Non-derogatory DSM-5 diagnosis criteria for Autism
Here it the link to this @Twitter thread🧵
- AskingAutisfics … how would you end this sentence
You might be Autistic if …
(feel free to be as humorous or serious as you like. )
Example:
You might be Autistic if you regularly use the term “rabbit hole.” 😅
<a href="https://t.co/ltkGHyagNJ">You might be Autistic if a pair of _**disney**_ songs completely devastates you with how profoundly it speaks to you about how you have crushed your inner truth to be what the world has demaned of you.
"Where You Are" transition to "How Far I'll Go"
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<a href="https://t.co/jpdIDIiglX"></a>
I mean.. listen to this from the perspective of building an Autistic Mask and having an openly Autistic Grandparent...
Moana, make way, make way Moana, it's time you knew The village of Motunui is all you need The dancers are practicing They dance to an ancient song (Who needs a new song? This old one's all we need) This tradition is our mission And Moana, there's so much to do (make way)
Don't trip on the taro root, that's all you need We share everything we make (we make) We joke and we weave our baskets (ah-ha) The fishermen come back from the sea
[ Autistic Child]
- I wanna see
Don't walk away Moana, stay on the ground now Our people will need a chief and there you are There comes a day When you're gonna look around And realize happiness is where you are
Consider the coconut (the what?) Consider its tree We use each part of the coconut, that's all we need We make our nets from the fibers The water is sweet inside We use the leaves to build fires We cook up the meat inside Consider the coconuts The trunks and the leaves (hah)
The island gives us what we need And no one leaves That's right, we stay We're safe and we're well provided And when we look to the future, there you are You'll be okay In time you'll learn just as I did You must find happiness right where you are
[Openly Autistic Person]
I like to dance with the water The undertow and the waves The water is mischievous, ha! I like how it misbehaves The village may think I'm crazy Or say that I drift too far But once you know what you like, well, there you are
You are your father's daughter, stubbornness and pride Mind what he says but remember
- You may hear a voice inside ##
- And if the voice starts to whisper ##
- To follow the farthest star ##
- Moana, that voice inside is who you are ##
[ Autistic child submits to masking ]
We make our nets from the fibers The water is sweet inside We use the leaves to build fires And cook up the meat inside The village believes in us (hah, that's right) The village believes (hah)
The island gives us what we need And no one leaves
- So here I'll stay ##
My home, my people beside me And when I think of tomorrow, there we are I'll lead the way I'll have my people to guide me We'll build our future together where we are
'Cause every path leads you back to where you are You can find happiness right where you are Where you are
_**now..**_ transition to "How Far I'll Go" which is breaking free of the mask ...
I've been staring at the edge of the water {unmasked} 'Long as I can remember Never really knowing why {not understanding Autism} I wish I could be the perfect daughter But I come back to the water No matter how hard I try
Every turn I take Every trail I track Every path I make Every road leads back To the place I know where I cannot go Where I long to be
See the line where the sky meets the sea? It calls me And no one knows How far it goes If the wind in my sail on the sea stays behind me One day I'll know
If I go, there's just no telling how far I'll go I know everybody on this island Seems so happy on this island Everything is by design {Allistic norms} I know everybody on this island Has a role on this island So maybe I can roll with mine
I can lead with pride I can make us strong I'll be satisfied if I play along {declaration of mask} But the voice inside sings a different song {different inside}
What is wrong with me? See the light as it shines on the sea? It's blinding But no one knows How deep it goes And it seems like it's calling out to me
So come find me And let me know What's beyond that line? Will I cross that line? And the line where the sky meets the sea It calls me And no one knows How far it goes If the wind in my sail on the sea stays behind me One day I'll know How far I'll go
- AskingAutisfics … how would you end this sentence
You might be Autistic if …
(feel free to be as humorous or serious as you like. )
Example:
You might be Autistic if you regularly use the term “rabbit hole.” 😅
You might be Autistic if dating is alien to you because how can you know if you "connect" with someone before you "know" them?
This is often a phenominon called Demisexuality. A sebset of asexuality where your sexual interest only manifests _**after**_ an emotional conenction is made.
A way to navigate Demisexuality in dating is to understand that your first "outting" is not a date, it is a pseudo-intimate outting to see if "a first date is warrented"
You can be up front and clear on your boundaries prior to the outting that there will not be any expectations of intimacy until you decide how you feel.
This can take all the stress out of this situation and make these outting a lot of fun.
It can be extremely difficult for people to grasp the concept of "demi-sexual" because people in general have difficulty honestly discussing general sexual desire for other people.
It is the "default" for people to have sexual attraction to members of the population that are compatible with their gender identity, without personal knowledge of the person, this is how systems like Tinder are able to function.
demi-sexuals can become arroused by physical attractiveness but, in general, do not feel a sexual desire for a given individual until after a connection is formed.
The compication is this:
A demi-sexual does not have sexual desire for a "stranger" _**
a**_ non-demi-sexual may have sexual desire for a "stranger" but might not act on that desire for any number of reasons.
An outside observer may not observe a distinction between the two.
Because the observational effect is so similar, many Demi-sexuals go through life unaware of the nuances of their gender and fail to develope usefully and healthy relationship strategies for navigating modern dating and many non-demis are completely unaware of the gender.
_**btw,**_ Demisexuality is a form of Asexuality and is part of the _**q**_ in _**lgbtq+**_ as in Queer!
If you didn’t know your Queer! Congrats!
Next month is _**our**_ month 🌈
- AskingAutisfics … how would you end this sentence
You might be Autistic if …
(feel free to be as humorous or serious as you like. )
Example:
You might be Autistic if you regularly use the term “rabbit hole.” 😅
I am sorry if this is inaccurate, and I recognize I have no place to say this but there is a slim possibility, in some cases that you might be Autistic if your statements apologize for even saying anything at all, if you know what I mean. I am sorry if I said too much. I am 1/
Just trying to be helpful. Please don’t take offense. I am … I guess I shouldn’t have said anything at all. Forget it. I don’t know what I was saying. It was clearly a mistake. I am really really sorry. Please forgive me.
All jokes aside.
This is a Traumagenic Autistic Trait, one that manifests when an Autistic person is mistreated.
This speech pattern develops because the way the Autistic person interacted was repeatedly deemed unacceptable so they assume negative consequences when they talk
These kinds of traits can easily manifest and snowball (alt build upon themselves rapidly) if an Autistic person is not accomodated by society and society does not have the time or patience to help the Autistic person to understand Allistic behaviors.
In this example, of, basically apoligizing for attempting to communicate, the Autistic person has likely been told that they broke various rules, social norms, etiquette, etc.. without sufficient explanation for what they did "wrong" from an Allistic viewpoint.
People are largelly unaware but this is one of the most powerful and traumatizing forms of abuse that a human can experience:
Random and unpredictable punishment
People around this Autistic person may have absolutely no intention of harming, punishing, abusing, or any negative intetion whatsoever.
From the perspective of the Autistic persion though, they keep trying to communicate and in ways they cannot predict they "do something bad"
Because the Autistic person in this situation cannot navigate the rules, all they can do is try their best to protect themselves from what they see as random rejections and unpredicatable rejections.
The following descriptions may be triggering but we want to put the perspective of this person into full context so that people can understand the harm that some Autistic people experience.
No form of abuse is acceptable.
Many if not most forms of abuse are predictable.
For example, if a person is abused by someone who drinks, the victim learn that they are safe when their abuser is not consuming alcohol.
When abuse has patterns a person can adapt to knowing when they have a higher chance of safety and a higher chance of threat. This allows them to learn situations where they can find some sense of peace and order.
Please note that most Autistic people _**thrive**_ of order and predicatable outcomes and ..
are
destoryed by not knowing w
what to anticipate or expec. expect.
I apllozime. _**.i**_ need to take amoment to contine . I m.
I apolgize for the interruption. I have wept, stimmed, and processed. I hope that I can continue. I will take a break without writing if I feel another intentisty come upon me. This is clearly a deep a personal issue.
As we said, many if not most forms of abuse have some form of pattern to them that allows for the victim to have a sense of understanding and stability.
Some truely unfortunate Autistic people find themselves in environments where their Autistic empathy and collection of Autistic traits does not allow for them to establish an awareness of Allistic social rules and expectation.
To this person's perspective many, if not all of their attempts to communicate have an random change of incurring a punishment of some form. So their every desire to communicate comes with the knowledge and awareness that harm, of some from, may come to them.
Because anything they say or do could be wrong, the Autistic person's only percieved safety is to preface their attempts with apoligies in the hopes that the unpredictable punisment will be less harsh.
The truely sad fact is that most Autistic people have great difficulty communicating with Allistics and need profound focus to emulate Allistic styles of communciation and most Autistics are severely compromised when multi-tasking.
You can see, hopefully that this Autistic person is therefore in an extremley compromised state:
- attempting the supremely difficult take of emulate Allistic social dynamics to communicate
- multitasking an attempt to protect themselves from harm and punishment.
In other words, the Ausitic person will be doing the hardest things possible for them to do while severly mentally compromised and vunlerable, and they are in this state _**because**_ their environment and/or Autistic drives are likely to punish them if they fail.
When it is likely that an Autistic person will experience this state regularly, out of intinct they will spend much of their time while outside of this state, devoloping coping mechanism and strategies to not fail the next time. which only serves to exacerbate the problem.
This is one example of how powerful, tenacious, insidious, self-propogating, and damaging Traumagenic Autistic Traits can be and why it is so important to identify when such cycles are occuring and why accomodating the Autistic is so critical.
- AskingAutisfics … how would you end this sentence
You might be Autistic if …
(feel free to be as humorous or serious as you like. )
Example:
You might be Autistic if you regularly use the term “rabbit hole.” 😅
You might be Autistic if you meet the _**dsm5**_ criteria for Autism, presented here in a non-deficient manner
Doing this in real time so cut us some slack 😅
Category A
- You do not naturally communicate or interact following Allistic standards but may have learned to do so.
Three Requirments: 1. You do reciprocate social-emotional Allistic norms. 2. You do not demonstrate natural proficiency or acceptance of non-verbal Allistic communication. 3. You do not demonstrate that relationships dependent soley upon Allistic empathy are fullfilling
Category _**b,**_
Focused patterns of behavior, interests, and activities.
Note that masking, _**aba,**_ etc may have eliminated outward manifestations of some of these traits so when assessing consider your entire life experiences.
2 out of 4 of the following are required.
1) Stimming or Self-Stimulatory Behavior.
Basically, does it feel "good" to repeat physical actions or statements? Do you have a natural impulse to move your body or state things that Allistics do not demonstrate?
Note that it is very common to suppress this to fit into Allistic norms and one may need to practice with stimming to re-access their ability to stim.
Note that Stimming might only manifest during moments of extreme stress such as rocking your hips while sitting in a chair.
Note that feeling overwhelming muscle pain over your entire body may be a sign of years of suppressed stimming.
Vocal simming takes many forms:
- Making animal noises (meowing, etc...)
- Random sounds
- Repeating what was stated by another
- Repeating phrases Even more random sounds.
Stimming is rooted in an Autistic person's need to relieve Autistic stress.
The desire to stim rises with Autistic stress and Autistic stress is relieved by stimming.
2 Demonstrating a Strong Preference for Predicatable Outcomes
- Strong desire for expectations to be set and met
- Able to excel in static environment that Allistic people could not handle.
- Resistance to illogical changes
3. Special Interests
- Deriving joy and or personal fullfillment from exceptional exploration of a topic of interest.
- Note that this may take many unexpected forms. Example, one might develop an interest in learning a broad spectrum of interests i.e. "collecting hobbies"
4. Hyper and Hypo Senses An Autistic person may have any of their senses in whole or in part be more or less sensitive than the Allistic standard. Note that as this is related to perception it may go unnoticed until a thorough assessment is made.
Note that the Hyper/Hypo Sensory aspect of Autism is the definitive proof that Autism is a Neorlogical condition. Many people misunderstand Autism to be Behavioral or Psychological but it is based on a different wiring of the brain.
This Hyper/Hypo Sensitivity to the enviroment can take on a vast spectrum of phenominon and can be extremely broad or specific.
Category _**c**_ People are born Autistic.
You cannot aquire Autism. It is present in early development. The nuance here is that many Autistic traits are linked to Autistic stress.
If an Autistic person is in a conducive environment, then the traits may not raise to observable levels until Autistic stress exceeds the limited capacity of the person to manage them without accomodations and supports.
The most relevant aspect of Category _**c**_ is that Autism-like traits may be aquired though _**ptsd,**_ _**tbi,**_ and other scenarios.
If a person is demonstrating Autistic-like traits, efforts should be explored to ellimiate the possiblity that they where aquired from a non-Autistic origin.
To be extremely clear, people can become aware that they are Autistic at any stage of life. People in their 70's learn that they are Autistic. Aditionally, experiecing _**ptsd,**_ _**tbi,**_ or other phenominon does not exclude the possibility that a person is Autistic.
Category _**c**_ is literally the acceptance that Autistic-like traints can have non-Autistic origins.
Category _**d**_ Medical Diagnosis Qualifier A person is born Autistic, however due to the limits upon which society is willing to accomodate the disabled, a society based functional limited is mandated on those who may be medically diagnosed as Autistic.
At the time of assessment an Autistic person, even if meeting all qualifications of Category _**a,**_ _**b,**_ and _**c,**_ must convince a licensed practicioner that, at the time of the assessment, the net effect of their Autisic traits and their current level of ability requires support.
If an Autistic person manages to convince a practicioner that they need accomodations during any assessement, then that Autistic person is protected for life, at that level of assessed need, independent of changing circumstances.
What this means is that an Autistic person who is recieving all necessary accomodations going into assessment may fail Category _**d**_ and not be eligible for a diagnosis of Autism.
Additionally it means that if a person is in need of accomodaitons during an assessment, that they are always eligible for accomodations for the Autism even if their circumstances change so that they no longer require accomodations.
Category _**d**_ is, by definition a social construct applied to limit the number of people who can be diagnosed as Autistic and as long as Category _**d**_ remains part of the _**dsm,**_ the diagnosis of Autism will not 100% match the number of people assessed to be Autistic.
It is inherently flawed in that an Autistic person's support needs are linked to their environment and other dynamic factors that can change at any time.
Category _**e**_ Check for a better explanation
Category _**e**_ is extremley similar to Category _**c.**_ The difference is that Category _**c**_ is about a life event that developes Autism-like traints. Category _**e**_ applies to other life long conditions that are more general.
I am going to add a personal caveat that I may be missing some of the nuace difference between Category _**c**_ and _**e,**_ but both are checking to make sure that other explanations are not more likely.
So what this all boils down to is this:
- If you meet all 3 requirements of Category _**a
- _ If you meet 2 of the 4 requirements of Category _**b
- _ If nothing but Autism can explain those 5-7 traits.
You very very likely have Autism.
<a href="https://t.co/VpuKT46GKt">If you want a most expansive, positive explanation of the _**dms5,**_ this video is BRILLIANT
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We meant *more expansive
<a href="https://t.co/RkUCOkGH2E">The Criteria for Autism boils down to:
- You have Autistic empathy instead of Allistic
& 2+ of the following:
- Stimming
- Desire for Predictable Outcomes
- Special Interests
- Hyper/Hypo Senses
This can help explore varoius ways these manifest: </a>
<a href="https://t.co/D0scCl0XmX">For those who read this and where gobsmacked with the revelation that their muscle pain could be due to suppressed stimming, here is a guide on deprogramming stim suppression.
If you are suppressing stimming, it should become obvious pretty quickly.
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<a href="https://twitter.com/x/status/1530013569693130759">Here it the link to this @Twitter thread🧵 </a>
