thank you ❤

Yes but wat are those strategies and all these ways ? great content did Sub to your channel 🤍

Fantastic information! I am a therapist and this topic fascinates me.

I couldn't stop staring at the stripe highlights, it borderline disturbed me like looking at a really bad split end or a microscopic close up of skin, is that HSP? Can you please ask your hairdresser to use more foils or something?

Is this why I can't play? I can't even make myself play with my kid and enjoy it. I go through the motions, but it feels like torture the entire time. I thought it would get better as he got older and could play less tedious games. Nope. I've just never been able to engage in play, not since I was seven or so.

Beautiful and sincere video. Thank you 😊

Take an autistic kid who's born into abuse and loves with that for several years while being told, through violence, how to act and behave or else, and ask the whole school teachers are insisting the kid is "gifted" but the parents are unresponsive to that message, then that kid grows up and goes into the military and winds up in a war. You're going to get an adult that has more than autism symptoms they've been wrestling with alone, absolutely. You might get one that has ASD, ADHD, CPTSD, and their associated symptoms that they SHARE, like anxiety, depression, hypervigilance, insomnia, isolation, etc etc Yep, it happens. And I can imagine for any therapist who's just seeing the person the first time... Well, from a diagnostic perspective it's probably more than a bit challenging. Moral of the story? Therapists can ABSOLUTELY damage someone further if they don't get the fullest biographical history of the person, and that could mean therapeutic failure or collapse that impacts both parties. :/ But yeah, main thing is, it's hard enough for some poor kid who's NT to go through abuse and such, and they DO as you know, that is even worse if the kid is *severely* disabled. Not all families are healthy and sometimes they're downright dangerous to their own members. Life's tough sometimes. You just have to keep moving. :)

How does this parenting fall into this? How can i handle.stress.of being single.oarent ehile having asd? Im on yhr verge ofnbrealfown on a daily basis and i dont know wherento find help /resources, im kn canada. Wish there was a video about this topic

This is me 100% at 58 how to get better

I think that the label of being "highly sensitive" might help people who feel stigmatized by the label of autism. As a newly diagnosed autistic woman who is also "highly sensitive" I think this is sad. The more people we can bring under the umbrella of neurodivergency the stronger we can be when we try to advocate for ourselves. Because I can tell you there are lots of people out there that want to keep autism as a stigmatized condition and they spread disinformation about what we know it is, and how it manifests in different people. This is particularly true for organizations that represent parents of autistic kids, like Autism Speaks. That organization spreads junk science, caters to the idea that parents are victimized by their autistic kids, and works to conflate intellectual disability with autism. Their survival as the best funded organization for autism centers on keeping the association of autism as a childhood disease, instead of recognizing that autistic kids grow up to be autistic adults, and we need resources too We will spend most of our lives as adults, after all.

Everyone thinks they are autistic today.

I have Ehlers-Danlos and have always been an HSP. I'm waiting for Autism assessment. I always score high on self assessments. Makes sense. Not going to change! 😊

My father was alway absent in my childhood. Never felt he loved me at all, nut sure he wanted me. Wasn't present when I was born... I don't talk to him anymore, keeping him at a distance.

Many INFJs here I bet

My mom and dad made my older sister take care of her younger siblings. She was carrying both me and my brother as a ten year old child and she accidentally dropped me (the baby). She grew up to be very resentful of me and I never knew exactly why she hated me so much. It was cause my parents made her parent instead of taking responsibility for themselves

This just helped me connect some dots in audhd. My audhd led to bod thanks to so much relational trauma and it is the most tangled puzzle my brain has ever had to unravel… THANK YOU! 🙏🏼 ❤

Yes.

You are wonderful...I am so grateful that I found your channel. The one hand on the heart and the other hand on the stomach while saynig "I believe you" is so powerful, so healing❤ Thank you from the bottom of my heart ❤

Sooo true!!! I've been working on myself for years to figure all of this out, and it's so nice to have this reaffirmed. I can breathe so much easier with the clutter gone!!!

Thank you 💙

Can someone just list them?

I clicked on this video in hopes to hear identifying female autistic characteristics. I wanted to hear how females are different. And all I heard was that they are different. I'm very frustrated. Please explain how they are different rather than just saying that studies are finding that they are different. It doesn't tell me anything and doesn't tell me how to identify whether or not I'm autistic. So looking at the title of your video I thought I was going to actually hear identifying characteristics of female autism. 😭. Very stressed and frustrated. I I know my daughter tried to diagnose me with borderline when she went to school for psychology. But I didn't exactly meet the criteria when I looked into it myself. Then I brought the things that didn't make sense up to my daughter and she admitted that it didn't really seem like I did have borderline personality disorder. However, since I am a layman and older I don't remember what those identifying traits were. So in addition to what I said, maybe some explanation to what things are when you bring them up such as borderline personality disorder. So far listening to this video is frustrating because it's kind of like looking up the definition of a word, and receiving the word as the answer to the definition but nothing to actually learn what the word is. This is not an actual example but is only being said in hopes that you will understand. I look up the word redwood and the answer is in relation to being a redwood. Me? 😳. It's kind of what you're doing. Identifying female artistics. We learned that people have more difficulty identifying autistic women because the internalized it. Okay, but what are the traits that identify a female autistic person? 😳. What traits in borderline personality disorder make people think that autistic women are borderline? Explain the traits of terms that don't say anything really unless you're a psychologist that knows these things.

I've heard in several videos now how women can't keep relationships going if they're autistic. They have socializing difficulties. I was hoping to figure out how we're different in this video but you talk about more of the clinical side of things and don't really explain things in depth. I don't mean to sound insulting but I really wanted addressed. What traits do women have that caused them to lose friendships. I found that it's difficult to find someone that wants to be friends with me but I easily lose those friendships if I can acquire them. I want to know what I'm doing wrong. Why do non-autistic people several relationships with women who are autistic? I don't want to hear basically just the surface material of we don't seem to be able to keep friendships. I want to hear why. And not the answer that were autistic and we have more difficulty keeping a relationship. I want to hear what we do differently and what we do wrong.

Is there a way to talk to u? Suffering.

Thanks, Dr Kim for the wonderful video! There’s something that I’m still a little confused about that you touched on a bit: there seems to also be symptom overlap with cPTSD and autism (ie dysregulation and difficulty maintaining relationships, etc) is it possible that HSP + cPTSD can have a very autistic presentation?

Thanks, Dr Kim for the wonderful video! There’s something that I’m still a little confused about that you touched on a bit: there seems to also be symptom overlap with cPTSD and autism (ie dysregulation and difficulty maintaining relationships, etc) is it possible that HSP + cPTSD can have a very autistic presentation?

I am secure in all of my other relationships but after betrayal I became anxious with my husband and am working to find security again in my marriage

I am a 58 year old woman, and have read and watched so many things surrounding this topic since a health crisis a few years ago blew everything wide open and provided me with greater awareness of myself, and clarity about my whole life. I want to thank you for your work, and for this video, which finally absolutely confirms to me my suspicions of autism. Ticking every box here. It makes my whole life make sense, and will hopefully make the rest of it a little easier, with greater self compassion. This was a genuine gift to me . Thank you, with all my heart, Dr. Kim.

As a person w aspergers, diagnosed by a doctor when I just turned 20 in year 2001... it truly has been a journey of acceptance....

I have watched over a hundred YT videos on autism, and this is the best one I've seen. Excellent analysis.

I am out of narcist abuse hubby for 12 yrs. And now take care of narcist old father.. And my luck at work has been sooo messy.. Now I got it.. The guilt is from feeling like I didn't give Back to them enough.. I owe them too much.. Thank you sooooo much.. 12yrs of searching is answered now ❤

Wow just listening to you had made me realise what me and the kids have been through. Just dealing with a really hurt teenager who has decided not to see her dad. Not much help out there for teenage girls struggling.

I thought everyone watched their fav movie 500 times, i wish that was a joke lol

Just thinking about how messed up the world is makes me want to leave the planet, i keep myself away from the news and injustice drives me crazy like how do people just sit by when we could literally solve the world in a day but we can't do that because no one will get "money" we cant do that

Additio: I did try to watch people to see how they act that makes other people feel good in the hopes to copy their actions. But I really did never master that. I tried but there were just too many holes. So I appeased no one. I didn't even have a desire to appease anyone. I mean I wanted friends so I felt like I needed to learn how to act but it wasn't an effort to make anybody happy. So the question is was I the way I was because of trauma or am I that ADHD or autistic?.

In all these videos, I'm not sure where I fit in. You talk about pleasing. For the first 4 years of my life I was in foster care. No one cared for me and I was largely left alone except for the first year in foster care I'm pretty sure that family abused me. They got rid of me because I was too wild. By the time I was adopted I had no emotions. I couldn't feel love at all. My knew that there was something that I was missing that other people had and I wanted it but I couldn't feel it. I couldn't identify with other people either. I really didn't care about anyone. I never cared about anyone until my daughter was born when I was in my early twenties. That was the first time I felt love. Before that I met my biological family and my one sibling looked like me and everybody hated her just like I was hated growing up. My biological mother called her evil. I tried to take her under my wing and save her. But feeling love? Was a foreign idea for me. When my parents were cruel to me, I did not try to appease them. I just started to hate them and would do it again. Whatever they hurt me for. I never tried to appease them. I never cared about them. I always tried to please myself. That was how I survived because I was handicapped and I was ethnic in a white community and I was rejected massively. So I learned what I liked and how to make myself happy. I never changed that pattern. It wasn't until High School that I realized that I never heard anybody talking. It wasn't that I didn't understand them, it was more that I was back home doing the things that made me feel good such as playing with Barbie dolls even in high school. I didn't understand people's emotions. I didn't know how to act in response to people. And again it wasn't until high school that I realized I had this problem. I had to practice looking at their face when they were talking to me. It took a long time, because my attention kept going back home to my Barbies. I liked building homes and villages for my dolls. I kept having to redirect my attention to the person talking to me. It took me about 2 years to finally maintain eye contact when someone was talking to me. But then I realized that even though now I could look in their face, I still never heard what they said. so I had to work on paying attention to their words and again I found myself continually going back home to my Barbie collection. In the beginning I only heard a word or two. Such as maybe I and then. I had to listen for a long time before I finally started hearing complete conversations, but I still didn't know how to respond to anyone. So I was largely silent. I had to read books to learn how to respond to people and make friends. And to be honest with you, I still haven't learned that trait. I tried but nobody really wants to stay friends with me. Being stupid in college I admitted to a friend that I didn't care about her because I was shocked that she cared about me. I thought that people just pretended. Brown nosed you might say. I still don't think I really care about anyone except my kids and my animals. It's not on purpose. I just don't feel anything. I tried for a long time to read books to learn how to respond to people however. But I am still not able to keep any friends. I don't try to hurt anyone. One of my friends in high school or a lot of my friends in high school gravitated towards me because I didn't talk. They just kind of took me under their wing and tried to teach me the ropes because they could tell that I was lost and clueless. So I remained silent by their side as they tried to show me the ropes. Maybe perhaps lucky for me, most of the girls that took me under their wing were the most popular kids in high school. Still when a teacher asked what everybody thought of each other, each response towards me was dweeb or dork. As adult now I finally talk. I talk too much. The opposite of what I was. I don't know how to appease other people. I mean maybe it's social media? Because you have to talk in order to make a friend and that's basically the only way that I can connect your meet people. But no one likes someone who talks too much. And I think no one could get close to someone who doesn't talk. And I'm not sure that what I say isn't always wrong. So what about that dynamic? My adoptive parents hated me because I couldn't love and they could tell it. But I could still do things wrong like a normal child. So they began to use me as their scapegoat. I went through horrific abuses. So the trauma is extreme. I had cancer as a baby and I wasn't supposed to survive. I remember laying on my back in the hospital in a crib and not being able to do anything but stare at the ceiling. I could hear other babies and children getting visitors and give gifts but no one came to visit me and I was so envious, jealous and angry about that. I was also 2 months old. So the trauma was extreme from baby on up. So what about that? That doesn't seem to be any profile for that. I mean I mask in the sense that I read in an attempt to try to figure out how to interact with people. But I still try to please no one. And I know myself and what I want because I've always tried to please myself. I still do. Where is the dynamic for that? Is it autism or ADHD that kept me from being able to even notice other people and made me have to learn how to even hear them let alone interact with them. Or was it trauma? Do this day I'm pretty sure I say things wrong and scare people away but most people are polite and won't let you know that you did something wrong. They just disappear. How come I don't see this dynamic up there? I'm not trying to hurt anybody by not caring. I just don't feel anything. What about that?

Wow thank you Dr Sage!!

I've learned how to make use of some of the traits for my own benefits, I have had to seek life away from towns and cities and enjoy my own space yet yearn for some elements close friendship, but its more comfortable to sit in silence with a partner than talk a lot unless its a topic that interests me. I work within areas that suit my interests and that's how I derive my social holidays by going to conferences and trade events where I can talk shop and find many people wanting to talk shop without it being too inappropriate (still I need peers to point out - hey come on lets go they're losing interest) however I can and do travel across continents to go to such, because of them fitting my interest commercials come easily, and because of facial expressions I negotiate great deals and pay attention to detail and patterns, I do overly attach to people when they care for me but then completely mess that up by being distant and incommunicado when separated, so months can pass without me reaching out - and that kills the friendship even though I can slot back in as if it was yesterday. I hate seeing others in discomfort, but have had to learn to become a bit cold as people take advantage of this, school was problematic growing up as I found everything easy then would distract others, this had problems later on in life as I hadn't learned how to learn, I also put things off like a mental block on simple things - rattle through a highly complex task but get confused or postpone the easy step of finishing it off properly. I have spoke and been asked for my opinions by psychologists because my perspectives are so profoundly different - I was at one point through my 20's and 30's in a routine that was bordering on OCD like, and there are things I sometimes to this day still feel I must do like always take a shower before going out - I broke all routines by telling myself - my routine is not to have a routine. Smells and touch still overwhelm me, a simple light social touch can make me jump however I hide that, and I find hugs awkward, I manage really well with one on one/two interactions but as a group becomes larger I find myself purposefully isolating because conversation becomes difficult what I find is that social conversation moves and jumps around too much,. I don't know when to speak and take too long thinking about what to say in groups although I do have phrases etc that are generic enough to appear engaged, from a distance its easy to guage other peoples emotions but when the attention is on me or I am part of a group I cannot read the more subtle cues, eg I have absolutely no idea when someone is flirting with me. I can be so blunt, direct and honest I have to keep that in check, I prefer people tell me things like you're a mess, you got something on your chin, than not. This is problematic if someone asks something about themselves to me seeking validation and approval I tend to miss that and give them the honest and usually socially inappropriate answer like no that green dress does not flatter you, it makes your tummy bulge and so on. I did go to the embrace autism site and scored very high in all the tests, I have avoided clinical diagnosis at 54 I already knew this, I was very fortunate to have kind and loving parents, I had a lot speech therapy as a kid and struggle with mental blocks on things I dislike. I absolutely ensure that I am able to be correct on topics and know them well before any confrontations or debates and enjoyed this in university (again I always pick niche that follows my interest no matter how obscure) btw - another trait many of us has is too much information like this comment. - so I broke off before it became a dissertation - on the other hand sharing maybe helps others looking for insights into their struggles that we all share to varying degrees - so yes I've the EQ of a peanut and the IQ of a genius, its not always beneficial but we can use the traits like gifts, :)

Thank you so much for this, so many of your videos almost feel like you are speaking directly to me! X❤

I've been diagnosed with anxiety, depression and PTSD/CPTSD. I'm still really struggling to ascertain if all of the social unease is due to these or whether I may also be autistic. I have to consciously make myself hold eye contact, i'm constantly processing in my mind what is an appropriate way to respond to someone i'm having a conversation with. I overshare a lot and am very sensitive to anything that I perceive as social rejection, but I also prefer time alone and don't like events where i'd be socially expected to interact with a lot of other people. At 37 years old i'm not sure what i'd gain from a diagnosis apart from a greater understanding/acceptance of myself as I don't believe any real support is offered for autistic people if they are deemed capable of work.

No one has ever suggested i have autism, and i have seen autistic people, i don't identify with their behaviour, they usually do these strange movements, i don't have any strange movements only can't keep still, but i have problems with social stuff, i get really anxious, i have had a lot of trauma, childhood massive, alcoholism, drug addiction, anorexia, add, i think this might be some new lark to make money, psychologists are always looking for ways to make money, i can't stand it, i refuse to see one, and 1 hr on the clock is not enough, i go to AA, get much more outvof that, i am older, i think i am sensitive, psychic and, pretty good at reading people after having worked most of em out!😂😂🎉🎉🎉🎉its not autism its trauma, there is a big difference between autism and normal people, we used to know that, i could be wrong, there is a guy on utube called 'that autistic guy' thats autism, but gosh he is quick, i love him, so funny!🎉🎉🎉

I can relate to so much of this but wouldn’t have considered autism. I am very highly sensitive, highly empathetic and make eye contact. It is only recently that I realised during conversation that I am asking myself to remember to look away and not hold constant eye contact. I hate small talk, hate being in social situations and am exhausted by them. I have learned to ask people questions about themselves if I have to try to make conversation. I have always felt different and not sure where I fit in. I consider myself extremely intelligent and wonder now if I do have autism but have been masking. I have Fibromyagia, ME/CFS, POTS and other coxmorbidities.

I love listening to your curiosity growing and those symptoms sound like ME! Very interesting article on the F phenotype. My disordered (over) eating is also sensory-based. In trying to understand a child I was working with, I came across an article about a study that showed that the special interests of autists may override the same area of the brain that is active for social relationships. It really helped me in supporting the child navigating 'group time' at school, as he was often told off for exploring rather than interacting with his peers. It also helped me understand why I so often have interrupted a conversation without even realising it.

In other words. You’re justifying narcissistic personality disorder

Hsp IS just autism. I find it extremely insensitive when HSP people are offended by the label. But I also think self proclaimed empaths are covert narcissists so what do I know

I seriously find all my relationships boring. Friends. Church people. Some family. They all seem boring. Turns out I'm wired to be comfortable in drama. Id really like to change

I was disappointed to hear you minimize the problems with men and prioritizing women's struggles. I realize your advice is not for me. Thanks for isolating autistic men even more (irony intended). Wow. Just wow.

My psychiatrist was not very nice when I brought this up. I brought up ADHD first and he responded with "everybody has ADHD now and you can't even get the meds because everybody is taking it". He made me feel so uncomfortable that I didn't even bring up the autism. I had a full sheet of paper to go over with him, but he made me feel so dumb that I didn't bother. He sent me out for ADHD testing and once I'm through with that, I'm switching doctors.

OMG, you mentioned the satin on the blanket! I'm 45 and still sleep with my baby blanket because of the feeling of the satin trim on it. It's so shredded and worn, but man, I have never found a satisfying replacement. Also, squeezing BIC lighters in my hand. I haven't smoked in 11 years, but that feeling of a BIC lighter in my hand helps me enter a highly creative trance state. I don't know anyone else like me in this way. I just took the Autism Spectrum Quotient test you recommended and scored a 38. I am new to following you, and now I think you are so cool for making this video. Thanks

I am 68 years old and have struggled with many things in my life. I started therapy and we determined ( after a while) that I had CPTSD, due to childhood trauma (sexual, abuse, as well as neglect, emotional abuse and abandonment issues). But now that I have been watching several videos regarding Autism, it seems that the neurodivergence of CPTSD and Autism are quite similar. I'm getting confused. Do both of these diagnoses manifest similarly? Hypervigilence, need for order, repetition, stimming, lack of social filters, et al...yikes--my head is spinning!