Published on 12, July, 2020
I already made a similar post about this (called “Am I autistic or just adhd?”) but I wanted to go more in depth and neater on this following autistic signs and symptoms—the dsm-5 explanation of autism is too clinical and vague for me to understand fully, so this is what you get. Quick disclaimer: I’m not looking to be diagnosed online, just peer reviewed. If any of this sounds like autism then I’ll probably try to look into getting an assessment, if not I’ll stick to just getting tested for adhd as I originally planned
I do have some level of difficulty expressing emotions, which I’m sure would be a surprise to my friends and family. I usually copy other people’s expressions and force myself to perform facial emotion in conversation. If I’m happy, I do naturally smile, laugh, stim, etc, but generally speaking, I don’t naturally express that much emotion through my face, since my natural baseline mood is flat and neutral, and this probably reflects itself on my face
I also feel like I have some issues interpreting other people’s facial expressions, depending on the person and context. I am pretty good at deciphering expressions within my immediate family, but there are still micro expressions that I struggle to understand, and I still overthink my answers, often unconsciously inputting a negative bias onto interactions and expressions. With people outside my family, it’s harder. I can decode social cues and expressions if I’m paying attention, but I don’t feel like it comes naturally. I think I’m only as “skilled” as I am through my study of psychology and body language in years past, as well as using pattern recognition to see when a friend is down through their previous behaviors. It’s also difficult to tell when a person is laughing at a joke I made or if they’re laughing at me—often I can’t tell, and have to assume the best for the sake of my own mental health
Things this didn’t mention:
Have you tried tests like AQ50 or RAADS? What you described may look like both, Autism and ADHD and it’s possible to have both combined in one brain. What about your interests? Do you have them? How many? Do you often change them or stick to them for long? Does it happen to you to forget everything when you are doing your favourite thing? Like I for example, before I became mother, when I started some project on my pc, I forgot everything! Bathroom, food, drink… time… only when I finished my project I realised it’s 2am, everyone is sleeping and I’m actually hungry thirsty and need bathroom. Now it’s very rare occasion that I have time for myself so it didn’t happen to me for long time. Maybe few times when I was writing my previous sci fi story.
I actually have taken many online autism assessments, the RAADS and AQ50 being among them! I’ve taken them multiple times spaced about a week or 2 apart and in different moods so I can eliminate mood context from messing with my results. I’ve been getting pretty high results (120 to 147 on RAADS, I think I got 32 on AQ50) but I hesitate to put my faith in online assessments because they aren’t always reliable.
I do have many interests, some of which change day to day or week to week, and some that change month to month or even last years. I remember as a child I cycled through 4 main interests—cats, dragons, Harry Potter, and mermaids, to the point where family members sometimes commented on my restricted interests. Nowadays my interests vary a bunch but I am still very enthralled by dragons and other such fantasy creatures. I’ve also been enjoying a new interest that’s lasted about a year now—Death Note.
I think it depends on what I’m doing whether or not I forget everything when interacting with my interests. When I’m drawing (and enjoying it) yes, definitely. If I’m reading or binge watching my favorite shows, then yes. I often get cues from my body that tell me I should probably eat or go to the bathroom, but I ignore them in favor of my interest until all of a sudden those cues seem to hit me all at once and I physically cannot stay in one spot like I had been doing. That doesn’t happen often and I’m usually able to convince myself to move by making it fun (ie, saying “*insert character* would have a fit if I didn’t let myself go to the bathroom” or using the quick break from stimulus as a chance to daydream and analyze my interests) but sometimes I do genuinely forget the rest of the world exists and that I am a human person with physical needs and limitations
I also took tests multiple times and I think it helps, sometimes questions are formulated a bit differently, or it’s hard to asses ourselves objectively or other factors, such as number of possible answers (more or less nuanced) my last result in AQ50 was 41, but varied between 40-45, also in RAADS I got 170. This test is really good and much detailed, because it differentiates the current state from your childhood, it’s also important because we change due to masking and not only, every person changes throughout the lifetime regardless of their neurotype. On one hand the tests may give some false result, on another hand they are really good screening tools, they also use questions that are used during the official assessment.