My psychiatrist shut it down v quickly

Hi anon, :)

Okay, I have a long response so I’m putting it under a Read More. The first half is basically my journey to where I’m at now, and the second part is my thoughts on where you’re at, and how self-diagnosis is pretty cool in a world where a lot of the system is against adults getting diagnosed on the spectrum. Feel free to ignore the first part.

It’s a strange journey to how I got here. My folks actually suspected I had autism as a child, but because Asperger’s wasn’t a thing in Western Australia back then (early 80s), I had some borderline traits and then was tossed back without a diagnosis, and that was that.

I had an idea about 8-9 years ago, but never did anything about it, because I was wary of treading into a community I didn’t think I was a part of, and I didn’t want to offend anyone.

Then I had a friend who is also likely Aspie’s, tell me that she thought I very strongly fit the symptom profile of AFAB folks with Asperger’s (people who are women, or assigned female at birth, often have a different autism symptom profile to men, for a lot of reasons, and are often dismissed, because misogyny and a patriarchal medical system). Those symptoms were spot on, but again, I kind of ignored it.

About a year after that, I was having some massive communication troubles, and I ended up with a book on ‘how to communicate with your Aspie partner’ (or something like that, I can find it for you) and it was way more helpful than any book I’ve ever gotten on communicating. Like, way better than my ‘living with a PTSD partner’ better than ‘living with an X chronic condition partner.’ Like, scary accurate. After that, I started self-identifying as neuroatypical. I already knew that it is extremely hard for adults to be diagnosed on the spectrum, especially AFAB folk. It’s one area of self-diagnosis where I was like ‘the material is helping me and my life improve, therefore, I’m going to self-diagnose as having this thing.’*

(*I actually think this is one of the best reasons to self-diagnose, which is if the materials improve your quality of life once you engage with them.)

Some time after that, maybe two years ago now, my current psychologist didn’t do an official screening, but said I met all the core markers for high functioning autism, and had been treating me as a client that was neuroatypical for some time (with some success) even though she hadn’t told me that (she just assumed I knew I was on the spectrum) and we started talking about it.

I’ve never had an official screening, beyond what I had as a 3 to 4 year old. Recently - last year - my Mum found out in a weird weird way. A friend of hers met me twice, her son’s autistic (he’s low functioning) and said to my Mum: ‘I think your daughter has Asperger’s.’ Mum was like ‘haha no, she doesn’t.’ And then apparently this friend showed Mum sites on autism and Mum came to me and was like ‘ahhhhhhh I don’t want to offend you buuuuuut this seems, a lot like - this explains a lot.’ And I was like ‘oh yeah, totally, I’m totally with you, your friend is right.’ And Mum was like: ‘O.O’ and that’s the story of how we get along a bit better now and how she understands me a bit more, lol.

*

But here’s the thing about getting diagnosed as an adult, particularly if you’re AFAB (I don’t know if you are, but anyway) - it’s really hard, and it’s often really expensive. Currently, in Western Australia, a place known for having very high standards of public health access, it costs $1300 for most to get the official screening done, and most doctors / psychologists don’t offer it, and it’s not covered by almost all forms of insurance, nor is it covered by disability/health welfare. A lot of adults literally don’t have the privilege to afford diagnosis - it’s things like this which make me a big proponent of self-diagnosis, especially in cases where I know the western medical system is really bad at supporting adults with whatever thing the thing is. (ADHD is another, it’s really tough for adults to get diagnosed with this, and get appropriate treatment, especially based on country - it’s possible in Australia, it’s basically impossible in Italy because of cultural biases). 

I don’t want to say your psychiatrist is wrong, I don’t know your situation, or your history with them, I’m not a professional of anything remotely medical or psychological. At all. Plus I feel it would be remiss of me if I didn’t say that there is a huge overlap between some high functioning autism symptoms and mental illness symptoms, and a psychiatrist is in the best possible position to know the difference.

I will say it’s worth looking around on Facebook for groups that might look at adult folks with Aspie’s or similar, and ask them what doctors or psychs they saw for diagnosis. We have to do similar here in Western Australia for Fibromyalgia, because even though typically you go to a rheumatologist (at least here) to get diagnosed, a lot of rheumatologists here refuse to even acknowledge/touch Fibromyalgia (it’s notoriously difficult to treat) - so I wasn’t diagnosed for 10+ years, despite actively hunting down a diagnosis for what I had (and I’d even ruled out Fibromyalgia for myself, because I’d been conditioned to accept my chronic, intense pain as ‘normal’ and ‘untreatable’).

Now I have a rheumatologist that diagnosed me, and I have a medication that helps me. That’s a miracle. And I got a referral to this rheumatologist thanks to a Facebook group / friend that were on the ball with this stuff. So I think it would be good to search around online. I actually hate Facebook, but god, it can be really good for putting you in touch with the right doctors, or the patients who see the right doctors/psychs/psychiatrists/counsellors etc. Like I said, I don’t know if your psych is right for you or not, but this is a world where second opinions count, and not all doctors are supportive of every thing. If I’d known I had Fibromyalgia 10-15 years ago, I could have been placed on Amitriptyline early and I may not have ended up on Disability via destroying my life via ignoring illnesses until my body literally couldn’t take it anymore.

My thoughts are…you’re looking for something that helps you, right? That’s why we need labels sometimes. Sometimes the medical profession won’t help us out with that, but that doesn’t stop you from accessing those books, articles, how-tos and so on in the meantime. There are a lot of people, regardless of age, who self-diagnose as neuroatypical in part because the social anxiety of getting diagnosed (a facet of being neuroatypical, among many other things) is just too damn intimidating. You can start looking up ‘how to communicate in relationships if you’re X’ now. You can really start testing all of that stuff out now. If it helps you, if it improves your quality of life (that’s the biggie), that’s like…the most important part imho.

Also, finally if you’re AFAB or a cis female, and haven’t already, google the presentation of Asperger’s in women. You may find the symptom profile fits you better than what you’ll find on the standardised Wiki page. Finally, even if you don’t have Asperger’s, that doesn’t mean you can’t be neuroatypical, or don’t have neuroatypical traits? I’ve had synesthesia all my life, that alone makes me neuroatypical. So it’s worth… remembering that no matter what the final label is that you end up with for yourself, in the meantime, it’s okay to validate those parts of you that don’t seem to fit into the norm of neurological behaviour. It’s okay to seek help and support for it, and it’s okay to give yourself permission to look further.

I wish the path to diagnosis was easier, no matter what the diagnosis ends up being. I have lived what it’s like in a medical system where doctors miss things or ignore things because it’s more convenient for them to do so. It sucks. Trust me, there are a lot of self-diagnosed people on the spectrum, who are right to have self-diagnosed. You’re not alone (I bet there will be other people reading this who can relate to you, anon), and I think it’s awesome that you’re reaching out / putting out feelers about this stuff. *offers hugs*

[infinitegrowthpage]

The is a test to see if a girl or woman has Asperger Syndrome

We are failing to diagnose girls and women on the autism spectrum at such an incredible rate that some scientists think there is not a large gap between the number of males and females with Asperger syndrome – we just need to start diagnosing more competently. And this is urgent, because all people with Aspergers have a high rate of suicide, but it’s really high for women, and as a woman who was relieved to discover I have Aspergers, I’m on a mission to help. 

The best way to figure out if a woman or girl has Aspergers  is to think in terms of categorizing people on a spectrum. On one end of the spectrum are super-social cheerleader fun-fun types whose emotional intelligence is super high. On the other end of the spectrum are the Albert Einstein types with very low emotional intelligence. Next to Albert Einstein types are typical males and next to typical males are typical females and then come the cheerleaders.

In this spectrum, Albert Einstein has Aspergers. And generally, when we wonder if someone has Aspergers, we compare that person to Einstein. (Or Sheldon on Big Bang theory or whoever your benchmark is.) Everyone else is somewhere on the spectrum either one, two, or three steps removed from the terrible emotional intelligence of someone with Aspergers.

But that picture only works for diagnosing men or boys with Aspergers. Women don’t function like men who have Aspergers. Women with Aspergers function like typical men. A way to think about this is that Aspergers  shifts you down the spectrum one spot, to the next group. (This is called the extreme male brain theory of autism it is widely accepted.)

Standing out from the other girls. “The only girl to…”  is a common refrain. Or taking classes with all boys. Being an outlier for gender is risk factor for Aspergers. Do not judge a girl by how similar she is to boys with Aspergers. Look at how similar she is to other girls. The conflict between autism spectrum conditions and traditional feminine identity is the biggest clue we have when it comes to diagnosis. For example, I have vivid grade-school memories of being the only girl to play kickball at recess. Every day.

Good at math. This means good at math compared to other girls. The president of Harvard said the outstanding mathematicians are usually men. He is not wrong. Math and autism go together. So it makes sense that girls with Aspergers will be as good at math as math-smart neurotypical boys. And the boys with Aspergers will be the math gods.

Anxiety disorder. Unlike boys, girls with Aspergers can camouflage when they are younger. And people are likely to say their daughter is “a little different but totally fine”. But we need to redefine what it “totally fine,” because camouflage gets increasingly difficult as girls age: first it becomes a exhausting, and then it becomes an anxiety disorder. My life is 100 times more manageable because I take medicine for anxiety, and this is true of most women with Aspergers.

Eating disorder. Most eating disorders start as an extension of a sensory processing disorder and/or OCD. Both these disorders are common for people on the autistic spectrum. But eating disorders are especially prevalent in girls with Aspergers. Even as we are under diagnosing girls with Aspergers, we know 20% of girls with eating disorders have Aspergers.

ADD or ADHD. Girls with Aspergers don’t look like they have ADD because they look like neurotypical boys. Even the teachers miss it. But look at attention levels compared to other girls. Most girls have longer attention spans than boys do. It’s not until puberty that boys catch up. Girls who look like they are “just being kids” is not okay. Girls need to look like they are “just being girls”.

Hyperlexia. Most girls with Aspergers love to read. Learning to read at age 2 or 3 is often a sign of hyperlexia. It’s related to Aspergers and it comes from a fascination with letters and outstanding ability to decode language. This is not good for any child, because at that age the brain needs to develop social skills patterning instead.

In my son’s classroom of autistic 3 year olds, all of the kids could read, and the classroom did not have any books with words in order to encourage social skill development. A gifted child only reads as much as she is able to understand – because otherwise it’s just a puzzle. A hyperlexic child will read even if she does not understand what she’s reading.

Dyslexia. Girls with Aspergers usually love to read but are not very good at reading. Dyslexia, often means you can read but comprehension is low. so girls with Aspergers who have dyslexia can pass most reading tests because a high IQ can mask poor reading comprehension. Reading books below grade level, rereading books, and reading series books are all ways girls deal with dyslexia.

Gender dysphoria. Studies show a high occurrence of gender disorder in autistic populations. For girls with Aspergers this issue is especially prevalent because thinking like neurotypical boys is already happening via Aspergers.

Refusal to cross the midline. This is walking before you crawl. In an older kid it looks like being clumsy. Or maybe impressively clumsy which we mistakenly label ambidextrous. Or it looks like having perfect posture which parents might celebrate girl rather than see as a sign.

Sexually abused as a child or teen. Girls with Aspergers do not read danger signs as well as neurotypical girls which makes girls with Aspergers much more likely to get into a situation that is bad for them. While the girl with Aspergers will think she’s acting within the realm of normal, a predator looking for a target will see the abnormality as an inviting sign.

Work in the sex industry. Women with Aspergers are undaunted by cultural norms of sexual behavior because understanding cultural norms is a social skill. Feeling embarrassment is also a social skill, so the sex industry doesn’t feel as emotional risky to women who have Aspergers. Also, the workplace is appealing because its easier to get the unofficial list of social rules in the sex industry than it is in a typical workplace.  In my first book I wrote about how I tried to be a sex worker, and now I understand that I couldn’t get someone to hire me because I never looked like I understood the rules.

Having mother or paternal grandmother with these traits.  Or having a mother who is white, college educated and raising children alone – that is, did not remarry after the loss of a partner. (Only 2% of white, college educated women get divorced, but pretty much all moms except those with Aspergers find a new partner after a divorce.)

Having a weird laugh. Women laugh more than men. And for women laughter is a way to identify themselves as good partners. It’s a social skill. Women with Aspergers have a hard time figuring out how to use a laugh; often they choose not to laugh or they laugh in a stilted or uncomfortable way. Which makes me wonder if you thought the ribbons in the photo up top are funny and appropriate for this post, or if you thought they were offensive. I wanted to buy them to hang on my wall. But I worried that neurotypical people would not like them, so I hung them in a post about Aspergers instead.

The is a test to see if a girl or woman has Asperger Syndrome published first on https://dataentrytestpro.tumblr.com/