What defines your autism?

Nice assessment.

I would add:

Learning never ends.

I signed up for BSc Math at OU

'Thinking' about this thread this morning I've thought of some more.

I notice this generally on the forum:

Thinking - we think a lot about everything.

Analysis - we analyse a LOT.

Originality - there are many original thinkers on this forum.  People who don't accept 'the norm' but think for themselves.

Positivity - we all descend into 'slough of despond' sometimes, but generally I think a lot of us here have a fighting spirit and despite the very many setbacks look for the good in things.

Because of my age, I value the younger generations' input here.

I've learnt new words, new terms, new ways of perceiving myself.

Thank you all.

Number said:

 I do wish it wasn't

too, since I am like that at work only, not anymore at home, I run out of motivation

Blimey.....just goes to prove that we are not all alike!  The "no job too small" is my way, but the "today I don't feel like it" is often my unfortunate daily reality.  I do wish it wasn't !

Homebird said:

tenacious

I get that too.

Allistic often refer to that trait as 'no job is to small'.

I call it mockingly 'stubborn like a donkey'

There is no 'today I don't feel like it'', or 'today we don't need to do that', there is no exceptions to the standard, and it's my personal standard always

I am inquisitive. I often wonder about things. It is much easier these days to Google to find an answer, even if it takes a while longer than when we relied only on books. I once managed to find the correct house number for an important letter sent to someone who was living in our road but it had the wrong number. It took an hour or two of searches. 

At work I may not be the fastest but am methodical, with attention to detail and often solve problems that others have missed. One boss described me as tenacious.

Thank you Debbie for this post. It is good to think of my positives rather than negatives.

I get the impression that criteria was written for diagnosis in children, the ADHD criteria is the same.  On the flip side, many mental health conditions include criteria relating to intimate relationships despite being conditions that can be developed as early as 12.

Luckily the ICD seems a lot less biased, but I haven't seen the new criteria for Autism.  So, yes I agree with you 100%.

The negative traits would have to be retained, obviously. The wording could be made to read less negatively for some traits, 'highly focused interests' sounds less negative than 'restricted interests', though the phrases amount to the same thing. However, it is in the interests of clinicians, therapists, and other vested interests to medicalise all aspects of autism.

wow honestly i never knew that . although I didn't understand what that means . i found that interesting yeah. 

Just how the DSM works unfortunately.  It's very negativistic, but if it weren't imagine all the people getting an Autism diagnosis simply because they are smart (the described positive traits) and not negatively affected in any way.  It's all quite subjective really, I've met people who say that Autism makes their life difficult and others that say it makes their life more fun!

However, with groups like this awareness can be brought to the positive symptoms of ASD (no link to the positive symptoms of Schizophrenia, of course!)

In general it is easier to assign negative traits to being autistic, as they are the ones that are used in diagnoses. Wouldn't it be great if the various diagnostic guides included some positive traits indicative of autism? 

Positive traits that I possess that may be connected to my autism: an eye for detail, my ability to solve problems from unconventional directions and my joy in pursuing something I find fascinating.

that's a really unique one. How did they come up with it?

I think that allistic learn names if they find you interesting or exploitable or othwerwise inciting remembering it.

My issue with not remebering names is more along the line of limited capacity in memory for words. That's the only conclusion I can draw so far. So if I make a nickname out of words I would remember anyway for other reasons it helps me, because I can retain them in my memory identifiable, otherwise they would become like most - just blank, nameless faces. 20 years is maksimum limit for unused word to remain in my memory.

Eventually all words fades into ocean of forgetfulness. My memories from childhood are speechless, except added later 'subtitles/transcript'

As someone who's not Autistic, I can relate.  Perhaps that is why I was diagnosed!  I think there is an acceptable brand of weird, and there are many not so acceptable kinds of weird.  I've had many acquaintances ditch me to speak to Autistic people, that probably tells you how weird I am then LOL.  It's probably all the taxidermy and roadkill, so I was told. 

Thank you everyone.

I am finding this thread quite enlightening.

It's good to see the viewpoint of others.

Jenny Butterfly

Love that poem and drawing

It says so much in so few words.

Well, yes, I would say that it is my sensitivity.  And yes, that does make me vulnerable in certain situations.  However, I wouldn't say that I'd like to be free of it.  It's at the core of my personality and, like many qualities, comes with a positive side.  For me sensitivity has increased my ability to tune in and empathise with others, to work creatively and has also heightened my perception.  I don't think I'd want that dialling down again and I actually just wish that more people shared this sensitivity. 

I'm not sure about communication difficulties, although certainly there can be a mismatch at times.  It's a two way street though - do non autistics not have a different set of comminication difficulties?  

And vulnerablity, although it grows out of sensitivity and can lead to a whole lot of pain and suffering, isn't without an upside either.  Most of us will be vulnerable in some ways, after all, but I think we're encouraged to hide this part of ourselves, whether we're autistic or not, and that actually the world could be much improved if we felt more able to stop doing that.  It would mean, of course, creating safer environments from our earliest years onwards, feeling better about our vulnerability, sharing some of it and it being considered more acceptable to reciprocate.  Plus, I think, we'd be living richer lives with deeper relationships.  I could be being fanciful here, but here's one of my favourite poems:-

Roy said:

For me it’s being able to think ‘outside the box,’ and have a different view on something.

Yes - me too.

Years ago i knew a guy for about three years. He came to me one day and asked me what my name was. I had the nickname greenlegs and had known him for years and that is all everyone called me. 

I dont know why that one died out. 

I tend to assign human personalities to more understandable and genuinely expressive animal souls that I have had the pleasure of interacting with and/or places and/or innate objects.

.......but I definitely like your Roger Hargreaves approach !  lol.

In childhood I was called many things, but there was one among them that I actuallly liked, and I've never told anybody, they found my posture unnaturaly stiff and they thaught I wouldn't like being called 'robot' , in adulthood they're more restrained as I am more outspoken now and they wouldn't dare getting in open hostilities with me, but backstabbing happens a lot, or talking behind my back. As 'they' I mean bully types and their circles of lackeys, those types are everywhere.

To kind of reiterate something from my profile, my ASC isn't necesarilly a disability, in fact in my own home environemt that is set up to suit me I thrive quite well, I feel more like I am disabled by the fact that society and infrastructure are built around very narrow and "normative" ways of being.
So I am defined by being different, and not in a bad way because it's an alternative, not inferior, set of Pros and Cons to being me.
And my Pros are amazing, any thing I need to learn I trick myself into fixating on so I can master it faster. I can diagnose car problems by sound, nobody could break into my home in the night because I would hear them before they got to the front door, by sense of smell I have detected electrical faults that would have turned into fire hazards, my planning and creative problem solving skills are next level. I can tell which card was yours in the deck because I can feel it is slightly warmer than the others, and there's loads more, but not least of the mundane super powers especially around Xmas time: I can always tell where the end of the sellotape is.