Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi all,
I'm still digging around trying to understand what sorts of things are counted as meeting threshold for RRBs / IS in an autism diagnosis. Please note that I don't intend to fake any at my upcoming ADOS! What I'm after is some examples that allow me to settle the question in my mind that wonders if my clinical interview missed RRBs / IS that I *do* have, but aren't the stereotypical "obvious" ones.
I don't want a positive diagnosis if I'm not genuinely ASD, but neither do I want a negative diagnosis if I *am*.
Apart from the minor success I've had in discovering the RBQ2a, I'm drawing a blank in my internet based research.
I work in an office with a 'casual dress' dress-code but Mon-Fri I wear smart trousers, short-sleeved white shirt and a tie. I give myself 'casual Friday'.
Shirts get worn twice, in my wardrobe clean shirts are on the right facing left and worn shirts on the left facing right - my wife no longer puts my clothes in the wardrobe as she always 'puts them in the wrong place'
I have around 15 ties of different colours, they are kept on a tie-rack and worn in strict rotation, they are also arranged by hue from dark to light
If I can, I match my pants socks tie and watch (I have around 30 watches) e.g. purple tie + purple pants + socks with purple stripe + all black watch (I don't have one with purple on it... yet)
I don't HAVE to match the colours but I feel better when I do
Bank Holiday weeks mess up my system as I either have to wear casual clothes twice or a shirt only once (carrying a worn shirt over to the next week would just perpetuate the problem)
One day I found I had no shirt on a shirt day, I seriously considered washing, drying and ironing a shirt (which would have made me about 90 mins late for work) but in the end went casual instead as the 'lesser of 2 evils'
This is just one thing, my point is that I just thought it was a sensible approach to streamlining my mornings and looking professional until I had to explain it to someone else and realised that deviation from it caused me anxiety - not meltdown-inducing but just ratcheted the levels up a couple of notches...
Thank you. My assessment seemed to draw a distinction between "rigid adherence to a routine because of extreme stress if it's changed" and "adopting a routine to make life easier". I believe they've put me in the second bracket. I think they might be wrong.
That approach misses the point that you might develop a routine in order to make life easier...
"Having different coloured shirts plus some trousers with stripes and some not means I have to try to work out what shirt 'goes' with which trousers & then which tie matches... oh and some shirts need cufflinks or it's hot but I don't have a short-sleeved shirt... aaaarrrgghhh!!!"
Solution: Replace all shirts with white, short-sleeved ones and all trousers with charcoal-grey ones, all shirts, ties and trousers are now interchangeable - relax
That now leads to 'Deviation from the established routine causes disproportionate stress (in the eyes of an NT observer)...'
One leads to the other