If you identify with most of these traits, you could be autistic.
Before we begin, I want you to understand that this video cannot diagnose you.
To be diagnosed, you do have to go through a process
and see a professional who is personally responsible
for your care and understanding who you are, etc.
So no list, nothing online . .
. can just give you a diagnosis.
However, I thought it would be interesting to share these traits with you
that are based off of the DSM-5 criteria.
Also, sometimes we can be oblivious to these sorts of things.
Hence maybe why you aren't diagnosed and you're wondering
maybe if this is possible or if you're just interested
in hearing a random list and comparing yourself to it.
I don't know.
Either way, it might be useful
to have someone with you to go over this list to see if they feel
that you fit some of these criteria that you might not be aware of yourself.
You could have autism if: you don't typically start conversations
with people and aren't necessarily very good at keeping up conversation.
If you do try to initiate
social interaction, it's because you need help not to chit chat.
In conversation, you tend to kind of go off on your own tangent about something
that you're very knowledgeable or passionate about,
but you accidentally end up taking over the conversation
and it ends up being more of a monologue than a back and forth conversation
with another person.
When conversing, you don't always, most of the time,
provide background information or context to what you're saying,
and you don't really bother to fix that problem.
So you leave your conversation partner pretty lost.
If someone else is smiling at you, you don't smile back.
You don't tend to offer comfort to other people, or when you do try to,
it doesn't seem to be as effective or received well.
You don't really care all that much about physical contact and affection,
or it bothers you a lot, such as flinching from being touched
during a social conversation that are just like a good job
or a pat on the back or being touched as someone goes by.
Any of that is just a no go.
You find eye contact uncomfortable.
You look near someone's eyes on their face to make it seem
like you're looking in their eyes.
Or maybe you look at their mouth instead of their eyes.
Or you don't even look at their face, or you stare directly into their eyes
as much as you can
because you understand that we're supposed to be making eye contact.
Right?
And you might not understand that this is not the social norm.
You tend to have a hard time with how you're supposed to sit or stand
or how far or how close or what direction.
Like if you're facing away from someone when you're conversing with them,
these types of things, you're not really sure or you don't really seem to care.
Basically, you don't quite understand
the effect that your body language has on someone else during a conversation.
Your voice tends to have a different volume or rhythm or pitch
than others, or considered too loud or too quiet.
And perhaps other people have made fun of how you talk for these reasons.
This could include sounding like a robot or a news reporter.
You tend to have a blank expression, and people seem to perceive you
as cold or uncaring, even though you don't think you come off that way.
You're not great at interpreting and recognizing other people's
facial expressions.
You have a hard time considering your thoughts
and your perspective at the same time as considering other people's thoughts
and perspectives in, in the moment, not later, upon reflection.
You have a hard time recognizing that other people don't think the way that
you think or that they can't actually read your mind and fill in the blanks
of what you're trying to say when you're not giving them enough information.
When you were younger, you might not have noticed
when you were being teased or bullied, or you did, but you weren't exactly
sure how what they were doing was supposed to be humiliating for you.
You don't have the best filter, as in, you might not have one at all.
You seem to ask questions or say things that other people find off-putting
or socially inappropriate,
and you were just asking out of curiosity or making a statement about things.
You don't tend to pick up on social cues that other people might try to give,
that they want you to change your behavior.
Like someone clearing their throat
when they want you to stop talking about the same thing over and over or really
whatever it is they're trying to convey through some sort of cue.
Maybe they're shifting uncomfortably, looking around, staring at you,
whatever it is you don't always pick up on those
and don't know that people are trying to get you to change your behavior
in that social situation.
You find making friends difficult and maintaining those friendships
just as difficult.
You have friends suddenly drop out of your life or shun you,
and you have no idea why.
You want to make friends, but you're not very successful in this venture
because your social skills don't exactly
help you out in this, so you don't really know how to go about it.
When you do make friends, your friends tend to be older or younger than you.
You don't tend to make friends who are the same age as you.
You prefer doing solitary activities.
People always say that you're in your own world.
When you were younger, you spoke like you were much older or very formally.
You have a tendency to repeat words or phrases, songs,
or even full dialog to TV shows or movies or whatever else that you like.
This can also include repeating people's words when you're around them.
You make repetitive noises, guttural sounds and/or repetitive humming.
You make a lot of repetitive motions like clapping or finger
flicking, flapping, twisting, rocking, swaying, and spinning.
You may be surprised to find out that this is abnormal behavior,
not just behavior that everyone does, but chooses to do in private
or won't admit to because they're embarrassed.
You excessively
grind your teeth, make facial grimaces, or pick at things repetitively.
When you were younger, you would line up your toys, open and close
doors, and flip the light switch on and off, often.
Repeatedly, not just to enter the room, for example.
And these were things that you did pretty often,
not just every once in a while when you were super bored.
You get pretty upset when people try to change how you do things, like
wanting you to take a different route than you normally do, or just somehow
changing your normal routine.
Small changes can result in unusually big emotions for you.
For example, your spouse wanting to change around the living room
makes you irrationally angry, upset, and scared.
The rules are very important and it makes you very upset when other
people press you not to follow them or they don't follow them themselves.
These may or may not be the same rules as society deems important to follow.
This is how things work.
You do not like it
when people try to convince you of alternatives
when you already have a way of doing things.
Maybe you thought this out,
or you just feel like this is the best way to do something.
Alternatives are unnecessary when you already have it figured out.
You may also try to get other people to do things your way because it doesn't
really feel like it's your way, but it's the way to do it.
You have difficulty understanding the non literal
aspects of speech and tend to be literal in your own thinking.
This is what they said, even though they were apparently implying something else.
Transitioning from one thing to another is difficult.
You are overly perfectionistic or have obsessions.
Your interests are important to you
and you tend to deep dive into them or really get involved with them.
Maybe more than the average person.
You're preoccupied with specific letters or numbers
and/or symbols or specific topics.
You tend to have low reactivity to sensory input.
That is, you might not feel pain very much or have a very high pain
threshold, or you don't really register when someone is lightly touching you.
On the flip side, you have high reactivity to sensory input.
That is, you don't like to be touched or touched by certain textures
and also have aversion to simple activities in life due
to sensory aspects, like getting your hair cut or brushing your teeth.
You find sensory things in the environment more interesting
than other people might.
For example, you might tend to smell things a lot or need to touch things a lot
or find visual aspects of the environment very interesting.
Like, you know, how the light plays through your fingers.
You might be entranced by the way that the fan spins.
You are extremely bothered by loud sounds or specific types of sounds,
overwhelmed by smells that other people hardly notice, etc.
If you found that a large amount of these were very relatable for you
and these are things that have existed since childhood, you could be autistic.
I highly encourage you to seek out a professional if you feel that
an autism diagnosis would be able to give you the access to the supports
that you need to be able to handle day to day life successfully.
This heavily referenced The Expanded Examples for the DSM-5 Criteria by Dr.
Laura Carpenter, Ph.D.
Thank you so much for watching.
We are in middle of World Autism Awareness or Acceptance Week.
And if you enjoy videos like these, want to learn more about autism,
you can definitely hit the subscribe button and check out my channel.
I have a lot of information about autism
and things that you can learn during this week and this coming
month of April, which is World Autism Acceptance Month.
Thank you to everyone who supports me here on YouTube as YouTube channel members,
through Ko-fi, and as patrons on Patreon.
And a special thank you to my Spinny Stimmy tier
patrons, Jack Varney and Philip Noah.
Thank you so much for watching.
If you enjoyed it,
go ahead and hit that like button, and I'll see you in my next video. Bye!