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for autism awareness month I'm making a thread on autism stereotypes and other facts, which might be unknown to most allistics! feel free to RT.
disclaimer: I am an autistic person HOWEVER anything I say might be disputed or wrong, as no two people with autism are the same and there is no set way to treat someone who is autistic!
#1: adding onto before, autism manifests very differently from person to person. this is one of the reasons functioning labels ("high functioning", "low functioning") are inefficient and generally looked down upon in the autistic community (1/2)
the reason for this is that most autistic people have a mix of"low functioning" and "high functioning" traits and most of us dont fit neatly in either of these two boxes. for example, some of us might be nonverbal but not all of the time or verbal but sometimes nonverbal (2/2)
#2: autism affects every aspect of our lives, as it is a neurological condition that impacts how our neurons transmit information and work with each other. often for people who are, for lack of a better term, more traditionally functioning, the reason autism (1/2)
is seen as innately disordered and affects our lives negatively sometimes is because our society was built for allistics, not because theres something innately wrong with us. (2/2)
#3: autism can coexist with intellectual disabilities and many other disorders and will often also affect how those disorders manifest. not all autistic people can traditionally function and we are not all "savants" or "incredibly smart" and that is okay.
#4: aspergers is an outdated diagnosis, however some psychiatrists still use it in certain countries and places (see: my official diagnosis is aspergers here in mexico). It is however, now simply just known as autistic spectrum disorder (ASD)
#5: most medical providers simply categorize autistic people nowadays by how much support they need (for example, im on the requiring support side of the spectrum, however other autistic people require more substantial support such as caretakers etc)
#6: stereotypical autistic traits such as low empathy, "robotic speech", and introversion, do not manifest in every autistic person, especially autistic people of color and autistic afab people who are severely underdiagnosed. these traits still manifest in a lot and are ok!
#7: some autistic people can be extroverts and enjoy the company of others (i am an example), it is just harder to set boundaries for us, for example we might overshare or consider everyone around us a close friend or have significant social and verbal issues
#8: fact from my psych is that not only are autistic people generally more prone to addiction, but also very sensitive to traumatizing events. events that might not seem traumatizing can be very traumatizing for us such as online stuff and school bullying, ptsd is very comorbid
#9: due to our different perceptions of the world this can make us more prone to "weird beliefs" such as believing in multiverses, the paranormal, non religious aminism, etc. this can be comorbid with psychosis, but not necessarily.
#10: adding onto this, a lot of us identify with neopronouns and xenogenders because we have a higher rate of gender dysphoria+incongruence. they might seem weird to outsiders, but our perception of gender is often out of the norm therefore it feels natural to us.
#11: this is more of a fun fact, but a lot of fictosexual people are autistic due to the fact that autistic ppl can get VERY easily attached to media and characters alongside being prone to "odd" beliefs, we might take our beliefs and identities very seriously.
#12: most autistic people are obsessive over certain topics since well...its part of the diagnostic criteria, however, its not always the traditional "autistic interests" such as mathematics. a lot of us love media, unconventional topics, or more "feminine" things (1/2)
(2/2) a lot of ppl don't know theyre autistic since their special interests aren't the regular interests associated to mostly cis men with autism. while these interests are totally valid, this leads to underdiagnosis.
#13: HERE'S AN ENTIRE SECTION TO sensory processing disorder which often comes bundled with autism! autistic ppl are either extremely sensitive to certain sensory inputs, or completely unbothered by things such as extremely loud sounds (its a spectrum once again)
#14: we have high sensitivity to a lot of things, or in certain cases we don't have a sensitivity to things such as pain. for example, i have to drink an exact type of milk from a specific brand, otherwise I cannot drink it because I have a high sensitivity to flavor.
#15: a lot of us love music due to our sensory processing, while others cannot listen to it. music can be very stimulating for us, and using me as an example: i hate crowded areas with lots of sound, but love concerts because I can lose myself in the music.
#16: special interest is an autism term, however other neurodivergencies can often have similar terms....and in fact, a LOT of things might fall into neurodivergencies which are also comorbid with autism, such as: ocd, adhd, psychosis, dyspraxia, dyslexia, tourettes, etc
#17: autism can, but not always, make us feel less attraction to real people and more attraction to fictional characters or concepts due to the way we experience the world. while being aroace =/= being autistic, a good amt of autistic ppl are aroace due to this (1/2)
#18: this does NOT mean you get to infantilize us or think all of us are aroace or that if were autistic we must be aro or ace, in fact a lot of us might be the opposite, every autistic person is different and we just share certain traits!
#19: some of us are able to understand sarcasm, tone and jokes, others aren't. please do not use tone indicators on an autistic person if they ask you not to use them. some of us like them, some of us dislike them.
#20: a lot of us stim, for many reasons! happy moments, upsetting moments, calming ourselves down during meltdowns, etc. theres TONS of different ways to stim and even non autistic people do it (especially other nds). theres nothing shameful about it!
#21: infantilizing us is....not good, especially autistic adults. yes, special interests are hard to control, but this does not mean all of us are unable to be critical of them. special interests might change, be dropped, and come back at any time.
#22: autistic people can actually be jealous of ppl sharing their special interests, for me this manifests as feeling like im the only person that could TRULY understand (something im into). we mostly keep this to ourselves though.
#23: we are not robotic -_- please do not call an autistic person a robot or emotionless, its not a slur or anything its just very annoying, at least for me.
#24: this is obvious knowledge but vaccines dont cause autism, autism doesn't need a cure, autism speaks is a horrible org you should never support, and a lot of us can lead happy and fulfilling lives even if we need support.
that's it for now, LMK if there's anything i've missed or I'm wrong on!
BTW I GOT SOME FACTS FROM THIS POST https://neuronjungle.tumblr.com/post/647407515192147968/little-less-talked-about-autism-symptoms-id-like
https://twitter.com/synthmetal/status/1350921855897645061?s=21 HELP MY FRIEND GET TOP SURGERY!
ALSO, any other autistic ppl who are in need of help or simply wanna plug their commissions feel free to do so under this ^_^
