Autism & Society Explained: YOU Should Stop Saying "Everybody's a Bit Autistic"
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 พ.ย. 2024
- Autism is not the rarity it was once thought to be. Have you ever said "Everybody's a bit autistic" or "We're ALL on the spectrum"? Ever thought about how autistic people feel about it when people say that to them?
#Actually Autistic #AllAutistics #AskingAutistics #Autism
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I've been interpreting and coming to understand autism via two metaphors. Something like the kind of controller board you might find in a traditional theater's control room with knobs and dials where each is a different little detail of sensitivities, energy levels, and our relationship with each different element of our autism. The other is that _everything_ is textures, including ideas, rules, world views, sounds, etc, etc, and our textural sensitivities might like some textures and not like others. Which can be demonstrated with our control panel, and every autistic person's control board is unique to them with their own specific high and low settings that are impacted by the world around us and by our internal states. For example, my controller for sound sensitivity has a very small window for what's comfortable for me most of the time, but when I'm having a really bad day I need to just be able to zone out listening to my rock music with the instrumentals smackin me in the brain and the occasional bout of scream singing. Someone else might be really comfortable with noises, but when they're having a bad day maybe they need silence.
I didn't believe my grandson's diagnosis of Autism for a few years because, to me, he was "normal". Everyone kept insisting he was Autistic and I kept saying that he wasn't because I "do that" too! That's when my kids started telling me that the reason I thought it was normal is because I'm Autistic as well. You could have knocked me over with a feather I was so shocked! It's been a few years since that revelation and I now realize and accept that I am Autistic. So much of my life makes sense now. Part of that realization has led me to observe myself and watch for signs of stress or discomfort as I have poor interoception. When thoughts start cascading through my mind and I start mentally beating myself up for past mistakes I realize I am having a meltdown. I never knew why those thoughts would suddenly appear but now I do; they are a sign that I am overstimulated and need time to myself. One of my favourite ways to calm myself is to sit at my computer and load a card game to play while listening to you talk about Autism. I am comforted by and relate to your explanations of our Autistic experiences. Do you have a video about internal meltdowns? Thank you for all you do to help the Autistic community!
That rainbow metaphor you used to describe autism made me feel so lovely and so proud to be a part of this community. Thank you.
Brilliant use of the analogy of the rainbow. I loved that. Explained so much so elequently
Couldn't put it better
A few decades ago my then best friends son was diagnosed with Aspergers, he was maybe 6/7, it was the first time I'd heard of it. And when she was explaining how much he was different and how he would struggle, I couldn't help but say, that's normal, that's how I think. I really liked her son, still do, I didn't see him as strange, I was ex military, his special interest was military, we could talk for hours and I was in awe of his knowledge on anything Army related. But I can remember that conversation with my friend, I can remember brushing her off that he was just normal and her saying it wasn't and that maybe I was Autistic, fast forward two decades and I'm going through the diagnosis. Looking back over my life I see that I gravitate towards folk who are autistic or speak our language. I was in the dark then, not now. Now I know why I said maybe we're all a little autistic. Because we are, just not a little, a lot, at least those I mixed with are. Just took more time for us girls to be recognized.
Autistic characteristics are human characteristics, so everyone can relate a little bit to the autistic experience. I touched on that in the "Chicken & Egg" film and will be expanding on it in a future video. Consequently, as you say, there is some relatable reasoning behind the idea that "We're all a bit autistic". What makes us autistic though is the combination of these traits, their sensitivity and/or their magnitude. That sets us apart.
As an example - everyone has experienced an incessant, loud causing them distress, however it doesn't compare well against an autist who finds sounds most NTs would consider benign a source of persistent sensory onslaught. It gives us a framework to draw comparisons and help us relate our differences but the subjective experience of the individual is a world apart.
Wish I could give this more than one thumbs up.
Thank you for saying so here so I could agree.. and hereby give another thumbs up..☺️😉
You are a complete legend. I was diagnosed last Friday with ASD and have shared your video on Facebook along with my diagnosis to spare myself from this phrase that even one of my senior managers casually slipped into conversation before my diagnosis. Thank you.
Quinn .. I so appreciate how considerate I find you to be..! .. in every sense of the word I can come up with..
Thank you dear sir...🕊️✨🕊️☺️
Sky be like: "I'm a little bit rainbow, too! I'm blue but sometimes I'm red or orange!"
The acting in this was great.
I honestly have learned to smile and just let it go when people respond with one of those 5 'stock' responses you gave. It's just not worth the effort sometimes to explain these things, and I am someone who can't deal with conflict or even the chance of conflict arising.
I notice a trend these days though in as much as that it seems everybody is forced into a box and expected to follow 'norms', in spite of the age of the internet and supposedly more acceptance for various minority groups. Some of the historical individuals who might have been autistic were often people dismissed as merely being a bit eccentric in the old days. Sure, class played a part but many of them were given free rein to explore some of their seemingly crazy ideas and theories. These days it is about the company man rather than the thoughts of the individual, and risking company reputation in favour of potentially advancing knowledge is not something you see much of.
Never thought of myself as "acting" before 😊
I think most of us would agree about the trend you mention. Most of my NT associates are aware of it too. I know a number of people quite senior in corporate management who feel that current corporate culture ties their hands and prevents them from innovating. It's like the "sequel syndrome" that keeps Hollywood churning out "safe" sequels, or adaptations of already massively popular IPs rather than embracing something new & exciting 🤷♂️
I hate it either they’re saying my mask makes my personality palatable or they’re completely dismissing the struggles I’ve had in my life. I’ve been to the same gastroenterologist for 5 years never disclosed until I had to, almost immediately the nurse starts baby talking to me while calling me high functioning, it just reassured me I made the right choice by not disclosing unless it’s necessary.
I laugh inside when people say "no one is normal". I know what normal is. Normal people don't have the fuckton of problems I have due to my neurology. Of course normal people exist.
In reference to that very last question and answer: In my experience, those who think to ask how to make you more comfortable are those who are already doing a good job at it.
Brilliant presentation. Love the comparison to the rainbow 😍
Thanks Maureen 😀
I love the purple and green side of that one graphic. They are my two favorite colors, and I love how much they contrast with each other.
Or... "I'm not autistic but I'm somewhere on the spectrum."
W T F
😂 My favourite variant that I've experienced personally was "I reckon I'm about 10% autistic myself, cos I like Star Wars and I'm fussy about my food."
@@Autistamatic is that like being partway pregnant?
@@TerraMagnus 😂😂😂
My aunt said that every man is a bit autistic. I know what she means but it’s not really helpful.
I was shopping one day, got asked "What colour T-shirt do you want? This pale night sky one or the plum one?" "I will take the one 520 nm, please". And suddenly my answer is hard to understand and not straightforward?
Gods, yes! Regularly get 1, 2 & 3. Maddening! Great analogy. Thanks Quinn 💜
I'm somewhere in the middle of autism spectrum, and when I hear something like this, I (honestly) agree and explain that indeed autism isn't binary but continuous measure, and that's why everybody has some autism in them. Then I tell something interesting autistic conditions like Asperger or Savants. People go with it (possibly in retrospective) or even mean it from the beginning. I doesn't really matter what the initial intention was.
Wonderful Thank you. I have worked for a long time with rainbows and colour, Art pieces that have taken 600 hour or more. The colours and their meaning, their metaphore are endless. (Ok time to shut up on a speciallist subject and passion I must force myself to go to bed again, again, and again Im in the bedtime loop).
5:34 I love blue which is the hardest color for the human eye to see, but I am highly sensitive & to me it’s the calmest color. Less intense, but still highly observable. I hate yellow
When I made the graphic you refer to my wife couldn't help but observe that her favourite colour (yellow) was on the supposedly superior end of the illustration. FWIW - I favour blue myself 🔵🔵🔵
Ever since I watched your video about alexithymia, I stopped sticking out, (my masking improved a lot, because hiding feelings goes in passive mode now, I discharge the dam everytime I get home) so I don't have to tell strangers I'm auatistic and hear those comments. But miscommunication with workmates is still an issue, some of them are not nice to say mildly so I can't talk openly with them.
I don't usually take offense when neurotypical people say that I "don't look" autistic. I know that no offense is intended. It takes a lot for me to be offended
Nobody has ever said that I don’t look autistic. So apparently I do haha.
@Autistmatic@Autistamatic I assert there are too many dimensions for autism to be a spectrum: there are many traits that can vary over time in strength and range, a bottom, a top, and typical values: each trait is a multidimensional vector, and altogether we're best rated as a complex tensor, or to use color, a palette of multiple colors to represent each of the traits, with a varying size of the blot of those.
Clearly someone thought too deeply to oversimplify to classify us according to their limited capacity to understand.
You say things exactly as I would have done...
Wow, this is great. Would it be too much to forward this to people to help them understand? Would people be offended?
Thanks Alex. Only you can be the judge of whether people you know would be offended, but it would be very disappointing if they were, don't you think? Autistamatic content is made with non-autistic people in mind - we NEED them to understand how much their opinions, the words they use and their treatment of autistic people impacts on our lives.
@@Autistamatic Thank you, I know you're right.. I've recently found Autistamatic content and I like how informative and campaigning it is. I would like to share on some level with the organisation I work for which I think would welcome learning and I think being more inclusive but I am also struggling on a personal level to communicate with my manager about the reasons I find some things difficult in my role. I think one source of confusion (and my personal insecurity in this instance) is that I 'strongly suspect' but don't have a diagnosis. I'm trying to gather myself to go for it but finding the prospect daunting. Thanks again for your awesome content.
@@alextw1488 If you're in the UK your employer is obliged to listen to you and provide "reasonable" accommodations whether you're DXed or not, under the provisions of the Equality Act 2010. If you're elsewhere you'll need to check the national & local disability and/or discrimination legislation where you are. A number of people have used the channel to help employers or family members understand better (the Autism & Relationships series in particular) and some have been incorporated into lessons or lectures by educators. That's one of the reasons they're made. If you can't find the words or have trouble being listened to, maybe the videos can help you get your point across👍
@@Autistamatic 👍Very helpful, thank you.
My knee jerk explanation for why some people might say it - They don't realize they are actually autistic and assume that if They identify with the things then they must be normal, so they make the faulty assumption that everyone must experience those things.
I don't like the image of a spectrum you show at around 3:40. I don't think of myself as one point on the scale. When I think of a spectrum I imagine something more like the images you get googling "spectrum of light source". So for example at around 750nm i have 70 points for ethics, at 650nm i have 87 and 15/67 points for critical thinking, at 567nm i have 67 points for awkwardness and at 450nm i have -24 for maintaining social relations. I think that this better represents the meaning of spectrum.
It's very rare you'll find an autist that does like it Jakub, hence it's part in this film. Linear interpretation of colour works in the dry, scientific form, but not in terms of human experience which is why it makes such a good analogy for the one dimensional linear fashion autism is usually depicted. I've seen some decent 2 dimensional visualisations and once I've the time to learn Blender I have a 3 dimensional visualisation of the spectrum from an autistic perspective I'd like to depict
@@Autistamatic It could be that I am a bit biased thinking about the term "spectrum" because part of my work involves radio communications. For me a spectrum represents Fast Fourier Transform visualization of a complex waveform.
@@quaraluch The problem we face is the public perception of "spectrum" which is very simplistic. The other diagram at approx 5:00 is pretty accurate in how it portrays public perception of the autism spectrum and it's similar to how we are "graded" by the non-autistic. I've even been told I must have the "good kind of autism" as opposed to the "scary kind". I remember a group conversation about the character "Sheldon" from "The Big Bang Theory" who most people assume is autistic. I asked them how they would grade him - an accomplished academic. How "High Functioning" on a scale of 1 to 10 would they place him? The consensus was between 7 & 8 - he's clearly VERY intelligent, but socially awkward, habitual, resistant to change, bluntly honest etc. which were all counted "against" him. How did they rate me? 9-10 because they saw me as clever but (as one said) "Nowhere near as weird, you can talk to people". I suggested that perhaps I was just more skilled/experienced at masking than the character is meant to be. The response "So that means you're more high functioning" 🤔
It's heavily ingrained into the common perception of autism and presents us with a mountainous gradient ahead of us before we can turn it around.
@@Autistamatic I think my original post was just a matter of semantics. I get what you are saying on an intellectual level. I just lack the experiences you mention in the video. I was never given any of the responses you mention. Its probably because even before my diagnosis (which I sought by myself and only for my own information) I became a recluse. I don't have anyone to disclose to or the desire or skill to build a relationship deep enough to be able to disclose. Maybe this makes me immune to such experiences?
@@quaraluch Quite possibly Jakub. Many of us lead reclusive lives, myself included, bueven so, for most there are still some interactions where disclosure is in our interest or in some cases becomes unavoidable. The workplace is a common example.
Since I disclosed at work I've received all these comments and more by people asking "if it's true" that I'm autistic (along with one distasteful comment which I didn't mention in the film - "why would you admit something like that?"). If you've been able to avoid such situations I think many would envy you 👍
Great video
Diolch yn fawr iawn Russell
Oh, the wider disability community gets it too. "We're all a bit disabled, aren't we?" Now I wonder what the next person to say that to me would think if I launched into a discussion about theri chances of being only temporarily non-disabled? 😉
Very true :)
☝️
I really like your videos but the rainbow metaphore really made me want to wretch.