Someone has just informed me that Fergus Murray uses they/them pronouns - thank you! I'll ensure I do more research and look further than social media bios for future scripts. Their work is incredible and I'm so grateful!! You can subscribe to them on RUclips here: ruclips.net/channel/UCZCk1aZrjr8bbDL7ASeTG4w So excited to share this one with you. Welcome to my latest hyperfixation: MONOTROPISM!!! I really hope you find this helpful. I think this theory could be an excellent way to explain autism to friends and family. Even if you’re not a PDAer, this video might be helpful if you’re struggling with inertia, demand avoidance, and intense emotions: ruclips.net/video/JoXIJhnFAdI/видео.html If you don’t know the traits of Dyspraxia, you might find this video useful: ruclips.net/video/8dYz6pCjEy8/видео.html TikTok And if you want something fun, here’s last week’s autistic TikTok reaction video: ruclips.net/video/KyXtGGMtiK8/видео.html See you soon!! 💛
THATS MY CURRENT HYPERFIXATION TOO OMG THX FOR RESEARCH YA NERD I call it my “donkey mind” You see, donkey real strong never give up, but donkey stubborn, for better or for worse. Donkey also big heart very loyal 😂
I love when ND people formally announce a new hyper fixation. I think we should have announcement cards for such occasions, or maybe even a party (and by party I mean a bunch on ND people with snacks and their laptops having a great time researching all together). I was shamed for even mentioning my special interests as a kid and even today I have a hard time admitting to having them. I think that celebrating them would be a great way to help others feel more comfortable.
ADHD + Monotropism is sorta like if you had a spotlight in the room, but it's flickering.... and teleporting.... and whenever the light goes off, a speaker says random shit
Lol, I tell my husband it's my way of making myself angry😂 My autism side says "order! Everything must be the same!" My ADHD says "I'm Bored, let's create some chaos"😂
I love how your videos are just your voice, and no annoying sound effects or music. It makes your vids so easy to listen to and understand. As an autistic person I just wanted to let you know I really appreciate that.
I'm so glad - thank you! I did use some earlier on (I always tried to keep the volume low), but I've gradually moved to using less and less. I realised how annoying/jarring I found it in other videos I watch!
@@imautisticnowwhat I second that! I find music very jarring when someone is talking--- I keep trying to tune it out, but I can't. Music isn't simply annoying, it actually makes me anxious.
I don't think there are adequate words for how amazing your explanations of the experience of autism from the autistic perspective truly are. ❤ Thank you for helping me help my family understand, as a late diagnosed person- 44 years old.
💯 that's relaxing to watch or even just listen-however I don't want to miss the images and videos used to illustrate the speech :) I wish RUclips would add an option to turn off sfx and bgm, or simply control the volume of it!
Regarding concentration and the world around us becoming transparent: As a kid I always had a problem when I was told to _close my eyes and_ picture something, because it's much easier to picture things with my eyes open. Instead of having to focus on keeping my eyes shut, I can just let them unfocus while I think about whatever it is.
I have to be careful what I think about while driving, as I can picture something I want to do with my eyes open while driving and lose my attention to driving.
@@marthamurphy3913Me too! In fact, I have to listen to the radio while driving so I don't get bored and let my mind wander in a visual way, which is obviously bad when your visual processing needs to be paying attention to the road ahead!
As an autist at the lower end of the spectrum, I feel like I've spent so much time of my life in deep levels of thinking that I find the most joy when I go to a quiet beach or park and just lie on the ground to experience my senses. I listen to the sounds around me, feel the pulses of blood throughout my body, feel the warmth of the sun on my skin, notice my digestive system working, feel the earth between my fingers, feel some ants crawling on my skin, and do nothing about it. I feel tired of the intricacies of social relations and modern society in general. The fact that i understand that every single person is as complex as me, if not even more complex, makes me feel overwhelmed. I also live in Brazil where almost everyone is an extrovert and almost no one understands english, but most of the content i consume in foreign, so it's hard to find someone i can relate to or to share things i like such as this video.
I'm shocked more people don't try to reconnect with nature like you do! I've done that many times and find it so peaceful. when i consider the complexities of every person's individual lives, I also think about the subconscious, animalistic part of ourselves that we most often deny. after all, we're just animals that can communicate! humans hold such strange pride for how advanced as a society we are, when deep down we're flesh and bone, our one purpose in life being the creation of new life, just like any other animal. glad to hear you're in tune with what nourishes your soul :D
"I feel tired of the intricacies of social relations and modern society in general. The fact that i understand that every single person is as complex as me, if not even more complex, makes me feel overwhelmed." This exactly
I'm also from Brazil, I thought I was just shy but actually not... people from outside my family thought I was odd, very bookish, timid, even when I was around people I was looking away like I wasn't there, I still struggle with social deficits like not making eye contact and picking up on social cues looking very childish and I'm 24.
I scored 194 out of 235 on the mono-tropism questionnaire. I get very irritated when I have to pull away from my tunnel vision. Which leads to late night “special interest” binges so I can be alone. And we all know what lack of sleep does to an autistic mind. It almost feels like an addiction I can’t control well.
Lol yeaaah.. I thought I just had ADHD and was awkward. Oddly enough, I was able to 'turn off' the ADHD, but not the other aspects so it makes you wonder about that overlap.
Yes, if I hadn't seen so many objectionable blog posts saying what a freek Greta Thunberg is while I find her completely relatable and normal I never would have discovered 😂😂❤
I wonder, whether people would have noticed anything weird about Greta, besides her activism, without her mentioning her autism. For many assholes, her being autistic is a welcome excuse to disregard everything, she says, so she has to be this "mentally disabled girl" that just doesn't understand the "smart adults".
Fun fact: the phrase "Break a leg" is actually literal! It refers to the audience not the performer. Back in the day people stamped their feet (rather than clapping) and the idea is that they would like the performance so much they would stamp their feet so hard they would break their leg. 😊
There are a ton of theories for the origin of "break a leg" but that's one I've never heard! The one I'm most familiar with is: In the early days of theater, this is where ensemble actors were queued to perform. If actors were not performing, they had to stay behind the “leg line,” which also meant they wouldn't get paid. If you were to tell the actor to “break a leg,” you were wishing them the opportunity to perform and get paid.
There are a lot of potential meanings! For auditions, I always heard it's referring to the stage legs, aka do well enough you're on stage when the stage starts
Someone came up to me saying they don't understand how I could be autistic, because I always hated too rigid structure.. I couldn't for the life of me explain why.. so thank you for finding the right words, I really love your videos ❤
the whole not wanting to be pulled out of the attention tunnel thing reminds me so much of me as a kid in primary school... in the breaks hiding aways from the other kids because I wanted to play out stories in my head. the inside of my head is a nice place. I could/can get angry when someone invades. I just wanted to be alone in it. just for the break. I could go back to class and be with the others but I just wanted the break to myself, in my head.
This video has brought me so much peace tonight. I’ve recently realized that I’m very probably autistic and any assessment I’ve taken agrees. Now I now that I’ve been in autistic burnout for 3 years. I have scoured the internet over years trying to figure out how to explain how I feel & why and feeling like I can never express it effectively enough… just to know that I don’t need to feel shame. Not for isolating myself from friends & family- I haven’t secretly been a selfish wretch. All of this has been serving a purpose this whole time. I just didn’t know what it was. Even when I’ve been incredibly depressed, even when I’ve been incredibly lonely, I was not actually broken. My being has steered me away from people to heal & survive. So much family history makes sense now. The struggling with feelings of panic immediately when I wake up- that feeling, for the past few days, has eased for the first time in YEARS. I think, because I understand why now. I can hold a part of myself that has been so neglected. I feel so much more grace for myself, so much less judgment. It is unexpected & incredible. ❤ I want to live. ❤
i’m in the exact same place as you my friend. i’m 25 and that “panic” you mentioned has been my life for almost my entire life. feeling so much pressure on myself for just being myself, but not knowing that. not knowing that nothing was wrong with me, and i just needed to allow myself to be myself.
There's also the theory that autism is the result of a disordered autonomic nervous system. Which isn't a particularly bad theory, a lot of the autistic issues are things that other people just do without having to think about it. That certainly describes me a lot more so than the monotropism does, as I've had numerous psychosomatic and somatacization disorders over the years and am prone to random changes in my abilities just based on what my subconscious mind thinks needs to be done to address a problem.
I also really relate to this theory. Autism for me is a bunch of conditions that cause chronic pain / issues and oxidative stress and sure I also have the ability to deeply analyze and see patterns and use abstract thinking ( which im guessing is something that had to do with the lack of synaptic pruning in my development). Scishow had a great video that linked oestrogen imbalances to autism and how certain forms of oestrogen like estradiol are critical for brain development and synaptic pruning and studies showed an excess or a deficit in children with autism ( i dont remember the details). To me it makes sense seeing the comorbidity of pcos and other issues that are linked with hormones often found tagging along with autism. edited cuz of typos
@@grey_blue2513 That's not to say that I don't also have a significant issue with monotropism, but it definitely feels like that is taking a backseat to the dysregulated autonomic system and probably a lot of why it's been such a struggle to get properly diagnosed as doctors aren't typically looking for autonomic nervous system traits and since I wasn't allowed to stim or really engage in most of the things that we associate with autism, I pretty much took it out on my body in terms of things like IBS, idiopathic tinnitus, migraines and various stomach issues. But, since none of that stuff is externally visible, it doesn't count towards a diagnosis, even though it really should. These days, I've learned to love stimming and I don't think that non-autistic people ever get this level of enjoyment out of it so consistently. Perhaps during times of deep stress or anxiety, but not in a more baseline day to day situation.
Seams like me to diagnosed now fybromyalgia spectrum are you hypermobile or eds never new had Asperger's until son's diagnosis my mum surely had it just lost her to severe ms and my grandfather was to how do you manage your pain for me ime sure it's SPD as had it as a child turned into pain
@@Truerealism747 One of the issues with the DSM 5 is that there is no provision for SPD, if that's your main thing, then you're in this hole where you're not autistic, you're not ADHD and you're not schizoid, you're pretty much nothing diagnosable, so either you get a strategic misdiagnosis or you have to restart the process with a different specialty and hope that you didn't get a cluster A or B personality disorder or any sort of psychotic disorder on your record as it can be extremely difficult to get an accurate diagnosis with those on your record. Pain is interesting, because it is an emotion. I's part of why therapy is sometimes prescribed for things like migraines. In case none of your doctors mentioned it. As far as fibromyalgia is concerned, there's a decent chance that it's psychosomatic and the same basic treatments that are used for other psychosomotic disorders would help. But, there isn't a particular consensus about what it is or what to do about it. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6386210/
Wow! Autistic people seem to have a much easier time understanding autism than people without autism. Of course this is a surprise to everyone, except patients.
I'm so glad the understanding of autism is drifting toward the inner experience, instead of a list of correlated deficiencies. When a simple concept like this can pull even seemingly contradictory aspects of the spectrum together, it must be onto something. I can already see how this will help to explain things to my psychologist - especially why some of her methods need adjustments to be effective for me.
@@jimmux_v0 OMG - so YES!!!! See my comment about this. Frankly, I think autistic people should seek autistic therapists. I spent decades in conventional therapy. It was mostly a waste of time and money. When it wasn't downright harmful, which it also was a large percentage of the time. Thank god for RUclips, Twitter, and yes, even TicTok
the light metaphor is very interesting, when i’m trying to find something in my house i’ll often use a flashlight even when the room isn’t dark, because the beam helps me focus on one spot at a time so i don’t get overwhelmed
I do that sometimes. But I get mixed results. Sometimes it works fine and it helps me search more methodically. Other times I can't find the thing after a while of doing that (with a real or imaginary spotlight) but as soon s my attention slips from looking, my gaze flits round and lands in the object... It's like I've got two different search engines in my head, and they work very differently from each other.
I have autism. I was diagnosed at 40+. My kids, two wonderful teenage daughters, have "the thing" too. Thing is I kind of see it as a blessing. I know they will struggle with adapting to society as a result, but it's not down to them or who they are. My oldest is currently working on getting her driver's license. I never managed that, and I'm super stoked for her. My youngest is pursuing her interest in music. She loves to sing and she can play the piano. I'm a mid tier guitarist and I never taught myself to play the piano. I'm so proud for them. On the topic of monotropism, yeah that's obviously relevant to me. I laser focus on my special interests like geology, maths and music theory. The problem is I never found a way to convert my interests into a career. I could probably earn a comfortable living on my collected knowledge, but I just don't reason like that. I live off welfare and I'm doing OK for myself and my cat. The kids live with their mom who is pursuing a career in nursing.
As an Autistic Family that has 2 late-Diagnosed Parents' , we thank you for the spread of information! I am the AuDHD Mom, and I find this overwhelming feeling of Solace and comfort from these topics ❤❤❤❤
My dad once kind asked me when I was little if I knew why I needed to stem, and I remember telling him point blank that I couldn't imagine right without it. He very genuinely took this understanding, and I think because of that I managed to safely stem at home around my parents into adulthood. I will always appreciate how kind and genuinely curious he was in how he asked.
@@davidcastaneda6111 They're talking about the act of "stimming" that a lot of autistic people do, but every time they mentioned it, they misspelled it lol
I was misdiagnosed with BPD. Spent so much time in psychiatric hospitals that exposed me to traumatic experiences that then made me develop PTSD 😢. The only thing I did was do things to myself deliberately. I was an autistic child who was in a very unstable situation (went through the care system) and who also had EDS. This is a perfect explanation. I’m going to share it with people who don’t understand. Thank you!!
@laratheplanespotter Hi Laura, my daughter in law has a very similar background. Single child of alcoholic, rather than care system, but diagnosed with BPD and has EDS, spent time in psych unit due to the same as you and suffering PTSD as a result of this. I was wondering how you are doing now and if you have any advice I can give her to help her cope. I also have autism, but am older and the world is so much more stressful now. Apology's if this is too intrusive, I don't expect a reply if it's too much. Best wishes. El.
@SobrietyandSolace Do you.mind me asking if it's hypermobile EDS you are suffering from? I'm asking because if your ligaments etc. aren't supporting your spine, it can cause vagal nerve compression. This causes issues like leaky gut, hormonal issues and problems regulating mood. Good luck.
That explains how hard school was, if i just had 2 months of maths, 2 months of English etc that would have been so much easier, Thank you for sharing this information!
This is so true. That is essentially how I naturally learn about and pursue my special interests as an adult. I become completely obsessed and spend almost every waking minute of free time absorbed in that thing for weeks or months and then rotate to something else. My food choices and media consumption will also follow this pattern.
I ended up leaving an adult Ed language course I’d paid for because the tutor’s teaching style was to do language related stuff for half an hour then ‘have a break’ and watch videos about the history of the country or something then go back to teaching the language. Drove me bats.
Hearing these ideas put into words is so nice. I feel like it's impossible for neurotypical people to understand how difficult certain things are. They just tell me crap like "put in effort to work through your disability" and I'm left causing problems because I continue to struggle to interact "correctly"
Asking someone to put in extra effort when their disability is actually endangering others is kind of valid. For any other disability ... why is it your job to do extra work to make other people happy? You're already doing more work than they are. Why can't they do a bit of work on themselves to stop being nasty?
Listening to you makes me realize how much effort I've put into making social interactions easier for me. I don't experience quite as much anxiety but I'm also over 50 years old and had a LOT of practice. That said, I can only do it for so long before I'm mentally drained and I definitely need my 'alone time' to recharge. The only difference is that I don't find it as distressing as it might be for others, but it still takes its toll on me and I can get unpleasant if I don't disengage soon enough just because I'm out of energy to make the effort.
I went out and did the questionnaire before watching this video because I wasn't aware of monotropism before and I didn't want this to bias my answers. I scored pretty high....😳
This is really throwing me for a loop because I always thought everyone felt exhausted shifting from one task to another. I thought everyone had problems with getting out of the bed in the morning because it feels like ripping off a bandaid or jumping of an airplane. Or id even describe it as, jumping into a cold shower. I guess I need to get officially tested. 🤦🏽♀️
Everyone does experience those things. Just like a child being immersed in a current experience to the exclusion of all else is perfectly normal behaviour. In fact, most of the things she mentions in this video are normal behaviours.
@@DylanYoung I was tested since this post, and I do have ADHD according to the assessment, but the testing is so surface level. All it is is an assessment or questionnaire
@DylanYoung It's not about the experience being unique (it's not). The difference is the frequency and/or intensity of the experience or behavior. For example: everyone has had a tummyache and digestive issues, but not everyone has IBS. Or as a less medical example: Everyone tells jokes, but not everyone is a comedic genius.
@@AcademiacaramelcurlzThere is no definitive or thorough testing for ADHD. Diagnosis is really dependent on if you fit the criteria and if your therapist/prescriber agrees. There’s no concrete method of diagnosis or test that you can take that’ll definitively tell you. Some health care providers will mistakenly rely on a test for diagnosis. Diagnosis is reliant on an examination of one’s life and childhood.
My mum was mad at me for saying that I just wanted to go home when i was struggling with riding a bike - i still remember holding back tears and this is why we need people like you raising awareness
Your mom sounds like kind of an asshole, no offense. I also had trouble riding a bike, and never really learned how in the end, because my family was okay with me giving up on it. Especially since pretty soon after we got a bike for me, I developed extremely severe Tourette's Syndrome that basically makes it impossible for me to do so anyway lol
I suspect I am autistic and have done extensive research about autism and monotropism. My monotropism score was above 90% of Autistic people. I am severely monotropic. I also took multiple autism tests and scored as high as 40/40 in the AQ. I’m currently pursuing a diagnosis because your content has opened my eyes to why I feel so stressed all the time in the normal world and why I struggled to make friends as a child and adult. Everything you say about autism and neurodivergence resonates with me on a deep level. I used to think I was just being silly and it was all in my head. I got told I had OCD, PTSD, depression, anxiety as a teenager. I never realised Autism could go undetected for the 23 years of my life.
Yeah, I just took it and I may retake it later. I got 84% and now I’m kinda wondering if I was skewing the results after watching the video and because I’ve been in my workshop for hours… and the questions are always hard on these things because you never know quite what they mean by them. And for the love of mustard why is there always at least one “people tell me I’m” question? Neurotypicals can’t people trusted to tell you things like that straight out. They bottle everything up!
Make sure to seek out a psychiatric professional who specialises in autism, most everyone else is .. incompetent Don't take no for an answer I'm about to turn 44 and have just been officially diagnosed, life is a lot easier on the other side, and it's happening to people much older. If you're not comfortable with a test, take it again, you will probably find the difference doesn't actually affect your score
its a possibility you could have all those and autism, i ended up with all of those and autism as a diagnosis myself. takes a doctor to find out either way!
There is enormous overlap with OCD, depression, anxiety and autism. 37% of autistic people have OCD compared to 2% of the general population. 26% of autistic people have depression compared to 2.8% of the general population. 20.1% of autistic people have some kind of anxiety disorder as opposed to 8.7% of the general population. There is also a dramatic overlap between PTSD and autism but this connection is a bit more controversial. Because PTSD and autism have so many of the same manifestations (hyperarousal, hypervigilance, depression, substance abuse, sleep issues, disassociation, etc.) one can often be misdiagnosed as the other. Usually this takes the form of an autistic person being diagnosed as having PTSD. There is strong evidence that people with autism are more likely to develop PTSD over the course of their lives. A theory that explains this is that autistic people ruminate more and so are more likely to reinforce trauma to a degree that causes PTSD to develop. The role of rumination in PTSD is pretty well established. A study of war veterans showed that if opioids were administered shortly after a traumatic event(like if someone is hit by an IED and is given morphine for pain) then the likelihood of that person developing PTSD is diminished. A possible explanation is that the mental reinforcement of trauma following a traumatic event can be interrupted by a dopamine release. The rumination stops or decreases and the trauma doesn’t develop such deep roots in the psyche. As an aside, there is no “cure” or “treatment” for autism because it is not an illness(you can simply learn how to harness your autistic superpowers more effectively and adapt to a world/society not designed for autistic people) but the therapies for PTSD, OCD, anxiety, and depression have two enormous overlaps: therapy and psychedelics. Do with that information what you will.
I’m balling my eyes out listening to this video. I just turned 50. While writing my first fictional book where the main character is based off of me, it came to me out of somewhere that this character might be autistic. I started doing research last week. Have been feeling so low lately.
OMG I'M AUTISTIC!!!! wait.. i'm autistic?? i have never, in 20 years, related to a video (person, really) in its entirety like i have to this one. it's 36 minutes long, and throughout it i'm violently nodding "yes that's it that's it" thank you. to say this has cleared up some things or helped me understand some things is an understatement.
i had a similar experience 6 months ago @56yrs old watching a different set of videos at the time. not very many people around me seem to agree.....or understand
Everyone who goes through a training/education course about autism, at some point thinks they must be autistic. Usually it's not true. The diagnostic instruments are based on a point scoring metric, just having some traits doesn't make you autistic, you need to break a threshold. Generally the idea is that if you have enough traits, it will start to have a negative impact on your life experience, at that point it makes sense to call it something and provide support and education.
@@oldmossystone yes. in my case, after learning so so much about autism, it actually turns out i'm not autistic (at least i _really_ don't think so.) i think i owe this update to anyone who reads my comment and relates to it. however, because i'm uncannily similar to autistic people, once i became aware of the things that they do that i also do, i was able to put a name on them for the first time and directly address them. monotropism is less of an issue for me now than it was a month ago, as i made it a point to start noticing a more diverse range of stimuli around me (when necessary, because i really prefer not to)
@@dannyismetalThere is a big difference between a person who has done little study and research to make a diagnosis on themselves and a neurological doctorate who has spent years of study to know what to look for that qualifies identifying something that, although can be a benefit in some cases, can be a detriment to the person, such as the lagging in mental capacity up to a certain point in life (varies) and thus being diagnosed an Aspie at a young age.
It never fails to make me emotional, being reminded that all these things I internalize, overthink, and guilt myself over are just a part of who I am as an autistic person. Imposter syndrome sucks and it's genuinely so nice to hear someone else talking about experiencing these things that I deal with every single day 🙏♥️
You're not disabled or sick in any way. You're a perfectly normal unique individual. You're part of a larger group who are similar in uniqueness to you. We as logical human beings given faculties of reason, are compelled by these unanimal faculties to attempt to organise, categorise and label EVERYTHING. So called "autistic" people are just the polar ends of the varied groups or archetypes that make up humanity. There's room for us all. You heard the woman in the video: autistic people are over-sensitive. Next sentence: autistic people are under-sensitive. And on and on. She's basically describing ALL people at either end of the human condition. It's not a disease. It's you being you. If the creator wanted all people to be the same He could have made us all like pre-programmed identical robots. He didn't. He created diversity. Sorry if you don't like your condition (personality) but it is what it is. As for your over-analysis of yourself. I've got news for you - everyone, literally EVERYONE goes through that period in life. For most people it's during puberty and teens. Then they grow up and realise no one really gives a shit how you look or act. They become a little more comfortable in themselves and learn the do's and don't's of society - what's acceptable and unacceptable, and are thereby able to (somewhat) let go of themselves or the constant internal thoughts of how they might "fit in" to larger society. They become indoctrinated into society and they no longer need to consider or internally reflect on social norms. Their social inhibitions are on auto-pilot. When you witness that awkward teenager, you are literally observing a being who is unsure of themselves or society at large, what's right or wrong. They're hesitant in everything they do publicly because they're still learning what society expects/demands of them. Once learnt and internalized they no longer need to think about it and be so self-conscience - they just know. They've grown up! Some people who are by all accounts "grown up" and are still overly self-conscience, are that way because they're focused on their self (their "nafs") or in psychological quackery terms; their "ego". You're focused on your ego because you don't have a higher or more important object of attention. You're the most important thing in your world. In my world - as a Muslim - I come second (or even third or fourth or fifth depending). There's someone vastly, infinitely, more important than me. My creator. Focus on Him, liberates me from my self. Forgetfulness or heedlessness of Him (called; ghaflah in Islam) brings me back to fear and darkness. To egotistical attitudes in everything I do, think and say. I (and most people who sincerely practice a faith of acknowledging, recognizing and observing a higher power and His laws) swing like pendulums between darkness and light. Fear and faith. The darkness sucks. A cold fearful place full of anxiety and worry. When in the light - you're empty and full all at the same time, it's a kind of bliss. When in bliss you think back to the times when you were in darkness and wonder at all the grotesque and perverse things you got mixed up in and wonder how you could have become so corrupted. You repent of it and in your mind and heart you could never imagine returning to it. Only to find yourself slipping back into it all over again. Trying to claw your way out but you can't. Until you can. And the cycle continues. Some people, elderly people, who have fallen the required number of times are given reprieve and remain in the light until it's their time to leave this wretched place. The rest swing back and forth. Rise and fall and rise again. People in perpetual darkness have no idea what I'm talking about. This modern field of psychology is 90% BS. The root of this modern phenomenon of widespread mental problems, depression, anxiety, etc with a plethora of labels and diagnoses to suit is down to one thing - GHAFLAH (heedlessness). And there ain't no pill that can cure it. Turning back to your Creator is the only way. Wasalam. Girl in the video is cute. A perfectly normal unique cute girl.
Interesting. People have often told me that I "overthink" things, as if it were a choice that I consciously, deliberately make. It's like, _"What am I suppose to _*_do_*_ with that information? What would you have me do?! I can't just stop thinking! It's how my defective brain is wired."_
@@entertainme121 🤔 Almost right, all but the part about rising out of darkness by your own effort, falling back and rising yet again and again, by your own effort. I was taught this is the height of futility. Only God the Almighty could do what needed to be done to free us from the curse of darkness in the soul. And once He frees us, we can never be in darkness again. Not to say we won't be oppressed or tested by forces of darkness, but they can never again hold us secure. We who believe in the power of light and love will see our God vanquish the dark forever. All it takes to join us, is to admit you can't help yourself get free of sin. Believe our God can free you. Ask Him to forgive you for following the darkness. He will! He longs to rescue all humanity from dark forces. The only way is to ask Him to, and do our best to follow Him from then on. We, being human are going to fail. But the blessed thing is, once you are His, he forgives over and over as many times as it takes, just ask. We will be in Paradise with Him in the end. Because He loves us.
Wow this has totally changed the way I look at movements/dyspraxia for myself. I grew up dancing, so I've always figured that dyspraxia didn't really apply to me (despite being "clumsy" and otherwise terrible at sports) but looking at it through the monotropism lens... I've always had immense difficulty learning new moves *until I could figure out how to make the entire movement feel like only ONE movement*. Like I cannot make my arms and legs move separately, but if I figure out how the disparate movements are supposed to feel together or in opposition to one another then I can synthesize it into one movement and suddenly it clicks! Not sure how other autistic or allistic dancers think about this. But this really makes so much sense to me!
What you’re describing sounds a bit like how I engage with playing an instrument. I’m able to play really complex things on the piano if I see it as continuation of a single trajectory and rely heavily on the muscle memory of learning it.
This idea made me start exploring my autism diagnosis. Hyperfocus got me thinking adhd, but I never discard an interest. For example, I was obsessed with ancient Egypt from the age of six, as in I was a kindergartner reading Budge's interlinear book of the dead and getting into trouble in Sunday school for idol worship. 37 years later, I'm a professional ancient historian and Classics professor who infodumps about the ancient Mediterranean professionally. Knitting became a sheep to fabric obsession, fifth grade recorder became a second major in early music performance. I'm lucky I got a job doing my special interests, but I really struggle when I can't talk about them You'd think this would be a common story in my field, but most of my colleagues didn't start until college, and they can't do ancient stuff 24/7, so I'm still weird.
Remember that Neurodivergence quite often comes in clusters. I always put aside the idea I could be Autistic because some things don't entirely match up. It's only in the last year talking to a friend who is now lecturing in Neurodivergence (and a few other people that put two and two together) that it's come to my attention that I probably have both Autism and ADHD and they are in some ways covering for each other. Meaning I enjoy socialising a lot but it can cause burn out. And I tend to multitask and need multiple streams of data to keep myself going which kind of goes somewhat against the subject of this video. But at the same time I have special interests, need to stim to combat anxiety and other traits of Autism.
@@hello_ree Oh I'm absolutely sure I'm Autistic, but I also probably have ADHD which means some of the classic 'Autistic Traits' get hidden. For example I need to Socialise and do new things, but I will pay for it later if I'm not careful in burn out. What I was trying to say is there is a very high possibilities of comorbidities in Neurodiverse people. Which means don't worry too much if you don't entirely match the 'text book definitiion' of Autism.
I started questioning whether I was autistic about 2.5 years ago. Spent a year researching and consuming the stories / life experiences of autistic individuals, and everything just kept clicking, and the idea that I was autistic just explained SO MUCH about my childhood and teen years, and about my transition into adulthood, and about me in general. Videos like yours are so.. affirming, and oddly comforting. Thanks for doing what you do. It's nice to feel like I'm not alone
Makes sense; actually, 'monotropism' is just a fancy term for 'tunnel vision'. Similarly, I've heard autism compared to seeing the world up close, as if through a zoom-lens.
I feel like I'm rapidly shining my torch in different directions sometimes, but then I also have ADHD. But I'm really great at noticing tiny details in things, like finding shinies in Pokemon. A very useful skill -_-
In 16 personalities one of the categories is Judging Vs Perceiving. Which is described as 'are detail oriented or big picture focused?'. This always confused me because I feel like I am both. Visually I am constantly zeroing in on minute details in my environment as if I'm checking for bugs in the simulation. I think it's a self-soothing thing. I need to pay attention to the little things to feel tethered to reality. However conceptually I am more of a compulsive philosopher. I am the opposite of grounded, playing with worldviews exaggertively like I'm looking through a filters. I think that's more what the test refers to, hence why I always get P instead of J. Ironically I find this personality trait of perceiving can manifest as being super judgy of myself and others. And super negative if you're not in a good headspace unfortunately
@veelogation3890 I'm the same with four leaf clovers. I used to find a handful of them... during baseball in PE. Leaves are so much more interesting than sports.
@@Eet_Mia i have that as well. They just pop out in walls of text, whether its in a presentation, book or a random paragraph online. Its as if a fly would land on your monitor screen, you can't not notice it. It only irritates me when others don't it but i do so i usually point out the mistake if its warranted.
I don’t know if maybe I’m autistic and autism has been my new special interest for the last months, or if I’m actually neurotypical and your videos as well as the other neurodivergent youtubers’ videos I found are just too damn interesting! In any case, please keep making these amazing contents!
Im right there with you. What are your special interests? "Well right now Autism, which leaves me constantly questioning am I autistic or just really interested in autism. like sure I match in alot of things, ALOT, but I could just be biased and stretching my mind to make things fit. " Gets me all the time 24/7
@@raynac224 that’s exactly me! And sometimes I even wonder if the fact that maybe I’m convincing myself I’m autistic when I’m not is a symptom of some other condition or neurodivergence or whatever that I haven’t discovered yet! And that could be super interesting too!
Generally, completely neurotypical people aren't drawn to learn more about autism. They have tons of things to fill their lives with and will tell you about them. If you're hungry for it, that means something clicks. Does that mean you're "autistic"? Maybe not, maybe it's adhd, or burnout, or something, but it's something worth investigating. So, try not to worry too much, just keep learning until something really clicks.
"Monotropism" explains why I got so engrossed in my book that my mother had a hard time getting my attention if I was reading. Interesting is that I have "hyperlexia autism". Also have been misdiagnosed as "mentally ill" until I actually became very depressed because I was so misunderstood. I was "border line borderline", "atypical depression with panic attacks". You described your masking in school very well, I could relate. I dropped out of college initially too and went back to school later to become a nurse. So there was a clear goal. Thank you for your channel! ❤️
When you said " even if you understand social rules, it's still very difficult on the spot" I felt it to my core. Your whole explanation of what happens during masking in social interactions is so familiar. I often don't know when it's my turn to speak, or how I came off to a person. Overthinking every exchange, even with people I don't really care about like the person at the checkout stand I'll likely never see again lol...so much worse if I find someone interesting and possibly a potential friend, as they are so hard to come by for me and I don't want to miss out on an opportunity. So much about this video explains my life. I know the struggle between hating routine and needing it to be regulated. I need very direct communication and feel like I'm being lied to when someone doesn't do exactly what they say they are going to do, or if they change plans at the last minute. If I am interrupted during a task I get very irritated. Definitely relate to the PDA. Thank you for this content.❤
The editing in this video and the interlinked monolog is fantastic. It makes sense while giving sufficient explanation for the focus of your topic. I can relate so much better to what I've learned and am also annoyed to think that school punished my special interests or general attention when I was studying. Other than that, I congratulate you on the brilliant dedication to bring greater awareness to such a complex neurological issue.
16:12 "That's one of the reasons school is so painful..." YES! WHAT AN UNDERSTATEMENT! The thing that bothers me, as an adult, is why none of the adults in my life ever tried to get to the bottom of why me, a straight A student, absolutely hated school. If I was even in the vicinity of a smart child who complained endlessly and bitterly about school, I'd try to get to the bottom of what was going on. I mean it makes no sense, the lack of curiosity on the part of most people. And then when I spent my 20s avoiding work, what did they think was going on? Did they think I was the only lazy person in the world who obsessed over projects and worked on them all day long? Why did they just abandon me to my own (limited) resources? I give people advice all day long, and people actually come to me for my golden advice. Why was I never given an advice person, lol! tl;dr Why is it up to autistics to figure out autism?
Yes! I relate to this! I was and still am a straight As kind of person who overdoes every project/job/tasks because I hyperfocus and have extreme perfectionism and a need to strive to prove I'm "enough" to everyone, but I also managed to graduate 3 times by 25 and still not get a job until I was 31. It should have been obvious to people that I was struggling under massive anxiety and depression and that this was not coming from any inability to actually achieve things, especially work related things, but rather the massive lack of social link to anyone and particularly obvious fact that I can't network well enough to find my way into a job. I still feel it very much, that there's a lot of obvious factors that people should have known, I had and still have major ARFID, and didn't even know there was a name for it so I've just lived in shame with it and kept it secret and worked hard on it on my own all this time, and I now have increasingly bad GI issues that when they look with every kind of test, have no physical reason to be happening, which I think is again commonly linked to ASD and the resulting anxiety and strain it causes everyday. I've got every single trait in the book except maybe a love for animals, which scare me most of the time, but I still get SO MANY people pushing it aside! Even the 7 mental health professionals I've seen across my lifetime either didn't pick it up or when I finally did think of it and suggested it they all said "oh yeah without a doubt but it's not relevant to dealing with your increasing SH tendencies and it's not "enough" to be worth talking about or looking into" - UM EXCUSE ME? I BANG MY HEAD INT OTHE WALL AND IM SCARED OF THAT, I REALLY THINK IT MIGHT BE TIME TO ADMIT IT'S REAL? Sorry, the idea that people are so dismissive of high masking ASD people and then expect us to go and do all the researching and then basically self diagnose, self refer, self treat and chase up the million other things that then radiate from this like eating disorders and so on, is just starting to really piss me off. It's SO much work and I do it all just to be dismissed as "perfectly fine". It's really not! EVEN THIS REPLY IS EVIDENCE OF MY INABILITY TO NOT BE HYPERVERBAL IN WRITING UGH hahaha
@@maluridae_ I'm 65 and I've longed for a partner all my life but I'm too much a failure to let it happen, so inside I'm just constantly sad and seeing attractive women just sends me into a pit of being frozen and intolerably sad. I see people like you do, like none one cares about me enough to the point where I hardly see any body for days and weeks. Things seems too impossibly hard to do... I watch RUclips and then read comments and get so caught up in it, leaving comments and getting frustrated when there's no replies or the wrong reply, yet I spend so much energy trying to express exactly what I'm trying to say and I forget that a large proportion of people out there are varying degrees of bullies or trolls or they just are really nasty or they just don't seriously care that deeply... But I have no clue how to fix this and meanwhile life gets harder and more painful. This video is a bit of an eye opener and i do not type comments like this lightly, or ever before; not that it means anything will change as a result, that's my certainty. But the kind and beautiful lady disarmed me and here I am writing another comment after being awake for I don't know how long. All the best, we deserve better...
Relate to this so hard! I went from literal perfect daily attendance and being a principal honor roll elementary school kid, even getting upset when there was a snow day, to skipping class as a freshman in high-school, not turning in work at all, and being transferred to 3 different high-schools because I couldn't stand the one I was in before. And it just got worse and worse every year after I hit age 13. Like what went through my school counselor's and teacher's minds when they saw this thriving, happy little kid who loved learning, turning into someone that hated being in school so much they'd rather make a break for it, risking getting in trouble, to walk around town until the busses came to pick the students up? Why didn't an adult ever wonder why someone, who loved learning so much and knew so much about non-school topics, didn't want to be in a place where all you do is learn??
When you were speaking about auditory interruptions being unwelcome if we're focused on something else, I felt that in my soul. I get so upset if someone talks to me when I'm doing something, because that thing needs my entire attention to be able to process it properly. A good example is that I've always used books as an escape and my mom would always say "a herd of elephants could go by while you're reading, and you wouldn't notice". I'm AuDHD, and the likelihood I will completely lose my train of thought is extremely high while I'm trying to desperately to hold onto said "thing" while this person is "pressuring" me to give them my attention. I will pretend I don't perceive them for as long as I can, until it becomes unvoidable. By that point, my irritation and anxiety is difficult to hide, so no matter what I do they're offended at my behavior. My chest gets tight just thinking about it.
Hehe, a friend of mine in middle school called it endearingly a "reading coma" when I was reading my book and wouldn't respond to anyone. :D I wish I could still be sucked into a book like this and forget everything but I can't really read for enjoyment anymore, since I finished high school.
I really enjoy using out of date idioms because I feel like it allows other people to realize how silly idioms are. I was doing that for years before my diagnosis and now I understand why I gravitated to using them in my communication. I could not understand why people are so willing to accept terms and sayings "just because" without actually thinking about them critically.
@@marthamurphy3913 That is awesome you enjoy that. I could understand why they could be fun to learn about especially how they change over time and what can influence them to come into existence. I do also enjoy making up my own versions of existing idioms or coming up something new. I guess that is the way to make new ones enter language, just gotta make up your own💜
yeah i have to know the history of every idiom. and i *will* use them from literally any source if they’re a good texture both the bible and my favorite niche youtuber are in the table
This is my favorite video on RUclips. The information is SO interesting and (as per all Meg’s videos) presented in such an organized, straightforward way where I don’t have to strain to keep track of how all the points connect. The stock footage is so satisfying and an awesome visual stim and makes this channel my favorite on RUclips. My favorite one is the attention tunnel stock footage, I could stare at that for hours! Thank you Meg, love your style!! 💕✨
I absolutely love your voice! So clear not too loud not too low,you are not stuck on monotone ! I really appreciate how you're speaking to us as if we are literally in front of you !
About sensory differences at 10:50 , you mentioned hyperfocus as a possible cause for hyposensitivity, which is certainly true, but doesn't explain it outside of special interests time. After my diagnosis I compared my past and present sensitivities and realized an interesting fact: some of my present hypos could be the result of having to force myself through past hypers that caused me distress. Example: When I was a child I hated having to wear shoes while sitting down, the inability to freely move my toes gave me a feeling of constriction that drove me insane. But I had to power through that feeling because in many situations I wasn't allowed to take off my shoes. Today I am nearly unbothered by any sensation coming from my feet. I can wear light socks and shoes at freezing temperature, or vice versa sweat a lot because I don't realize my feet are too hot. Last year I was on a hike and walked for 4-5 hours with my feet covered in blisters, every step a strike of pain, but I genuinely did not care and enjoyed the hike. I think I basically trained my brain to ignore every signal coming from my feet. So, I really think sometimes hyposensitivities can be overcompensation for hypersensitivities that we had to learn to overcome, the sad result of always being told to "get over it, it's not that bad, everyone does this".
This is so interesting! I think I've trained myself to ignore discomfort in many ways too. So I think you might be onto something! Thank you for sharing your experience 💛
I believe you. I have fibromyalgia, which is chronic muscle and nerve pain and tenderness, and I can pretty much tune it out if I'm doing something I'm very interested in and get to the flow stage. I wore heels at my daughter's wedding and as soon as we turned on the lights to clean up, after the dancing, I realized that the pain in my feet was excruciating!
One of the biggest reasons I haven’t tried to get evaluated for autism is that I didn’t stay hypersensitive. I needed to have my my socks on perfectly as a kid or else I’d throw a fit and miss the bus and I couldn’t sleep if my mom was making food because the smell would keep me awake. Now I don’t even notice if my socks are halfway off my feet and I can barely smell things unless I’m actively paying attention to them. I’ve always taken it as a sign that I’m not autistic because I grew out of my sensory issues and autism is a lifelong thing but hearing this perspective has given me a lot to think about.
@@cannibalisticginger7256 glad to hear that! Of course this is just a theory of mine and I'm no professional. But also there's plenty other reasons why our traits change through time (as any other person, we grow up and evolve and change). For sensory stuff, I think especially puberty brings huge changes, both to our body and to our perceptions (because hormones). Clothes tags used to drive me crazy as a kid, and up until a couple weeks ago I really couldn't tell how I kinda suddenly got over it as a teenager. Then I realized: I got lots of hair, especially just below the back of my neck, where tags usually are. I'm 2 years from my formal diagnosis and I'm still figuring stuff out.
Shifting attention feels like ripping velcro in my mind. Regular things are old soft velcro and hurt less, but it's still ripping. Big or unexpected shifts feel like new industrial grade velcro and its just awful
This is such a good analogy! If I need to step away from a special interest I almost have to brace myself for that. It still feels very distressing and uncomfortable, no amount of exposure has changed it.
my friendships have always been as though im dating the friend. it starts quickly and goes intense quickly with debt and the amount of time spent but they can also end abruptly and occasionally very badly (often when i stop masking more and i become to much, or because i didnt realise they werent a friend but just someone using me when i was younger) BUT i think for me what would actually be a good kind of friendship, is one that is relatively low contact and more of a slow burn at the start so it becomes more stable over time. but as someone whos usually friendless, when i finally have a friend its very hard to pace myself. (ideally of course, if the friend is caring, but just very busy, this problem might resolve itself because youre limited by the circumstances)
That's totally understandable. I never pace myself well with friendships and just kinda fly in but I've had the fortune of meeting some great people in my late teens and adult life.
I’ve been recovering from an eating disorder for a while and what has helped me a lot was finding the ‘root cause’ of my ed, which is autism. This video has helped me realise how my lingering ed behaviours and routines are maintained almost like they are autistic special interests. Thank you for using your channel to make learning about autism easy access, you have helped so many of us improve our lives :)
I am newly diagnosed at age 56 as autism level 1. Your channel has been very helpful for me. The information is great, and your voice is very soothing. I know what you mean by having lots of rules for talking to people. Yet still having no idea what they think of how you are doing. My lovely husband has started to tell me outright how he actually feels. It’s so helpful. Those guitar earrings are fire.
Thanks Meg. This video is Great. I also get emotional thinking about our collective special interest in autism. 💜 I hope anyone who reads this is having a good day. If not, I'm sorry you're not having a good day, and I hope it gets better. You're doing the best you can, and you matter.
"I also get emotional thinking about our collective special interest in autism." There is a tendency for autistic individuals to be fascinated by autism. Fascination with autism is a characteristic of autism.
Your videos have helped me feel more comfortable in myself. Im autistic and it’s been hard to explain myself and I suppose “get my symptoms under control.” It’s hard to move in a neurotypical world, and a marriage while being autistic. And motherhood while being autistic. These qualities you have mentioned absolutely apply to me and I feel less… well, less dumb. Less annoying. Less like a failure or I’m taking up space in a way that’s making everyone else can’t stand.
I hope you have support. I was married for 26 years (until my husband passed away) and we have seven children. I have homeschooled for many years; I have one left to graduate. One of the strengths of homeschooling is that I can set our family schedule to fit me: I prefer to stay up late and sleep in, so I schedule nothing early, no classes, no commitments. We start school at 10 a.m. and when my children were all elementary age and younger, we'd end official schoolwork at noon with exercise. Now that my last child is high school age, we work around his theater schedule. He performed in a play last night. My husband and I made a point of going out to dinner without our children once a week or once every other week, so I could have time away from the children and so he could reconnect with me. I live in a city that has a lot of co-op classes I can take my children to, so for subjects I don't want to teach, they can learn from someone else. I despise grading papers, so we use other ways of showing what our children have learned. They make art, they write, they make music, they give presentations; each one is different. I feel blessed to get to learn something about everything they're interested in, because my focus is on figuring out how to help my children become their best selves. It's like opening live puzzle boxes, exciting and frustrating and wonderful and painful all at once. My most difficult child so far is the most obviously autistic; she is so sensitive to touch that I can tickle her by waving my fingers in her sight. She has enough instability that she chooses not to ride a bike at all. My other children, however, are one by one being diagnosed ADD or ADHD as adults. I'm fairly certain that I'm autistic, but my strength is in words and in following directions to the letter, so I fit in really well in school, that is, teachers loved me. Other students mostly got ignored, if I was reading a book, or selectively listened to if I was between books. You can do this. You only have to do what you can do, and God will make up the rest. He gave you and your husband the children he did, so you AND they can learn from the experience.
This fits pretty well with the metaphor me and my NT friend came up with a while ago! We decided that if life was a video game with a key to highlight points of interest, his would light up interactable items around us, and mine would draw a line straight to the next objective.
Currently we use an iPad application for basic communication but I am making a hard push to teach him sign. I believe that sign is more universal and a more convenient method of communication. I also believe that his intellectual development depends upon the use of a language. We think and learn in a language. Most of our concepts are constructed from the understanding of definitions, linguistic relationships and meanings etc. Sign can be a gateway to written communication and literacy. Literacy can lead to greater intellectual development. The iPad just isn't going to be enough. @@ASAS-dn4ve
When trying to describe how it feels to have ADHD/Autism, I say it's like looking at the world through a pinhole where everything that you can see through the pinhole is what exists to you in that moment. Anything that's being blocked out(laundry, homework, etc) literally doesn't exist to me. In contrast, anything I'm viewing through the pinhole is in sharp detail, and my attention is like a laserbeam. It takes SO much effort to find anything through the pinhole, but once I'm focused on it, you better believe I'm focused af. Being forced to move the pinhole around to do a new task is painfully frustrating, clumsy, and slow! I just want to continue concentrating on what I'm already doing!
My dad was diagnosed with almost every condition under the Sun including bipolar disorder and depression before he was finally diagnosed with Autism and ADHD in his 50s. I can see how it could be mistaken for bipolar. Depending on which condition is most prominent in any given moment; he could be hyperactive, talkative and easy-going; or quiet and overly sensitive.😊
Try having a bipolar condition being misidentified as autism. Bipolar, ADHD, Autism, Major Depression and Schizophrenia all are on Axis 1 of the DSM 5. I have family members whose condition can be identified all across Axis 1. However, most all the cases are varying degrees of bipolar condition which has some aspects that resemble Autism. Lately it seems that people have made being autism a kind of emblem that people think it is cool to wear. Nothing about bipolar condition is charming or quirky. It is hell.
I've been in the field for 9 years, and I had never heard of this theory. I've been reading more literature on this theory and it seems very powerful. Thanks for educating the public and also helping me be a better provider.
Earlier this year, I learned that there are negative/harmful stims, and I realized that that's what my obsessive picking of my zits has always been! I still struggle with it, cause I don't have a stim to replace it with, but it's been better!
I'm a Mom of a 31 year old autistic/ADHD/ Etc. son and your videos are teaching me things that he's unable to verbalize. He does seem to be hurt by my interruptions and you helped me understand. Thank-You!
I think my father once gave me a cup that said, I'm not deaf, I'm ignoring you. Problem is I'm not ignoring you, ignoring means I'm CHOOSING not to interact with you. I'm not making an active choice to IGNORE people, I simply don't have the ability to register that your trying to contact me. Calling it ignoring leads to me being the problem, because it's wrong to ignore others, but it's not WRONG for someone deaf to not be able to hear or for someone autistic to not be able to hear you calling them.
When I was really little my mom had me go through a full on hearing test by doctors because she thought I had problems with my hearing. I aced the test and it was a joke about me being intentionally defiant with not responding, even though I told them it wasn't intentional. Now this makes me realize it was just an autism thing. Still to this day I sometimes don't respond because I'm just not focused on that I guess. Or sometimes I will be in the middle of conversations but have a pause moment where it's like I did hear what was said, but it was gibberish and now I have to decipher it in my head first.
I used to be married to someone who designed logos from time to time, so I find that fascinating. I'm more apt to remember the logo and not the product.
i was lucky enough to have a mom who is also autistic (though doesn’t claim to be) so when she would call my name multiple times while i was reading and i wouldn’t hear her until she physically put her hand in front of the book she just thought i got it from her 😅 which is true but not in the way she thought
My mom used to say that I have selective hearing, but jokes on her, it's actually just sensory processing disorder and/or being too distracted to perceive other sounds
About a week ago I was thinking about what actually causes autism. I came to a very similar conclusion. To me it feels like a nervous system condition related to only being able to/wanting to engage with one channel of information or input at a time. I had never heard about monotropism before. There is definitely something to this theory.
If you actually look at the studies into how the brain is wired, in autistic individuals certain areas of the brain have more connections to each other than a non autistic brain, and other areas have less connections to what you'd see in a non autistic brain. There also seems to be an issue with the amount of "buffer" due to this. So a non autistic person can receive info (via sensing organs) and it makes its way to the brain and the brain feeds back that it got the message so then it doesn't take in any more of the stimulus from that thing unless it changes or remains important. In contrast there isn't that same feedback within an autistic brain, so each bit of stimulus gets treated like a brand new piece of information to process even if its basically just the same thing over & over. So a non autistic person's ears will hear the sound of the fridge, send the info to the brain, the brain will go "oh that's the sound of the fridge, its not important, you don't need to send me more info about that ears" and that message gets sent to the ears which now tune the sound out. Autistic person's ears hear the sound of the fridge, send the info to the brain, the brain goes "oh that's the sound of the fridge". The ears keep sending the info to the brain about the sound. The brain keeps going "that's the fridge". No message goes back to the ears telling them they don't need to keep sending that info, no tuning out happens in the brain either. But its happening for every sensory input all at once with none of them properly getting the "ok, don't need to focus on that" response. So then its not much surprise that an autistic brain can then only engage with one *other* channel of information at once. Because really we're having to deal with all the other stuff that non autistic people's brains just tune out for them. Its basically the same as being on high alert all the time, so its also not a surprise that anxiety is such a big thing for autistic people.
Great video. I actually felt like I was looking in the mirror as I was watching/listening to much of it. It was validating as to why one of my favorite sayings is "If it ain't broke don't fix it." It also helps me better understand why I might often seem set in my ways and sometimes seem like I have a fixed mindset rather than a growth mindset on certain matters.
My son is only 2 but diagnosed as autistic. I loved this video because it helps my husband and I understand how we can create a better environment at home and advocate for him elsewhere. Very grateful ❤
I’m going to a psychiatrist and being tested for ASD on Thursday. I’ve been watching your videos a lot and you’ve really helped me understand what I’m actually being tested for. Thank you :)
I took the monotropism test... I got 230/235... I never managed to put words on these things but when i read question after question it just clicked. I am in a phase where I am recovering from a burnout. I'm late diagnosed and in the process of trying to reorganize my life to fit my needs instead of making my needs fit life demands. This video along with the test made me realize just how important it is that I start thinking in terms of "how can I make my life more predictable?". Thank you.
I also heard about monotropism only recently. Before that I called, what I did, not "going with the flow" but "going with my flow". But it's great to finally have a word for it.
Thank you ☺️ Adult female late diagnosis and I’m so grateful you made this video! I’ve been reading about the traits and …. Everything related to my new “special interest”..😂 . It’s incredible to hear your content yet your presentation; tone, pitch and speed in which you talk are Perfect! Rapid fire, intense, enthusiastic, detailed communication that is demanding my attention in order to keep up. I’m about to cry because I finally have a “mirror” and understand how I come across … I complement us both and everyone else that understands my comment… ❤thank you
I played the same word games with my autistic kids that your husband plays with you I used sign language as well to expand their awareness and comfort zone, I self diagnosed at 41when my children were diagnosed and it was a great relief to finally understand why I was as I was. Love your relaxed style, thanks.
Talking about the name recognition thing and how it might not be registered as more than noise from something not being focused on, it might explain the way I used to listen to music. I've felt like when listening to music, the lyrics/vocals (whatever the correct term is) can often be heard just like another instrument. I've blasted a good tune in the past then had someone point out rather inappropriate lyrics that I was blasting from a car radio in the middle of a public car park. I've been a lot more sensitive to what the lyrics are ever since, and regularly been disappointed when a good feeling one comes on but I can't enjoy it because of the words and phrases people choose to sing to it, and then the instrumental version either doesn't exist, still has backing vocals, or is missing part of the noise that made it feel good. They also change 'from the good bit' randomly and ruin the feeling too. The good feeling also comes from a vast array of music, so too often there's only 1 from a particular artist I end up liking, making it very difficult to find something new, and having a rubbish memory for names and titles makes refinding stuff I know I like difficult too.
I really love music and lyricism, and I pretty much always have, but I just realized I had a very similar experience. Thankfully, my parents listen to a lot of good music, so I always have backups from the last five or so decades, and I can use that background to find similar music. My top three artists/bands recently and for the last few years have been Fleet Foxes (folk/rock/indie/choir vocals-based, their albums are all very different and very good), Alabama Shakes (rock/soul-inspired/"how have I never heard this?" type music), and Still Woozy (kinda bedroom indie pop with a lot of psychedelia inspiration based on classical guitar riffs, very romantic and sweet songs). Very wide range, but they all incorporate beautiful instrumentation alongside either beautiful or relatable (or both) lyrics. I can listen to their albums all the way through, and my favorite songs of theirs shift all the time, which is rare for me. Highly recommend all three of them, if you're looking for anything new.
"and then the instrumental version either doesn't exist, still has backing vocals" Use AI to filter out the vocals. There is special software that does this, but it needs to be built into all music players.
The voice, is another instrument. So its not even unreasonable. And lyrics kinda have to work in tune with the rest. Yeah the voice is aninstrument and lyrics woth notes or at leat vibe of it are how to use your voice. You can cite voice trainer that describe it even as instrument you train with.
My partner and I have a running joke between us about my inability to hear lyrics in music. The music could be amazing and make me feel really good, while the lyrics could be saying terrible things, and I have no idea! Similarly to you, the singer's voice is just like another instrument to me. I can hear the odd few words here and there, and can sometimes pick up parts of the chorus, but if I want to hear the lyrics properly, it takes a HUGE amount of effort! And even then I still struggle to decipher the words, and I don't feel like I can enjoy or even hear the music properly. I was only recently diagnosed with ADHD, after a 5 year wait on the NHS, and the specialist recommended I look into Autism diagnosis, too, stating he was "as certain as he possibly could be" that I am on the Autistic spectrum. Something I have been wondering about in recent years, which has brought me to Meg's channel and other RUclipsrs. I can certainly identify with this theory of Monotropism, and it does seem to make sense of my difficulties with music, which I hadn't thought about before. I'd figured it was something to do with ADHD and attention, however I'm now thinking that there is just too much going on in music for the narrow focus of my monotropic mind!
I also hear vocals as another instrument without being able to get meaning from the lyrics! I think that's why I like music in languages other than English because then I can just let the sounds wash over me. But even in English songs I have to read the lyrics in order to understand them because with listening I'll only be able to pick out a phrase or two.
To me, the difficulty I had with making mistakes was that I failed at many, many "easy" things (that were not easy at all for me, because of deficits, for example holding a pencil or using scissors), so I was told a lot that I'm good at nothing or worthless. And at the same time, I was seing all those kids doing those things nearly perfectly at the first try. When I became a young adult, I often saw older employees do stuff effortlessly at work and didn't realize that they had 100's or 1000's of hours of practice to have achieved that. I was not concious that people had had a learning curve, so I was thinking that I was again facing the same "incapacity to perform as everyone else" as I faced during childhood.
mine has always been that what is hard for neurotypicals is often easy for me, and vice versa. so typical accommodations for nts will spend tons of time on stuff that i already get and no time at all on the hard stuff i need help with
I think it depends on the type of task any particular subskill requires. Autists are robotic, in the sense that we have to 'calculate' everything manually. We can get quite fast at the process with practice, but that doesn't change that the autistic mind calculates. Neurotypicals on the other hand run on heuristic engines, or 'instincts', which are faster but skip a lot of details and thus are inaccurate, which tends to be acceptable because most things in everyday life don't have millimeter tolerances on everything. So neurotypicals excel at anything that needs to be fast, and autists excel at anything that needs to be accurate.
@@SupLuiKiryour comment reminds me of my style of getting groceries. If I make a list with a dinner plan and an extra page with the ingredients needed to take with me to the store - aka thoughtfully calculated how much is needed of what - the trip to the store is rather fast. Without a list - and trying to do it by gut feeling and no calculation? I can slow down so badly and it takes forever, especially without headphones that helps me keep focus and help me keep distraction out.
Being "dragged" out of your hyper-focus state is kinda of like when you have a wound and pick on the scab before the wound is healed. It will start bleeding, and the healing process must begin again. That is the picture that came into my mind during this video. Brilliant video, by the way. I am so grateful that you made this video!
I think you just explained my life in 36 minutes. I had never heard the word "monotropism" before, but the vast majority of things you described match up very consistently with my experience. Everything you said about attention tunnels resonates very deeply, along with struggling to focus on what other people are saying. I'm going to show this video to anyone I meet who is genuinely curious about what being autistic is like.
What you said in the end makes me emotional in a way too! That so many autistic people now have found each other and that so many of us have a special interest in autism! It’s just so cool!
I am kind of at a loss of words how relatable this is for my internal experience of things. I kind of have suspected heavily that I am on the spectrum and have two sisters with late diagnoses, but I am an undiagnosed man myself. I kind of accepted that I have ADHD and might be on the spectrum, but this monotropism lens is instantly and insanely relatable for me. I have hard time to get started on things, but then when I get going, I can go on until I start to notice my blood sugar is too low and I even fight that until it forces me to stop. I also recall when playing chess with one of my friends, when I get in the groove and feel like we are getting started my friend tells me that he is feeling too mentally exhausted to have another game, while I am internally like "huh I could go like three more hours easy". I have always stimmed to manage my focus in class, I have a beard now that I constantly stroke in conversations, if I don't have anything else to use to stim and I do that classic "stroking my beard while thinking" thing unironically without noticing. With this monotropism lens it is like having a railing to lean on while walking on a tight rope, a predictable stimulus to focus on slightly to not be only at the mercy of unpredictable stimulus. I also notice this when I am visualizing things mentally in a way. One of my long time interest (that might be a special interest..) is all sorts of esoteric meditation, spiritual etc practices and I have a hard time visualizing large intricate things at once. This led me to think I don't have much capacity for visualization, but that isn't so. I am incredibly adept at visual reasoning mentally, where I can focus on one part at a time and then follow logical interactions of parts. I can easily visualize complex mechanical interactions, but cannot visualize a whole car as easily. I can also recall routes between places with incredible detail after going through that route once, but trying to visualize a city skyline as a whole doesn't really work the same. I thought that this was just me having less clarity in my internal visualizations, but no I have insane clarity and it is just my brain is more monotropic! I have read comments of people coming across a piece of information that just made things click internally and this is that for me in a supremely major way. It sent me in a monotropic rant to express my excitement, but I feel that in this space I can feel free to express it authentically. I needed this and I feel that I can craft my approach to managing myself so much better now that I can start to work around the idea of having a more monotropic mind. This feels like the moment where you have been trying to solve a puzzle and have been stuck on one line of thinking that doesn't lead anywhere towards solving the puzzle, then someone shows you the solution and you feel kind of dumb, because the answer seems so damn obvious in hindsight.
I totally felt what you meant when you said it was like discovering autism all over again almost. All this makes sooooo much sense in all areas of my life haha
I wonder how monotropism plays into ADHD because I do have intense interests in specific things and I stim but I’m also extremely novelty seeking (most likely due to a dopamine deficit) , my brain lights up in response to new things - particularly strange or unexpected things
Yess - I really want to get my friends with just an ADHD diagnosis to do the questionnaire with me and hear their reasoning for their choices! I have an ADHD diagnosis too and I do find myself seeking novelty. I suppose under the monotropism lens you might say that novel experiences are more stimulating and therefore more likely to get us into that preferred flow state? I definitely feel like something is 'different' about my dopamine and serotonin levels due to various experiences I've had. I suppose monotropism is just a theory of how our minds might work and doesn't attempt to explain the neurology behind it etc. Hopefully one day we'll know more!
(ASD + ADHD here) I feel like I'm shining my torch/flashlight rapidly in different directions, so I think for me I love finding new tunnels. Actually I think that might be a deeper thing than I originally thought, because I can quite easily get bored/frustrated by my own thought patterns or ways of analysing/thinking about things. Something I consistently like a lot is puzzle games, eg. sudoku with extra rules and I think part of it is stimming comfort for my brain but part of it is that I can change up what strategies I use whenever I play.
@@imautisticnowwhat There is research showing that autistics have lower levels of dopamine. I have found that taking vitamin B12 in the methfolate form has been helpful, because many of us have a gene deletion that interferes with methfolin absorption. This also connected to gastrointestinal issues.
Wow, this was actually a very enlightening breakdown. Ive seen alot of autism videos because I've been accused of having it but always thought "autism" was just having a personality. So many of these apply to myself. At work I'm often slow to start sometimes but will work through breaks and lunch rather than stopping the task I'm trying to complete. I can't stand when people try to step in and coach me on things or "teach" me when i already know what to do. I can stop in the middle of something and tear into storage because I suddenly have to find an item i don't recall seeing in recent years. I have many interests but tend to hyperfocus on only one at a time until I burn out on it then move to another. In school I had terrible grades but could pass all the tests, i just couldn't stand trying to focus on homework or un-engaging subjects and was met with hostility from school staff (i was written off as some special needs lost cause of a student). I can be doing something i excel at but suddenly stumble at doing it if im aware of being watched by others. I also tend to shut down and lose motivation any time someone makes a demand or gives an ultimatum. In public crowds i always feel like im under a microscope and suddenly feel rigid, awkward, and top-heavy and my fine motorskills fly out the window. Im not terribly bad at being social but i prefer to keep small company rather than do public things like bar hopping. Im not sure how much of this comes from just growing up in a tiny mountain town, but ive definitely discovered i do not like living a suburban life surrounded by 6 million other people.
Thank you *so* much for this video. The summarization, the citations, and the lack of jarring “extras” (sound effects, music, etc). I subscribed and will be attention-tunneling my way through all of your content (probably to the exclusion of everything else) and then sharing the videos with my neurotypical partner as a starting point or incredibly digestible explanation for my experiences.
I'm old. I have known for less than a year that I'm on the ASD spectrum (not diagnosed, just from learning and knowing). Watching this video made me think of so many "incidents" from my childhood and youth, and so many of my very long term habits, that make *so much more sense now.* Thank you.
Like with everything to do with autism, there is a counter example: I actually kind of like idioms. They give me an alternative perspective on various problems. I think the reason why is that I have a passion for understanding the world around me. Part of that passion is finding all the ways that one concept is related to another. Also, I had a lot of intrusive thoughts as a kid that combined unrelated concepts, which I would then ruminate on and come up with my own analogies and idioms.
I like idioms, analogies, and allegory allot myself. I like writing poetry and stories that use them. I often find I can communicate something that can't be communicated through literal language this way especially emotions. Standard words for emotions are almost meaningless to me. They aren't descriptive enough.
totally me! I have an autism diagnosis but I love metaphors and use them all the time I also love subtext in books and movies where they manage to say something without saying it or the sentence could mean multiple things. I love language and word play. then people tell me autistic people take everything teally literally and subtext is lost on them and we wonder if I really have it. in some ways I think it might be a side effect of autism like its harder for me to understand things in a straight forward way the way a neurotypical person would. i have trouble naming my thoughts and emotions so i say things like I feel like im in a crowded restaurant. and while I love subtext in stories and obsessing over a well written and acted scene I dont know how much thats ever translated to my real life conversations.
I remember countless instances where I'd leave a social situation and just feel like garbage. Once I started becoming more aware of my internal state I began to feel the anxiety and overwhelm that you talk about. A few months ago I fairly confidently self-diagnosed myself with autism and I've been able to work on some aspects of socializing much better. I find it absolutely possible to improve social skills, but I still feel like all my friends have it much easier than me. The PDA stuff is new to me but resonates as well.
Wow, what a great explanation and good examples! You were talking about how not looking at someone when they're talking to you, helps you concentrate on what they're saying. For me, it's the opposite. I have a much easier time concentrating on what someone is saying if I'm looking directly at their face. Maybe this is something I learned to do in order to satisfy the "Look at me when I'm talking to you!" demand. For probably 20 years, I thought I had a hearing problem, and that I was compensating by subconsciously lip reading. But hearing tests said I didn't have a hearing problem. I finally realized it was an attention problem (really, a divided attention problem). By looking right at them, both my sight and hearing are concentrating on the same thing. Likewise, talking to someone on the telephone is extremely difficult and stressful. If I'm having a difficult time understanding them (for example, they have an accent), I find that I need to shut my office door to block out background sounds, and close my eyes to avoid visual distractions. When smartphones became more common, I finally understood "Look at me when I'm talking to you." Looking at someone is a non-verbal cue that you're paying attention. By not looking at them, they perceive it as you being distracted or ignoring them (even if you're not!). People busy doing something on their smartphone *look*, and often are, distracted from whatever is going on around them.
Wonderful video. It helps me understand some of my friends better. We are in the age group of 35 - 50 and several of them have only recently been diagnosed with autism. For those friends, most are glad to have this diagnosis as it does help them get an idea on why they have issues with social interactions, hyper focus, anxiety leaving their homes. And getting easily stressed by distraction from their focus.
Hey! I just wanted to thank you for uploading this video. I got diagnosed a few days ago with autism and this video is the perfect explanation of how I feel internally and a great way to explain to family and friends!! I'm not a native english speaker though, so I took some time to translate it to brazilian portuguese and add captions to show my parents 💜 (I'm not uploading the video with captions anywhere, so I hope you don't mind). Your channel has helped me a lot in my journey of self discovery and acceptance of my autism, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. Thank you for all the time you put into making these videos, I truly appreciate it❤❤❤
I've recently been diagnosed (at age 27) as autistic and people always point out that I like going to music concerts or sports presentations where tipically there's SO MUCH NOISE so "how can you be autistic and not have meltdowns due to the loud noise?". And I had to pause the video to say that now I feel soooo understood! If I'm at a concert I'm usually so focused on the music, it's my focus of choice. If it's an sports event I go so far as "suppressing" hearing ALL the noise, because I'm focusing on the sport - so if someone talks to me or even yells at me I won't react and it'll look like I'm ignoring the person, for example. Now, if I'm focusing on music and there's other loud noise around, that's a meldown waiting to happen, because it's too dificult to process this two stimuli happening through the "same channel".
Yes, people don't grasp that it's not always the volume that's the problem, often it's the "feeling" of the sound or having multiple conflicting sounds at once that you can't process.
This is fascinating! It also makes a lot of things about me make more sense. I definitaly have ADHD and highly suspect that I'm autistic, but am currently in the gathering-more-information-while-also-feeling-like-an-imposter stage. These videos of yours (and also several other autistic RUclipsrs) have really helped me re-frame my perspective on myself and my past experiences, so thank you so much for making these! I would totally love to see a video where you do this questionnaire!
I loved what you said about "scheduling" everything, my boyfriend sometimes complains that I don't change my mind for anything and all I can say is something like "I didn't prepared to do that", it is often about me staying one night longer in his apartment hahaha
This all explains so much for me. All this time I thought I was just strange and had all these quirky characteristics that made me feel alienated from others. And now I feel like I finally have the piece I’ve been missing all these years that *finally* makes me feel whole and understood. It’s scary how it both changes everything and changes nothing, but also wonderful because I am able to understand myself now instead of punishing myself for where I struggle because I never felt or operated fully “normal.” Thank you for your channel, it really helps. I’m not alone now. 😊
Hi Meg, thank you so much for your channel and your work! This is once again a video filled with content and information that I feel is going to become so important for my personal journey! And I also want to add, that there are very few videos I find, were actually all resources mentioned in the video are actually properly linked in the video description! This is so valuable and speaks for your high standard of work and I appreciate that! Even big channels with large teams working on video production, often fail at this point (in my experience) even though they are also in the "mental health/adhd/ads/neurodivergence" realm with their topics they discuss. It often feels like an oversight that does not make sense because its literally zero effort to add. So thank you again for doing this :) I hope it gives you a smile that the work you put so much effort in does not go unnoticed!
Another point that I find really interesting as I continue watching the video is the fact that I really 'like' language. And while I have so many memories of were I did not understand many things as a child or youth, I became fascinated with linguistics, dialects, idiogramsand foreign languages as well (not a native english speaker). For example with the subject of the video: monotropism. My first instinct was, to look up "trope" in a dictionary and see, apart from my instinctive knowledge of meaning of the word, what the roots and variing definitions of it are and once I did, it made so much sense to me! That is something that I love about language. Many words that seem dated, confusing or broken at first, actually have alot of depth in them. Maybe I am influenced by my native language aswell (german) ;) the jokes about complicated german words are endless. But often times I found examples in old/historic english for example, were the same level of "creating new words to describe a specific thing" exists! Its just not used as often or dated.
I've had so many experiences with allistics being so overwhelmed with their subjective experience of tone/facial expression/social context, they can't understand the literal words I'm saying without me repeating myself many times. I wonder how much this actually goes both ways, except Anglo culture labels their overload as normal and ours as aberrant.
@bingchungusthought spot shared a great Japanese documentary about autistic adults in Japan. There are differences, but much of their social experience is similar to that of autists in the anglosphere.
I prefer to have serious chats via text. So my words can't be missed while I'm speaking. No one has had a problem with me doing this so far. Probably because everyone texts these days and is used to it.
What a great and informative video. One of the best I seen on autism. I think monotropism explains many of the difficulties. And difference in autistic thinking versus. "Normals"/neuro divergent
Woooow, thank you so muuuuch! I have never heard about this, but it hit so many marks for me. The last 7 years, almost 8 now, I have been in a battle with my mental health. I have been treated for depression, anxiety, ADHD (which seems to be the 3 diagnosis all the many doctors and psychiatrists I had and my psychologist seems to agree on), it seems these are the ones I can where the badge of. But Autism is still on the fence. Every professional I tried to discuss this with seem to be trying to push my mind away from it. Even though the list of things I identify with, after hundreds and hundreds of hours videos and readings and research about, is absolutely endless. Here in this video I found even more I havent even associated with it before. The intense relationships specially. That part hurt so bad, I had to listen to it like 3 times to let it sink in, still wanting to cry about it, because made my whole life make so much sense. I have lost a very special friendship last year. They stopped talking to me over a misunderstanding and to me it felt like dying. It took me almost 10 months to slightely start coming back to normal, i'm still crawling out of that hole, but it still feels like an open wound. Its been 10 years of being sucked into that tunnel and to be taken out of it, made everything plunge into chaos. I didnt realised how that relationship dictated everything in my life, from my routine, from my leisure, my relationship with other people, my art, my special interests, everything was linked to them. And losing them it just... I didnt know how to live anymore. Trying to pick up from that is terrifying. And pursuing the autism diagnosis is an attempt to understand my mind even further so I can, at least, protect myself from further falling into stuff like this, because it seems like my whole life I'm just struggling to fit in, struggling to be like, struggling to be normal, struggling to just exist in a world that says constantly that if you dont adapt, you will be left behind. And its your own fault if you cant suck it up and be normal like everyone else. My father keeps telling me I keep trying to find another "disease" to justify my laziness and unwillingness to just face the world and be independent, etc. But I just feel it would help me breath a little easier knowing that I'm not crazy, my brain was just made different. Two months ago I started taking meds for bipolar and it made me even more confused. My doctors and therapists say its just a way to stabilize my emotional rollercoaster so I can stop dying all the time and try to pursue healthier habits to help me recover from all the damage of my lack of self care caused.That finding a diagnosis isnt a priority right now, so that can wait. But can it, though? When the whole world keeps screaming at your face, asking " WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS? WHY ARE YOU BROKEN?" To have an answer to give them would feel a bit less like I'm drowining every day of my life. Please, keep making content like this. I wanted to share this information with more people here in Brazil, but unfortunely english isnt spoken by many and I still dont have enough self steem to put myself in front of a camera like you do. But people like you, that share information with us, from countries that have less accessibility to it, can be a beacon of hope. Much love, friend!
I want to share something. There is a lot of female youtubers that I can't listen for longer then a 10 seconds, but you and few others, I can just be mesmerized, and like someone said, I like your voice, I relate to your stories... so my theory is... it is because I am like you and I relate pretty much with you and that is why I like you and your stories resonate with me. Which is great, I understand myself better and know who my people are in a way.
This reminds me of the time in Grade 5 where I was sat at my desk reading (in the very center of the classroom) and never noticed that my whole class and the teacher got up and left for the music teachers room. I sat there reading completely unaware until the class returned an hour later and the teacher realized I’d been there the whole time
LOL, I did EXACTLY THIS too! I was in the reading nook and the teacher took the whole class out to recess and even turned out the lights and I just kept reading (because I was near the window). It was like 20 minutes later that I was like "why is it so dark in here?" and realized everyone was outside...and just shrugged and picked up my book again. The teacher was all concerned and called a parent-teacher conference. My dad was like "Look, being able to concentrate like that is going to be so valuable when she gets to college! Don't try to train it out of her! If you want everyone to go outside...just check all the corners before you leave."
"Some people also have difficulty performing a task before they have a full understanding of what needs to be done _and why_ [emphasis added]"... yeah, I can relate to that! [from 23:00] (And a lot of stuff in here... thank you. I suspect I have less monotropism than some autistic folks, yet more than the average allistic person. Interesting stuff!
I think my parents figured out the importance of the "why" pretty early, because by the time I could remember it they ALWAYS gave me a reason for why I needed to do a thing. And if it was a reason that made sense (eg "You need to go to bed early because we are going to the airport at 5 am and if you don't sleep now you're going to be grumpy" or "You need to stop reading and get in the car, because we all agreed to have dinner with your grandmother and it would be very rude if we don't turn up or dinner gets cold, and we don't treat people we love that way") then I would do it. If not...fairly often they'd accept my counter-argument! But TO THIS DAY (age 40) I don't do well if people just tell me to do something and it isn't clear why.
For ADHDers being slightly more monothropic than average, i just realised poor working memory is an element of adhd. Being able to keep less stuff simultaneously in your short term memory is kind of in the same boat as being able to concentrate on fewer things, so that actually makes so much sense!
Thank you so much for this video. I was diagnosed in 2015 with Autism at the age of 35. My parents were surprised. They both agreed I had the traits after researching, but were skeptical about degree, as their generation only thought of those who needed an extreme level of support and not high functioning as being Autistic. I had to educate them on it being a "spectrum." I just emailed my mother this video. Hopefully it helps her to gain further awareness. Thank you again so much! I love your Channel and how well you explain things.
I recently told two ladies that I was autistic after many many years of not understanding the why’s of my behaviour and thinking. - it took me 62 years to openly say - I’m autistic- to only be told I wasn’t as I didn’t demonstrate all the typical “symptoms “ it took them seconds to dismiss me lol. Actually I have many, only they only know a few and had concluded in their wisdom that all autistic people were unable to hold a conversation coherently. So so much for coming out of the closet lol so glad you are sharing your life, your knowledge, your wisdom.
Yep, as soon as I got older and was finally ready to own my diagnosis, people suddenly no longer perceived me as autistic. And they were often very quick to tell me. So much for that. But what I realized is that the standard autism criteria is really centered around how the person is perceived externally. Not only is it not defined by the autistic person's actual experiences, there is also no coherent substance to autism as it has been historically defined. It doesn't boil down to anything specific about a person's nature. It's simply a way of categorizing and stereotyping people who are viewed as having a certain flavor of incompatibility with society. But there can be different reasons for a person to act in certain ways, and there can be multiple ways to express one inner experience. I like this idea of monotropism, because it has to do with actual human nature, and it makes much more coherent sense.
You explained that some autistic people might not be recognizing speech as anything more than individual sounds. It reminded me of something I noticed this week. I remembered that starting when I was a child that I misinterpreted what a lot of logos were. For example, I saw the old U.S. postal service logo as a blue blur(instead of a bird), and I only saw the Toyota logo as three ovals, and never the "T", and I never identified those things to be gestalt representations of other things(in that case, an eagle, and the letter "T"). I also noticed that I identify computer icons by the basic shapes, squiggles, and blobs of color within the icons, instead of identifying the icons as the gestalt of what the image is supposed to represent. In fact, the day I had this discovery, I went to the grocery store specifically to look at logos, and I realized that there were so many logos which I could identify by sight but which I had no idea what the logos were actually representations of(other than the shapes, squiggles, and blobs of color).
This happens to me too! So much so that I'll be looking for something in the supermarket and if everything is the same shape and colour, they all just blur into the same product to me and I can't find what I'm looking for 😭
@@LunarWind99 I have that now but because my eyesight has deteriorated. I’ve always had a problem with shops that sell cd’s DVD’s games etc though, and clothes shops like TK Maxx where everything is hanging together with no space between. I can only deal with being in there for a few minutes, not long enough to buy anything.
Oh man, this makes so much sense!! I had a job at a bookstore once, and when you were scheduled to work on the register, you had to put the price stickers on stuff in between customers. Well, you can imagine that I would get absorbed in stickering and completely forget about watching for customers. 😂 I got in trouble so much for that lol.
I had the same thing in a tea shop! We were meant to pack loose tea into containers in between customers, but I got so focused on making the little tea boxes and writing all their labels that I sometimes didn't notice people waiting to pay. The solution we found was a friend joining me behind the counter so I could pack and they could do the customer bit - I got to focus and they got a break from the shop floor, which was an improvement in both our eyes ^-^
Someone has just informed me that Fergus Murray uses they/them pronouns - thank you! I'll ensure I do more research and look further than social media bios for future scripts. Their work is incredible and I'm so grateful!!
You can subscribe to them on RUclips here: ruclips.net/channel/UCZCk1aZrjr8bbDL7ASeTG4w
So excited to share this one with you. Welcome to my latest hyperfixation: MONOTROPISM!!!
I really hope you find this helpful. I think this theory could be an excellent way to explain autism to friends and family.
Even if you’re not a PDAer, this video might be helpful if you’re struggling with inertia, demand avoidance, and intense emotions: ruclips.net/video/JoXIJhnFAdI/видео.html
If you don’t know the traits of Dyspraxia, you might find this video useful: ruclips.net/video/8dYz6pCjEy8/видео.html TikTok
And if you want something fun, here’s last week’s autistic TikTok reaction video: ruclips.net/video/KyXtGGMtiK8/видео.html
See you soon!! 💛
THATS MY CURRENT HYPERFIXATION TOO OMG THX FOR RESEARCH YA NERD
I call it my “donkey mind”
You see, donkey real strong never give up, but donkey stubborn, for better or for worse.
Donkey also big heart very loyal 😂
I love when ND people formally announce a new hyper fixation. I think we should have announcement cards for such occasions, or maybe even a party (and by party I mean a bunch on ND people with snacks and their laptops having a great time researching all together).
I was shamed for even mentioning my special interests as a kid and even today I have a hard time admitting to having them. I think that celebrating them would be a great way to help others feel more comfortable.
@@NoisyBones I LOVE THIS!! 💛
My new hyperfixation (for the past few weeks) is nail polish, nail care, and nail growth, lol. 😂
Thanks massively for adding links to the research! Really appreciate that!
ADHD + Monotropism is sorta like if you had a spotlight in the room, but it's flickering.... and teleporting.... and whenever the light goes off, a speaker says random shit
Yesss!!! 😂
Sounds like a good idea for an art installation!
Sometimes the Autism spotlight hits the ADHD disco ball. Good luck trying to focus then.
Yes!!! Moving around to different spots in the room, like "oooh this looks interesting", "oh wait, what about that??!!" (:
Lol, I tell my husband it's my way of making myself angry😂
My autism side says "order! Everything must be the same!"
My ADHD says "I'm Bored, let's create some chaos"😂
I love how your videos are just your voice, and no annoying sound effects or music. It makes your vids so easy to listen to and understand. As an autistic person I just wanted to let you know I really appreciate that.
I'm so glad - thank you! I did use some earlier on (I always tried to keep the volume low), but I've gradually moved to using less and less. I realised how annoying/jarring I found it in other videos I watch!
@@imautisticnowwhat I second that! I find music very jarring when someone is talking--- I keep trying to tune it out, but I can't. Music isn't simply annoying, it actually makes me anxious.
I agree I dont get the trend of the weird effects today.
I don't think there are adequate words for how amazing your explanations of the experience of autism from the autistic perspective truly are. ❤ Thank you for helping me help my family understand, as a late diagnosed person- 44 years old.
💯 that's relaxing to watch or even just listen-however I don't want to miss the images and videos used to illustrate the speech :)
I wish RUclips would add an option to turn off sfx and bgm, or simply control the volume of it!
Regarding concentration and the world around us becoming transparent: As a kid I always had a problem when I was told to _close my eyes and_ picture something, because it's much easier to picture things with my eyes open. Instead of having to focus on keeping my eyes shut, I can just let them unfocus while I think about whatever it is.
That's so interesting!
Same
I have to be careful what I think about while driving, as I can picture something I want to do with my eyes open while driving and lose my attention to driving.
@@marthamurphy3913Me too! In fact, I have to listen to the radio while driving so I don't get bored and let my mind wander in a visual way, which is obviously bad when your visual processing needs to be paying attention to the road ahead!
me too! i close my eyes and suddenly my imagination stops working
As an autist at the lower end of the spectrum, I feel like I've spent so much time of my life in deep levels of thinking that I find the most joy when I go to a quiet beach or park and just lie on the ground to experience my senses. I listen to the sounds around me, feel the pulses of blood throughout my body, feel the warmth of the sun on my skin, notice my digestive system working, feel the earth between my fingers, feel some ants crawling on my skin, and do nothing about it. I feel tired of the intricacies of social relations and modern society in general. The fact that i understand that every single person is as complex as me, if not even more complex, makes me feel overwhelmed. I also live in Brazil where almost everyone is an extrovert and almost no one understands english, but most of the content i consume in foreign, so it's hard to find someone i can relate to or to share things i like such as this video.
you’re heard.
I'm shocked more people don't try to reconnect with nature like you do! I've done that many times and find it so peaceful. when i consider the complexities of every person's individual lives, I also think about the subconscious, animalistic part of ourselves that we most often deny. after all, we're just animals that can communicate! humans hold such strange pride for how advanced as a society we are, when deep down we're flesh and bone, our one purpose in life being the creation of new life, just like any other animal.
glad to hear you're in tune with what nourishes your soul :D
"I feel tired of the intricacies of social relations and modern society in general. The fact that i understand that every single person is as complex as me, if not even more complex, makes me feel overwhelmed."
This exactly
what do you mean by "at the lower end of the spectrum"?
I'm also from Brazil, I thought I was just shy but actually not... people from outside my family thought I was odd, very bookish, timid, even when I was around people I was looking away like I wasn't there, I still struggle with social deficits like not making eye contact and picking up on social cues looking very childish and I'm 24.
I scored 194 out of 235 on the mono-tropism questionnaire. I get very irritated when I have to pull away from my tunnel vision. Which leads to late night “special interest” binges so I can be alone. And we all know what lack of sleep does to an autistic mind. It almost feels like an addiction I can’t control well.
dang 189....loser loser !
i scored 222. that feels offensive lmaooo
i scored 222. that feels offensive lmaooo
I've not slept in 3 days because I find it more interesting to watch people teach coding. It's a tough life
i got a 216; feels bad man@@Man-ej6uv
I may have never discovered my own autism if not for the internet. Huzzah for connectivity, and collective effort, and community!
Lol yeaaah.. I thought I just had ADHD and was awkward. Oddly enough, I was able to 'turn off' the ADHD, but not the other aspects so it makes you wonder about that overlap.
Yes, if I hadn't seen so many objectionable blog posts saying what a freek Greta Thunberg is while I find her completely relatable and normal I never would have discovered 😂😂❤
I wonder, whether people would have noticed anything weird about Greta, besides her activism, without her mentioning her autism. For many assholes, her being autistic is a welcome excuse to disregard everything, she says, so she has to be this "mentally disabled girl" that just doesn't understand the "smart adults".
Hey guess what...YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO DIAGNOSE YOUR SELF!
I'm sorry to inform you all this is not an autism. Mild case of asperger, maybe, but definitely not an autism.
Fun fact: the phrase "Break a leg" is actually literal! It refers to the audience not the performer. Back in the day people stamped their feet (rather than clapping) and the idea is that they would like the performance so much they would stamp their feet so hard they would break their leg. 😊
This is such a good fact! I'd always wondered why that was an expression, so thank you for sharing
that’s still not literal i don’t think, but it does make much more sense
There are a ton of theories for the origin of "break a leg" but that's one I've never heard! The one I'm most familiar with is: In the early days of theater, this is where ensemble actors were queued to perform. If actors were not performing, they had to stay behind the “leg line,” which also meant they wouldn't get paid. If you were to tell the actor to “break a leg,” you were wishing them the opportunity to perform and get paid.
There are a lot of potential meanings! For auditions, I always heard it's referring to the stage legs, aka do well enough you're on stage when the stage starts
I love this fact! Thank you for this new bit of trivia :)
Someone came up to me saying they don't understand how I could be autistic, because I always hated too rigid structure.. I couldn't for the life of me explain why.. so thank you for finding the right words, I really love your videos ❤
I don't understand. Can you please explain?
@PrincessTheGuy I think due to PDA profiles and monotropism
Which part do you struggle with? ☺️
@@toni5543 yes exactly ☺️
I feel like I seriously NEED structure, but my brain just refuses to go along with it anytime I try to plan it out. Frustrating.
the whole not wanting to be pulled out of the attention tunnel thing reminds me so much of me as a kid in primary school... in the breaks hiding aways from the other kids because I wanted to play out stories in my head. the inside of my head is a nice place. I could/can get angry when someone invades. I just wanted to be alone in it. just for the break. I could go back to class and be with the others but I just wanted the break to myself, in my head.
Lmao one time I ditched a friend to play in my head and everyone was so upset 😭
This video has brought me so much peace tonight. I’ve recently realized that I’m very probably autistic and any assessment I’ve taken agrees.
Now I now that I’ve been in autistic burnout for 3 years. I have scoured the internet over years trying to figure out how to explain how I feel & why and feeling like I can never express it effectively enough… just to know that I don’t need to feel shame. Not for isolating myself from friends & family- I haven’t secretly been a selfish wretch. All of this has been serving a purpose this whole time. I just didn’t know what it was. Even when I’ve been incredibly depressed, even when I’ve been incredibly lonely, I was not actually broken. My being has steered me away from people to heal & survive. So much family history makes sense now. The struggling with feelings of panic immediately when I wake up- that feeling, for the past few days, has eased for the first time in YEARS. I think, because I understand why now. I can hold a part of myself that has been so neglected. I feel so much more grace for myself, so much less judgment. It is unexpected & incredible. ❤ I want to live. ❤
i’m in the exact same place as you my friend. i’m 25 and that “panic” you mentioned has been my life for almost my entire life. feeling so much pressure on myself for just being myself, but not knowing that. not knowing that nothing was wrong with me, and i just needed to allow myself to be myself.
There's also the theory that autism is the result of a disordered autonomic nervous system. Which isn't a particularly bad theory, a lot of the autistic issues are things that other people just do without having to think about it. That certainly describes me a lot more so than the monotropism does, as I've had numerous psychosomatic and somatacization disorders over the years and am prone to random changes in my abilities just based on what my subconscious mind thinks needs to be done to address a problem.
I also really relate to this theory. Autism for me is a bunch of conditions that cause chronic pain / issues and oxidative stress and sure I also have the ability to deeply analyze and see patterns and use abstract thinking ( which im guessing is something that had to do with the lack of synaptic pruning in my development).
Scishow had a great video that linked oestrogen imbalances to autism and how certain forms of oestrogen like estradiol are critical for brain development and synaptic pruning and studies showed an excess or a deficit in children with autism ( i dont remember the details). To me it makes sense seeing the comorbidity of pcos and other issues that are linked with hormones often found tagging along with autism.
edited cuz of typos
@@grey_blue2513 That's not to say that I don't also have a significant issue with monotropism, but it definitely feels like that is taking a backseat to the dysregulated autonomic system and probably a lot of why it's been such a struggle to get properly diagnosed as doctors aren't typically looking for autonomic nervous system traits and since I wasn't allowed to stim or really engage in most of the things that we associate with autism, I pretty much took it out on my body in terms of things like IBS, idiopathic tinnitus, migraines and various stomach issues. But, since none of that stuff is externally visible, it doesn't count towards a diagnosis, even though it really should.
These days, I've learned to love stimming and I don't think that non-autistic people ever get this level of enjoyment out of it so consistently. Perhaps during times of deep stress or anxiety, but not in a more baseline day to day situation.
Seams like me to diagnosed now fybromyalgia spectrum are you hypermobile or eds never new had Asperger's until son's diagnosis my mum surely had it just lost her to severe ms and my grandfather was to how do you manage your pain for me ime sure it's SPD as had it as a child turned into pain
@@grey_blue2513 same for me what pain do you have found anything to help
@@Truerealism747 One of the issues with the DSM 5 is that there is no provision for SPD, if that's your main thing, then you're in this hole where you're not autistic, you're not ADHD and you're not schizoid, you're pretty much nothing diagnosable, so either you get a strategic misdiagnosis or you have to restart the process with a different specialty and hope that you didn't get a cluster A or B personality disorder or any sort of psychotic disorder on your record as it can be extremely difficult to get an accurate diagnosis with those on your record.
Pain is interesting, because it is an emotion. I's part of why therapy is sometimes prescribed for things like migraines. In case none of your doctors mentioned it. As far as fibromyalgia is concerned, there's a decent chance that it's psychosomatic and the same basic treatments that are used for other psychosomotic disorders would help. But, there isn't a particular consensus about what it is or what to do about it.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6386210/
Wow! Autistic people seem to have a much easier time understanding autism than people without autism.
Of course this is a surprise to everyone, except patients.
And they say we can't understand sarcasm . . .
I'm so glad the understanding of autism is drifting toward the inner experience, instead of a list of correlated deficiencies. When a simple concept like this can pull even seemingly contradictory aspects of the spectrum together, it must be onto something. I can already see how this will help to explain things to my psychologist - especially why some of her methods need adjustments to be effective for me.
@@jimmux_v0 OMG - so YES!!!! See my comment about this. Frankly, I think autistic people should seek autistic therapists. I spent decades in conventional therapy. It was mostly a waste of time and money.
When it wasn't downright harmful, which it also was a large percentage of the time.
Thank god for RUclips, Twitter, and yes, even TicTok
@@jimmux_v0 "a list of correlated deficiencies," wow, that's a really powerful statement.
This comment should be pinned
the light metaphor is very interesting, when i’m trying to find something in my house i’ll often use a flashlight even when the room isn’t dark, because the beam helps me focus on one spot at a time so i don’t get overwhelmed
Omg why I never thought of that Before, my FOV is really like... Unfocused so i might try that
I do that TOO!
I do that sometimes.
But I get mixed results. Sometimes it works fine and it helps me search more methodically. Other times I can't find the thing after a while of doing that (with a real or imaginary spotlight) but as soon s my attention slips from looking, my gaze flits round and lands in the object...
It's like I've got two different search engines in my head, and they work very differently from each other.
! Light off flashlight makes it easier for me to find things than with the lights on!
Is it normal for autistic ppl to have a hard time finding things or is it just me
I have autism. I was diagnosed at 40+.
My kids, two wonderful teenage daughters, have "the thing" too. Thing is I kind of see it as a blessing. I know they will struggle with adapting to society as a result, but it's not down to them or who they are. My oldest is currently working on getting her driver's license. I never managed that, and I'm super stoked for her. My youngest is pursuing her interest in music. She loves to sing and she can play the piano. I'm a mid tier guitarist and I never taught myself to play the piano.
I'm so proud for them.
On the topic of monotropism, yeah that's obviously relevant to me. I laser focus on my special interests like geology, maths and music theory. The problem is I never found a way to convert my interests into a career. I could probably earn a comfortable living on my collected knowledge, but I just don't reason like that. I live off welfare and I'm doing OK for myself and my cat. The kids live with their mom who is pursuing a career in nursing.
As an Autistic Family that has 2 late-Diagnosed Parents' , we thank you for the spread of information!
I am the AuDHD Mom, and I find this overwhelming feeling of Solace and comfort from these topics ❤❤❤❤
My dad once kind asked me when I was little if I knew why I needed to stem, and I remember telling him point blank that I couldn't imagine right without it. He very genuinely took this understanding, and I think because of that I managed to safely stem at home around my parents into adulthood. I will always appreciate how kind and genuinely curious he was in how he asked.
*stim
That is so lovely. ❤ You’re a wonderful heart nurtured by a wonderful heart. That’s big stuff in this life!
that is a genuine father
what is "to stem"?
@@davidcastaneda6111 They're talking about the act of "stimming" that a lot of autistic people do, but every time they mentioned it, they misspelled it lol
I was misdiagnosed with BPD. Spent so much time in psychiatric hospitals that exposed me to traumatic experiences that then made me develop PTSD 😢. The only thing I did was do things to myself deliberately. I was an autistic child who was in a very unstable situation (went through the care system) and who also had EDS. This is a perfect explanation. I’m going to share it with people who don’t understand. Thank you!!
Thank you for sharing your experience! I've been misdiagnosed several times before and I absolutely support any way you choose to share!
Autistic person labelled histrionic also trying to get an EDS diagnosis over here!
@laratheplanespotter Hi Laura, my daughter in law has a very similar background. Single child of alcoholic, rather than care system, but diagnosed with BPD and has EDS, spent time in psych unit due to the same as you and suffering PTSD as a result of this. I was wondering how you are doing now and if you have any advice I can give her to help her cope. I also have autism, but am older and the world is so much more stressful now. Apology's if this is too intrusive, I don't expect a reply if it's too much. Best wishes. El.
Very much like my story … - KMP
@SobrietyandSolace Do you.mind me asking if it's hypermobile EDS you are suffering from? I'm asking because if your ligaments etc. aren't supporting your spine, it can cause vagal nerve compression. This causes issues like leaky gut, hormonal issues and problems regulating mood. Good luck.
That explains how hard school was, if i just had 2 months of maths, 2 months of English etc that would have been so much easier, Thank you for sharing this information!
This is so true. That is essentially how I naturally learn about and pursue my special interests as an adult. I become completely obsessed and spend almost every waking minute of free time absorbed in that thing for weeks or months and then rotate to something else. My food choices and media consumption will also follow this pattern.
This resonates with me so well, I’ve had this thought so many times growing up
This is so important. The only way I got through university was doing it one course at a time, and of course had to do many extra years.
I ended up leaving an adult Ed language course I’d paid for because the tutor’s teaching style was to do language related stuff for half an hour then ‘have a break’ and watch videos about the history of the country or something then go back to teaching the language. Drove me bats.
yeah that’s why i never understood study advice that told you to take breaks every so often like no then i’ll mess up my momentum
Hearing these ideas put into words is so nice. I feel like it's impossible for neurotypical people to understand how difficult certain things are. They just tell me crap like "put in effort to work through your disability" and I'm left causing problems because I continue to struggle to interact "correctly"
Asking someone to put in extra effort when their disability is actually endangering others is kind of valid. For any other disability ... why is it your job to do extra work to make other people happy? You're already doing more work than they are. Why can't they do a bit of work on themselves to stop being nasty?
Listening to you makes me realize how much effort I've put into making social interactions easier for me. I don't experience quite as much anxiety but I'm also over 50 years old and had a LOT of practice. That said, I can only do it for so long before I'm mentally drained and I definitely need my 'alone time' to recharge. The only difference is that I don't find it as distressing as it might be for others, but it still takes its toll on me and I can get unpleasant if I don't disengage soon enough just because I'm out of energy to make the effort.
I went out and did the questionnaire before watching this video because I wasn't aware of monotropism before and I didn't want this to bias my answers. I scored pretty high....😳
This is really throwing me for a loop because I always thought everyone felt exhausted shifting from one task to another. I thought everyone had problems with getting out of the bed in the morning because it feels like ripping off a bandaid or jumping of an airplane. Or id even describe it as, jumping into a cold shower. I guess I need to get officially tested. 🤦🏽♀️
Everyone does experience those things. Just like a child being immersed in a current experience to the exclusion of all else is perfectly normal behaviour. In fact, most of the things she mentions in this video are normal behaviours.
@@DylanYoung I was tested since this post, and I do have ADHD according to the assessment, but the testing is so surface level. All it is is an assessment or questionnaire
@DylanYoung It's not about the experience being unique (it's not). The difference is the frequency and/or intensity of the experience or behavior. For example: everyone has had a tummyache and digestive issues, but not everyone has IBS. Or as a less medical example: Everyone tells jokes, but not everyone is a comedic genius.
@@StayBassd That is a really good explanation of a cline.
@@AcademiacaramelcurlzThere is no definitive or thorough testing for ADHD. Diagnosis is really dependent on if you fit the criteria and if your therapist/prescriber agrees.
There’s no concrete method of diagnosis or test that you can take that’ll definitively tell you. Some health care providers will mistakenly rely on a test for diagnosis. Diagnosis is reliant on an examination of one’s life and childhood.
My mum was mad at me for saying that I just wanted to go home when i was struggling with riding a bike - i still remember holding back tears and this is why we need people like you raising awareness
Your mom sounds like kind of an asshole, no offense. I also had trouble riding a bike, and never really learned how in the end, because my family was okay with me giving up on it. Especially since pretty soon after we got a bike for me, I developed extremely severe Tourette's Syndrome that basically makes it impossible for me to do so anyway lol
I suspect I am autistic and have done extensive research about autism and monotropism. My monotropism score was above 90% of Autistic people. I am severely monotropic. I also took multiple autism tests and scored as high as 40/40 in the AQ. I’m currently pursuing a diagnosis because your content has opened my eyes to why I feel so stressed all the time in the normal world and why I struggled to make friends as a child and adult. Everything you say about autism and neurodivergence resonates with me on a deep level.
I used to think I was just being silly and it was all in my head. I got told I had OCD, PTSD, depression, anxiety as a teenager. I never realised Autism could go undetected for the 23 years of my life.
Yeah, I just took it and I may retake it later. I got 84% and now I’m kinda wondering if I was skewing the results after watching the video and because I’ve been in my workshop for hours… and the questions are always hard on these things because you never know quite what they mean by them. And for the love of mustard why is there always at least one “people tell me I’m” question? Neurotypicals can’t people trusted to tell you things like that straight out. They bottle everything up!
Make sure to seek out a psychiatric professional who specialises in autism, most everyone else is .. incompetent
Don't take no for an answer
I'm about to turn 44 and have just been officially diagnosed, life is a lot easier on the other side, and it's happening to people much older.
If you're not comfortable with a test, take it again, you will probably find the difference doesn't actually affect your score
its a possibility you could have all those and autism, i ended up with all of those and autism as a diagnosis myself. takes a doctor to find out either way!
There is enormous overlap with OCD, depression, anxiety and autism. 37% of autistic people have OCD compared to 2% of the general population. 26% of autistic people have depression compared to 2.8% of the general population. 20.1% of autistic people have some kind of anxiety disorder as opposed to 8.7% of the general population.
There is also a dramatic overlap between PTSD and autism but this connection is a bit more controversial. Because PTSD and autism have so many of the same manifestations (hyperarousal, hypervigilance, depression, substance abuse, sleep issues, disassociation, etc.) one can often be misdiagnosed as the other. Usually this takes the form of an autistic person being diagnosed as having PTSD. There is strong evidence that people with autism are more likely to develop PTSD over the course of their lives. A theory that explains this is that autistic people ruminate more and so are more likely to reinforce trauma to a degree that causes PTSD to develop. The role of rumination in PTSD is pretty well established. A study of war veterans showed that if opioids were administered shortly after a traumatic event(like if someone is hit by an IED and is given morphine for pain) then the likelihood of that person developing PTSD is diminished. A possible explanation is that the mental reinforcement of trauma following a traumatic event can be interrupted by a dopamine release. The rumination stops or decreases and the trauma doesn’t develop such deep roots in the psyche.
As an aside, there is no “cure” or “treatment” for autism because it is not an illness(you can simply learn how to harness your autistic superpowers more effectively and adapt to a world/society not designed for autistic people) but the therapies for PTSD, OCD, anxiety, and depression have two enormous overlaps: therapy and psychedelics. Do with that information what you will.
I got officially diagnosed as a 59 yr old. I had a weird life. At least I know why.
I’m balling my eyes out listening to this video. I just turned 50. While writing my first fictional book where the main character is based off of me, it came to me out of somewhere that this character might be autistic. I started doing research last week. Have been feeling so low lately.
if before you had a label you were fine then how about not going back to not labeling yourself?
I completely understand how you feel. I’m the same age, feeling the same.
@@john-ic5pzrox NEVER said the were done before the label stop putting words in other people's mouths
Hope you are feeling better these days! It is okay to be different, but it can also be hard! ❤
OMG I'M AUTISTIC!!!!
wait.. i'm autistic??
i have never, in 20 years, related to a video (person, really) in its entirety like i have to this one. it's 36 minutes long, and throughout it i'm violently nodding "yes that's it that's it"
thank you. to say this has cleared up some things or helped me understand some things is an understatement.
i had a similar experience 6 months ago @56yrs old watching a different set of videos at the time. not very many people around me seem to agree.....or understand
YES, you are valid in self diagnoses. Self diagnoses is very often the stepping stone to getting an official diagnoses and help if you need it
Everyone who goes through a training/education course about autism, at some point thinks they must be autistic. Usually it's not true. The diagnostic instruments are based on a point scoring metric, just having some traits doesn't make you autistic, you need to break a threshold. Generally the idea is that if you have enough traits, it will start to have a negative impact on your life experience, at that point it makes sense to call it something and provide support and education.
@@oldmossystone yes. in my case, after learning so so much about autism, it actually turns out i'm not autistic (at least i _really_ don't think so.) i think i owe this update to anyone who reads my comment and relates to it.
however, because i'm uncannily similar to autistic people, once i became aware of the things that they do that i also do, i was able to put a name on them for the first time and directly address them. monotropism is less of an issue for me now than it was a month ago, as i made it a point to start noticing a more diverse range of stimuli around me (when necessary, because i really prefer not to)
@@dannyismetalThere is a big difference between a person who has done little study and research to make a diagnosis on themselves and a neurological doctorate who has spent years of study to know what to look for that qualifies identifying something that, although can be a benefit in some cases, can be a detriment to the person, such as the lagging in mental capacity up to a certain point in life (varies) and thus being diagnosed an Aspie at a young age.
It never fails to make me emotional, being reminded that all these things I internalize, overthink, and guilt myself over are just a part of who I am as an autistic person. Imposter syndrome sucks and it's genuinely so nice to hear someone else talking about experiencing these things that I deal with every single day 🙏♥️
You're not disabled or sick in any way. You're a perfectly normal unique individual. You're part of a larger group who are similar in uniqueness to you. We as logical human beings given faculties of reason, are compelled by these unanimal faculties to attempt to organise, categorise and label EVERYTHING. So called "autistic" people are just the polar ends of the varied groups or archetypes that make up humanity. There's room for us all. You heard the woman in the video: autistic people are over-sensitive. Next sentence: autistic people are under-sensitive. And on and on. She's basically describing ALL people at either end of the human condition. It's not a disease. It's you being you. If the creator wanted all people to be the same He could have made us all like pre-programmed identical robots. He didn't. He created diversity. Sorry if you don't like your condition (personality) but it is what it is.
As for your over-analysis of yourself. I've got news for you - everyone, literally EVERYONE goes through that period in life. For most people it's during puberty and teens. Then they grow up and realise no one really gives a shit how you look or act. They become a little more comfortable in themselves and learn the do's and don't's of society - what's acceptable and unacceptable, and are thereby able to (somewhat) let go of themselves or the constant internal thoughts of how they might "fit in" to larger society. They become indoctrinated into society and they no longer need to consider or internally reflect on social norms. Their social inhibitions are on auto-pilot. When you witness that awkward teenager, you are literally observing a being who is unsure of themselves or society at large, what's right or wrong. They're hesitant in everything they do publicly because they're still learning what society expects/demands of them. Once learnt and internalized they no longer need to think about it and be so self-conscience - they just know. They've grown up!
Some people who are by all accounts "grown up" and are still overly self-conscience, are that way because they're focused on their self (their "nafs") or in psychological quackery terms; their "ego".
You're focused on your ego because you don't have a higher or more important object of attention. You're the most important thing in your world.
In my world - as a Muslim - I come second (or even third or fourth or fifth depending). There's someone vastly, infinitely, more important than me. My creator. Focus on Him, liberates me from my self. Forgetfulness or heedlessness of Him (called; ghaflah in Islam) brings me back to fear and darkness. To egotistical attitudes in everything I do, think and say.
I (and most people who sincerely practice a faith of acknowledging, recognizing and observing a higher power and His laws) swing like pendulums between darkness and light. Fear and faith. The darkness sucks. A cold fearful place full of anxiety and worry. When in the light - you're empty and full all at the same time, it's a kind of bliss. When in bliss you think back to the times when you were in darkness and wonder at all the grotesque and perverse things you got mixed up in and wonder how you could have become so corrupted. You repent of it and in your mind and heart you could never imagine returning to it. Only to find yourself slipping back into it all over again. Trying to claw your way out but you can't. Until you can. And the cycle continues.
Some people, elderly people, who have fallen the required number of times are given reprieve and remain in the light until it's their time to leave this wretched place. The rest swing back and forth. Rise and fall and rise again.
People in perpetual darkness have no idea what I'm talking about.
This modern field of psychology is 90% BS. The root of this modern phenomenon of widespread mental problems, depression, anxiety, etc with a plethora of labels and diagnoses to suit is down to one thing - GHAFLAH (heedlessness). And there ain't no pill that can cure it. Turning back to your Creator is the only way.
Wasalam.
Girl in the video is cute. A perfectly normal unique cute girl.
Interesting. People have often told me that I "overthink" things, as if it were a choice that I consciously, deliberately make. It's like, _"What am I suppose to _*_do_*_ with that information? What would you have me do?! I can't just stop thinking! It's how my defective brain is wired."_
@@entertainme121 Everybody's an expert. 🙄 You belong to a cult, therefore nothing you say has any value or merit.
@@entertainme121 🤔 Almost right, all but the part about rising out of darkness by your own effort, falling back and rising yet again and again, by your own effort. I was taught this is the height of futility. Only God the Almighty could do what needed to be done to free us from the curse of darkness in the soul. And once He frees us, we can never be in darkness again. Not to say we won't be oppressed or tested by forces of darkness, but they can never again hold us secure. We who believe in the power of light and love will see our God vanquish the dark forever. All it takes to join us, is to admit you can't help yourself get free of sin. Believe our God can free you. Ask Him to forgive you for following the darkness. He will! He longs to rescue all humanity from dark forces. The only way is to ask Him to, and do our best to follow Him from then on. We, being human are going to fail. But the blessed thing is, once you are His, he forgives over and over as many times as it takes, just ask. We will be in Paradise with Him in the end. Because He loves us.
I was just introduced too, that explains why the military was so hard… yo I need to read more books.
Wow this has totally changed the way I look at movements/dyspraxia for myself. I grew up dancing, so I've always figured that dyspraxia didn't really apply to me (despite being "clumsy" and otherwise terrible at sports) but looking at it through the monotropism lens... I've always had immense difficulty learning new moves *until I could figure out how to make the entire movement feel like only ONE movement*.
Like I cannot make my arms and legs move separately, but if I figure out how the disparate movements are supposed to feel together or in opposition to one another then I can synthesize it into one movement and suddenly it clicks!
Not sure how other autistic or allistic dancers think about this. But this really makes so much sense to me!
What you’re describing sounds a bit like how I engage with playing an instrument. I’m able to play really complex things on the piano if I see it as continuation of a single trajectory and rely heavily on the muscle memory of learning it.
This idea made me start exploring my autism diagnosis. Hyperfocus got me thinking adhd, but I never discard an interest. For example, I was obsessed with ancient Egypt from the age of six, as in I was a kindergartner reading Budge's interlinear book of the dead and getting into trouble in Sunday school for idol worship. 37 years later, I'm a professional ancient historian and Classics professor who infodumps about the ancient Mediterranean professionally. Knitting became a sheep to fabric obsession, fifth grade recorder became a second major in early music performance. I'm lucky I got a job doing my special interests, but I really struggle when I can't talk about them
You'd think this would be a common story in my field, but most of my colleagues didn't start until college, and they can't do ancient stuff 24/7, so I'm still weird.
Being weird is good ☺️
Remember that Neurodivergence quite often comes in clusters. I always put aside the idea I could be Autistic because some things don't entirely match up. It's only in the last year talking to a friend who is now lecturing in Neurodivergence (and a few other people that put two and two together) that it's come to my attention that I probably have both Autism and ADHD and they are in some ways covering for each other. Meaning I enjoy socialising a lot but it can cause burn out. And I tend to multitask and need multiple streams of data to keep myself going which kind of goes somewhat against the subject of this video. But at the same time I have special interests, need to stim to combat anxiety and other traits of Autism.
@@TheRodentMastermind Well i have autism and im very very social and an extrovert so you could still have it while being social
@@hello_ree Oh I'm absolutely sure I'm Autistic, but I also probably have ADHD which means some of the classic 'Autistic Traits' get hidden.
For example I need to Socialise and do new things, but I will pay for it later if I'm not careful in burn out.
What I was trying to say is there is a very high possibilities of comorbidities in Neurodiverse people. Which means don't worry too much if you don't entirely match the 'text book definitiion' of Autism.
@@TheRodentMastermind Ok im autistic and have ruleout adhd
I started questioning whether I was autistic about 2.5 years ago. Spent a year researching and consuming the stories / life experiences of autistic individuals, and everything just kept clicking, and the idea that I was autistic just explained SO MUCH about my childhood and teen years, and about my transition into adulthood, and about me in general.
Videos like yours are so.. affirming, and oddly comforting. Thanks for doing what you do. It's nice to feel like I'm not alone
"I need my special interests to feel okay" resonated with me on more levels than I thought could be possible
Makes sense; actually, 'monotropism' is just a fancy term for 'tunnel vision'.
Similarly, I've heard autism compared to seeing the world up close, as if through a zoom-lens.
I feel like I'm rapidly shining my torch in different directions sometimes, but then I also have ADHD. But I'm really great at noticing tiny details in things, like finding shinies in Pokemon. A very useful skill -_-
In 16 personalities one of the categories is Judging Vs Perceiving. Which is described as 'are detail oriented or big picture focused?'. This always confused me because I feel like I am both. Visually I am constantly zeroing in on minute details in my environment as if I'm checking for bugs in the simulation. I think it's a self-soothing thing. I need to pay attention to the little things to feel tethered to reality. However conceptually I am more of a compulsive philosopher. I am the opposite of grounded, playing with worldviews exaggertively like I'm looking through a filters. I think that's more what the test refers to, hence why I always get P instead of J. Ironically I find this personality trait of perceiving can manifest as being super judgy of myself and others. And super negative if you're not in a good headspace unfortunately
@veelogation3890 I'm the same with four leaf clovers. I used to find a handful of them... during baseball in PE. Leaves are so much more interesting than sports.
@@Eet_Mia i have that as well. They just pop out in walls of text, whether its in a presentation, book or a random paragraph online. Its as if a fly would land on your monitor screen, you can't not notice it. It only irritates me when others don't it but i do so i usually point out the mistake if its warranted.
Yeah, this seems to describe what I've referred to as "mental tunnel vision". Didn't think it was anything new or newish
I don’t know if maybe I’m autistic and autism has been my new special interest for the last months, or if I’m actually neurotypical and your videos as well as the other neurodivergent youtubers’ videos I found are just too damn interesting! In any case, please keep making these amazing contents!
My friend, as Meg said, if you're doing this much research, you're in the fam 👏 ❤️ 💙 💜 welcome!
@@GoodTrebleStudios thank you ☺️
Im right there with you.
What are your special interests? "Well right now Autism, which leaves me constantly questioning am I autistic or just really interested in autism. like sure I match in alot of things, ALOT, but I could just be biased and stretching my mind to make things fit. " Gets me all the time 24/7
@@raynac224 that’s exactly me! And sometimes I even wonder if the fact that maybe I’m convincing myself I’m autistic when I’m not is a symptom of some other condition or neurodivergence or whatever that I haven’t discovered yet! And that could be super interesting too!
Generally, completely neurotypical people aren't drawn to learn more about autism. They have tons of things to fill their lives with and will tell you about them. If you're hungry for it, that means something clicks. Does that mean you're "autistic"? Maybe not, maybe it's adhd, or burnout, or something, but it's something worth investigating.
So, try not to worry too much, just keep learning until something really clicks.
"Monotropism" explains why I got so engrossed in my book that my mother had a hard time getting my attention if I was reading. Interesting is that I have "hyperlexia autism".
Also have been misdiagnosed as "mentally ill" until I actually became very depressed because I was so misunderstood. I was "border line borderline", "atypical depression with panic attacks".
You described your masking in school very well, I could relate. I dropped out of college initially too and went back to school later to become a nurse. So there was a clear goal.
Thank you for your channel! ❤️
When you said " even if you understand social rules, it's still very difficult on the spot" I felt it to my core. Your whole explanation of what happens during masking in social interactions is so familiar. I often don't know when it's my turn to speak, or how I came off to a person. Overthinking every exchange, even with people I don't really care about like the person at the checkout stand I'll likely never see again lol...so much worse if I find someone interesting and possibly a potential friend, as they are so hard to come by for me and I don't want to miss out on an opportunity. So much about this video explains my life. I know the struggle between hating routine and needing it to be regulated. I need very direct communication and feel like I'm being lied to when someone doesn't do exactly what they say they are going to do, or if they change plans at the last minute. If I am interrupted during a task I get very irritated. Definitely relate to the PDA. Thank you for this content.❤
The editing in this video and the interlinked monolog is fantastic. It makes sense while giving sufficient explanation for the focus of your topic. I can relate so much better to what I've learned and am also annoyed to think that school punished my special interests or general attention when I was studying. Other than that, I congratulate you on the brilliant dedication to bring greater awareness to such a complex neurological issue.
16:12 "That's one of the reasons school is so painful..." YES! WHAT AN UNDERSTATEMENT! The thing that bothers me, as an adult, is why none of the adults in my life ever tried to get to the bottom of why me, a straight A student, absolutely hated school. If I was even in the vicinity of a smart child who complained endlessly and bitterly about school, I'd try to get to the bottom of what was going on. I mean it makes no sense, the lack of curiosity on the part of most people. And then when I spent my 20s avoiding work, what did they think was going on? Did they think I was the only lazy person in the world who obsessed over projects and worked on them all day long? Why did they just abandon me to my own (limited) resources? I give people advice all day long, and people actually come to me for my golden advice. Why was I never given an advice person, lol!
tl;dr Why is it up to autistics to figure out autism?
Yes! I relate to this! I was and still am a straight As kind of person who overdoes every project/job/tasks because I hyperfocus and have extreme perfectionism and a need to strive to prove I'm "enough" to everyone, but I also managed to graduate 3 times by 25 and still not get a job until I was 31. It should have been obvious to people that I was struggling under massive anxiety and depression and that this was not coming from any inability to actually achieve things, especially work related things, but rather the massive lack of social link to anyone and particularly obvious fact that I can't network well enough to find my way into a job.
I still feel it very much, that there's a lot of obvious factors that people should have known, I had and still have major ARFID, and didn't even know there was a name for it so I've just lived in shame with it and kept it secret and worked hard on it on my own all this time, and I now have increasingly bad GI issues that when they look with every kind of test, have no physical reason to be happening, which I think is again commonly linked to ASD and the resulting anxiety and strain it causes everyday. I've got every single trait in the book except maybe a love for animals, which scare me most of the time, but I still get SO MANY people pushing it aside! Even the 7 mental health professionals I've seen across my lifetime either didn't pick it up or when I finally did think of it and suggested it they all said "oh yeah without a doubt but it's not relevant to dealing with your increasing SH tendencies and it's not "enough" to be worth talking about or looking into" - UM EXCUSE ME? I BANG MY HEAD INT OTHE WALL AND IM SCARED OF THAT, I REALLY THINK IT MIGHT BE TIME TO ADMIT IT'S REAL?
Sorry, the idea that people are so dismissive of high masking ASD people and then expect us to go and do all the researching and then basically self diagnose, self refer, self treat and chase up the million other things that then radiate from this like eating disorders and so on, is just starting to really piss me off. It's SO much work and I do it all just to be dismissed as "perfectly fine". It's really not!
EVEN THIS REPLY IS EVIDENCE OF MY INABILITY TO NOT BE HYPERVERBAL IN WRITING UGH hahaha
Normies are lame 🤷♂️
@@maluridae_ I'm 65 and I've longed for a partner all my life but I'm too much a failure to let it happen, so inside I'm just constantly sad and seeing attractive women just sends me into a pit of being frozen and intolerably sad. I see people like you do, like none one cares about me enough to the point where I hardly see any body for days and weeks. Things seems too impossibly hard to do... I watch RUclips and then read comments and get so caught up in it, leaving comments and getting frustrated when there's no replies or the wrong reply, yet I spend so much energy trying to express exactly what I'm trying to say and I forget that a large proportion of people out there are varying degrees of bullies or trolls or they just are really nasty or they just don't seriously care that deeply... But I have no clue how to fix this and meanwhile life gets harder and more painful. This video is a bit of an eye opener and i do not type comments like this lightly, or ever before; not that it means anything will change as a result, that's my certainty. But the kind and beautiful lady disarmed me and here I am writing another comment after being awake for I don't know how long.
All the best, we deserve better...
Yup same.
Relate to this so hard! I went from literal perfect daily attendance and being a principal honor roll elementary school kid, even getting upset when there was a snow day, to skipping class as a freshman in high-school, not turning in work at all, and being transferred to 3 different high-schools because I couldn't stand the one I was in before. And it just got worse and worse every year after I hit age 13.
Like what went through my school counselor's and teacher's minds when they saw this thriving, happy little kid who loved learning, turning into someone that hated being in school so much they'd rather make a break for it, risking getting in trouble, to walk around town until the busses came to pick the students up? Why didn't an adult ever wonder why someone, who loved learning so much and knew so much about non-school topics, didn't want to be in a place where all you do is learn??
When you were speaking about auditory interruptions being unwelcome if we're focused on something else, I felt that in my soul. I get so upset if someone talks to me when I'm doing something, because that thing needs my entire attention to be able to process it properly. A good example is that I've always used books as an escape and my mom would always say "a herd of elephants could go by while you're reading, and you wouldn't notice".
I'm AuDHD, and the likelihood I will completely lose my train of thought is extremely high while I'm trying to desperately to hold onto said "thing" while this person is "pressuring" me to give them my attention. I will pretend I don't perceive them for as long as I can, until it becomes unvoidable.
By that point, my irritation and anxiety is difficult to hide, so no matter what I do they're offended at my behavior. My chest gets tight just thinking about it.
So relatable!!
This exactly!! Especially the attention thing.
Hehe, a friend of mine in middle school called it endearingly a "reading coma" when I was reading my book and wouldn't respond to anyone. :D I wish I could still be sucked into a book like this and forget everything but I can't really read for enjoyment anymore, since I finished high school.
I really enjoy using out of date idioms because I feel like it allows other people to realize how silly idioms are. I was doing that for years before my diagnosis and now I understand why I gravitated to using them in my communication. I could not understand why people are so willing to accept terms and sayings "just because" without actually thinking about them critically.
I love both language and idioms. They say the English language has more idioms than any other. But we need some new ones.
@@marthamurphy3913 That is awesome you enjoy that. I could understand why they could be fun to learn about especially how they change over time and what can influence them to come into existence. I do also enjoy making up my own versions of existing idioms or coming up something new. I guess that is the way to make new ones enter language, just gotta make up your own💜
yeah i have to know the history of every idiom. and i *will* use them from literally any source if they’re a good texture both the bible and my favorite niche youtuber are in the table
@@marthamurphy3913who says? /g like i’m curious how did they count it?
That could be a very valuable skill. Actually, I'm pretty sure it is. 👍
This is my favorite video on RUclips. The information is SO interesting and (as per all Meg’s videos) presented in such an organized, straightforward way where I don’t have to strain to keep track of how all the points connect. The stock footage is so satisfying and an awesome visual stim and makes this channel my favorite on RUclips. My favorite one is the attention tunnel stock footage, I could stare at that for hours! Thank you Meg, love your style!! 💕✨
I absolutely love your voice! So clear not too loud not too low,you are not stuck on monotone ! I really appreciate how you're speaking to us as if we are literally in front of you !
About sensory differences at 10:50 , you mentioned hyperfocus as a possible cause for hyposensitivity, which is certainly true, but doesn't explain it outside of special interests time. After my diagnosis I compared my past and present sensitivities and realized an interesting fact: some of my present hypos could be the result of having to force myself through past hypers that caused me distress.
Example: When I was a child I hated having to wear shoes while sitting down, the inability to freely move my toes gave me a feeling of constriction that drove me insane. But I had to power through that feeling because in many situations I wasn't allowed to take off my shoes.
Today I am nearly unbothered by any sensation coming from my feet. I can wear light socks and shoes at freezing temperature, or vice versa sweat a lot because I don't realize my feet are too hot. Last year I was on a hike and walked for 4-5 hours with my feet covered in blisters, every step a strike of pain, but I genuinely did not care and enjoyed the hike.
I think I basically trained my brain to ignore every signal coming from my feet.
So, I really think sometimes hyposensitivities can be overcompensation for hypersensitivities that we had to learn to overcome, the sad result of always being told to "get over it, it's not that bad, everyone does this".
This is so interesting! I think I've trained myself to ignore discomfort in many ways too. So I think you might be onto something! Thank you for sharing your experience 💛
I think you are onto something there. It could account for many things
I believe you. I have fibromyalgia, which is chronic muscle and nerve pain and tenderness, and I can pretty much tune it out if I'm doing something I'm very interested in and get to the flow stage. I wore heels at my daughter's wedding and as soon as we turned on the lights to clean up, after the dancing, I realized that the pain in my feet was excruciating!
One of the biggest reasons I haven’t tried to get evaluated for autism is that I didn’t stay hypersensitive. I needed to have my my socks on perfectly as a kid or else I’d throw a fit and miss the bus and I couldn’t sleep if my mom was making food because the smell would keep me awake. Now I don’t even notice if my socks are halfway off my feet and I can barely smell things unless I’m actively paying attention to them. I’ve always taken it as a sign that I’m not autistic because I grew out of my sensory issues and autism is a lifelong thing but hearing this perspective has given me a lot to think about.
@@cannibalisticginger7256 glad to hear that! Of course this is just a theory of mine and I'm no professional. But also there's plenty other reasons why our traits change through time (as any other person, we grow up and evolve and change).
For sensory stuff, I think especially puberty brings huge changes, both to our body and to our perceptions (because hormones). Clothes tags used to drive me crazy as a kid, and up until a couple weeks ago I really couldn't tell how I kinda suddenly got over it as a teenager. Then I realized: I got lots of hair, especially just below the back of my neck, where tags usually are.
I'm 2 years from my formal diagnosis and I'm still figuring stuff out.
Shifting attention feels like ripping velcro in my mind. Regular things are old soft velcro and hurt less, but it's still ripping. Big or unexpected shifts feel like new industrial grade velcro and its just awful
Love this! You've described the feeling so well.
This is such a good analogy! If I need to step away from a special interest I almost have to brace myself for that. It still feels very distressing and uncomfortable, no amount of exposure has changed it.
Is this why I feel like I have to violently tear myself away, sometimes I have to run or yell or fall down to jar myself out of my original state… huh
my friendships have always been as though im dating the friend. it starts quickly and goes intense quickly with debt and the amount of time spent but they can also end abruptly and occasionally very badly (often when i stop masking more and i become to much, or because i didnt realise they werent a friend but just someone using me when i was younger)
BUT i think for me what would actually be a good kind of friendship, is one that is relatively low contact and more of a slow burn at the start so it becomes more stable over time.
but as someone whos usually friendless, when i finally have a friend its very hard to pace myself. (ideally of course, if the friend is caring, but just very busy, this problem might resolve itself because youre limited by the circumstances)
That's totally understandable. I never pace myself well with friendships and just kinda fly in but I've had the fortune of meeting some great people in my late teens and adult life.
I’ve been recovering from an eating disorder for a while and what has helped me a lot was finding the ‘root cause’ of my ed, which is autism. This video has helped me realise how my lingering ed behaviours and routines are maintained almost like they are autistic special interests. Thank you for using your channel to make learning about autism easy access, you have helped so many of us improve our lives :)
I am newly diagnosed at age 56 as autism level 1.
Your channel has been very helpful for me.
The information is great, and your voice is very soothing.
I know what you mean by having lots of rules for talking to people. Yet still having no idea what they think of how you are doing.
My lovely husband has started to tell me outright how he actually feels. It’s so helpful.
Those guitar earrings are fire.
Thanks Meg. This video is Great. I also get emotional thinking about our collective special interest in autism. 💜
I hope anyone who reads this is having a good day. If not, I'm sorry you're not having a good day, and I hope it gets better. You're doing the best you can, and you matter.
"I also get emotional thinking about our collective special interest in autism."
There is a tendency for autistic individuals to be fascinated by autism. Fascination with autism is a characteristic of autism.
Your videos have helped me feel more comfortable in myself. Im autistic and it’s been hard to explain myself and I suppose “get my symptoms under control.” It’s hard to move in a neurotypical world, and a marriage while being autistic. And motherhood while being autistic. These qualities you have mentioned absolutely apply to me and I feel less… well, less dumb. Less annoying. Less like a failure or I’m taking up space in a way that’s making everyone else can’t stand.
I hope you have support. I was married for 26 years (until my husband passed away) and we have seven children. I have homeschooled for many years; I have one left to graduate. One of the strengths of homeschooling is that I can set our family schedule to fit me: I prefer to stay up late and sleep in, so I schedule nothing early, no classes, no commitments. We start school at 10 a.m. and when my children were all elementary age and younger, we'd end official schoolwork at noon with exercise. Now that my last child is high school age, we work around his theater schedule. He performed in a play last night. My husband and I made a point of going out to dinner without our children once a week or once every other week, so I could have time away from the children and so he could reconnect with me. I live in a city that has a lot of co-op classes I can take my children to, so for subjects I don't want to teach, they can learn from someone else. I despise grading papers, so we use other ways of showing what our children have learned. They make art, they write, they make music, they give presentations; each one is different. I feel blessed to get to learn something about everything they're interested in, because my focus is on figuring out how to help my children become their best selves. It's like opening live puzzle boxes, exciting and frustrating and wonderful and painful all at once. My most difficult child so far is the most obviously autistic; she is so sensitive to touch that I can tickle her by waving my fingers in her sight. She has enough instability that she chooses not to ride a bike at all. My other children, however, are one by one being diagnosed ADD or ADHD as adults. I'm fairly certain that I'm autistic, but my strength is in words and in following directions to the letter, so I fit in really well in school, that is, teachers loved me. Other students mostly got ignored, if I was reading a book, or selectively listened to if I was between books.
You can do this. You only have to do what you can do, and God will make up the rest. He gave you and your husband the children he did, so you AND they can learn from the experience.
This fits pretty well with the metaphor me and my NT friend came up with a while ago! We decided that if life was a video game with a key to highlight points of interest, his would light up interactable items around us, and mine would draw a line straight to the next objective.
I have an 8 year old non verbal autistic son. This is by far the best explanation for his behavior that I have ever heard. Thank you ;-)
I've seen parents using normal sign language for communication. Sometimes it works.
Currently we use an iPad application for basic communication but I am making a hard push to teach him sign. I believe that sign is more universal and a more convenient method of communication. I also believe that his intellectual development depends upon the use of a language. We think and learn in a language. Most of our concepts are constructed from the understanding of definitions, linguistic relationships and meanings etc. Sign can be a gateway to written communication and literacy. Literacy can lead to greater intellectual development. The iPad just isn't going to be enough. @@ASAS-dn4ve
When trying to describe how it feels to have ADHD/Autism, I say it's like looking at the world through a pinhole where everything that you can see through the pinhole is what exists to you in that moment. Anything that's being blocked out(laundry, homework, etc) literally doesn't exist to me. In contrast, anything I'm viewing through the pinhole is in sharp detail, and my attention is like a laserbeam. It takes SO much effort to find anything through the pinhole, but once I'm focused on it, you better believe I'm focused af. Being forced to move the pinhole around to do a new task is painfully frustrating, clumsy, and slow! I just want to continue concentrating on what I'm already doing!
My dad was diagnosed with almost every condition under the Sun including bipolar disorder and depression before he was finally diagnosed with Autism and ADHD in his 50s. I can see how it could be mistaken for bipolar. Depending on which condition is most prominent in any given moment; he could be hyperactive, talkative and easy-going; or quiet and overly sensitive.😊
Try having a bipolar condition being misidentified as autism. Bipolar, ADHD, Autism, Major Depression and Schizophrenia all are on Axis 1 of the DSM 5. I have family members whose condition can be identified all across Axis 1. However, most all the cases are varying degrees of bipolar condition which has some aspects that resemble Autism. Lately it seems that people have made being autism a kind of emblem that people think it is cool to wear. Nothing about bipolar condition is charming or quirky. It is hell.
Who is your Dads Dr? I would be interested in contacting them for diagnosis. 👍
Thank you
@@aristoclesathenaioi4939 sorry its been so hard for you.
I've been in the field for 9 years, and I had never heard of this theory. I've been reading more literature on this theory and it seems very powerful. Thanks for educating the public and also helping me be a better provider.
Earlier this year, I learned that there are negative/harmful stims, and I realized that that's what my obsessive picking of my zits has always been! I still struggle with it, cause I don't have a stim to replace it with, but it's been better!
I'm a Mom of a 31 year old autistic/ADHD/ Etc. son and your videos are teaching me things that he's unable to verbalize. He does seem to be hurt by my interruptions and you helped me understand. Thank-You!
I think my father once gave me a cup that said, I'm not deaf, I'm ignoring you.
Problem is I'm not ignoring you, ignoring means I'm CHOOSING not to interact with you. I'm not making an active choice to IGNORE people, I simply don't have the ability to register that your trying to contact me. Calling it ignoring leads to me being the problem, because it's wrong to ignore others, but it's not WRONG for someone deaf to not be able to hear or for someone autistic to not be able to hear you calling them.
Reminds me of when I was a child explaining the difference between disrespect and not respect.
When I was really little my mom had me go through a full on hearing test by doctors because she thought I had problems with my hearing. I aced the test and it was a joke about me being intentionally defiant with not responding, even though I told them it wasn't intentional. Now this makes me realize it was just an autism thing. Still to this day I sometimes don't respond because I'm just not focused on that I guess. Or sometimes I will be in the middle of conversations but have a pause moment where it's like I did hear what was said, but it was gibberish and now I have to decipher it in my head first.
I used to be married to someone who designed logos from time to time, so I find that fascinating. I'm more apt to remember the logo and not the product.
i was lucky enough to have a mom who is also autistic (though doesn’t claim to be) so when she would call my name multiple times while i was reading and i wouldn’t hear her until she physically put her hand in front of the book she just thought i got it from her 😅 which is true but not in the way she thought
also i get the needing to go back and decipher things XD i’ve told my roommate many times “wait, repeat that, i forgot to turn my ears on”
My mom used to say that I have selective hearing, but jokes on her, it's actually just sensory processing disorder and/or being too distracted to perceive other sounds
@@anotherhuman2414ditto!
About a week ago I was thinking about what actually causes autism. I came to a very similar conclusion. To me it feels like a nervous system condition related to only being able to/wanting to engage with one channel of information or input at a time. I had never heard about monotropism before. There is definitely something to this theory.
If you actually look at the studies into how the brain is wired, in autistic individuals certain areas of the brain have more connections to each other than a non autistic brain, and other areas have less connections to what you'd see in a non autistic brain. There also seems to be an issue with the amount of "buffer" due to this. So a non autistic person can receive info (via sensing organs) and it makes its way to the brain and the brain feeds back that it got the message so then it doesn't take in any more of the stimulus from that thing unless it changes or remains important. In contrast there isn't that same feedback within an autistic brain, so each bit of stimulus gets treated like a brand new piece of information to process even if its basically just the same thing over & over. So a non autistic person's ears will hear the sound of the fridge, send the info to the brain, the brain will go "oh that's the sound of the fridge, its not important, you don't need to send me more info about that ears" and that message gets sent to the ears which now tune the sound out. Autistic person's ears hear the sound of the fridge, send the info to the brain, the brain goes "oh that's the sound of the fridge". The ears keep sending the info to the brain about the sound. The brain keeps going "that's the fridge". No message goes back to the ears telling them they don't need to keep sending that info, no tuning out happens in the brain either. But its happening for every sensory input all at once with none of them properly getting the "ok, don't need to focus on that" response. So then its not much surprise that an autistic brain can then only engage with one *other* channel of information at once. Because really we're having to deal with all the other stuff that non autistic people's brains just tune out for them. Its basically the same as being on high alert all the time, so its also not a surprise that anxiety is such a big thing for autistic people.
Great video. I actually felt like I was looking in the mirror as I was watching/listening to much of it. It was validating as to why one of my favorite sayings is "If it ain't broke don't fix it." It also helps me better understand why I might often seem set in my ways and sometimes seem like I have a fixed mindset rather than a growth mindset on certain matters.
My son is only 2 but diagnosed as autistic. I loved this video because it helps my husband and I understand how we can create a better environment at home and advocate for him elsewhere. Very grateful ❤
I’m going to a psychiatrist and being tested for ASD on Thursday. I’ve been watching your videos a lot and you’ve really helped me understand what I’m actually being tested for. Thank you :)
UPDATE: I’m being further tested for ASD and ADHD! (And there was some stuff about anxiety)
All the best 😊.
I took the monotropism test... I got 230/235... I never managed to put words on these things but when i read question after question it just clicked. I am in a phase where I am recovering from a burnout. I'm late diagnosed and in the process of trying to reorganize my life to fit my needs instead of making my needs fit life demands. This video along with the test made me realize just how important it is that I start thinking in terms of "how can I make my life more predictable?". Thank you.
I also heard about monotropism only recently. Before that I called, what I did, not "going with the flow" but "going with my flow". But it's great to finally have a word for it.
Ooh - I like that!
Thank you ☺️
Adult female late diagnosis and I’m so grateful you made this video! I’ve been reading about the traits and …. Everything related to my new “special interest”..😂 . It’s incredible to hear your content yet your presentation; tone, pitch and speed in which you talk are Perfect! Rapid fire, intense, enthusiastic, detailed communication that is demanding my attention in order to keep up. I’m about to cry because I finally have a “mirror” and understand how I come across … I complement us both and everyone else that understands my comment… ❤thank you
I played the same word games with my autistic kids that your husband plays with you I used sign language as well to expand their awareness and comfort zone, I self diagnosed at 41when my children were diagnosed and it was a great relief to finally understand why I was as I was. Love your relaxed style, thanks.
Talking about the name recognition thing and how it might not be registered as more than noise from something not being focused on, it might explain the way I used to listen to music. I've felt like when listening to music, the lyrics/vocals (whatever the correct term is) can often be heard just like another instrument. I've blasted a good tune in the past then had someone point out rather inappropriate lyrics that I was blasting from a car radio in the middle of a public car park. I've been a lot more sensitive to what the lyrics are ever since, and regularly been disappointed when a good feeling one comes on but I can't enjoy it because of the words and phrases people choose to sing to it, and then the instrumental version either doesn't exist, still has backing vocals, or is missing part of the noise that made it feel good. They also change 'from the good bit' randomly and ruin the feeling too. The good feeling also comes from a vast array of music, so too often there's only 1 from a particular artist I end up liking, making it very difficult to find something new, and having a rubbish memory for names and titles makes refinding stuff I know I like difficult too.
I really love music and lyricism, and I pretty much always have, but I just realized I had a very similar experience. Thankfully, my parents listen to a lot of good music, so I always have backups from the last five or so decades, and I can use that background to find similar music. My top three artists/bands recently and for the last few years have been Fleet Foxes (folk/rock/indie/choir vocals-based, their albums are all very different and very good), Alabama Shakes (rock/soul-inspired/"how have I never heard this?" type music), and Still Woozy (kinda bedroom indie pop with a lot of psychedelia inspiration based on classical guitar riffs, very romantic and sweet songs). Very wide range, but they all incorporate beautiful instrumentation alongside either beautiful or relatable (or both) lyrics. I can listen to their albums all the way through, and my favorite songs of theirs shift all the time, which is rare for me. Highly recommend all three of them, if you're looking for anything new.
"and then the instrumental version either doesn't exist, still has backing vocals"
Use AI to filter out the vocals. There is special software that does this, but it needs to be built into all music players.
The voice, is another instrument. So its not even unreasonable. And lyrics kinda have to work in tune with the rest.
Yeah the voice is aninstrument and lyrics woth notes or at leat vibe of it are how to use your voice.
You can cite voice trainer that describe it even as instrument you train with.
My partner and I have a running joke between us about my inability to hear lyrics in music. The music could be amazing and make me feel really good, while the lyrics could be saying terrible things, and I have no idea!
Similarly to you, the singer's voice is just like another instrument to me. I can hear the odd few words here and there, and can sometimes pick up parts of the chorus, but if I want to hear the lyrics properly, it takes a HUGE amount of effort! And even then I still struggle to decipher the words, and I don't feel like I can enjoy or even hear the music properly.
I was only recently diagnosed with ADHD, after a 5 year wait on the NHS, and the specialist recommended I look into Autism diagnosis, too, stating he was "as certain as he possibly could be" that I am on the Autistic spectrum. Something I have been wondering about in recent years, which has brought me to Meg's channel and other RUclipsrs. I can certainly identify with this theory of Monotropism, and it does seem to make sense of my difficulties with music, which I hadn't thought about before. I'd figured it was something to do with ADHD and attention, however I'm now thinking that there is just too much going on in music for the narrow focus of my monotropic mind!
I also hear vocals as another instrument without being able to get meaning from the lyrics! I think that's why I like music in languages other than English because then I can just let the sounds wash over me. But even in English songs I have to read the lyrics in order to understand them because with listening I'll only be able to pick out a phrase or two.
To me, the difficulty I had with making mistakes was that I failed at many, many "easy" things (that were not easy at all for me, because of deficits, for example holding a pencil or using scissors), so I was told a lot that I'm good at nothing or worthless. And at the same time, I was seing all those kids doing those things nearly perfectly at the first try. When I became a young adult, I often saw older employees do stuff effortlessly at work and didn't realize that they had 100's or 1000's of hours of practice to have achieved that. I was not concious that people had had a learning curve, so I was thinking that I was again facing the same "incapacity to perform as everyone else" as I faced during childhood.
mine has always been that what is hard for neurotypicals is often easy for me, and vice versa. so typical accommodations for nts will spend tons of time on stuff that i already get and no time at all on the hard stuff i need help with
I think it depends on the type of task any particular subskill requires. Autists are robotic, in the sense that we have to 'calculate' everything manually. We can get quite fast at the process with practice, but that doesn't change that the autistic mind calculates. Neurotypicals on the other hand run on heuristic engines, or 'instincts', which are faster but skip a lot of details and thus are inaccurate, which tends to be acceptable because most things in everyday life don't have millimeter tolerances on everything.
So neurotypicals excel at anything that needs to be fast, and autists excel at anything that needs to be accurate.
@@SupLuiKiryour comment reminds me of my style of getting groceries. If I make a list with a dinner plan and an extra page with the ingredients needed to take with me to the store - aka thoughtfully calculated how much is needed of what - the trip to the store is rather fast. Without a list - and trying to do it by gut feeling and no calculation? I can slow down so badly and it takes forever, especially without headphones that helps me keep focus and help me keep distraction out.
Being "dragged" out of your hyper-focus state is kinda of like when you have a wound and pick on the scab before the wound is healed. It will start bleeding, and the healing process must begin again. That is the picture that came into my mind during this video. Brilliant video, by the way. I am so grateful that you made this video!
A great comparison! Thank you.
@@ColargolPL Thank you ! 😊
I think you just explained my life in 36 minutes. I had never heard the word "monotropism" before, but the vast majority of things you described match up very consistently with my experience. Everything you said about attention tunnels resonates very deeply, along with struggling to focus on what other people are saying. I'm going to show this video to anyone I meet who is genuinely curious about what being autistic is like.
What you said in the end makes me emotional in a way too! That so many autistic people now have found each other and that so many of us have a special interest in autism! It’s just so cool!
I am kind of at a loss of words how relatable this is for my internal experience of things. I kind of have suspected heavily that I am on the spectrum and have two sisters with late diagnoses, but I am an undiagnosed man myself. I kind of accepted that I have ADHD and might be on the spectrum, but this monotropism lens is instantly and insanely relatable for me. I have hard time to get started on things, but then when I get going, I can go on until I start to notice my blood sugar is too low and I even fight that until it forces me to stop. I also recall when playing chess with one of my friends, when I get in the groove and feel like we are getting started my friend tells me that he is feeling too mentally exhausted to have another game, while I am internally like "huh I could go like three more hours easy". I have always stimmed to manage my focus in class, I have a beard now that I constantly stroke in conversations, if I don't have anything else to use to stim and I do that classic "stroking my beard while thinking" thing unironically without noticing. With this monotropism lens it is like having a railing to lean on while walking on a tight rope, a predictable stimulus to focus on slightly to not be only at the mercy of unpredictable stimulus.
I also notice this when I am visualizing things mentally in a way. One of my long time interest (that might be a special interest..) is all sorts of esoteric meditation, spiritual etc practices and I have a hard time visualizing large intricate things at once. This led me to think I don't have much capacity for visualization, but that isn't so. I am incredibly adept at visual reasoning mentally, where I can focus on one part at a time and then follow logical interactions of parts. I can easily visualize complex mechanical interactions, but cannot visualize a whole car as easily. I can also recall routes between places with incredible detail after going through that route once, but trying to visualize a city skyline as a whole doesn't really work the same. I thought that this was just me having less clarity in my internal visualizations, but no I have insane clarity and it is just my brain is more monotropic!
I have read comments of people coming across a piece of information that just made things click internally and this is that for me in a supremely major way. It sent me in a monotropic rant to express my excitement, but I feel that in this space I can feel free to express it authentically. I needed this and I feel that I can craft my approach to managing myself so much better now that I can start to work around the idea of having a more monotropic mind. This feels like the moment where you have been trying to solve a puzzle and have been stuck on one line of thinking that doesn't lead anywhere towards solving the puzzle, then someone shows you the solution and you feel kind of dumb, because the answer seems so damn obvious in hindsight.
I totally felt what you meant when you said it was like discovering autism all over again almost. All this makes sooooo much sense in all areas of my life haha
I wonder how monotropism plays into ADHD because I do have intense interests in specific things and I stim but I’m also extremely novelty seeking (most likely due to a dopamine deficit) , my brain lights up in response to new things - particularly strange or unexpected things
Yess - I really want to get my friends with just an ADHD diagnosis to do the questionnaire with me and hear their reasoning for their choices! I have an ADHD diagnosis too and I do find myself seeking novelty. I suppose under the monotropism lens you might say that novel experiences are more stimulating and therefore more likely to get us into that preferred flow state?
I definitely feel like something is 'different' about my dopamine and serotonin levels due to various experiences I've had. I suppose monotropism is just a theory of how our minds might work and doesn't attempt to explain the neurology behind it etc. Hopefully one day we'll know more!
potato
(ASD + ADHD here) I feel like I'm shining my torch/flashlight rapidly in different directions, so I think for me I love finding new tunnels. Actually I think that might be a deeper thing than I originally thought, because I can quite easily get bored/frustrated by my own thought patterns or ways of analysing/thinking about things. Something I consistently like a lot is puzzle games, eg. sudoku with extra rules and I think part of it is stimming comfort for my brain but part of it is that I can change up what strategies I use whenever I play.
@@imautisticnowwhat There is research showing that autistics have lower levels of dopamine. I have found that taking vitamin B12 in the methfolate form has been helpful, because many of us have a gene deletion that interferes with methfolin absorption. This also connected to gastrointestinal issues.
Wow, this was actually a very enlightening breakdown. Ive seen alot of autism videos because I've been accused of having it but always thought "autism" was just having a personality. So many of these apply to myself. At work I'm often slow to start sometimes but will work through breaks and lunch rather than stopping the task I'm trying to complete. I can't stand when people try to step in and coach me on things or "teach" me when i already know what to do. I can stop in the middle of something and tear into storage because I suddenly have to find an item i don't recall seeing in recent years. I have many interests but tend to hyperfocus on only one at a time until I burn out on it then move to another. In school I had terrible grades but could pass all the tests, i just couldn't stand trying to focus on homework or un-engaging subjects and was met with hostility from school staff (i was written off as some special needs lost cause of a student). I can be doing something i excel at but suddenly stumble at doing it if im aware of being watched by others. I also tend to shut down and lose motivation any time someone makes a demand or gives an ultimatum. In public crowds i always feel like im under a microscope and suddenly feel rigid, awkward, and top-heavy and my fine motorskills fly out the window. Im not terribly bad at being social but i prefer to keep small company rather than do public things like bar hopping. Im not sure how much of this comes from just growing up in a tiny mountain town, but ive definitely discovered i do not like living a suburban life surrounded by 6 million other people.
Thank you *so* much for this video. The summarization, the citations, and the lack of jarring “extras” (sound effects, music, etc). I subscribed and will be attention-tunneling my way through all of your content (probably to the exclusion of everything else) and then sharing the videos with my neurotypical partner as a starting point or incredibly digestible explanation for my experiences.
I'm old. I have known for less than a year that I'm on the ASD spectrum (not diagnosed, just from learning and knowing). Watching this video made me think of so many "incidents" from my childhood and youth, and so many of my very long term habits, that make *so much more sense now.* Thank you.
Like with everything to do with autism, there is a counter example: I actually kind of like idioms. They give me an alternative perspective on various problems. I think the reason why is that I have a passion for understanding the world around me. Part of that passion is finding all the ways that one concept is related to another. Also, I had a lot of intrusive thoughts as a kid that combined unrelated concepts, which I would then ruminate on and come up with my own analogies and idioms.
I like idioms, analogies, and allegory allot myself. I like writing poetry and stories that use them. I often find I can communicate something that can't be communicated through literal language this way especially emotions. Standard words for emotions are almost meaningless to me. They aren't descriptive enough.
totally me! I have an autism diagnosis but I love metaphors and use them all the time I also love subtext in books and movies where they manage to say something without saying it or the sentence could mean multiple things. I love language and word play. then people tell me autistic people take everything teally literally and subtext is lost on them and we wonder if I really have it. in some ways I think it might be a side effect of autism like its harder for me to understand things in a straight forward way the way a neurotypical person would. i have trouble naming my thoughts and emotions so i say things like I feel like im in a crowded restaurant. and while I love subtext in stories and obsessing over a well written and acted scene I dont know how much thats ever translated to my real life conversations.
I remember countless instances where I'd leave a social situation and just feel like garbage. Once I started becoming more aware of my internal state I began to feel the anxiety and overwhelm that you talk about. A few months ago I fairly confidently self-diagnosed myself with autism and I've been able to work on some aspects of socializing much better.
I find it absolutely possible to improve social skills, but I still feel like all my friends have it much easier than me. The PDA stuff is new to me but resonates as well.
Wow, what a great explanation and good examples!
You were talking about how not looking at someone when they're talking to you, helps you concentrate on what they're saying. For me, it's the opposite. I have a much easier time concentrating on what someone is saying if I'm looking directly at their face. Maybe this is something I learned to do in order to satisfy the "Look at me when I'm talking to you!" demand. For probably 20 years, I thought I had a hearing problem, and that I was compensating by subconsciously lip reading. But hearing tests said I didn't have a hearing problem. I finally realized it was an attention problem (really, a divided attention problem). By looking right at them, both my sight and hearing are concentrating on the same thing.
Likewise, talking to someone on the telephone is extremely difficult and stressful. If I'm having a difficult time understanding them (for example, they have an accent), I find that I need to shut my office door to block out background sounds, and close my eyes to avoid visual distractions.
When smartphones became more common, I finally understood "Look at me when I'm talking to you." Looking at someone is a non-verbal cue that you're paying attention. By not looking at them, they perceive it as you being distracted or ignoring them (even if you're not!). People busy doing something on their smartphone *look*, and often are, distracted from whatever is going on around them.
Wonderful video. It helps me understand some of my friends better. We are in the age group of 35 - 50 and several of them have only recently been diagnosed with autism. For those friends, most are glad to have this diagnosis as it does help them get an idea on why they have issues with social interactions, hyper focus, anxiety leaving their homes. And getting easily stressed by distraction from their focus.
Hey! I just wanted to thank you for uploading this video. I got diagnosed a few days ago with autism and this video is the perfect explanation of how I feel internally and a great way to explain to family and friends!! I'm not a native english speaker though, so I took some time to translate it to brazilian portuguese and add captions to show my parents 💜 (I'm not uploading the video with captions anywhere, so I hope you don't mind). Your channel has helped me a lot in my journey of self discovery and acceptance of my autism, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. Thank you for all the time you put into making these videos, I truly appreciate it❤❤❤
I've recently been diagnosed (at age 27) as autistic and people always point out that I like going to music concerts or sports presentations where tipically there's SO MUCH NOISE so "how can you be autistic and not have meltdowns due to the loud noise?". And I had to pause the video to say that now I feel soooo understood! If I'm at a concert I'm usually so focused on the music, it's my focus of choice. If it's an sports event I go so far as "suppressing" hearing ALL the noise, because I'm focusing on the sport - so if someone talks to me or even yells at me I won't react and it'll look like I'm ignoring the person, for example. Now, if I'm focusing on music and there's other loud noise around, that's a meldown waiting to happen, because it's too dificult to process this two stimuli happening through the "same channel".
Yes, people don't grasp that it's not always the volume that's the problem, often it's the "feeling" of the sound or having multiple conflicting sounds at once that you can't process.
Like, death metal doesn't bother me, but ASMR overwhelms me instantly, the sounds they make are like being stabbed in the ear.
This is fascinating! It also makes a lot of things about me make more sense. I definitaly have ADHD and highly suspect that I'm autistic, but am currently in the gathering-more-information-while-also-feeling-like-an-imposter stage. These videos of yours (and also several other autistic RUclipsrs) have really helped me re-frame my perspective on myself and my past experiences, so thank you so much for making these!
I would totally love to see a video where you do this questionnaire!
I loved what you said about "scheduling" everything, my boyfriend sometimes complains that I don't change my mind for anything and all I can say is something like "I didn't prepared to do that", it is often about me staying one night longer in his apartment hahaha
This all explains so much for me. All this time I thought I was just strange and had all these quirky characteristics that made me feel alienated from others. And now I feel like I finally have the piece I’ve been missing all these years that *finally* makes me feel whole and understood. It’s scary how it both changes everything and changes nothing, but also wonderful because I am able to understand myself now instead of punishing myself for where I struggle because I never felt or operated fully “normal.” Thank you for your channel, it really helps. I’m not alone now. 😊
Hi Meg, thank you so much for your channel and your work! This is once again a video filled with content and information that I feel is going to become so important for my personal journey! And I also want to add, that there are very few videos I find, were actually all resources mentioned in the video are actually properly linked in the video description! This is so valuable and speaks for your high standard of work and I appreciate that! Even big channels with large teams working on video production, often fail at this point (in my experience) even though they are also in the "mental health/adhd/ads/neurodivergence" realm with their topics they discuss. It often feels like an oversight that does not make sense because its literally zero effort to add. So thank you again for doing this :) I hope it gives you a smile that the work you put so much effort in does not go unnoticed!
Another point that I find really interesting as I continue watching the video is the fact that I really 'like' language. And while I have so many memories of were I did not understand many things as a child or youth, I became fascinated with linguistics, dialects, idiogramsand foreign languages as well (not a native english speaker). For example with the subject of the video: monotropism. My first instinct was, to look up "trope" in a dictionary and see, apart from my instinctive knowledge of meaning of the word, what the roots and variing definitions of it are and once I did, it made so much sense to me! That is something that I love about language. Many words that seem dated, confusing or broken at first, actually have alot of depth in them. Maybe I am influenced by my native language aswell (german) ;) the jokes about complicated german words are endless. But often times I found examples in old/historic english for example, were the same level of "creating new words to describe a specific thing" exists! Its just not used as often or dated.
You're so kind! Thank you so so much for this lovely comment 🥹
I've had so many experiences with allistics being so overwhelmed with their subjective experience of tone/facial expression/social context, they can't understand the literal words I'm saying without me repeating myself many times. I wonder how much this actually goes both ways, except Anglo culture labels their overload as normal and ours as aberrant.
Double empathy problem ?
@bingchungusthought spot shared a great Japanese documentary about autistic adults in Japan. There are differences, but much of their social experience is similar to that of autists in the anglosphere.
I prefer to have serious chats via text. So my words can't be missed while I'm speaking. No one has had a problem with me doing this so far. Probably because everyone texts these days and is used to it.
@@AshleyWilliams-xq7lj Also in text you have time to formulate what you intend to say.
What a great and informative video. One of the best I seen on autism. I think monotropism explains many of the difficulties. And difference in autistic thinking versus. "Normals"/neuro divergent
Thank you so much for saying that 💛
So true.
Woooow, thank you so muuuuch! I have never heard about this, but it hit so many marks for me. The last 7 years, almost 8 now, I have been in a battle with my mental health. I have been treated for depression, anxiety, ADHD (which seems to be the 3 diagnosis all the many doctors and psychiatrists I had and my psychologist seems to agree on), it seems these are the ones I can where the badge of. But Autism is still on the fence. Every professional I tried to discuss this with seem to be trying to push my mind away from it. Even though the list of things I identify with, after hundreds and hundreds of hours videos and readings and research about, is absolutely endless. Here in this video I found even more I havent even associated with it before. The intense relationships specially. That part hurt so bad, I had to listen to it like 3 times to let it sink in, still wanting to cry about it, because made my whole life make so much sense. I have lost a very special friendship last year. They stopped talking to me over a misunderstanding and to me it felt like dying. It took me almost 10 months to slightely start coming back to normal, i'm still crawling out of that hole, but it still feels like an open wound. Its been 10 years of being sucked into that tunnel and to be taken out of it, made everything plunge into chaos. I didnt realised how that relationship dictated everything in my life, from my routine, from my leisure, my relationship with other people, my art, my special interests, everything was linked to them. And losing them it just... I didnt know how to live anymore. Trying to pick up from that is terrifying. And pursuing the autism diagnosis is an attempt to understand my mind even further so I can, at least, protect myself from further falling into stuff like this, because it seems like my whole life I'm just struggling to fit in, struggling to be like, struggling to be normal, struggling to just exist in a world that says constantly that if you dont adapt, you will be left behind. And its your own fault if you cant suck it up and be normal like everyone else. My father keeps telling me I keep trying to find another "disease" to justify my laziness and unwillingness to just face the world and be independent, etc. But I just feel it would help me breath a little easier knowing that I'm not crazy, my brain was just made different. Two months ago I started taking meds for bipolar and it made me even more confused. My doctors and therapists say its just a way to stabilize my emotional rollercoaster so I can stop dying all the time and try to pursue healthier habits to help me recover from all the damage of my lack of self care caused.That finding a diagnosis isnt a priority right now, so that can wait. But can it, though? When the whole world keeps screaming at your face, asking " WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS? WHY ARE YOU BROKEN?" To have an answer to give them would feel a bit less like I'm drowining every day of my life.
Please, keep making content like this. I wanted to share this information with more people here in Brazil, but unfortunely english isnt spoken by many and I still dont have enough self steem to put myself in front of a camera like you do. But people like you, that share information with us, from countries that have less accessibility to it, can be a beacon of hope. Much love, friend!
I want to share something. There is a lot of female youtubers that I can't listen for longer then a 10 seconds, but you and few others, I can just be mesmerized, and like someone said, I like your voice, I relate to your stories... so my theory is... it is because I am like you and I relate pretty much with you and that is why I like you and your stories resonate with me. Which is great, I understand myself better and know who my people are in a way.
My monotropism today can't let me focus on anything else but your glittery guitar earring haha! 😂
Oh noo! Sorry 😂
Love it! ❤
It got me too 😂
I was looking at it basically the whole time hahaha
Lol same, but it was a good focus while listening. :)
This reminds me of the time in Grade 5 where I was sat at my desk reading (in the very center of the classroom) and never noticed that my whole class and the teacher got up and left for the music teachers room. I sat there reading completely unaware until the class returned an hour later and the teacher realized I’d been there the whole time
LOL, I did EXACTLY THIS too! I was in the reading nook and the teacher took the whole class out to recess and even turned out the lights and I just kept reading (because I was near the window). It was like 20 minutes later that I was like "why is it so dark in here?" and realized everyone was outside...and just shrugged and picked up my book again.
The teacher was all concerned and called a parent-teacher conference. My dad was like "Look, being able to concentrate like that is going to be so valuable when she gets to college! Don't try to train it out of her! If you want everyone to go outside...just check all the corners before you leave."
Sounds like something I've done
"Some people also have difficulty performing a task before they have a full understanding of what needs to be done _and why_ [emphasis added]"... yeah, I can relate to that! [from 23:00] (And a lot of stuff in here... thank you. I suspect I have less monotropism than some autistic folks, yet more than the average allistic person. Interesting stuff!
I think my parents figured out the importance of the "why" pretty early, because by the time I could remember it they ALWAYS gave me a reason for why I needed to do a thing. And if it was a reason that made sense (eg "You need to go to bed early because we are going to the airport at 5 am and if you don't sleep now you're going to be grumpy" or "You need to stop reading and get in the car, because we all agreed to have dinner with your grandmother and it would be very rude if we don't turn up or dinner gets cold, and we don't treat people we love that way") then I would do it. If not...fairly often they'd accept my counter-argument!
But TO THIS DAY (age 40) I don't do well if people just tell me to do something and it isn't clear why.
@@PirateQueen1720 Yeah, it's amazing what a little "why" can do. It can also help one improvise... e.g. taking the book with you in the car. :D
For ADHDers being slightly more monothropic than average, i just realised poor working memory is an element of adhd. Being able to keep less stuff simultaneously in your short term memory is kind of in the same boat as being able to concentrate on fewer things, so that actually makes so much sense!
Thank you so much for this video. I was diagnosed in 2015 with Autism at the age of 35. My parents were surprised. They both agreed I had the traits after researching, but were skeptical about degree, as their generation only thought of those who needed an extreme level of support and not high functioning as being Autistic. I had to educate them on it being a "spectrum." I just emailed my mother this video. Hopefully it helps her to gain further awareness. Thank you again so much! I love your Channel and how well you explain things.
I recently told two ladies that I was autistic after many many years of not understanding the why’s of my behaviour and thinking. - it took me 62 years to openly say - I’m autistic- to only be told I wasn’t as I didn’t demonstrate all the typical “symptoms “ it took them seconds to dismiss me lol. Actually I have many, only they only know a few and had concluded in their wisdom that all autistic people were unable to hold a conversation coherently. So so much for coming out of the closet lol so glad you are sharing your life, your knowledge, your wisdom.
Yep, as soon as I got older and was finally ready to own my diagnosis, people suddenly no longer perceived me as autistic. And they were often very quick to tell me. So much for that. But what I realized is that the standard autism criteria is really centered around how the person is perceived externally. Not only is it not defined by the autistic person's actual experiences, there is also no coherent substance to autism as it has been historically defined. It doesn't boil down to anything specific about a person's nature. It's simply a way of categorizing and stereotyping people who are viewed as having a certain flavor of incompatibility with society. But there can be different reasons for a person to act in certain ways, and there can be multiple ways to express one inner experience. I like this idea of monotropism, because it has to do with actual human nature, and it makes much more coherent sense.
So chronically neurotypical to jump to conclusions about a thing in which they are inadequately informed but are certain that THEY do in fact Know.
You explained that some autistic people might not be recognizing speech as anything more than individual sounds. It reminded me of something I noticed this week. I remembered that starting when I was a child that I misinterpreted what a lot of logos were. For example, I saw the old U.S. postal service logo as a blue blur(instead of a bird), and I only saw the Toyota logo as three ovals, and never the "T", and I never identified those things to be gestalt representations of other things(in that case, an eagle, and the letter "T"). I also noticed that I identify computer icons by the basic shapes, squiggles, and blobs of color within the icons, instead of identifying the icons as the gestalt of what the image is supposed to represent. In fact, the day I had this discovery, I went to the grocery store specifically to look at logos, and I realized that there were so many logos which I could identify by sight but which I had no idea what the logos were actually representations of(other than the shapes, squiggles, and blobs of color).
I think I do that a bit too. I get used to a logo or icon and (on my phone/iPad etc) where it is placed, and if it changes or moves I’m lost.
humm I never saw a T in Toyota's logo either.. but I would be surprised if most people did, it's frankly not clearly looking like a T ...
Thats very interesting
This happens to me too! So much so that I'll be looking for something in the supermarket and if everything is the same shape and colour, they all just blur into the same product to me and I can't find what I'm looking for 😭
@@LunarWind99 I have that now but because my eyesight has deteriorated. I’ve always had a problem with shops that sell cd’s DVD’s games etc though, and clothes shops like TK Maxx where everything is hanging together with no space between. I can only deal with being in there for a few minutes, not long enough to buy anything.
Oh man, this makes so much sense!! I had a job at a bookstore once, and when you were scheduled to work on the register, you had to put the price stickers on stuff in between customers. Well, you can imagine that I would get absorbed in stickering and completely forget about watching for customers. 😂 I got in trouble so much for that lol.
Omg yes
When I worked in an office, people used to tell me when they were going on breaks, and I said OK, but never noticed whether they came back.
I had the same thing in a tea shop! We were meant to pack loose tea into containers in between customers, but I got so focused on making the little tea boxes and writing all their labels that I sometimes didn't notice people waiting to pay.
The solution we found was a friend joining me behind the counter so I could pack and they could do the customer bit - I got to focus and they got a break from the shop floor, which was an improvement in both our eyes ^-^
I'm crying, this video explained so, so many things about both myself and many people I love. Thank you.
Thank you so so much. The way you talk about this subject is really refreshing. ❤ Much love from a new subscriber and fellow adhd-autistic 🥰
That's so kind of you, thank you so much!