I needed to read that, thank you.
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I didn’t know that was a thing with ADHD or that it had a name. You’d think one of the psychiatrists or psychologists would have mentioned that. I have a few other symptoms of ADHD I’ve always chalked up to my depression and anxiety. Probably time I asked my psychiatric nurse about assessment. I’ll need to follow up when the TMS treatment is done. If I want to see her, I have to skip TMS for that day because of insurance
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Words of caution:
- the primary diagnosis usually gets — and should get! — treatment (however, see above: adaptive treatment is important).
- diagnoses can very much vary, depending on who you see - so try to get experienced professionals, and second opinions.
- two key criteria for ADHD are that a) problems caused by the spectrum-related behavioural peculiarities must affect all spheres of life, and b) said peculiarities manifested themselve in one form or the other since childhood, i.e. before the age of 12 years.
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But something else to be aware of is that sometimes these traits went unnoticed (or unremarked, or misattributed) at the time, but are obvious in hindsight. That’s why adult diagnosis exists.
When people wonder “but why would you even want a diagnosis? What difference would it make at your age?”, the answer from my experience is: “because it’s corrective glasses for my hindsight; my childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood only make sense under the light of that diagnosis.”
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I just read down the list (and the subsequent descriptions) and can count off very specific examples in my relationships for all of these. At least one of my partners is confirmed autistic, another suspects she is, and a third is neurodivergent but may be in more than one category. It took talking with my newest partner to really notice how strong the signs are in me … and more tellingly, how far back they appeared, but as others have mentioned, we didn’t have the words back then.
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Worth reiterating my cloud model. Trying to shove any human characteristic into a defining box is an excercise in futility. The DSM5 and it’s “1 from column A, 3 from column B and a few more from C or D” method of diagnosing or excluding diagnoses is one of the major frustrations in my life. You may or may not fit into one or many boxes, but deserve to be treated as an individual, regardless.
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I get why the DSD5 is like that. But it must be incredibly frustrating for a doctor. And patients as well. It took forever to get my anxiety diagnosed. It expresses more as irritation. it hurts my heart to think of all the people who need help and can’t get it because they don’t fall neatly in boxes and don’t have health care or professionals who have both the knowledge and the will to say “this box is good enough for insurance. Let’s get on with the business of helping you achieve what you need.”
To be clear, normalcy is both over rated and over estimated in value. But even the most neurotypical person needs help sometimes and those of us on the fringes or full out of normal need help the most and for help to be easy.
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My partner described it as less of a spectrum and more like an audio equalizer; NT has most of the settings close to the mid line, but some people’s settings are too high or low in a variety of ranges. (And of course the farther off default you are, the easier it is to notice.) It won’t really make a different in my mental health treatments, although I probably should discuss this with my therapist. I’m not even seeking an official diagnosis, but it’s given me a new lens with which to view some of my habits and behaviors. Having more tools for understanding yourself is never bad.
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Nice analogy. If I may borrow from that: it’s even more like a modular sequencer. Feedback loops, etc. pp…
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I emphasis, I didn’t come up with it, but it absolutely made sense as soon as they described it. Since then I’ve been paying attention to where my sliders are set (and yes, how those feedback loops work!) It’s not that I wasn’t aware of my reactions before, I just didn’t always understand what was causing some of the feelings.
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Just wanted to say thank you for that ‘rant’. These ideas need to be said, often, by many different people.
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There were other responses to Alison Singer’s piece. Apparently, all the discussion happened on Twitter, almost entirely among NT academics and practitioners.
It’s always so awesome when a discussion about autistic people is held between a group who are almost entirely not autistic.
It’s profound, you know.
Also, if you’re not on Twitter, you don’t get to have a say even if you are able to express your opinion. Not just gatekeeping, but through a maze of multiple locked gates. So profound.
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What, getting input from persons affected? Now that’s just crazy talk.
Medication time!
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Never forget this handy checklist:
- Autism Professionals, such as doctors, therapists, and researchers: Opinions are valid.
- Autism Parents who are NT themselves: Opinions are valid.
- Autists who are able to give their opinion on things: not autistic enough to have a meaningful opinion, but clearly biased and therefore not to be trusted. Opinions not valid.
- Autists who are not able to give their opinion on things: are not able to give opinions on things, and therefore their Opinions are irrelevant.
- Intersectional Autists who are also parents or professionals, such as an autistic autism researcher, or an autistic parent of an autist: opinion is provisionally valid, until and unless an NT disagrees with them.
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So let me get this straight:
After decades of separating out the 1-3 section of the 1-9 autism spectrum – those formerly known as having (Nazi eugenicist) Asperger’s Syndrome – was determined to be too divisive and misleading because it really is a spectrum of needs and abilities all the way along the line, someone decided that we should try separating out the 7-9 section instead?
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I interpret this as more pigeon holing. It is too hard or uncomfortable to recognize that autistics, like any group, have a wide range of abilities, shortfalls and needs, and that these vary dramatically between individuals. It is a continuous spectrum, and anywhere you try to draw a line is random and capriciousm especially if you cosider the various scales of “*Q” involved (emotional, intellectual, academic, social, etc). You know, just like NT folks. Not minimizing the needs of the more severely impacted, but i could see this reasoning used to justify warehousing those deemed to have no potential to progress. Would not be the first time a well-intentioned proposal has been coopted for evil purposes.
(See “Clouds and Boxes TM”)
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