Explain This?

AutisticBeaut2025 said:

How come you get people who are aware that they are autistic and feel relieved when they finally get diagnosed then on the other end of the line you get people who are totally unaware that they are yet neurotypical people can see that they are but they can't?

If you are neurodivergent then there are no clear signs to you that you are different, just a feeling that you are normal but just don't really understand all the rules, or you wonder why other people seem to cope so much better than you.

It stems from a lack of awareness of autism so most older people don't realise how it presents itself and without this knowledge you won't connect the dots that "hey, that looks like me".

Add in the spectrum nature of autism where no two autists have the same traits and it is a slippery fish to identify in yourself unless you look hard.

Those who understand more about autism can see the traits in others - I do it all the time now and have let several people to have an assessment and discover they are autistic.

How we respond to it will depend on how we deal with the unexpected coupled with any existing bias we may have towards mental health issues. Some with think "oh god, I'm one of them" and others will think "that explains a lot - good to know" and every shade in between.

I think that is it in a nutshell.

Iain said:

If you are neurodivergent then there are no clear signs to you that you are different

There are very clear signs actually with a few of the conditions which come under the neurodivergent umbrella eg. Tourettes.

Also, many autistic people are very clearly autistic ie not those people with what is nowadays sometimes termed 'high functioning' autism but all the rest.

B said:

many autistic people are very clearly autistic ie not those people with what is nowadays sometimes termed 'high functioning' autism but all the rest.

I think the people with low functioning autism are not going to be out and about that much for other people to notice and make the observations on them that you talk about.

B said:

There are very clear signs actually with a few of the conditions which come under the neurodivergent umbrella eg. Tourettes.

You started the discussion talking about autism and that was the basis of my reply. If you expand it to all ND categories then it is something like a 5x larger pool and the discussion changes when you do this.

Within autism I don't think there are many obvious signs from the majority of us. Many avoid social contact so are not observed much, only 20% work which is the majority of social contact I suspect and these will be those who are best able to mask their way through life.

These are just my observations though - not hard facts.

OK, a fair point and I concede. I'll stop digging myself deeper into a hole now

OK, a fair point and I concede. I'll stop digging myself deeper into a hole now