Published on 12, July, 2020
DSM-5 says that to meet the diagnostic criteria for ASD there must be persistent deficits in all three of the areas below.
So why is it some of us are completely alone and isolated while others seem to have friends, partners and active social lives?
How do people who meet the above criteria achieve this?
Some autistic people can see that if they wish to achieve their goals in life that they have to push themselves and do uncomfortable things, others either cannot see this, or have genuine limitations that make it impossible.
For example, I make apparently 'normal' levels of eye contact, but I do so entirely consciously, I time when and for how long I make eye contact when talking to someone. I do not have a neurotypical unconscious ability to do this, but I compensate for this by using my conscious intellect. As a result the neurotypical majority find me comfortable to talk to, and that helps with making friendly connections. An autistic unwilling or unable to make such a concession to neurotypical norms, would find it much more difficult to make friendly connections. Therefore, you can have two people who are equally autistic, both with eye contact difficulties, producing two very different social outcomes.
Martin said: both with eye contact difficulties,
Eye contact is just a non autistic cultural expectation though. This becomes even more obvious when you realise that some other cultures around the world find the social expectation of eye contact offensive or too intimate.
I'm not sure that's true.....in my inter-species communication.....eye contact is ABSOLUTELY essential....so cultural expectations do not fall within the remit of other species?!
I'm not really sure how I "get away with it" with humans. I've done, whatever it is that I've done, for so long now, that it isn't concious........EXCEPT when I do suddenly "link eyes" with someone! Then it feels too weirdly intimate and creepy most of the time - although context is everything - and I can hide my sense of WTAF sufficiently well that people don't (generally) realise. I am deemed quite "full on" IRL I think, and that's without meeting peoples eyes.