The Best Theory of Autism you've probably NEVER heard of... 

THATS MY CURRENT HYPERFIXATION TOO OMG THX FOR RESEARCH YA NERD I call it my “donkey mind” You see, donkey real strong never give up, but donkey stubborn, for better or for worse. Donkey also big heart very loyal 😂

I love when ND people formally announce a new hyper fixation. I think we should have announcement cards for such occasions, or maybe even a party (and by party I mean a bunch on ND people with snacks and their laptops having a great time researching all together). I was shamed for even mentioning my special interests as a kid and even today I have a hard time admitting to having them. I think that celebrating them would be a great way to help others feel more comfortable.

@@NoisyBones I LOVE THIS!! 💛

My new hyperfixation (for the past few weeks) is nail polish, nail care, and nail growth, lol. 😂

Thanks massively for adding links to the research! Really appreciate that!

Yesss!!! 😂

Sounds like a good idea for an art installation!

Sometimes the Autism spotlight hits the ADHD disco ball. Good luck trying to focus then.

Yes!!! Moving around to different spots in the room, like "oooh this looks interesting", "oh wait, what about that??!!" (:

Lol, I tell my husband it's my way of making myself angry😂 My autism side says "order! Everything must be the same!" My ADHD says "I'm Bored, let's create some chaos"😂

I'm so glad - thank you! I did use some earlier on (I always tried to keep the volume low), but I've gradually moved to using less and less. I realised how annoying/jarring I found it in other videos I watch!

@@imautisticnowwhat I second that! I find music very jarring when someone is talking--- I keep trying to tune it out, but I can't. Music isn't simply annoying, it actually makes me anxious.

I agree I dont get the trend of the weird effects today.

I don't think there are adequate words for how amazing your explanations of the experience of autism from the autistic perspective truly are. ❤ Thank you for helping me help my family understand, as a late diagnosed person- 44 years old.

💯 that's relaxing to watch or even just listen-however I don't want to miss the images and videos used to illustrate the speech :) I wish RU-vid would add an option to turn off sfx and bgm, or simply control the volume of it!

That's so interesting!

Same

I have to be careful what I think about while driving, as I can picture something I want to do with my eyes open while driving and lose my attention to driving.

@@marthamurphy3913Me too! In fact, I have to listen to the radio while driving so I don't get bored and let my mind wander in a visual way, which is obviously bad when your visual processing needs to be paying attention to the road ahead!

me too! i close my eyes and suddenly my imagination stops working

Everyone does experience those things. Just like a child being immersed in a current experience to the exclusion of all else is perfectly normal behaviour. In fact, most of the things she mentions in this video are normal behaviours.

@@DylanYoung I was tested since this post, and I do have ADHD according to the assessment, but the testing is so surface level. All it is is an assessment or questionnaire

​@DylanYoung It's not about the experience being unique (it's not). The difference is the frequency and/or intensity of the experience or behavior. For example: everyone has had a tummyache and digestive issues, but not everyone has IBS. Or as a less medical example: Everyone tells jokes, but not everyone is a comedic genius.

@@StayBassd That is a really good explanation of a cline.

@@AcademiacaramelcurlzThere is no definitive or thorough testing for ADHD. Diagnosis is really dependent on if you fit the criteria and if your therapist/prescriber agrees. There’s no concrete method of diagnosis or test that you can take that’ll definitively tell you. Some health care providers will mistakenly rely on a test for diagnosis. Diagnosis is reliant on an examination of one’s life and childhood.

Omg why I never thought of that Before, my FOV is really like... Unfocused so i might try that

I do that TOO!

I do that sometimes. But I get mixed results. Sometimes it works fine and it helps me search more methodically. Other times I can't find the thing after a while of doing that (with a real or imaginary spotlight) but as soon s my attention slips from looking, my gaze flits round and lands in the object... It's like I've got two different search engines in my head, and they work very differently from each other.

! Light off flashlight makes it easier for me to find things than with the lights on!

Is it normal for autistic ppl to have a hard time finding things or is it just me

This is such a good fact! I'd always wondered why that was an expression, so thank you for sharing

that’s still not literal i don’t think, but it does make much more sense

There are a ton of theories for the origin of "break a leg" but that's one I've never heard! The one I'm most familiar with is: In the early days of theater, this is where ensemble actors were queued to perform. If actors were not performing, they had to stay behind the “leg line,” which also meant they wouldn't get paid. If you were to tell the actor to “break a leg,” you were wishing them the opportunity to perform and get paid.

There are a lot of potential meanings! For auditions, I always heard it's referring to the stage legs, aka do well enough you're on stage when the stage starts

I love this fact! Thank you for this new bit of trivia :)

Lol yeaaah.. I thought I just had ADHD and was awkward. Oddly enough, I was able to 'turn off' the ADHD, but not the other aspects so it makes you wonder about that overlap.

Yes, if I hadn't seen so many objectionable blog posts saying what a freek Greta Thunberg is while I find her completely relatable and normal I never would have discovered 😂😂❤

I wonder, whether people would have noticed anything weird about Greta, besides her activism, without her mentioning her autism. For many assholes, her being autistic is a welcome excuse to disregard everything, she says, so she has to be this "mentally disabled girl" that just doesn't understand the "smart adults".

Hey guess what...YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO DIAGNOSE YOUR SELF!

I'm sorry to inform you all this is not an autism. Mild case of asperger, maybe, but definitely not an autism.

And they say we can't understand sarcasm . . .

I'm so glad the understanding of autism is drifting toward the inner experience, instead of a list of correlated deficiencies. When a simple concept like this can pull even seemingly contradictory aspects of the spectrum together, it must be onto something. I can already see how this will help to explain things to my psychologist - especially why some of her methods need adjustments to be effective for me.

@@jimmux_v0 OMG - so YES!!!! See my comment about this. Frankly, I think autistic people should seek autistic therapists. I spent decades in conventional therapy. It was mostly a waste of time and money. When it wasn't downright harmful, which it also was a large percentage of the time. Thank god for RU-vid, Twitter, and yes, even TicTok

@@jimmux_v0 "a list of correlated deficiencies," wow, that's a really powerful statement.

This comment should be pinned

you’re heard.

I'm shocked more people don't try to reconnect with nature like you do! I've done that many times and find it so peaceful. when i consider the complexities of every person's individual lives, I also think about the subconscious, animalistic part of ourselves that we most often deny. after all, we're just animals that can communicate! humans hold such strange pride for how advanced as a society we are, when deep down we're flesh and bone, our one purpose in life being the creation of new life, just like any other animal. glad to hear you're in tune with what nourishes your soul :D

"I feel tired of the intricacies of social relations and modern society in general. The fact that i understand that every single person is as complex as me, if not even more complex, makes me feel overwhelmed." This exactly

what do you mean by "at the lower end of the spectrum"?

I'm also from Brazil, I thought I was just shy but actually not... people from outside my family thought I was odd, very bookish, timid, even when I was around people I was looking away like I wasn't there, I still struggle with social deficits like not making eye contact and picking up on social cues looking very childish and I'm 24.

dang 189....loser loser !

i scored 222. that feels offensive lmaooo

i scored 222. that feels offensive lmaooo

I've not slept in 3 days because I find it more interesting to watch people teach coding. It's a tough life

i got a 216; feels bad man@@Man-ej6uv

I also really relate to this theory. Autism for me is a bunch of conditions that cause chronic pain / issues and oxidative stress and sure I also have the ability to deeply analyze and see patterns and use abstract thinking ( which im guessing is something that had to do with the lack of synaptic pruning in my development). Scishow had a great video that linked oestrogen imbalances to autism and how certain forms of oestrogen like estradiol are critical for brain development and synaptic pruning and studies showed an excess or a deficit in children with autism ( i dont remember the details). To me it makes sense seeing the comorbidity of pcos and other issues that are linked with hormones often found tagging along with autism. edited cuz of typos

@@grey_blue2513 That's not to say that I don't also have a significant issue with monotropism, but it definitely feels like that is taking a backseat to the dysregulated autonomic system and probably a lot of why it's been such a struggle to get properly diagnosed as doctors aren't typically looking for autonomic nervous system traits and since I wasn't allowed to stim or really engage in most of the things that we associate with autism, I pretty much took it out on my body in terms of things like IBS, idiopathic tinnitus, migraines and various stomach issues. But, since none of that stuff is externally visible, it doesn't count towards a diagnosis, even though it really should. These days, I've learned to love stimming and I don't think that non-autistic people ever get this level of enjoyment out of it so consistently. Perhaps during times of deep stress or anxiety, but not in a more baseline day to day situation.

Seams like me to diagnosed now fybromyalgia spectrum are you hypermobile or eds never new had Asperger's until son's diagnosis my mum surely had it just lost her to severe ms and my grandfather was to how do you manage your pain for me ime sure it's SPD as had it as a child turned into pain

@@grey_blue2513 same for me what pain do you have found anything to help

@@Truerealism747 One of the issues with the DSM 5 is that there is no provision for SPD, if that's your main thing, then you're in this hole where you're not autistic, you're not ADHD and you're not schizoid, you're pretty much nothing diagnosable, so either you get a strategic misdiagnosis or you have to restart the process with a different specialty and hope that you didn't get a cluster A or B personality disorder or any sort of psychotic disorder on your record as it can be extremely difficult to get an accurate diagnosis with those on your record. Pain is interesting, because it is an emotion. I's part of why therapy is sometimes prescribed for things like migraines. In case none of your doctors mentioned it. As far as fibromyalgia is concerned, there's a decent chance that it's psychosomatic and the same basic treatments that are used for other psychosomotic disorders would help. But, there isn't a particular consensus about what it is or what to do about it. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6386210/

I don't understand. Can you please explain?

​@PrincessTheGuy I think due to PDA profiles and monotropism

Which part do you struggle with? ☺️

@@toni5543 yes exactly ☺️

I feel like I seriously NEED structure, but my brain just refuses to go along with it anytime I try to plan it out. Frustrating.

Thank you for sharing your experience! I've been misdiagnosed several times before and I absolutely support any way you choose to share!

Autistic person labelled histrionic also trying to get an EDS diagnosis over here!

@laratheplanespotter Hi Laura, my daughter in law has a very similar background. Single child of alcoholic, rather than care system, but diagnosed with BPD and has EDS, spent time in psych unit due to the same as you and suffering PTSD as a result of this. I was wondering how you are doing now and if you have any advice I can give her to help her cope. I also have autism, but am older and the world is so much more stressful now. Apology's if this is too intrusive, I don't expect a reply if it's too much. Best wishes. El.

Very much like my story … - KMP

@SobrietyandSolace Do you.mind me asking if it's hypermobile EDS you are suffering from? I'm asking because if your ligaments etc. aren't supporting your spine, it can cause vagal nerve compression. This causes issues like leaky gut, hormonal issues and problems regulating mood. Good luck.

i had a similar experience 6 months ago @56yrs old watching a different set of videos at the time. not very many people around me seem to agree.....or understand

YES, you are valid in self diagnoses. Self diagnoses is very often the stepping stone to getting an official diagnoses and help if you need it

Everyone who goes through a training/education course about autism, at some point thinks they must be autistic. Usually it's not true. The diagnostic instruments are based on a point scoring metric, just having some traits doesn't make you autistic, you need to break a threshold. Generally the idea is that if you have enough traits, it will start to have a negative impact on your life experience, at that point it makes sense to call it something and provide support and education.

@@oldmossystone yes. in my case, after learning so so much about autism, it actually turns out i'm not autistic (at least i _really_ don't think so.) i think i owe this update to anyone who reads my comment and relates to it. however, because i'm uncannily similar to autistic people, once i became aware of the things that they do that i also do, i was able to put a name on them for the first time and directly address them. monotropism is less of an issue for me now than it was a month ago, as i made it a point to start noticing a more diverse range of stimuli around me (when necessary, because i really prefer not to)

​@@dannyismetalThere is a big difference between a person who has done little study and research to make a diagnosis on themselves and a neurological doctorate who has spent years of study to know what to look for that qualifies identifying something that, although can be a benefit in some cases, can be a detriment to the person, such as the lagging in mental capacity up to a certain point in life (varies) and thus being diagnosed an Aspie at a young age.

Lmao one time I ditched a friend to play in my head and everyone was so upset 😭

I feel like I'm rapidly shining my torch in different directions sometimes, but then I also have ADHD. But I'm really great at noticing tiny details in things, like finding shinies in Pokemon. A very useful skill -_-

In 16 personalities one of the categories is Judging Vs Perceiving. Which is described as 'are detail oriented or big picture focused?'. This always confused me because I feel like I am both. Visually I am constantly zeroing in on minute details in my environment as if I'm checking for bugs in the simulation. I think it's a self-soothing thing. I need to pay attention to the little things to feel tethered to reality. However conceptually I am more of a compulsive philosopher. I am the opposite of grounded, playing with worldviews exaggertively like I'm looking through a filters. I think that's more what the test refers to, hence why I always get P instead of J. Ironically I find this personality trait of perceiving can manifest as being super judgy of myself and others. And super negative if you're not in a good headspace unfortunately

​@veelogation3890 I'm the same with four leaf clovers. I used to find a handful of them... during baseball in PE. Leaves are so much more interesting than sports.

@@Eet_Mia i have that as well. They just pop out in walls of text, whether its in a presentation, book or a random paragraph online. Its as if a fly would land on your monitor screen, you can't not notice it. It only irritates me when others don't it but i do so i usually point out the mistake if its warranted.

Yeah, this seems to describe what I've referred to as "mental tunnel vision". Didn't think it was anything new or newish

*stim

That is so lovely. ❤ You’re a wonderful heart nurtured by a wonderful heart. That’s big stuff in this life!

that is a genuine father

what is "to stem"?

@@davidcastaneda6111 They're talking about the act of "stimming" that a lot of autistic people do, but every time they mentioned it, they misspelled it lol

This is so true. That is essentially how I naturally learn about and pursue my special interests as an adult. I become completely obsessed and spend almost every waking minute of free time absorbed in that thing for weeks or months and then rotate to something else. My food choices and media consumption will also follow this pattern.

This resonates with me so well, I’ve had this thought so many times growing up

This is so important. The only way I got through university was doing it one course at a time, and of course had to do many extra years.

I ended up leaving an adult Ed language course I’d paid for because the tutor’s teaching style was to do language related stuff for half an hour then ‘have a break’ and watch videos about the history of the country or something then go back to teaching the language. Drove me bats.

yeah that’s why i never understood study advice that told you to take breaks every so often like no then i’ll mess up my momentum

i’m in the exact same place as you my friend. i’m 25 and that “panic” you mentioned has been my life for almost my entire life. feeling so much pressure on myself for just being myself, but not knowing that. not knowing that nothing was wrong with me, and i just needed to allow myself to be myself.

Yeah, I just took it and I may retake it later. I got 84% and now I’m kinda wondering if I was skewing the results after watching the video and because I’ve been in my workshop for hours… and the questions are always hard on these things because you never know quite what they mean by them. And for the love of mustard why is there always at least one “people tell me I’m” question? Neurotypicals can’t people trusted to tell you things like that straight out. They bottle everything up!

Make sure to seek out a psychiatric professional who specialises in autism, most everyone else is .. incompetent Don't take no for an answer I'm about to turn 44 and have just been officially diagnosed, life is a lot easier on the other side, and it's happening to people much older. If you're not comfortable with a test, take it again, you will probably find the difference doesn't actually affect your score

its a possibility you could have all those and autism, i ended up with all of those and autism as a diagnosis myself. takes a doctor to find out either way!

There is enormous overlap with OCD, depression, anxiety and autism. 37% of autistic people have OCD compared to 2% of the general population. 26% of autistic people have depression compared to 2.8% of the general population. 20.1% of autistic people have some kind of anxiety disorder as opposed to 8.7% of the general population. There is also a dramatic overlap between PTSD and autism but this connection is a bit more controversial. Because PTSD and autism have so many of the same manifestations (hyperarousal, hypervigilance, depression, substance abuse, sleep issues, disassociation, etc.) one can often be misdiagnosed as the other. Usually this takes the form of an autistic person being diagnosed as having PTSD. There is strong evidence that people with autism are more likely to develop PTSD over the course of their lives. A theory that explains this is that autistic people ruminate more and so are more likely to reinforce trauma to a degree that causes PTSD to develop. The role of rumination in PTSD is pretty well established. A study of war veterans showed that if opioids were administered shortly after a traumatic event(like if someone is hit by an IED and is given morphine for pain) then the likelihood of that person developing PTSD is diminished. A possible explanation is that the mental reinforcement of trauma following a traumatic event can be interrupted by a dopamine release. The rumination stops or decreases and the trauma doesn’t develop such deep roots in the psyche. As an aside, there is no “cure” or “treatment” for autism because it is not an illness(you can simply learn how to harness your autistic superpowers more effectively and adapt to a world/society not designed for autistic people) but the therapies for PTSD, OCD, anxiety, and depression have two enormous overlaps: therapy and psychedelics. Do with that information what you will.

I got officially diagnosed as a 59 yr old. I had a weird life. At least I know why.

You're not disabled or sick in any way. You're a perfectly normal unique individual. You're part of a larger group who are similar in uniqueness to you. We as logical human beings given faculties of reason, are compelled by these unanimal faculties to attempt to organise, categorise and label EVERYTHING. So called "autistic" people are just the polar ends of the varied groups or archetypes that make up humanity. There's room for us all. You heard the woman in the video: autistic people are over-sensitive. Next sentence: autistic people are under-sensitive. And on and on. She's basically describing ALL people at either end of the human condition. It's not a disease. It's you being you. If the creator wanted all people to be the same He could have made us all like pre-programmed identical robots. He didn't. He created diversity. Sorry if you don't like your condition (personality) but it is what it is. As for your over-analysis of yourself. I've got news for you - everyone, literally EVERYONE goes through that period in life. For most people it's during puberty and teens. Then they grow up and realise no one really gives a shit how you look or act. They become a little more comfortable in themselves and learn the do's and don't's of society - what's acceptable and unacceptable, and are thereby able to (somewhat) let go of themselves or the constant internal thoughts of how they might "fit in" to larger society. They become indoctrinated into society and they no longer need to consider or internally reflect on social norms. Their social inhibitions are on auto-pilot. When you witness that awkward teenager, you are literally observing a being who is unsure of themselves or society at large, what's right or wrong. They're hesitant in everything they do publicly because they're still learning what society expects/demands of them. Once learnt and internalized they no longer need to think about it and be so self-conscience - they just know. They've grown up! Some people who are by all accounts "grown up" and are still overly self-conscience, are that way because they're focused on their self (their "nafs") or in psychological quackery terms; their "ego". You're focused on your ego because you don't have a higher or more important object of attention. You're the most important thing in your world. In my world - as a Muslim - I come second (or even third or fourth or fifth depending). There's someone vastly, infinitely, more important than me. My creator. Focus on Him, liberates me from my self. Forgetfulness or heedlessness of Him (called; ghaflah in Islam) brings me back to fear and darkness. To egotistical attitudes in everything I do, think and say. I (and most people who sincerely practice a faith of acknowledging, recognizing and observing a higher power and His laws) swing like pendulums between darkness and light. Fear and faith. The darkness sucks. A cold fearful place full of anxiety and worry. When in the light - you're empty and full all at the same time, it's a kind of bliss. When in bliss you think back to the times when you were in darkness and wonder at all the grotesque and perverse things you got mixed up in and wonder how you could have become so corrupted. You repent of it and in your mind and heart you could never imagine returning to it. Only to find yourself slipping back into it all over again. Trying to claw your way out but you can't. Until you can. And the cycle continues. Some people, elderly people, who have fallen the required number of times are given reprieve and remain in the light until it's their time to leave this wretched place. The rest swing back and forth. Rise and fall and rise again. People in perpetual darkness have no idea what I'm talking about. This modern field of psychology is 90% BS. The root of this modern phenomenon of widespread mental problems, depression, anxiety, etc with a plethora of labels and diagnoses to suit is down to one thing - GHAFLAH (heedlessness). And there ain't no pill that can cure it. Turning back to your Creator is the only way. Wasalam. Girl in the video is cute. A perfectly normal unique cute girl.

Interesting. People have often told me that I "overthink" things, as if it were a choice that I consciously, deliberately make. It's like, _"What am I suppose to _*_do_*_ with that information? What would you have me do?! I can't just stop thinking! It's how my defective brain is wired."_

@@entertainme121 Everybody's an expert. 🙄 You belong to a cult, therefore nothing you say has any value or merit.

@@entertainme121 🤔 Almost right, all but the part about rising out of darkness by your own effort, falling back and rising yet again and again, by your own effort. I was taught this is the height of futility. Only God the Almighty could do what needed to be done to free us from the curse of darkness in the soul. And once He frees us, we can never be in darkness again. Not to say we won't be oppressed or tested by forces of darkness, but they can never again hold us secure. We who believe in the power of light and love will see our God vanquish the dark forever. All it takes to join us, is to admit you can't help yourself get free of sin. Believe our God can free you. Ask Him to forgive you for following the darkness. He will! He longs to rescue all humanity from dark forces. The only way is to ask Him to, and do our best to follow Him from then on. We, being human are going to fail. But the blessed thing is, once you are His, he forgives over and over as many times as it takes, just ask. We will be in Paradise with Him in the end. Because He loves us.

I was just introduced too, that explains why the military was so hard… yo I need to read more books.

Your mom sounds like kind of an asshole, no offense. I also had trouble riding a bike, and never really learned how in the end, because my family was okay with me giving up on it. Especially since pretty soon after we got a bike for me, I developed extremely severe Tourette's Syndrome that basically makes it impossible for me to do so anyway lol

if before you had a label you were fine then how about not going back to not labeling yourself?

I completely understand how you feel. I’m the same age, feeling the same.

​@@john-ic5pzrox NEVER said the were done before the label stop putting words in other people's mouths

Hope you are feeling better these days! It is okay to be different, but it can also be hard! ❤

Asking someone to put in extra effort when their disability is actually endangering others is kind of valid. For any other disability ... why is it your job to do extra work to make other people happy? You're already doing more work than they are. Why can't they do a bit of work on themselves to stop being nasty?

Being weird is good ☺️

Remember that Neurodivergence quite often comes in clusters. I always put aside the idea I could be Autistic because some things don't entirely match up. It's only in the last year talking to a friend who is now lecturing in Neurodivergence (and a few other people that put two and two together) that it's come to my attention that I probably have both Autism and ADHD and they are in some ways covering for each other. Meaning I enjoy socialising a lot but it can cause burn out. And I tend to multitask and need multiple streams of data to keep myself going which kind of goes somewhat against the subject of this video. But at the same time I have special interests, need to stim to combat anxiety and other traits of Autism.

@@TheRodentMastermind Well i have autism and im very very social and an extrovert so you could still have it while being social

@@hello_ree Oh I'm absolutely sure I'm Autistic, but I also probably have ADHD which means some of the classic 'Autistic Traits' get hidden. For example I need to Socialise and do new things, but I will pay for it later if I'm not careful in burn out. What I was trying to say is there is a very high possibilities of comorbidities in Neurodiverse people. Which means don't worry too much if you don't entirely match the 'text book definitiion' of Autism.

@@TheRodentMastermind Ok im autistic and have ruleout adhd

Try having a bipolar condition being misidentified as autism. Bipolar, ADHD, Autism, Major Depression and Schizophrenia all are on Axis 1 of the DSM 5. I have family members whose condition can be identified all across Axis 1. However, most all the cases are varying degrees of bipolar condition which has some aspects that resemble Autism. Lately it seems that people have made being autism a kind of emblem that people think it is cool to wear. Nothing about bipolar condition is charming or quirky. It is hell.

Who is your Dads Dr? I would be interested in contacting them for diagnosis. 👍 Thank you

​@@aristoclesathenaioi4939 sorry its been so hard for you.

This is so interesting! I think I've trained myself to ignore discomfort in many ways too. So I think you might be onto something! Thank you for sharing your experience 💛

I think you are onto something there. It could account for many things

I believe you. I have fibromyalgia, which is chronic muscle and nerve pain and tenderness, and I can pretty much tune it out if I'm doing something I'm very interested in and get to the flow stage. I wore heels at my daughter's wedding and as soon as we turned on the lights to clean up, after the dancing, I realized that the pain in my feet was excruciating!

One of the biggest reasons I haven’t tried to get evaluated for autism is that I didn’t stay hypersensitive. I needed to have my my socks on perfectly as a kid or else I’d throw a fit and miss the bus and I couldn’t sleep if my mom was making food because the smell would keep me awake. Now I don’t even notice if my socks are halfway off my feet and I can barely smell things unless I’m actively paying attention to them. I’ve always taken it as a sign that I’m not autistic because I grew out of my sensory issues and autism is a lifelong thing but hearing this perspective has given me a lot to think about.

@@cannibalisticginger7256 glad to hear that! Of course this is just a theory of mine and I'm no professional. But also there's plenty other reasons why our traits change through time (as any other person, we grow up and evolve and change). For sensory stuff, I think especially puberty brings huge changes, both to our body and to our perceptions (because hormones). Clothes tags used to drive me crazy as a kid, and up until a couple weeks ago I really couldn't tell how I kinda suddenly got over it as a teenager. Then I realized: I got lots of hair, especially just below the back of my neck, where tags usually are. I'm 2 years from my formal diagnosis and I'm still figuring stuff out.

I went out and did the questionnaire before watching this video because I wasn't aware of monotropism before and I didn't want this to bias my answers. I scored pretty high....😳

💯 I'm exactly the same, lots of things I can relate to autism, but then others just not. Like the routines, I just enjoy a day without anything that I need to do, it's the most stress free.

My friend, as Meg said, if you're doing this much research, you're in the fam 👏 ❤️ 💙 💜 welcome!

@@GoodTrebleStudios thank you ☺️

Im right there with you. What are your special interests? "Well right now Autism, which leaves me constantly questioning am I autistic or just really interested in autism. like sure I match in alot of things, ALOT, but I could just be biased and stretching my mind to make things fit. " Gets me all the time 24/7

@@raynac224 that’s exactly me! And sometimes I even wonder if the fact that maybe I’m convincing myself I’m autistic when I’m not is a symptom of some other condition or neurodivergence or whatever that I haven’t discovered yet! And that could be super interesting too!

Generally, completely neurotypical people aren't drawn to learn more about autism. They have tons of things to fill their lives with and will tell you about them. If you're hungry for it, that means something clicks. Does that mean you're "autistic"? Maybe not, maybe it's adhd, or burnout, or something, but it's something worth investigating. So, try not to worry too much, just keep learning until something really clicks.

I love both language and idioms. They say the English language has more idioms than any other. But we need some new ones.

@@marthamurphy3913 That is awesome you enjoy that. I could understand why they could be fun to learn about especially how they change over time and what can influence them to come into existence. I do also enjoy making up my own versions of existing idioms or coming up something new. I guess that is the way to make new ones enter language, just gotta make up your own💜

yeah i have to know the history of every idiom. and i *will* use them from literally any source if they’re a good texture both the bible and my favorite niche youtuber are in the table

@@marthamurphy3913who says? /g like i’m curious how did they count it?

That could be a very valuable skill. Actually, I'm pretty sure it is. 👍

I'm not bad at sports, I just don't have spatial awareness of anything else when I'm tracking the ball, haha

What you’re describing sounds a bit like how I engage with playing an instrument. I’m able to play really complex things on the piano if I see it as continuation of a single trajectory and rely heavily on the muscle memory of learning it.

I've seen parents using normal sign language for communication. Sometimes it works.

Currently we use an iPad application for basic communication but I am making a hard push to teach him sign. I believe that sign is more universal and a more convenient method of communication. I also believe that his intellectual development depends upon the use of a language. We think and learn in a language. Most of our concepts are constructed from the understanding of definitions, linguistic relationships and meanings etc. Sign can be a gateway to written communication and literacy. Literacy can lead to greater intellectual development. The iPad just isn't going to be enough. @@ASAS-dn4ve

So relatable!!

This exactly!! Especially the attention thing.

Hehe, a friend of mine in middle school called it endearingly a "reading coma" when I was reading my book and wouldn't respond to anyone. :D I wish I could still be sucked into a book like this and forget everything but I can't really read for enjoyment anymore, since I finished high school.

Yes! I relate to this! I was and still am a straight As kind of person who overdoes every project/job/tasks because I hyperfocus and have extreme perfectionism and a need to strive to prove I'm "enough" to everyone, but I also managed to graduate 3 times by 25 and still not get a job until I was 31. It should have been obvious to people that I was struggling under massive anxiety and depression and that this was not coming from any inability to actually achieve things, especially work related things, but rather the massive lack of social link to anyone and particularly obvious fact that I can't network well enough to find my way into a job. I still feel it very much, that there's a lot of obvious factors that people should have known, I had and still have major ARFID, and didn't even know there was a name for it so I've just lived in shame with it and kept it secret and worked hard on it on my own all this time, and I now have increasingly bad GI issues that when they look with every kind of test, have no physical reason to be happening, which I think is again commonly linked to ASD and the resulting anxiety and strain it causes everyday. I've got every single trait in the book except maybe a love for animals, which scare me most of the time, but I still get SO MANY people pushing it aside! Even the 7 mental health professionals I've seen across my lifetime either didn't pick it up or when I finally did think of it and suggested it they all said "oh yeah without a doubt but it's not relevant to dealing with your increasing SH tendencies and it's not "enough" to be worth talking about or looking into" - UM EXCUSE ME? I BANG MY HEAD INT OTHE WALL AND IM SCARED OF THAT, I REALLY THINK IT MIGHT BE TIME TO ADMIT IT'S REAL? Sorry, the idea that people are so dismissive of high masking ASD people and then expect us to go and do all the researching and then basically self diagnose, self refer, self treat and chase up the million other things that then radiate from this like eating disorders and so on, is just starting to really piss me off. It's SO much work and I do it all just to be dismissed as "perfectly fine". It's really not! EVEN THIS REPLY IS EVIDENCE OF MY INABILITY TO NOT BE HYPERVERBAL IN WRITING UGH hahaha

Normies are lame 🤷‍♂️

@@maluridae_ I'm 65 and I've longed for a partner all my life but I'm too much a failure to let it happen, so inside I'm just constantly sad and seeing attractive women just sends me into a pit of being frozen and intolerably sad. I see people like you do, like none one cares about me enough to the point where I hardly see any body for days and weeks. Things seems too impossibly hard to do... I watch RU-vid and then read comments and get so caught up in it, leaving comments and getting frustrated when there's no replies or the wrong reply, yet I spend so much energy trying to express exactly what I'm trying to say and I forget that a large proportion of people out there are varying degrees of bullies or trolls or they just are really nasty or they just don't seriously care that deeply... But I have no clue how to fix this and meanwhile life gets harder and more painful. This video is a bit of an eye opener and i do not type comments like this lightly, or ever before; not that it means anything will change as a result, that's my certainty. But the kind and beautiful lady disarmed me and here I am writing another comment after being awake for I don't know how long. All the best, we deserve better...

Yup same.

Relate to this so hard! I went from literal perfect daily attendance and being a principal honor roll elementary school kid, even getting upset when there was a snow day, to skipping class as a freshman in high-school, not turning in work at all, and being transferred to 3 different high-schools because I couldn't stand the one I was in before. And it just got worse and worse every year after I hit age 13. Like what went through my school counselor's and teacher's minds when they saw this thriving, happy little kid who loved learning, turning into someone that hated being in school so much they'd rather make a break for it, risking getting in trouble, to walk around town until the busses came to pick the students up? Why didn't an adult ever wonder why someone, who loved learning so much and knew so much about non-school topics, didn't want to be in a place where all you do is learn??

Love this! You've described the feeling so well.

This is such a good analogy! If I need to step away from a special interest I almost have to brace myself for that. It still feels very distressing and uncomfortable, no amount of exposure has changed it.

Is this why I feel like I have to violently tear myself away, sometimes I have to run or yell or fall down to jar myself out of my original state… huh

I used to be married to someone who designed logos from time to time, so I find that fascinating. I'm more apt to remember the logo and not the product.

i was lucky enough to have a mom who is also autistic (though doesn’t claim to be) so when she would call my name multiple times while i was reading and i wouldn’t hear her until she physically put her hand in front of the book she just thought i got it from her 😅 which is true but not in the way she thought

also i get the needing to go back and decipher things XD i’ve told my roommate many times “wait, repeat that, i forgot to turn my ears on”

My mom used to say that I have selective hearing, but jokes on her, it's actually just sensory processing disorder and/or being too distracted to perceive other sounds

​@@anotherhuman2414ditto!

Yess - I really want to get my friends with just an ADHD diagnosis to do the questionnaire with me and hear their reasoning for their choices! I have an ADHD diagnosis too and I do find myself seeking novelty. I suppose under the monotropism lens you might say that novel experiences are more stimulating and therefore more likely to get us into that preferred flow state? I definitely feel like something is 'different' about my dopamine and serotonin levels due to various experiences I've had. I suppose monotropism is just a theory of how our minds might work and doesn't attempt to explain the neurology behind it etc. Hopefully one day we'll know more!

potato

(ASD + ADHD here) I feel like I'm shining my torch/flashlight rapidly in different directions, so I think for me I love finding new tunnels. Actually I think that might be a deeper thing than I originally thought, because I can quite easily get bored/frustrated by my own thought patterns or ways of analysing/thinking about things. Something I consistently like a lot is puzzle games, eg. sudoku with extra rules and I think part of it is stimming comfort for my brain but part of it is that I can change up what strategies I use whenever I play.

That's totally understandable. I never pace myself well with friendships and just kinda fly in but I've had the fortune of meeting some great people in my late teens and adult life.

I really love music and lyricism, and I pretty much always have, but I just realized I had a very similar experience. Thankfully, my parents listen to a lot of good music, so I always have backups from the last five or so decades, and I can use that background to find similar music. My top three artists/bands recently and for the last few years have been Fleet Foxes (folk/rock/indie/choir vocals-based, their albums are all very different and very good), Alabama Shakes (rock/soul-inspired/"how have I never heard this?" type music), and Still Woozy (kinda bedroom indie pop with a lot of psychedelia inspiration based on classical guitar riffs, very romantic and sweet songs). Very wide range, but they all incorporate beautiful instrumentation alongside either beautiful or relatable (or both) lyrics. I can listen to their albums all the way through, and my favorite songs of theirs shift all the time, which is rare for me. Highly recommend all three of them, if you're looking for anything new.

"and then the instrumental version either doesn't exist, still has backing vocals" Use AI to filter out the vocals. There is special software that does this, but it needs to be built into all music players.

The voice, is another instrument. So its not even unreasonable. And lyrics kinda have to work in tune with the rest. Yeah the voice is aninstrument and lyrics woth notes or at leat vibe of it are how to use your voice. You can cite voice trainer that describe it even as instrument you train with.

My partner and I have a running joke between us about my inability to hear lyrics in music. The music could be amazing and make me feel really good, while the lyrics could be saying terrible things, and I have no idea! Similarly to you, the singer's voice is just like another instrument to me. I can hear the odd few words here and there, and can sometimes pick up parts of the chorus, but if I want to hear the lyrics properly, it takes a HUGE amount of effort! And even then I still struggle to decipher the words, and I don't feel like I can enjoy or even hear the music properly. I was only recently diagnosed with ADHD, after a 5 year wait on the NHS, and the specialist recommended I look into Autism diagnosis, too, stating he was "as certain as he possibly could be" that I am on the Autistic spectrum. Something I have been wondering about in recent years, which has brought me to Meg's channel and other RU-vidrs. I can certainly identify with this theory of Monotropism, and it does seem to make sense of my difficulties with music, which I hadn't thought about before. I'd figured it was something to do with ADHD and attention, however I'm now thinking that there is just too much going on in music for the narrow focus of my monotropic mind!

I also hear vocals as another instrument without being able to get meaning from the lyrics! I think that's why I like music in languages other than English because then I can just let the sounds wash over me. But even in English songs I have to read the lyrics in order to understand them because with listening I'll only be able to pick out a phrase or two.

Reminds me of when I was a child explaining the difference between disrespect and not respect.

Oh noo! Sorry 😂

Love it! ❤

It got me too 😂

I was looking at it basically the whole time hahaha

Lol same, but it was a good focus while listening. :)

mine has always been that what is hard for neurotypicals is often easy for me, and vice versa. so typical accommodations for nts will spend tons of time on stuff that i already get and no time at all on the hard stuff i need help with

I think it depends on the type of task any particular subskill requires. Autists are robotic, in the sense that we have to 'calculate' everything manually. We can get quite fast at the process with practice, but that doesn't change that the autistic mind calculates. Neurotypicals on the other hand run on heuristic engines, or 'instincts', which are faster but skip a lot of details and thus are inaccurate, which tends to be acceptable because most things in everyday life don't have millimeter tolerances on everything. So neurotypicals excel at anything that needs to be fast, and autists excel at anything that needs to be accurate.

​​@@SupLuiKiryour comment reminds me of my style of getting groceries. If I make a list with a dinner plan and an extra page with the ingredients needed to take with me to the store - aka thoughtfully calculated how much is needed of what - the trip to the store is rather fast. Without a list - and trying to do it by gut feeling and no calculation? I can slow down so badly and it takes forever, especially without headphones that helps me keep focus and help me keep distraction out.

I think I do that a bit too. I get used to a logo or icon and (on my phone/iPad etc) where it is placed, and if it changes or moves I’m lost.

humm I never saw a T in Toyota's logo either.. but I would be surprised if most people did, it's frankly not clearly looking like a T ...

Thats very interesting

This happens to me too! So much so that I'll be looking for something in the supermarket and if everything is the same shape and colour, they all just blur into the same product to me and I can't find what I'm looking for 😭

@@LunarWind99 I have that now but because my eyesight has deteriorated. I’ve always had a problem with shops that sell cd’s DVD’s games etc though, and clothes shops like TK Maxx where everything is hanging together with no space between. I can only deal with being in there for a few minutes, not long enough to buy anything.

"I also get emotional thinking about our collective special interest in autism." There is a tendency for autistic individuals to be fascinated by autism. Fascination with autism is a characteristic of autism.

If you actually look at the studies into how the brain is wired, in autistic individuals certain areas of the brain have more connections to each other than a non autistic brain, and other areas have less connections to what you'd see in a non autistic brain. There also seems to be an issue with the amount of "buffer" due to this. So a non autistic person can receive info (via sensing organs) and it makes its way to the brain and the brain feeds back that it got the message so then it doesn't take in any more of the stimulus from that thing unless it changes or remains important. In contrast there isn't that same feedback within an autistic brain, so each bit of stimulus gets treated like a brand new piece of information to process even if its basically just the same thing over & over. So a non autistic person's ears will hear the sound of the fridge, send the info to the brain, the brain will go "oh that's the sound of the fridge, its not important, you don't need to send me more info about that ears" and that message gets sent to the ears which now tune the sound out. Autistic person's ears hear the sound of the fridge, send the info to the brain, the brain goes "oh that's the sound of the fridge". The ears keep sending the info to the brain about the sound. The brain keeps going "that's the fridge". No message goes back to the ears telling them they don't need to keep sending that info, no tuning out happens in the brain either. But its happening for every sensory input all at once with none of them properly getting the "ok, don't need to focus on that" response. So then its not much surprise that an autistic brain can then only engage with one *other* channel of information at once. Because really we're having to deal with all the other stuff that non autistic people's brains just tune out for them. Its basically the same as being on high alert all the time, so its also not a surprise that anxiety is such a big thing for autistic people.

Yep, as soon as I got older and was finally ready to own my diagnosis, people suddenly no longer perceived me as autistic. And they were often very quick to tell me. So much for that. But what I realized is that the standard autism criteria is really centered around how the person is perceived externally. Not only is it not defined by the autistic person's actual experiences, there is also no coherent substance to autism as it has been historically defined. It doesn't boil down to anything specific about a person's nature. It's simply a way of categorizing and stereotyping people who are viewed as having a certain flavor of incompatibility with society. But there can be different reasons for a person to act in certain ways, and there can be multiple ways to express one inner experience. I like this idea of monotropism, because it has to do with actual human nature, and it makes much more coherent sense.

So chronically neurotypical to jump to conclusions about a thing in which they are inadequately informed but are certain that THEY do in fact Know.

I hope you have support. I was married for 26 years (until my husband passed away) and we have seven children. I have homeschooled for many years; I have one left to graduate. One of the strengths of homeschooling is that I can set our family schedule to fit me: I prefer to stay up late and sleep in, so I schedule nothing early, no classes, no commitments. We start school at 10 a.m. and when my children were all elementary age and younger, we'd end official schoolwork at noon with exercise. Now that my last child is high school age, we work around his theater schedule. He performed in a play last night. My husband and I made a point of going out to dinner without our children once a week or once every other week, so I could have time away from the children and so he could reconnect with me. I live in a city that has a lot of co-op classes I can take my children to, so for subjects I don't want to teach, they can learn from someone else. I despise grading papers, so we use other ways of showing what our children have learned. They make art, they write, they make music, they give presentations; each one is different. I feel blessed to get to learn something about everything they're interested in, because my focus is on figuring out how to help my children become their best selves. It's like opening live puzzle boxes, exciting and frustrating and wonderful and painful all at once. My most difficult child so far is the most obviously autistic; she is so sensitive to touch that I can tickle her by waving my fingers in her sight. She has enough instability that she chooses not to ride a bike at all. My other children, however, are one by one being diagnosed ADD or ADHD as adults. I'm fairly certain that I'm autistic, but my strength is in words and in following directions to the letter, so I fit in really well in school, that is, teachers loved me. Other students mostly got ignored, if I was reading a book, or selectively listened to if I was between books. You can do this. You only have to do what you can do, and God will make up the rest. He gave you and your husband the children he did, so you AND they can learn from the experience.

LOL, I did EXACTLY THIS too! I was in the reading nook and the teacher took the whole class out to recess and even turned out the lights and I just kept reading (because I was near the window). It was like 20 minutes later that I was like "why is it so dark in here?" and realized everyone was outside...and just shrugged and picked up my book again. The teacher was all concerned and called a parent-teacher conference. My dad was like "Look, being able to concentrate like that is going to be so valuable when she gets to college! Don't try to train it out of her! If you want everyone to go outside...just check all the corners before you leave."

Sounds like something I've done

Ooh - I like that!

UPDATE: I’m being further tested for ASD and ADHD! (And there was some stuff about anxiety)

All the best 😊.

I like idioms, analogies, and allegory allot myself. I like writing poetry and stories that use them. I often find I can communicate something that can't be communicated through literal language this way especially emotions. Standard words for emotions are almost meaningless to me. They aren't descriptive enough.

totally me! I have an autism diagnosis but I love metaphors and use them all the time I also love subtext in books and movies where they manage to say something without saying it or the sentence could mean multiple things. I love language and word play. then people tell me autistic people take everything teally literally and subtext is lost on them and we wonder if I really have it. in some ways I think it might be a side effect of autism like its harder for me to understand things in a straight forward way the way a neurotypical person would. i have trouble naming my thoughts and emotions so i say things like I feel like im in a crowded restaurant. and while I love subtext in stories and obsessing over a well written and acted scene I dont know how much thats ever translated to my real life conversations.

Double empathy problem ?

​@bingchungusthought spot shared a great Japanese documentary about autistic adults in Japan. There are differences, but much of their social experience is similar to that of autists in the anglosphere.

I prefer to have serious chats via text. So my words can't be missed while I'm speaking. No one has had a problem with me doing this so far. Probably because everyone texts these days and is used to it.

@@AshleyWilliams-xq7lj Also in text you have time to formulate what you intend to say.

A great comparison! Thank you.

@@ColargolPL Thank you ! 😊

Omg yes

When I worked in an office, people used to tell me when they were going on breaks, and I said OK, but never noticed whether they came back.

I had the same thing in a tea shop! We were meant to pack loose tea into containers in between customers, but I got so focused on making the little tea boxes and writing all their labels that I sometimes didn't notice people waiting to pay. The solution we found was a friend joining me behind the counter so I could pack and they could do the customer bit - I got to focus and they got a break from the shop floor, which was an improvement in both our eyes ^-^

Yes, people don't grasp that it's not always the volume that's the problem, often it's the "feeling" of the sound or having multiple conflicting sounds at once that you can't process.

Like, death metal doesn't bother me, but ASMR overwhelms me instantly, the sounds they make are like being stabbed in the ear.

Thank you so much for saying that 💛

So true.

😂

I think my parents figured out the importance of the "why" pretty early, because by the time I could remember it they ALWAYS gave me a reason for why I needed to do a thing. And if it was a reason that made sense (eg "You need to go to bed early because we are going to the airport at 5 am and if you don't sleep now you're going to be grumpy" or "You need to stop reading and get in the car, because we all agreed to have dinner with your grandmother and it would be very rude if we don't turn up or dinner gets cold, and we don't treat people we love that way") then I would do it. If not...fairly often they'd accept my counter-argument! But TO THIS DAY (age 40) I don't do well if people just tell me to do something and it isn't clear why.

@@emilymoran9152 Yeah, it's amazing what a little "why" can do. It can also help one improvise... e.g. taking the book with you in the car. :D

Another point that I find really interesting as I continue watching the video is the fact that I really 'like' language. And while I have so many memories of were I did not understand many things as a child or youth, I became fascinated with linguistics, dialects, idiogramsand foreign languages as well (not a native english speaker). For example with the subject of the video: monotropism. My first instinct was, to look up "trope" in a dictionary and see, apart from my instinctive knowledge of meaning of the word, what the roots and variing definitions of it are and once I did, it made so much sense to me! That is something that I love about language. Many words that seem dated, confusing or broken at first, actually have alot of depth in them. Maybe I am influenced by my native language aswell (german) ;) the jokes about complicated german words are endless. But often times I found examples in old/historic english for example, were the same level of "creating new words to describe a specific thing" exists! Its just not used as often or dated.

You're so kind! Thank you so so much for this lovely comment 🥹

Oh that would be a nightmare job for me. 🤦‍♀️😅