5:00 Intro, Personal Background 12:34 What is Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)? 19:57 Autism Manifests in the World around You 24:35 Core Features of ASD 36:39 Neurotypical Intuition vs Scripts 40:30 Anxiety and Uncertainty 42:16 Experience of Eating 46:40 Labels due to Difference in Behavior 48:03 Dr K's Butt-Ice Incident (Difficulty in Unscripted Behaviors) 53:14 One Sided Relationships & Sacrifices 55:33 Restricted Behaviors, Interest, Activities 1:01:00 Flapping, Echolalia 1:03:05 Emotional Regulation 1:07:53 Comorbidities, Perfect Storm 1:18:10 Where does Autism come from? 1:25:46 Gut Microbes, Inflammation 1:33:09 Inflammation and Emotional Regulation 1:40:45 Differences Gender and Gender Identity 1:51:56 Experience of Being Incapable and Very Capable 1:54:45: Masking 1:59:42: Cat-Q Test for Masking 2:03:10 Self-Diagnosis and TikTok 2:07:21 Treatments: ABA, CBT, etc 2:14:09 ABA is Effective and Traumatic 2:17:10 Treatment Efficiency 2:21:04 Pharmacology 2:24:52 Chosing a Treatment 2:33:00 It's a Spectrum 2:34:10 New Game+ 2:38:08 Our Understanding is Improving 2:40:54 Advice for Neurotypicals 2:42:20 Question: Ego Death & Autism 2:44:40 Standard Treatments aren't Great 2:49:10 Ayurvedic Take on Autism 2:39:30 Am I Autistic? 2:52:00 Autism, High Intellect and Suicidality 2:58:15 Outro, Coaching
This is great and I'd like to suggest that you include 'Suicidality' particularly at 2:52:00, because what Dr K talked about there is incredibly important. This information doesn't just apply to people with ASD and high intellect, but anyone who's feeling suicidal and has got there with very logical, very intellectual means. This information could be very useful to someone who is feeling suicidal and to those who know people that may be suicidal, and to those who may end up in a suicide/crisis situation.
So it's probably already been said, but there's a bit more nuance to the "Theory of Mind" point than this idea that autistic people are simply worse at perspective taking. Relatively recently, there's been this emerging idea called the "double empathy problem," which can be summarized as follows: "People of the same neurotype have an easier time understanding each other than people of different neurotypes." Often, this makes it look like autistic people are just worse at perspective taking than neurotypical people since the autistic neurotype is less common. However, as it turns out, neurotypical people have a really hard time taking the perspective of neurodiverse people. This comes up implicitly at several points in the video every time Dr. K says something like, "Neurotypical people don't get this about being autistic." If neurotypical people were just universally better at perspective taking, much less about autism would need to be explained to them. Additionally, there is evidence that autistic people have less impairment understanding each other than understanding their neurotypical peers.
@@LilChuunosuke a lot of autistic people talk about double empathy but this is very muchn something thats been studied with autistics and neurotypicals yes
@@LilChuunosuke the paper "The ‘double empathy problem’: Ten years on" by Damian Milton, the guy who originally coined it, is the most recent scientific article I can easily find on google - hope it helps!
@@LilChuunosuke There are indeed studies on the topic (I've been a participant in a couple of them, in fact!). I'd search for the double empathy problem on Google Scholar and see what you find
1:10:45 when you're an intelligent person with autism, everyone around you has a tendency to place very high expectations on you (usually academic and career focused) however the autism makes life unexpectedly hard for older teenagers and young adults, which can then lead to depression due to feeling like a failure and feeling hopeless etc. This has been my experience. Edit: also wanted to add the lack of support from everyone and constantly being told things like "dont worry about it, you'll grow out of (X thing you never grow out of)" and this is especially true if you're undiagnosed or only figure out you have autism later in life by doing your own research.
In my early 30s, and yes. A lot of it overlaps with ‘gifted kid’ stuff, but there’s this thing where you’re effortlessly smart and driven and precocious as a kid, so ppl expect a lot of you, but you have none of the skills necessary to develop a career in adulthood. The social environment and imposed structures of life and work and school also tend to become progressively controlling and overwhelming for us as responsibilities and the pressure of outside expectations increase in both size and complexity. Freakin sucks man!
This is exactly what happened to me with ADHD. I've since learnt that the symptoms of ADHD and autism have a lot more overlap and similarities than I expected.
@@johnb2476 Yes I was happy to leave school despite having some friends and excelling academically because I thought I would have more autonomy and respect as an adult. It's the reverse. At least at school you have control over your study methods and how you produce papers etc. At many workplaces it isn't just enough to produce the required work before the deadline, colleagues will try to interfere or even sabotage the work and managers will monitor and comment on your social interactions and sometimes even control how you do the work (banning headphones or deciding what software you should use etc). At school if you are bullied for expressing your personality at least you aren't at risk of losing your job and becoming homeless. At school you do one entrance interview and that guarantees your place at that institution for several years as long as you don't break the rules. At work you can be fired for as little as coworkers not liking you.
Topic for next autism lecture: Autistic burnout, autistic shutdown, and autistic meltdowns. Starting with short discussion about the difference between a meltdown and a temper tantrum, and how the two should not be conflated!
hi Dr K, I've been autistic my whole near-37 years of life, but only this really found myself able to afford testing, and was diagnosed earlier this month (on top of late diagnosed ADHD-I in Sept '21 at age 33, dx'd autistic c substantial support needs 9/3/24, formally diagnosed via a handful of paper questionnaire tools + ADOS-2 and MIGDAS in person across 2 sessions with two different psychometrists administering, on video - reviewed by PsyD at a clinic that solely works with autistic/suspected-autistic patients, she met with me for an hour 1:1 after reviewing the dual-camera angle footage from psychometrist sessions, and issued the formal diagnosis), and truly hope to see what the commenter I am replying to brought up explored on this channel: calling it a temper tantrum is just more stigma we do not need heaped upon us. hard enough as it is, especially given the correlation with autism / undiagnosed autism and su*c*de (see the work from University of Kent's Dr Damian Milton on the Double Empathy Problem on why our voices truly ought be considered more, especially re: the Allistic deficit in their Theory of Autistic Mind 😉😇 which I bring up due to this video getting into discussing our perceived difficult with Theory of Mind (for example, sit with the possibility that the frustration Allistics experience from a perceived lack of empathy due to behaviors of a one-off autistic person in their life not matching expectation or the typical expression the majority culture might instinctively give, and open yourself to the possibility that an autistic person is experiencing that level of feeling unseen, unheard, misunderstood, and not cared for/not having expressed needs met in the MAJORITY of their interactions, and so we are going to be pretty frayed by this as a standard, and meltdowns are not temper tantrums, they are the raw overwhelm from a lived experience that lacks the comfort of subconscious attunement from the world around us as a norm) additionally recent work from Baron Cohen and others doing an inquest into several hundred deaths from su*c*de and finding a disturbingly high number of likely undiagnosed autistic people among the decedent) many of us who are undiagnosed until late in life kinda wind up honing in on understanding autism on the way to our diagnosis, so i am very familiar with the progression of our understanding of autism, and the continued progress being made... bettelheim's theory/fridge moms, Aspergers eugenics, autism being under schizophrenia prior to 1980, switch to pdd infantile autism with DSM-III, expansion of the criteria in 87 with the dsm-iii-R, Aspergers introduction in 94 c PDD-NOS category introduced with dsm-IV, rise of autism speaks and the lancet's Wakefield fiasco (those poor kids at that birthday party), controversy around the puzzle piece org, dsm-v release and retiring of Aspergers circa 2013 with reformat to Autism Spectrum Disorder, I try to follow the latest research presented at INSAR annually, etc etc etc definitely would appreciate your flexibility as a clinician if I were your patient, thank you for trying to meet each patient within a framework aligned with their goals. I definitely fall more into viewing the issuezms we face thru the lens of the social model of disability camp rather than medical model of disability camp with both adhd and autism, so greatly appreciate how you unpacked that with the desert island, contrast to ramps and braille, etc also greatly appreciate your intentional recognition of the difficulties girls and women face being accurately diagnosed, especially appreciate the eggshell example - LITERALLY used that example in my MIGDAS session - hearing you acknowledge this and other things does a lot to generally cause me to feel safer with you if I were to be a patient under your care, and it is because of how important that is that I wanna help you avoid getting more flack from folks via the broad strokes references to our shutdowns and meltdowns as a temper tantrum. the care you have is apparent and I want to help you win with us because of that truly appreciate your work and hope this comment hits gently and that I am communicating effectively! one more thing re: theory of mind - I am but one person, but have also been pretty active in some online autistic spaces, and for what it is worth (and again, back to the double empathy problem), I definitely have the intellect to parse possible meanings of person's actions and word use, and possibilities of how to interpret them, I just have a pervasive awareness of how often I have guessed wrong, and even if I have gained skill and guess 98% correctly, if anything in that 2% uncanny valley is a high stakes mistake I am still doomed by it and the other 98% is discarded. plus it's kind of the nature of the territory of the uncanny valley that getting 98% of the way to passing as allistic is creepier than being only 50% of the way there. it's not always scripts, sometimes it is manual internal calculus and hopefully lucky guesswork cross checked across a lot of intentional study of both psychology and things like popular media, relationship advice forums, etc which I guess you could say is just a really algorithmically complex script, realizing that as I type this out. I guess my issue with script is that there is, at least for me and many I know, also a portion that is practiced improv based on internal llm training on the aforementioned archtypical script examples. so like a good jazz chart, there is the main skeleton, but soloing does happen on top of that framework anyways this is a long comment so I'll stop there. PS LOVE the ng+ illustration, as it's actually a way I have thought about my own life as an undiagnosed-until-recently autistic woman, and I love doing challenge runs - I think I am the only person in the world who has done horizon zero dawn on ultra hard with no HUD / no reticule and investing zero skill points. so that illustration really hits nicely! be well 🧘🏻♀️
One thing to be aware of as far as autistic scripting is that autistic people aren't inherently scripted. When interacting with each other, autistic people don't feel a need to script. Autistic people socially script not because we feel a need to script, but instead as a coping mechanism specifically to deal with neurotypical people. You see scripting because the scripting is for you. It's not an inherent aspect of autism. It's an inherent aspect of how autistic people interact with YOU because the autistic perception is that neurotypical people punish autistic people who don't behave in exactly the right way.
This was a huge point I got from this video. I have no issues talking to other neurodivergent people. I feel the most anxiety and masking when talking with neurotypical people. The exception is neurotypicals who have experience interacting with neurodivergents.
I think this is less about whether the other person is neurotypical and more about how comfortable you are with that person. Im autistic and i know autistic people that i mask or script with because i dont feel comfortable with them. I also have neurotypical friends that i am very vulnerable and genuine with, and dont overthink my interactions with them. It would make sense that you would feel the need less with other autistic people not because they're the same type or person as you, but because theyre more likely to relate to you, have patience with you, and comminicate with you the way you need them to. This is possible with neurotypicals, they just need to learn how you work and have compassion.
Having listened to this entire thing, I’m concerned that there seems like there may be a conflation of temper tantrums in the place of meltdowns, as in, calling meltdowns as though they are temper tantrums. They are NOT the same in results or motivations or how to handle them. This needs clarification.
I was also immediately concerned when he said it like that; along with missing other overwhelm responses like shutting down. Around the 1hr mark, everything seemed to subtly conflate autistic experience with being more angry or hostile. We're not inherantly angry people, we're more likely to feel any emotion more intensely, to a point of overwhelm. Edit: This comment is/was only regarding the way meltdowns are discussed here as being emotional 'tantrums.' this is a harmful conflation as Strictnonconformist7369 calls out.
@@SaphosCorvid I have very good emotional regulation, certainly so long as I can self-regulate in my normal way. I don’t get visibly angry without a very solid reason, and emotions aren’t actually a reason that makes me likely to have a tantrum or a meltdown. By far, most of the root cause for me to have a meltdown is sensory overload and/or stress over a very prolonged period of time, and a final bit of emotion overflow may finally push me over the edge. But, I’m talking years in between! Even decades. It’s to the backwards scenario that I finally had what was clearly autistic burnout last year at 51, and being unable to sleep more than 4.5 hours of sleep per night for over 2 weeks while also experiencing extreme work stress (employment insecurity) that finally pushed me into a meltdown, while in burnout. And it wasn’t violent or angry in nature. I’d be curious if others are more likely to go into burnout before a having a meltdown, I’ve not read or heard of it working this way for anyone else.
Also I've found with the spectrum, as people age and get older their meltdowns tend to turn into shutdowns majority of the time and the actual meltdowns happen much less.
@@aster_11this is interesting because I don’t really have meltdowns, even as a kid I get shutdowns a lot so people just assume I’m cold or aloof I call it brain malfunction because I’ll just freeze like a computer program crash
I felt the same way, it seems both a disrespectful and incorrect choice in wording. An autistic person responding to very real overwhelming situations and a toddler acting out for attention are two very different things.
When you talked about su*cidal*ty, I completely lost it. I just broke down in tears... this have been my entire life experience, since childhood... when I had my first ideation at age 10. And to hear that 25% of us are struggling the same way. I am heartbroken for myself... and for all of my fellow people on the spectrum. I'm so sorry, you guys are not alone! Even though we feel alone or outcasted and alone. I just want to say Thank You Dr. K. PLEASE CONTINUE TALKING ABOUT THIS... Too many of us are deeply suffering.
Would like for there to be a video on a topic of HOW to find a mental health professional who is qualified to perform an ASD diagnosis. I went through 3 professionals who all insisted I wasn't ASD. Confident in my findings and data sheets that I spent 2 years putting together, the 4th professional I found had experience diagnosing ASD for 40 years - at the end of our 15 total hours together she concluded, "There's no doubt about it, you're definitely autistic!" Why are there so many "pro's" who don't understand ASD and feel confident telling others they couldn't be ASD, when their knowledge about ASD is bupkis?
I think the problem lies in how the professional knowledge about ASD is evolving rapidly in recent years. And I think there are many new discoveries in the field in the near future. It took me 4 years from the moment I've suspected to an actual diagnosis. And the start was psychiatrists asking me "why do I even need a diagnosis?". From my experience in Poland you either go to specialists in Warsaw or try to count on some younger specialist who is much more up to date with current approach to ASD. I was diagnosed by a young psychologist but when it comes to actual help, there was no psychiatrist in my city, who had any idea how to help me in a crisis even with a diagnosis.
@@lilijagamingPsychiatrists should have mandatory tests to check knowledge on new research every couple years - if I'm paying price that is worth couple hours, or even days worth of minimal pay job I expect to not be able to poke holes in their words after doing hour of reasearch on topic that interested me, Mental treatment experience is like trying to get cured from phisical injury 600y ago, but they prescribe antidepressants instead of blood letting to get rid of Your deamons lol
Adult diagnosis is SO hard. Finding someone who works with adults at all is the first major hurdle. Then finding one in that pool who really understands how adult ASD works and can dig through decades of masking is another one. It's tough.
I can second this, although I would like to extend that in general knowing more about how to find professional help would well... Be a huge help. It's a thing constantly repeated online: "Find professional help" but the steps in doing so are incredibly unclear to a lot of people, and difficult even to people who do know the steps. It would really help people with autism to have a "script", so to speak, on the actual process, what to expect, what could go wrong or right, and where you should start when you are already at different levels of treatment or diagnosis. I know it'd be a boring video for most, but it's potential to help real people I think outweighs that.
I should have mentioned that my path to diagnosis was started through calling the psychiatry departments of my state's medical universities. They connected me with people who may know people (who then may know people) that have experience with adult ASD. I had to go through four levels of this but found someone. Be sure they are certified in ADOS-2.
If an NT want to know what it feels like to be autistic? Imagine that everything you do that you think is right, is actually wrong, and everyone treats it as such, and wants you to behave in a way you just cannot decipher in a short time, it takes years of trial and error to even get some things right a chunk of the time. And then, for no discernable reason, the things that you were getting right are suddenly wrong, and everyone blames you for getting it wrong without ever explaining why its wrong. This is not an exaggeration.
As a person with ADHD, and a lot of people with ADHD, ADHD+Autism or just Autism, I can think I can relate what you are describing. I recognize that my experience must be different than yours, but what you wrote still resonates with me. I don't think I have enough traits to be diagnosed with ASD, but I have some behaviours and experiences that feel to me that could be related to ASD rather than ADHD. It feels awful to try your hardest and then most of the time the result is that it is wrong or not enough, and I cannot seem to figure out why?
First off, I consider this a good overview. I think the way autism is explained here should be somewhat relatable for my general understanding of neurotypical thinking. So thank you for that! But I have a few things I would like to note: 1. “Temper tantrums” Calling autistic meltdowns “temper tantrums” is completely ignoring what is happening from the view of an autistic person having said meltdown. From the neurotypical adult view they might look the same. They are NOT. A temper tantrum is usually enacted by toddlers or younger children in a conscious effort to reach a certain goal (e.g. make their parents buy certain sweets). Labeling an autistic meltdown as a “temper tantrum” invalidates the utter distress and overwhelm, often even complete loss of control, an autistic person experiences, often due to overstimulation of some kind. The meltdowns are in no way a conscious decision to have, cannot be stopped by the person experiencing it and make them feel like sh** even afterwards. Meltdowns don’t stop happening when an autistic person grows up, adults can have them just like children, even if they may outwardly show in a different way. This topic cannot be adequately covered in a comment section, so please consider this a short abstract of a much larger topic and look for further information if interested. 2. Eye contact In my personal experience the thing about eye contact is not necessarily that it’s uncomfortable. It has more to do with the “social situation to get through” experience. Eye contact just doesn’t come naturally, just like many other things around socializing (recognizing social cues, tone, body language, etc.). While in a conversation I listen to the words while CONSCIOUSLY analyzing your facial expression, your tone of voice, how you move your body in tiny ways… and simultaneously process all this while scanning my rules for how to act myself. Oh, and trying to know when it is my turn to speak and what to answer and how to answer. If you ask me to also look at your eyes, making me think about when and how often to blink, the strange rules I STILL haven’t figured out about when to briefly look elsewhere and for how long before looking back and having to do the blinking thing again… it is EXHAUSTING! I promise I am listening and interested when I am not looking you in the eye. I can also promise you that, when I do look you in the eyes, I am still trying to listen to you… but I might miss a lot more of what you are saying and may respond inappropriately because I probably missed a lot of all the other things important for a conversation. It does not mean I do not want to listen to you, it does not mean I don’t like you or I am generally insensitive or can’t relate. It just means I do not have the capacity to process all of that at the same time as your words and I will probably not answer how I usually would have liked to, had I been able to get all of that at the same time. Quick disclaimer: this is my personal experience. If you have met one autistic person, you have met one autistic person. For someone else the experience might be completely different. Our brains are not only different from neurotypicals, our brains also differ from each other. There is no ONE autistic experience that is universally applicable to every autistic person. 3. ABA therapy I am glad the topic was approached the way it was here. To be frank in many cases ABA is abusive. People are taught blind compliance and nothing else. In general a dog trained in dog school is met with more consideration and understanding than a child in ABA therapy. And yes, there may be exceptions, there may be cases where this helps without causing trauma and/or PTSD, but that does not change A LOT of autistic persons are harmed by ABA therapy. So please consider very carefully, especially as a parent or caretaker of an autistic person who can not advocate for themselves, if there is really no other way to work WITH the autistic person to make life easier BEFORE sending them to ABA therapy. And no, I will not further discuss this topic. 4. Self-diagnosis Self-diagnosis is not seeing a few things on TikTok. If you get the idea you might be autistic from TikTok, and you truly are autistic, chances are you will go down that rabbit hole. Start researching, read articles, get in contact with the autistic community. Chances are you will have some kind of data collection on both autism and what applies/ doesn’t apply to yourself. There will be documents, spreadsheets, entire folders of what you consider valid data and facts before even broaching the possibility you “might be autistic” with anyone else. Seeking out professionals is not possible for everyone, for various reasons. I can promise, most of the autistic community will not care about you not having the paper saying you are autistic. Interacting with an other autistic person is often more eye opening than anything else you can research. At least it was for me. A diagnosis does not change who you are or how you experience the world. Your life will not suddenly change, because you get the label autistic. What will change is your perspective on life and yourself. If you are lucky, are able to get an official diagnosis and live in a country where a few accommodations exist, congratulations! There are chances this is not the case. What is the purpose of a diagnosis? Is it for accommodations (if they exist)? Sometimes an autism diagnosis can be harmful to your carrier, no matter your performance prior the diagnosis. In some cases one may be better off without an official diagnosis. So, if the diagnosis solely serves the purpose for yourself to be more accommodating to yourself, if you want a diagnosis to find people where you feel like you actually belong, who cares where it comes from? Maybe you find out down the line you are not autistic after all, but an HSP or whatever else that might be similar. You still found a starting point in learning about autism to learn more about yourself. In my opinion this is far more important than worrying about “being wrong”. In science you always start with a thesis, that might not be true. That doesn’t mean in hindsight it was “wrong” to look into it in the first place. And if the only takeaway from the entire endeavor is to have learned more about the topic, that is just as valuable as being “right”.
Such good points, and so well explained! I agree with all of these from my experience and research. On distinguishing temper tantrums vs meltdowns, also worth noting that adults do have temper tantrums too, i.e. angry outburst to achieve a result. Though probably not a (fully) conscious decision, it's definitely controllable (which is not the case with a meltdown). In my very autistic family, there's a lot of this. But I'm not generalising! This is just about my experience in my family. In my family we tend to shutdowns rather than meltdowns, but we all struggle with so many things and we do get angry as a way of trying to gain control. It was only as an adult that I realised that what we engage in is a form of bullying.
@@tiddlypom2097 that is a good point about the tantrum/meltdown part. Thank you for the additional info 😊 As you noted there is always a lot going on, so it is sometimes hard to keep things straight. Growing up in my family of 4, 3 of us are autistic (bless my mom, she is the most patient human I know!) and temper tantrums were never a thing for us. I guess I attributed tantrums to younger people due to the larger amount of data on temper tantrums in children compared to adults (though I don’t really get why anyone would think that to be a good idea, but I digress). An other point to add to my research backlog 💜
@@Hexanitrobenzene thank you! I am glad to know it helped you understand my experience. I often struggle to describe my point of view in a way others understand and I am so happy it worked for you! 💜
I also wish you would talk about double empathy. Autistics don't generally have trouble socializing with autistics, just like neurotypicals get along with neurotypicals. It's when an autistic and a neurotypical try to socialized that there are issues. The reason self diagnosis is more accepted in the autistic community is because people who are autistic tend to spend 100's of hours doing research on it, including the DSM criteria. We don't take 1 test, we take 30 (and look at the scores). I don't know about TikTok, but my research was largely on RUclips. By the time I went for my formal diagnosis (because I am privileged enough to be able to) I had a 12 page document matching my traits and experiences to the DSM criteria. I was diagnosed with Level 2 autism (and ADHD Combined) at 51 years old.
I'd love to get a formal assessment, but my options are to pay $2000-5000 that I don't have or get referred to join an 8+ year wait list. But I've read 4 books and tons of blog posts and articles about autism, watched lots of videos from autistic RUclipsrs, chatted with other autistic people, and scored well within the autistic range in every screening test I could find. I also have a family member who's confirmed to be autistic as well as another suspected one, and my family has actually brought up the possibility of me being autistic in the past. I'm slowly getting past the imposter syndrome of self-diagnosis.
@@estreet83 I used Prosper Health, telehealth in FL. I only had a month wait and it was $950 out of pocket. I now have an official ASD L1 diagnosis I can use to justify remote work
66 pages and counting of notes documenting all my thoughts and memories that fit into the diagnostic criteria, and I've been synthesizing that information into a graphic I was told is called a mind map (now half the size of a sheet of poster board in small freehanded print, lol). Since the flow lines include categories like "motor skill related" I'm not sure "mind map" is the best name for it... but on the other hand, I guess everything, whether physical or mental, is driven by my autistic brain, so. (saw the mind map thing shown on the Autistic AF RUclips channel; before he could explain what it was in the video, my brain instantly comprehended what I was seeing & also knew it was what I had to produce in order to talk usefully about it to my psychiatrist... he thinks I can't be autistic because I got good grades in school, played orchestral French horn in school - ie, creating music in a group - and because I have friends. Wish me luck with this guy... )
I have the opposite result with socializing with autistic people, being autistic myself. The feeling is that we, in the spectrum, are from a different world in this world of allistics. But just cuz we are all aliens, doesn't mean we came from the planet. By that i mean that what often bounded us together was solely the, often traumatic, outsider stigma.
If you would like to do another video on autism, PLEASE include another autistic content creator like Meg (I'm Autistic, Now What?), Quinn (Autistamatic), or Mike (Autistic_AF). Because while you did a WONDERFUL job, especially as someone who does not experience or specialize in autism, you are getting a few minor things incorrect, using language that the autistic community has clearly expressed we do not like, and perpetuating harmful stereotypes (a meltdown is not a temper tantrum, it is a state of extreme dysregulation that often comes with memory loss!) It is extremely important to not only have an autistic person by your side to correct this misinformation, but to give a more accurate portrayal of what it's like to EXPERIENCE autism. I would love to hear you discuss, alongside autistic creators, current prevailing autism theories that are rarely discussed by neurotypical professionals such as double empathy.
Yes he said for neurotypicals the most important thing is to be compassionate or empathetic (can't remember exact word), so following your advice he could put his money where his mouth is! I noticed a few things that we would have considered unhelpful when I became interested in Asperger's/Autism in relation to family members in the 00s. - so this video seems "a bit 20th C" to me.
This is a good suggestion. Similar to his vid with asexuality, this topic would be much more meaningful if he were in conversation with someone from the communities he talks about. I'm sure there are folks in his field and it would greatly reduce the amount of statements that go unchallenged and may reflect data that hasn't aged well. Unless that's intentional on his part to drive up engagement since I'm sure 20%+ of comments are corrections. 💀
1:00:00 As an autistic person I want to take my life not just because. It is because a shitty life. It's objectively bad. Even with 4 degrees the best I can do is a min wage. There is no help. The discrimination is EXTREME. I in my life am stuck in a situation where I have toxic family members, I have cptsd due to my sister. And if it wasn't for my parents I would be homeless. I don't think it is not being able to see a happy future when there is one. I flat out don't see any possibility at all outside of extremes like winning the lottery my life can get better. Like even if I can use my degrees. I'm dealing with autistic burnout and I can't even remember basic things some days.
My heart goes out to you. I know I cannot really help you solve your problems. And even if some things sound familiar, only you know your own struggle. However, no matter how shitty the life is, as long as you are breathing, there is a chance. My 20s where an absolute hell on Earth. In the 30s things started to look a bit better but the job that made things better at first, has become a trap I'm having hard time getting out of. And only now in my early 40s I'm starting to have something I can call a plan for life. There is also one thing that surprised me greatly - few weeks ago I was sure I will never get back to work. My psychiatrist was horrible and instead of being honest with me that she has no idea how to help me she kinda started blaming me for "not wanting to get back to work". Last month I've finally changed a psychiatrist and he tried a type of antidepressant I've never heard about before and it clicked. My mind went from "I am quitting my job here and now" to "I see a possibility of giving it a try" (however with a new approach and if it's still bad, then I will quit). I am not telling you this example so that you do the same or I do not claim there is a pill that will help you. Rather an example of "you never know". I know that when you are in hell there is no hope. I've been in such a spot. People can get out of hopeless situations... all kinds of people can. Are there completely hopeless cases? Maybe. But I think those are really rare and extreme. When you are in hopeless hell, even a possibily of hope in the future can be enough to hold onto. I wish to you that you find or build your own possibility of hope.
I wanted to comment to sort of reassure you with the whole ‘everything will be okay’ BS, but fuck me do I feel the same way. Part of me deeply just doesn’t want to be on this planet at all, I quite literally feel alien, like I’m cosplaying as a human and being so hyper aware/analytical of every social interaction or thing is exhausting to say least. I have attempted in the past to ‘end it’ shall we say as a nicer way to put it.. but what I will say is that even as I nearly went through with it I had almost instantaneous regret, which really hit me- as if I don’t ACTUALLY want to do this really, it’s just I’m fed up of playing by other people’s rules/expectations of what I should be or act like.. So start doing things that really touch your soul, try to reframe using these neurotypical accolades as a driving force cuz that’s just an empty pursuit. That might be quite vague obviously not knowing much about you but at least find comfort in the fact that their a people, like me, in the world that relate to this n are struggling also, cuz who knows one of those people might end up being a friend/partner :)
@@myles5388 the problem with the "do what you love thing". While I agree generally. The problem is, when society shits on you all the time. Like I'm in my mid 30s, unemployed, and I don't have a physical disability. I deal with situations often that makes my ctpsd worse because my other choice is homeless or death. But at the same time I'm treated as a loser for not making it. Or those around me very much use it against me. The best thing I've ever done was giving up. The problem is, I've been giving up for 5 or so years and it's basically impossible to fully give up since you only need 1 good job, 1 good person, etc and things could work out. Its a damn if you do and if you dont
Exactly. I feel the same way and most of the other autistic people I know are in the exact same situation. It's hard to not feel hopeless when the world is basically designed to keep you out.
I wonder whether you might think daydreaming or thinking "if only (...)" is unfruitful or even heartbreaking and you prefer to not do it. Do you think so?
"I don't like the way that your behaviors make me feel; I want you to change so I feel better." Hit the nail on the head. In all aspects of life, this happens, and I'm so damn tired of it. Thanks for the vid; I'm getting an assessment done soon.
This was a really cool video, and I'm another person who felt heard throughout. Two points I'd add: finding professional help is often difficult with autism, as most of the literature is based off of children with autism, which obviously oftentimes differs from how adults display autism. Before I got diagnosed at Embrace Autism, the website you where you showed the masking questionnaire, I tried in two different countries to get answers. In one, both my psychiatrist and psychologist told me they thought I had autism but didn't know what the procedures were to get an adult diagnosed, and in the UK I got the same response from a GP there -granted, GPs are not specialists in mental health, but she didn't even know who to ask. If the professionals don't even know where to start, how can we? We cannot trust social media, oftentimes cannot trust the internet, and the professionals are oftentimes unaware as well - it took me over two years from suspecting I was autistic to getting a diagnosis, and I've heard many accounts of this issue. The second point is that autism also presents differently, and can be perceived differently, based off of culture and gender. In cultures where physical touch or visible displays of emotion are less commonplace, many autistic people may "fly under the radar" more easily, and vice versa - I myself had to get told at every social gathering to remember to go hug and kiss everyone before scurrying off to play alone, and even was even asked by family members if I didn't think it was odd I the way I acted. Totally agree with you on the "getting too focused on whether it's a boon or a curse" thing, though I'd like to add a thought on social interaction. Though autism is associated with a social deficit, that social deficit is oftentimes far more prominent when we interact with neurotypicals than with other autistic people. For example, I find myself constantly overexplaining myself to neurotypicals because as a kid and teenager I was frequently misunderstood and got into trouble for it - however, when I interact with other autistic people, or those who understand autism, I'm reminded I don't have to overexplain myself, as they get what I'm saying. They know I'm not saying words with the negative connotations they are often associated with, but rather as just their basic definition. They know that my more intense eye contact is not meant to be aggressive, I just don't know when to look away from people. They know that my facial expression sometimes doesn't match my emotional state, and they can just ask me. They know that when a car goes by, I get dazed, and go quiet and can't understand what they say - so they expect it. All this to say, our communication doesn't always look so deficient when we are communicating with people who either experience the world the same way we do, or who understand it even if they don't experience it themselves. The problem isn't always "there is a deficit in social capabilities *period*", but it can also be "there is a mutual misunderstanding when allistic and autistic individuals communicate" - or other problems altogether, of course, this is just my experience. The experiences of autistic people are vast, and can be vastly different from one person to another, as you said. There's so much I couldn't speak of, as I don't experience it myself, but it's so awesome to see this topic on this channel and watch different people get together and explain their perspectives!
Not only is the old literature based on children, it was almost all measured from an outside perspective on what reduces perceived "autism symptoms" and not on the actual well-being of the person. The exposure treatments given are literal torture that cause ptsd for many. It seems to be changing now with autistic lead research, but its important to understand that a lot of research was not done with our best interests at heart. Aspergers was literally defined by nazis...
@@skidmark5308 The point about "autism symptoms" stuck out to me as well. My immediate thought was "yes, you reduced the symptoms, but where does the actual patient come into this equation? Does the person you 'treated' actually have an improved quality of life, or does it just appear that way from an NT perspective?" It would be like training someone not to vomit when they're nauseous, but never actually addressing the nausea.
There actually is research backing up your experience. It's referred to as the Double Empathy Problem, and it shows that autistic people have no problem communicating with other autistics, just like allistics have no problem communicating with other allistic people. Problems start to arise when people with autism and neurotypicals try to communicate. And usually, the person with autism is blamed while communication is a two-way street
The way you're talking about repetative behavior is not about being high or low functioning. Nearly all of us stim, some of us have learned to do it covertly (and then have to unlearn it later). High verbal and high achieving folks also use echolalia. And you need to stop saying temper tantrums. Meltdowns are not tantrums! It's not about not getting our way, it's that our nervous system is overwhelmed. This is especially harmful for kids, when people think they are just throwing a tantrum, when their sensory, exec function and or social cjallenge literally overwhelm their nervous system. We don't have control over a meltdown. It's not a choice. Please stop saying tantrum.
It is about getting our way. The state we need is LET ME BE ALONE AND COMFORTABLE AGAIN AND IN A SAFE ENVIRONMENT, we can't go either way, absolutely not. A kid throwing a tantrum at a supermarket can live and function without that candy, an autistic can not exist in bad environment. It is exactly a tantrum, only a stronger one.
@@inesx3071I'd argue most kids also feel high level of stress when they do that, don't believe in machiavellian toddlers. (the difference lies in cause and severity.)
@@inesx3071Temper tantrums are intentional and meltdowns are not. Kids learn to behave a certain way to get their way but meltdown isn't a learnt behaviour. When in meltdown, you're not constantly checking if people are willing to give in on your wishes and then just crying even harder, to make it happen.
@@inesx3071We do need conducive environments. But I think there is a real danger in calling a meltdown a tantrum. If a kid wants candy, you say no and they throw a tantrum, but then you turn around and give them the candy, the tantrum stops becausethey got what they wanted. A meltdown won't, because it's not a tactic to get something. You might have a meltdown because something in your environment is bad for you, and you may want that thing to change. But you don't have the meltdown in order to get that change. I'm betting you don't say to yourself, I don't like that thing I think I'll have a horrific meltdown so someone will fix it. We have meltdowns because our nervous system gets overwhelmed and we lose control. I don't know about you, but even if I 'got' that environmental change it wouldn't stop my meltdown while it was happening because it wouldn't immediately reregulate me. It might prevent one in the future, but I'm not having a meltdown to make someone give me something. I simply get overwhelmed and lose control. If we call a meltdown a tantrum, we feed into the stereotype that we're just being manipulative to get our way (like with the candy) rather than the reality that it is the result of a very real need not being met. If people think we're 'just throwing a temper tantrum' they will, imo, continue to not listen to us and not take our needs seriously.
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As someone diagnosed with autism as a kid, your style is good with accepting that you aren't an expert and also really shows you aren't an expert. ABA has a bad reputation because people with very narrow psychology education push experiments seemingly without ethics committee review, or getting any actual psychology experts' views to prevent obvious trauma.
Been working in ab ABA facility as lead direct care, and shift supervising for 10 years. Every person holding a degree in ABA treatments and approaches is never the person dealing with the aggressive children. And you all have the exact same philosophies and parrot the same balogna that gets staff injured and often permanently, because you expect adults to just take beatings from violent children and do nothing that MAY cause trauma. All in the name of your degree and self-supposed moral superiority. Staff safety counts too. ABA is as harmful as physical restrictive measures and restraints, it just manifests different. The children need to learn boundaries, especially with violent outbursts. Especially if that violence is hospitalizing your staff. As with ANY program geared towards minors on the spectrum, there is no one-size-fits-all solution and each child should be programmed on an individual basis. Sometimes ABA is the solution. Sometimes ABA is the problem. This new "hands off" push happening over the past decade is harming as many kids as it is helping.
@@bbsoldiertwitch The argument is to take steps that prevent obvious trauma, which goes beyond ABA. If you read everything as some new hands off push then you are misinformed.
yea I found the whole "antipsychotics to reduce temper tantrums" thing very disrespectful and dangerous. all behavior is communication, and meltdowns are not tantrums.
Yeah. Understanding and accommodating go a long way. We as a society shouldn't be looking to take away the "bad behaviour" but to understand what lies beneath and what caused it - it's the challenges in living in a world that is built in a way that's hostile to your neurotype.
"drugging kids" why did you phrase it like that? If you think he's evil just say that. But don't go acting like giving kids medication for a mental illness is inherently bad. ADHD drugs are some of the best forms of treatment. Especially when started at a young age. Aka when you're a kid.
@@weirdo3116 That's not quite what they said based on how I understood it. For autism *specifically* - giving kids meds to calm them down instead of addressing what's agitating them and accommodating their needs is the issue. It's like trying to manage symptoms without even trying to understand the underlying issue; like drinking your problems away instead of doing something to help.
@@ivanljujic4128 they said "drugging kids" and left it at that. I can only go off of what they said. Maybe he meant just for autism. But if so he should specified. Just the same as others here do with Dr.k.
a good idea for another autism stream is to interview an autistic content creator (preferably a neurodiversity-positive one). i think Meg from "I'm Autistic, Now What?" youtube channel would be a great pick, as she reacted to your old interview mentioning autism.
yes I want to see this so bad! I think she would be a great person to talk to about some things that didn’t get covered in this video, like burnout, stimming, monotropism, PDA, etc. since she has made some really great videos of her own on these topics
I know it's a lot to cover on one live, but I do think he missed some important things. The double empathy problem, meltdowns/shutdowns/verbal shutdowns, the theory of monotropism, intense world theory, our ability to see patterns and details others miss, autistic burnout. I'm sure others in the community could add more. It would be really good to have an actually autistic perspective.
I self diagnosed last year and got the diagnosis this summer at age 44. I love my autism. Life has been hard and now I know and understand why. That has made my relationship with myself and life much easier, because I finally got permission to stop chasing „normal“. I always knew I wasn’t normal but was scared that I was just being entitled or arrogant. In 2020 I started my journey with plant medicine, and especially the ego death healed that hole in my soul, which I now understand came from masking/not being my true self/not being in touch with my soul. Psychedelics helped me get to know the true me and fall in love with it. They helped me open my heart and get in touch with my feelings. That presents a new set of challenges, but life is much more enjoyable now! 🙏
This comment turned out long, but I do hope it comes to your attention HG: I am autistic, recently diagnosed, I spend A LOT of time particularly engaging with autistic communities online, and holy shit this video is so conflicting for me. There are a lot of things in this video that I think HG put really well, like the eggshell analogy to me seems very accurate. But then he refers to meltdowns as temper tantrums, which I get is likely just ignorance to a more accurate term, but it is a bit weird hearing misused terms from someome taking a platform with a status of authority on mental health related topics and misusing some basic terms. I dont want to harp on that so much, I see other people talking about it in the comments too, but I do want to talk about his self diagnosis section. If you read this HG, I do not mean this to be offensive, but that section on self diagnosis is very poorly discussed. It seems, at least in the way you presented it, as though you have only considered one angle, that self diagnosis is not valid, and that online discussions of autism are misleading. You also seem unaware of difficulties around late diagnosis, and social media's role in helping adults learn about autism who otherwise may have never considered that they are autistic. So first off, a clarification: I agree, 1 tiktok cannot give anyone enough information to diagnose themself. It is far too narrow and simplistic a view into autism. And I know there are some people identifying as autistic when they likely are not, but they relate to autistic people in some ways. And I understand that can be harmful for autistic people. However, a lot of people now learn about autism through online and social media exposure, at least initially. I did. This is not a click on a single video situation for most of us who are autistic. You start with 1 video of course, or one short clip. For me, it was a youtube video that resonated with me to a scary extent. Then I spent about 6 days straight diving into and learning about autism via social media, tests like RAADS-R, CAT-Q, AQ, and many more, and reading about it. All of this, was just to boost my confidence to even consider there might be an explanation as to why im different besides me just being a failure. Then after months of engaging in online autistic communities and learning about it more passively, I finally worked up the courage to get evaluated. And then I backed out and cancelled, then tried again months later and finally did it, and turns out I am autistic like I thought. I didnt go around telling people I was diagnosed during this time, I did however tell people that I was very confident I am autistic, and I that was not diagnosed. This helped get me some accomadtions I desperately needed pre diagnosis in multiple areas, including work. The reason I bring any of this up, is that someone in your position wholey devaluing social media presentation and discussion of autism without first trying to understand other perspectives, discourages people like me from getting help. If I had seen this before my diagnosis, especially early on, I likely would have internalized that my exposure to autism was misled and invalid, and that I was making a bad decision by relating to autism and investing intense general stress and financial stress into a formal diagnosis. Imposter syndrome is a serious issue for a lot of us learning about autism who are undiagnosed later into life. And yes, I know you mention seeing a professional if you suspect something, but that is so mucj easier said than done. Especially for mamy of us late diagnosed autistic people, and of course many others in need of help. Seeking proffessional opinions is not easy and for many many people like myself is not by any means accessible. Also there is an issue of misconception and a lack of understanding regarding autism, particularly around masking, in clinical and other professional perspectives. For many people, self diagnosis, or self identifying, is as good as it can get, due to mental health, social, financial, or misunderstanding reasons. Im lucky I was able to get evaluated, and that I actually was able to go through with being evaluated. This stream put some things i to words really well that I could not have before, but it also perpetuates some frustrations someone like me sees from people who do not understamd autism. And it is especially frustrating to see some of these issues or ignorances coming from someone who is in the online sphere of psychology, is a psychiatrist and holds that status of authority, and is obviously well researched in many areas. I know HG is not an expert, and I appreciate his readiness to clarify that. But to me at least, it still feels as though he comes at this subject from a perspective of heavy research and understanding, but then perpetuates certain things that I think would be easy to avoid by simply engaging with wider autistic communities, particularly online communities, since this video is contributing to a social media conversation it is clearly somewhat removed from. Seriously such a strange experince watching this. Some moments, about half, felt incredibly exciting to see someone in a position of authority talking about and handling so well, and the roughly other half was incredibly frustrating for the exact opposite reasons. Sorry for the long comment. I'm very hyperfixated and passionate about autism and its complexities. I overall appreciate this video, and I hope this comment ends up being contructive criticism.
I am going to lecture, and this could be a stretch. But with how the video was pieced together you can kinda see that his perspective was mainly informed through research, and him putting it into his own words ( which is the point of the channel ). The words he chooses are also designed to be understandable to a general audience. Maybe a stretch again, but I am sure he knows of the term "autistic meltdown" but decided that temper tantrum would be more understandable to a general ( which is bad or good depending on how you view. I am not autistic myself, but maybe a better analogy would be like an "overdose from sense" but again I don't know much about this topic. ) I guess the only concern is that when I think of a "primer," I think of the thing as an introduction to a subject, not necessarily the end all be all. But it seems like definition of the word means "excellent," but depending on how you see the word this video can be taken differently. Lets zoom out from the ideas though, the point of this video is not a complete autistic guide ( clearly, I would say ) since it is an "intro". If a person is wondering if they could be autistic and are involved a gaming community ( or they just want to learn more about it), this could be a start. Then they can research more about autism on own their own. I would say this is alike how the complex numbers or restrictions or more complex ideas in mathematics are not introduced in elementary school. But they are introduced later on as we learn more about the topics. This video is just the starting town ( where the starting town represents a video that could incite more research about autism )
@@owlfrogelephants I think it wouldn't be so bad if it was just simplified, but he's basing a lot of explanations off of negative, *incorrect* understandings of autism. If a meltdown is too hard to understand, then comparing it to a panic attack might be better (both uncontrollable, and because the environment/situation is overwhelming, and deserve sympathy from other's not ridicule). Calling it a tantrum make us sound more like children causing a fuss because we didn't get our way, instead of accurately explaining that we find things a lot more distressing than most people. He sort of set this up earlier, saying we're more likely to hate the gym or food far more than non-autistic people, so I don't think there's a good reason why he wouldn't expand this concept to meltdowns. He also uses outdated terms which also leads to him miscategorises things. The mild to severe scale of autism has been made redundant now, basically, it's a very inaccurate way of understanding autism. Autism isn't like anxiety or depression that work more on a scale of intensity, because it's a pervasive condition (affects many areas of your life) you may exceed in certain things but really struggle in other areas. Instead, support needs are a better way of understanding autistic individuals because there's more of an understanding that people need different things to support them. Maybe one person only needs headphones to be able to cope with overly loud noises, but maybe another needs to leave the situation altogether. And maybe the person who only needed headphones really struggles with minor changes to their routine and will experience meltdowns from that, whereas the second person is completely unaffected by it. We can't say Person A has "mild" autism because they need less help with noises than Person B, and we can't say Person B is more "high-functioning" because they need a less rigid routine. They both just struggle in different areas, so comparing one autistic person to another based on only one of their struggles doesn't make sense. This is what the Spectrum part of the name refers to. I think this misunderstanding also leads to Dr K categorising hand flapping and echolalia in the "severe" autism category, when any autistic person can experience these things regardless of their level of support needs (and I think also defines echolalia incorrectly, or at least only gives the most extreme example). The problem isn't necessarily that it isn't a complete guide, but that the foundations which this video is trying to set up are flimsy, and promote an outdated understanding of autism as well as some more negative stereotypes. For example, by setting up in this introductory video, that autistic people find it difficult to put ourselves in other people's shoes is questioned by the Double Empathy Problem. Which basically states that both neurotypical and autistic people struggle to understand each other because we both perceive and understand the world differently. It's not that autistic people are bad at this, I'm sure many of us autistic people have had neurotypical people make negative assumptions about us and then treat us poorly because of it (bullying being a common experience of autistic people...not very empathetic of the neurotypical people to bully us, I don't think...). But, because Dr K has already made the claim that it's an autistic issue, if he ever talks about the Double Empathy Problem and clarifies that it's not down to us being horrible, heartless monsters, people will have to unlearn something that he said in this video which might make it even more difficult for people to understand because they're being given conflicting information.
@@looc_96 I still believe what I said still holds from everything you said. If not, and I swear half the things you said were addressed in the video ( sensory explanation ) and/or are simplifications/inadditions ( double empathy problem, low/high functioning ), and other things. I just don't know enough about this topic to say with high confidence, aswell as I don't have any interest in continuing to follow it. So I am done commenting on this chain. Just in summary, it seems like the autistic people watching his video just nitpick his analogies and simplifications ( which I know doesn't mean anything for a lot of autistic people (I know from experience), but socially it looks really bad. That doesn't mean that much to me, however many others though I know will not like what they comment )
@@owlfrogelephants If you don't know about the topic, and people with the condition are telling you he's spreading misinformation about their condition, what makes you think that you're more correct than people with the disorder? The things weren't addressed in the video, were not "nit-picking", autism is still stigmatised and using the most up to date terminology does matter. Non-autistic people having an issue with autistic people correcting misinformation about our own condition looks bad on them, not us. You don't understand why it's bad because you know nothing of the topic. That's your ignorance at play, and not wanting to follow the topic anymore is part of the problem of non-autistic people not understanding us. Dr K said we have "temper tantrums" and said we can't really put ourselves in other people's shoes, that presents us in a horrible light, and you assuming everyone is "nit-picking" when we're explaining why this is harmful only proves the point further. You're assuming the worst out of us, and don't want to adjust your perception when you admit to not knowing about the topic. Have some humility.
I remember being a kid and my older sister accused me of not having any common sense as an insult. When I was a teen she said I have no common sense with concern. Now I'm helping her navigate having an autistic kid from a point of experience.
I just got told by a frustrated loved one that I really “lack certain kinds of common sense “ just three days ago 😂 for context am a 27 year old woman and they have known me for a long time
My Dad used to say I had only book smarts, not street smarts. Now I'm making him rebuild his life from afar after distancing himself from literally every single one of his children due to his undiagnosed ADHD, childhood trauma and NPD. Book smarts sometimes ARE street smarts.
@@TransNationaleIt depends, as much as I'd like to travel, if I were to travel to like a high criminal area I would end up on liveleak. Because street smart also means aware of your surrounding, reading between the lines, knowing what to say to the robber with a gun etc. If I got myself into that situation I'm a gonner. This is even proven statistically, autistic people are more vulnerable; in like most regards.
If you're autistic like I got some literally life changing advice from a youtube channel called autism from the inside and I can't like emphasize enough how much his playlist on emotions explained helped me.
Literally the channel that helped me so much when I felt the most lost and confused about whether or not I thought was I autistic, and what to do about it.
Im definitely on the stage 2 because stage 3 need actually help daily. But it might help someone. My only problem is I don't value anything that is considered work or employable and have so much anxiety trying to make something new.
Thank you so much for this, Dr. K. I've recently started coming to the realization that all the confusion, frustration, loneliness, trauma and misery in my life have all stemmed from having undiagnosed autism. I'm still in the process of trying to figure out how to get a formal diagnosis without money, but I relate to all of the descriptions of autism in a way that I have almost NEVER related to anyone around me. Almost everything you said felt like you were reading from that script I was supposed to have, but never got. Everything you said made all the woes of my life feel seen and validated. I've never had anyone hear my descriptions of how it feels to be me and respond with anything other than dismissal, mockery or condescension, no matter how calmly and carefully I've broached the subject. I feel like I've had my rights to be a human revoked before I was even born. This stream has been such a game changer for me in understanding who I am and what I've been dealing with all this time. Thank you so much for advocating for people like me and letting the neurotypical world know that we're really hurting out here and could use even a tiny bit of understanding and patience. It'd help tremendously.
Soul gems, enchanted weapons, occasionally the spell ‘Soul Trap’ (I picked up my tome from the College of Winterhold,, but you can find them at most Alchemy Shops) /j
If anyone missed the point, he's making a joke that often autism actually helps you get that job which will make you "high functioning" in the society's eyes. It's ridiculous to suggest to medicate autistic people.
I think your description of food sensitivities is spot on, I think it's the best I've ever seen it explained by someone who doesn't struggle with it themselves. Additionally, while I would agree that trauma does not cause neurodivergence itself, I think you talked about it as if they are two independent things. I think this is also wrong. You mentioned a list of issues (emotional dysregulation, "temper tantrums"/meltdowns, executive dysfunction, socialization, etc) that are shared by autism and PTSD. While I don't think trauma _causes_ autism, I personally am pretty convinced a lot of the difficulties autistic people experience are related to trauma responses. There's a great TED talk about it by a guy called Guy Shahar which explains this very well. The idea is that autistic people are wayyyy more sensitive to a lot of things such that in extreme cases, a parent expressing disaproval with a slightly judgemental tone can be extremely traumatic, which could actually directly cause a lot of "symptoms of autism" such as the inability to talk, meltdowns, etc. This perspective really aligns with my own experience, while i where often I would get judged for things when I had no bad intent, which just hurts so much and really crushed my willingness to interact with others. This resulted in my displaying a lot of so called "problem behaviour", and the way people treated me for it is like adding a lot of salt to my wounds. It made me start to hate a lot of things including myself somewhat (though fortunately a part of me always remained knowing there was nothing wrong with me).
(Context: I'm a late diagnosed autistic person, working as a therapist) Great video and a good resource to share with friends and family who want a better understanding of autism. And also great for autistic people that are curious about the clinical perspectives (vs. lived experience that you see a lot of on social media). Would've loved to hear a different term for tantrums (sounds like a child who doesn't get his way. I assume you meant meltdowns). Secretly enjoyed the stereotypical examples with trains, though interests are extremely varied among people with ASD. Otherwise: extremely helpful, great metaphors (especially the quote at 1:51:55, and the eggshells on your eggs) Love to see a follow up!
On being raised without a diagnosis... (I am now diagnosed with asd lv 2) My parents slapped me many times when I was a child for being disrespectful... I still can't understand what I did wrong. It was fucking confusing not knowing why I was punished... Another thing is that none of my needs where knew or accommodated, ever, so they made me eat disgusting things, they scolded me for doing repetitive behaviors, and for having an hyperfixation. They didn't know what a meltdown was, how to avoid it or manage it... I remember the feeling of drowning and being held in a bathtub full of water, after the diagnosis I asked about it, apparently I was screaming and hitting myself so it was a meltdown , they view it as tantrum and they dealt with it that way.., I am 39 years old and I am still very afraid of water. All of those and many, many more experiences with poor parenting turned me into a child and an adult with selective mutism. Which, combined with my autism, made me a target for predators as a child, teenager, and adult. I'm thankful for these tiktok things happening tbh, I think a lot of parents will be more educated about ASD because of it...at least I hope so... (Btw, I don't speak English. Sorry for all the mistakes)
@tiddlypom2097 thanks, as I view it rn, all of that was ignorance and two undiagnosed adults, idk what tipe of diagnosis they have but ignoring your child's struggles so much is not normal tbh x for example dismissing the school when they say your child is not talking a word or just , having a baby that cried for a day and a half straight on the first travel outside that you had to travel back is not normal for a baby.. or if your baby cant stand crowded places, or a toddler that teaches themselfs math before knowing how to read... Is not normal... All of it were symptoms that something wasn't right
Not diagnosed yet, but this sounds so similar to my childhood. I spent so much of my childhood begging for my parents to explain to me what I was doing wrong so that I could fix it, only for them to insist "you know what you've done!" I oftentimes think that my parents may have recognized I was behaving like a disabled person, but genuinely believed I dedicated my entire childhood to faking a neurodevelopmental disability for attention and praise. Because to this day, I don't see how it wasn't blatantly obvious that I wanted to be a good kid and didn't know how.
You say that because we have difficulty with eye contact, we can't "see"into people's souls. So what does that say about blind people? Most of us, Autistic people, are amazing empaths. Some of us can "see" better in people's souls than you can. Also you nts need to understand that your lack of theory of mind is often less developed than ours but yet, you never choose to pathologize your own lack of theory of mind, you only pathologize what you assume is ours.
1:55:38 Autistic person here. The eye contact thing is very much related to nervous system overload and inflammation. I have gotten WAY better at appropriate eye contact as ive gotten older, but I still struggle a bit. Eye contact can be uncomfortable in a similar way to staring at a bright light can be. It triggers emotions, directly linked to the serotionergic pathways because making eye contact needs to trigger emotions for survival reasons (my guess). Its also very difficult to guess what someone else is thinking, and when you look them right in the eyes its like it makes you feel naked. Someone is looking at embarrassing parts of you, you know they are judging you in those moments, and you'd rather just look away. Gets better with age when you understand people better, and assuming you reduce inflammation and nervous system complications along with a lot of practice. More practice than a "normal" person would need to do.
I look just above people's noses. Apparently with family, my eye contact is very normal. If I am having an intense conversation or one that demands concentration, I look to the side of the person's head. I am much more focused on the content of the conversation when I'm not looking at the person. But I know what you mean about "nakedness." With people I don't know eye contact feels overly intimate.
@@steveneardley7541 Yeah im often the same way, which is why I have to force myself to look at people at least occasionally otherwise they will think im not paying attention, when in reality me not looking is me paying attention because my brain isn't occupied with visual stuff
My first therapist went from "i wish everyone listened to me like you do" to saying that i was a difficult person just because i was asking all the time how things are: I told hereI didn't know what i should wear, how to act, how to speak... And that i felt "my inner critic" speaking from getting up to going to sleep because i didn't know how to act like th rest, and she just told me that k was a difficult person. So i left. After some time I decided to go back to therapy because I wanted to know "what normal was" because i felt that i was losing reality. I went and when the therapist asked me what my purpose was, I said that I wanted to know what normal was, to adjust and so, to have a touch with reality. The therapist, to my surprise at the time, was very surprised and didn't understand. I tried to explain that i wanted to know what was a normal way to dress, live, etc. Somehow, it didn't ring any bells, he told me that I was an evitative person 😅 After more therapists, a friend with 2 diagnosed autistic kids told me that she and the father were clearly on the spectrum and knew after taking the kids to the specialists and that made so much sense suddenly. I changed from the worst continuous anxiety to almost no anxiety (just tge usual) and from despair of feeling defective and worthless to just wired different and not a problem, only different.
I’m really not sure if I’m on the spectrum or not. What confuses me is I can be exhausted a lot and it’s hard for me to break momentum of not being consistent with routines. But before autism got “popular” I never had any issue as far as people saying I acted different or saying I was strange etc… but now that Autism is all over TikTok all my friends are always saying “I’m so autistic” and they’ll call me autistic aswell. And I just doubt that a lot of these guys are autistic or even have any idea of what that really means
@@michaelbain9086 I have a spasticity problem, it causes parasite micro orders to be sent to my legs. There is no apparent movement but when I walk it reduces the precision/range of my movements. I was very surprised when I discovered the use of the term "spastic" in English and found it at least a insulting. Considering my experience and what Dr K said about the increased risk caused by a lack of oxygen at birth... I am pondering more and more if I am a little bit on the spectrum too. I have an amazing ability to listen which was useful at school but even with a well treated handicap socialization was... hard and it lead to what looks like a gifted kid graph. I have a neuro-psychological test planned in the near future. So that may finally put logical explanations where I had problems to fit in society.
I am really sorry you had that shitty experience with therapists. Been there too, and have been met with the same generic unhelpful answer. They don't get it.
Personally, I've had some horrible experiences with therapists, but once I got my autism diagnosis, I've found that I do so so much better with therapists who have experience with it. There were just so many frustrations "why can't you just *do* x??" from therapists who didn't *get* it, while those that know autism know how to tell me things in a way I understand.
On the point of "You decide whether you have a disorder or whether you're just different": Feels worth it to mention this, since a lot of y'all are statistically more likely to view the world in black and white :D It doesn't have to be one or the other. In myself (diagnosed neurodivergent) I see some aspects that I like and that make me me, and some aspects that really are just detrimental that I'm working on mitigating or even losing. Mix and match techniques to suit yourself, no need to decide on an entire approach!
After I got diagnosed with autism, my life became a lot easier shortly after. I live in a country (Denmark) where there are schools for people with autism and adhd, and where asessment is free. The main thing that made a difference was meeting people who were different like me, who accepted me and were honest with me. The school itself didn't actually do much for me personally, and I struggled a lot with anxiety when I left school, but it has gotten better. I have ARFID and learning to cook has actually helped, because now I can make healthy food without destroying the texture. I can keep the foods seperate if I want to. People don't understand my problems with food, but health is all that matters in the end. A note on the life expectancy in the past: People didn't always have children at a young age, and the life expectancy was 40 because many children died back then. People who reached adulthood lived longer than forty.
@@ALG3228 Yeah, I think it is sad to hear about people who have to save up to get diagnosed. There is some traveling expense if you don't live close to a place where they test people, but other than that it is free.
ARFID has been my single greatest difficulty in life and was a driving factor for what led me to investigate if I have autism. The eggshell analogy used here is the single best explanation of ARFID that I've ever heard and highlights how something as simple as eating can be incredibly difficult for people on the spectrum.
i think you are hung up on 'temper tantrums' (expressive overwhelm, meltdowns) in an actively outward aggressive form but by your own discussion there's a internalized passive expression of overwhelm and struggle. You say it's more seen in women, but also that women get missed because their presentation doesn't get noticed... maybe you're missing those in men too because it's not loud and showy/disruptive. your focus on 'tantrums' dismisses the autistic individuals (If we are saying the brain is wired different, then it's not something people have, it's the structure of their interface with reality, it's the neurotype) who deal with shutdown predominate response to overwhelm and masking strain.
Holy shit thank you, I’m just starting the video, my autistic roommate told me to look up female presenting autism and so so many things that clicked into place.
Agreed, the term temper tantrum equates the behavior to that of a spoiled child acting out, not a disregulated or sensory overwhelmed person on the spectrum. It's a loaded term that places a lot of shame on the individual. Shutdown or meltdown is preferred by most.
This guy just lost my respect. Understanding the difference between the ASD meltdown and “temper tantrums” is common knowledge. And he is supposed to be a “professional.”
I would say a good amount, if not most, professionals make that mistake and probably know even less than this on that topic. Shaming people doesn’t encourage them to grow, it pushes them out of a space. Also 100% how my boomer parents would understand it; they would need much more of an explainer on meltdown/shutdown etc, and at the end of it they would still say, “so, a tantrum?” Not everyone uses and understands language the same way.
@@darbydelane4588 it's most definitely not common knowledge. I don't know where you're getting this from. Up until 20 minutes ago when I saw people criticizing Dr.K for this i thought meltdowns and temper tantrums were essentially the same.
**TIMESTAMPS** [05:05] - General Disclaimer & Intro [06:18] - Announcements (references, social anxiety stream next week, new coaching spots open) [07:11] - Quick overview of coaching for those unfamiliar [08:54] - Today's Itinerary [11:07] - Disclaimer about Dr K's approach to ASD [12:34] - How is autism diagnosed and why is it classified as a disorder? [14:13] - The neurodiversity movement [15:51] - Dr. K's approach to the "disorder vs neurodiversity" debate [19:45] - Diathesis-stress model [22:58] - BRIEF INTERMISSION [23:10] - Lackluster accessibility accommodations for neurodiversity [24:23] - CORE FEATURES OF ASD [24:50] - #1: ASD is a spectrum [26:38] - #2: Difficulties with social & emotional reciprocity [26:54] - What does that mean? [30:49] - Symptoms [31:33] - An analogy from video games [32:23] - The treatment philosophy [33:38] - Example illustrating the difficulty of living with autism [35:29] - Symptoms (cont'd) [36:41] - Scripting [40:29] - Symptoms (cont'd) [41:43] - Digression about ARFID & differences in perception [46:26] - Symptoms (cont'd) [47:35] - The importance of context [48:03] - Anecdote illustrating how context matters [49:23] - The importance of context (cont'd) [50:52] - The trauma of growing up with autism [52:34] - "Appropriate" behavior [53:13] - One-sided relationships [54:23] - Being "taken in" by a friend group [56:06] - #3: Restricted/Repetitive behaviors, interests, or activities [56:30] - Explanation [57:10] - Autistic Savants [57:26] - An example from the 2008 financial crisis [1:00:02] - Autistic Savants (cont'd) [1:00:54] - Flapping, Echolalia, Patterned object use [1:02:11] - Rituals, Patterns of behavior [1:03:05] - #4: Emotional Regulation [1:03:31] - Amplified emotional & stress responses [1:06:38] - These core features, genotype and fenotype, short explanation of masking [1:07:54] - COMORBIDITIES [1:09:31] - (TW: Suicide) Suicidality & ASD [1:15:41] - Increased risk of trauma [1:18:30] - INTERMISSION [1:19:41] - WHERE DOES AUTISM COME FROM? [1:22:10] - Genetics [1:22:44] - Intra uterine environment [1:23:13] - Mitochondrial Dysfunction [1:23:52] - Gut/Brain interactions [1:40:41] - GENDER DIFFERENCES [1:41:14] - Differences in ASD presentation and cultural socialization makes diagnosis harder for women [1:48:28] - Gender identity and ASD [1:51:31] - THE EXPERIENCE OF AUTISM [1:51:56] - A quote from parents on the experience of having a child with (high-functioning) autism. [1:52:50] - Being simultaneously capable and incapable [1:54:30] - MASKING [1:54:30] - Explanation [1:55:18] - Example: eye contact [1:57:19] - Example: making friends [1:58:01] - Explanation (cont'd) [1:59:51] - The Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q) [2:02:41] - Social interaction is not enjoyed, is a labor to get through [2:03:10] - SELF-DIAGNOSIS [2:03:25] - ASD misinformation on TikTok [2:03:55] - What is needed for an ASD diagnosis [2:07:26] - TREATMENT [2:07:55] - Disclaimers [2:08:10] - Treatment/Interventions [2:09:57] - The earlier, the better [2:10:50] - Parental Involvement [2:13:50] - Behavioral Interventions (ABA/CBT) [2:19:23] - Pharmacology/Medication [2:23:27] - Social skills training [2:24:16] - DR. K'S APPROACH TO WORKING WITH ASD PATIENTS [2:33:01] - DR. K'S THOUGHTS [2:38:05] - ENDING ON A HOPEFUL NOTE [2:39:54] - A NOTE FOR NEUROTYPICAL PEOPLE [2:42:20] - Q&A [2:42:28] - "Does experiencing ego-death help coping with autism?" [2:46:53] - "Can trauma such as PTSD cause neurodivergence?" [2:49:10] - "What is the ayurvedic take on autism? [2:49:43] - "How do I know whether I'm subclinical/highly-masked ASD or just modelling my ASD parent's behavior?" [2:52:10] - "Any specific advice for genius- or savant-level autists?" [2:58:14] - CONCLUSION
How hard is parenting with ND... I was wondering why I was feeling so overwhelmed and unable to follow simple routines day in day out ... Lol can't mask my way through a 24/7 job.
I keep hearing on videos "if you have a diagnosed child you should get screened" then you ask to be screened around here as an adult female and all of the doors slam shut. Too many are still falling through the cracks. Thank you for seeing us and it's good to see at least somewhere women are getting proper care.
@@spiderling88 Good luck, as an adult male their eyes glaze over when I want to discuss autism just because I outwardly seem normal. They usually just ignore me when I mention it. 10 years ago, after only talking to me for about 3 minutes which just invovled basic greetings, I mentioned I thought I was autistic. He told me emphatically I was not. He didn't ask me any of my symptoms, and when I mentioned all the different problems I had he dissmissed them and said they could be caused by any number of factors.
Your language around this topic is getting better/less offensive. It used to be hard to listen to, but I can tell you’re trying to pick your words carefully. The preferred terminology within the autism community is “meltdown,” NOT tantrum. These are two fundamentally different things. Also, “high(er) support needs” or “low(er) support needs.” Saying someone is high or low functioning is insulting and/or inaccurate for either side. Most autistic people have spiky skill profiles. So what does it even mean to be high or low functioning, when most of us are not functioning at a consistent level across the board. Some autistic people are lawyers AND don’t know how to make/maintain friendships. Some autistic people are doctors, but can only tolerate eating 4 different foods without becoming ill. Some autistic people need round the clock care, but they are profoundly compassionate and great at bringing people together.
Hey Dr K, loved the stream, and since you asked us for ideas on what else to talk about autism, here are some things I would have liked to see addressed (with love and understanding that you can't fit everything in a single stream haha) - the theory of monotropism, the experience of autism for lower-needs/high-masking people especially people who go undiagnosed until adulthood, the self-doubt when you're pretty sure you are autistic but you don't have/can't get a professional diagnosis especially for high-masking people/women, the ethical concerns of the autistic community regarding ABA and a better description of what it is and how it achieves its goal, and last, one small detail I kept thinking about was how, in my experience as a woman, it's also very common for neurodiverse women to congregate in fandom/fannish spaces (including gaming, but things such as partaking in fanwork creation/consumption seem more female-dominated). Thanks for the stream, it was very nice to have you as a body double buddy for the evening and hear you talk about autism!
Really great list! Yeah fandom spaces are all full of women who either have ADHD and/ or autism it seems like for sure. I'm on the ADHD side of that. Been a fanwork creator (fanvideo editing aka vidding on this channel, also fanfiction and podfic) since 2006. It's been 18 years now.
The CatQ and all those kinds of questionnaires are so clearly developed by neurotypicals bc of the unstated assumptions like you were talking about in the beginning. Like all the questions about social situations for example. They keep using the word "people" but there are huge differences between people we know and feel safe with, people we know and feel unsafe with, acquaintances, coworkers, people in authority, and strangers. So which people? I generally am able to avoid interacting with *most* "people" these days to avoid dealing with a lot of these issues. And the only person I see regularly is my safe person who I am able to be almost completely unmasked around, at least I'm the least masked with them. I'm more comfortable with my family but there are some in my family even where I know I'm unsafe to really be myself. Obviously work is not a safe place, but I'm fully remote now. So if you're like me and have basically weeded out 98% of unsafe social interactions, but you're still autistic😅😅 that means you might take these questions and think about your recent interactions and say no I don't have a problem with that see, I have a solution! Just never interact with people 😅
So true! I was thinking along the same lines. I hardly socialise at all, and now I work remotely in a tech/data job with other geeky people (mostly men). When I have work meetings I know I have to try not to over-explain & talk too long. And with my partner I am practising being easier to get along with (less pedantic and cranky). But other than that I have very little human interaction so there's a lot of "not applicable".
As a general note: questionnaires especially Likert scale do my head in. I'm trying to work out what assumptions the survey writer is making, and whether how they interpret my answers is actually going to portray me accurately.
Yes. My life has been sprinkled with egg shells. Thank you so much for this. Love your light hearted explanation of REAL ISSUES. I was diagnosed ASD one year ago at age 50. Just beginning to understand my life and trauma.
Thank you so much for this video. I learned so much and found some understanding of myself and my life from this. I cant describe how much it means to me that you, and people like you are trying to understand and help us understand ourselves.
My experience is as someone who has autism, probably has excellent theory of mind, and can emulate parts of other people inside myself with such precision that I can then empathise with the person. The upsetting thing is that, because my emotional responses are so intense, empathising with other people can be extremely painful. My understanding of other people and what their lives are like makes them criticizing me (often non-constructively) worse, because I am understanding where they are coming from and that I am making their life more difficult. The realisation that them being frustrated is unfair to ME and my anger about that then mixes with their frustration, and you get this incredibly volatile cocktail of other peoples feelings mixed in with my own. Two or so years ago, I would had been completely unapproachable in "solving" this because I had been exposed to so many people trying to argue that I should "just have better emotional regulation" in this constant, destructive loop where ordinary people try to "force me to be better" and I just accepted that because I wanted people to be more comfortable around me. As you can imagine, this lead to a whole back and forth between my empathy and the part of my brain that rationalises that it's all hopeless because "self-improvement" has never worked before. Now, I realise that I have this incredibly uphill battle of being someone who has already figured out a lot of their problems just by being generally smart and obsessively introspective, but has to work on my emotional regulation in a clever, good way (that is distinct from people's incessant bullshit that I'm a terrible, problematic person) while having no idea where to start because of all the work I've already done on myself. Oh, and on top of that the emotions are far more extreme and more prolonged than the average person, too. Fun. I have no idea where to start.
I think my experience is actually fairly similar to yours and for me, just stopping my thoughts and listening into myself without going for any peticular goal while simultainiously trying to be more alright with just doing an ok job at things, so that I don't feel the need to work through everything to the end anymore helps When you're at the point where you're doing everything and you're still not mooving forward, often times, at least for me, the problem is that I'm over - trying and over - thinking, not that I'm not doing these things enough
extremely relatable but it seems like I have an easier time being an asshole - basically just choosing that sometimes. plus it's easier bc my empathy is almost always is only cognitive, not affective, and I started to get more affective empathy only when i got enough empathy from others myself + with some trauma work. what you describing seems extremely painful though, hope it would get better with adaptation and more understanding community.
I like the Buddhist framework of ego/mind. For me Eckhart Tolle has the clearest and most actionable information for dealing with an obsessively introspective mind. Dr K also covers this, but not as extensively as he covers a lot of different things.
Dr k’s videos on emotional regulation would be really helpful for ya! I’m sorry life’s been so hard but there is hope. always. From the short paragraph that you wrote, I can say that you are intellectualising your feelings/emotions and have a hard time actually noticing them and letting them be. That is the essence of meditation and therapy so any video of Dr.K’s on this topic would be very helpful. You can even start with the meditation on emotional regulation and try it for a week and journal before and after it to notice how you it goes and how you feel. Best of luck!
1:05:26 I (autistic) have mostly the reverse. My emotions have a delayed onset and last longer (severity I can't really gauge). As you may be able to imagine, this delayed onset of emotions causes real problems for emotional reciprocity.
A follow-up on the combined type of ASD and ADHD aka AuDHD would be greatly appreciated =) Also thank you for the insightful stream to remind me of what I already learned and need to keep applying or pick up again.
I am a late (self) diagnosed autistic woman. Spot on on how hard it is for a woman to be diagnosed. I specifically went for a diagnosis and the doctor said I am not autistic because I had empathy and the amount of emotional energy it took to actually go and get that diagnosis only to have the doctor fail me (because I mask well, unfortunately it's automatic and I don't know how to shut it off with strangers).... Its critical I have an official diagnosis but I just can't bring myself to try again. It was so devastating to hear his ignorance and old school biases in telling me why I couldn't be autistic. - I discovered I was autistic right when I fell into the deepest, darkest autistic burnout that lasted nearly a year and impacted my life so hard that I could not leave my house. Except to *try* to get that diagnosis. Anyway, to the question on ego death--- 100, 000,000% yes, it not only helps but it enlightens, it heals, it clarifies. ( Yes I realize that technically there is no 100, 000,000% but outside of space and time, everything is one, and those rules do not Apply. 😉) Be forewarned --- it can be a very scary and painful experience. Set and setting is crucial, and if you do decide to go that route, don't fight it, go with it. Be safe all.
I am a 42 year old female and I have been diagnosed with Autism in May this year. I suspected since 4 years ago. I've been in therapy my whole adult life due to depression and anxiety. It helped a lot with trauma but I've hit a wall. I've known there is something more that prevents me from functioning the way I would like to. I've just started working with a new therapist that specializes with working with neurodivergent people. We both suspect that I am AuDHD (or how I like to describe it: my autism has ADHD... tho maybe it's more ADD ;) ) I am high masking for sure. And it's masking that became a problem. I am very capable of not giving any signs. But it is absolutelly exhausting. It has always been like that and was increasing in severity the older I was (first it was adult life being suddenly much more complex and then obviously simply becoming older). I've always tried to belong but for me experiencing people often feels like touching someone thru foil. I understand the purpose of social behaviours but many of them don't make sense to me. I've also noticed that there is no one set of rules or morality (I would say there are really very few that are used by all people). My flavour of autism specializes in noticing that things are wrong. However I lack tools to explain to people why things are wrong. I just "know" they are because my brain is sending me "error alarms". And then I get obssesed with trying to figure out why but I've learnt the hard way that people do not want to cooperate with my investigations. Since I was a child I got angry when hearing that something is inappropriate. I've heard it so often and so many of those things didn't make any sense. Why I cannot say that I don't like olives when I am a guest and someone served olives? I don't know why I remember this one so vividly but it's just one example. But as an adult when I look back at those situations I realize that my brain was correct and the adults where wrong. I am noticing recently that I have been conditioned to feel like I am difficult. And I am really anxious about being difficult to others. I do my best to not be difficult to people but somehow I still fail quite often. And over the years I have suppressed all the anger that would be natural in all those situations when I was given negative feedback I had no way to working with. This anger has been bursting out from time to time but it was never solved. I have managed to be employed for the last 12 years at the same place. But since 7 years ago I've understood my place of employment is not healthy for me (so is this patch of career cause this kind of artistic community I am in is chaotic and toxic in far too many situations). But hey... try to change something when you are autistic :P I am still happy I have made huge progress in preparing myself to leave my current place of employment. Tho, I've recently had a major burnout episode in April and I am only now coming back after a sick leave. Now I am sure things will have to change really soon. In fact my mind was set on quitting. But some new meds managed some of my symptoms enough I've decided I can give my job a try for a while and see how it is but I will be much more mindfull about things that burn me out. And if there is something important to me that cannot be accomodated I will just quit. At the same time I am giving all my focus on getting ICF certified coach (I am gathering the required practice). And maybe I can also start the path of becoming a therapist. Cause I know some of my natural qualities shine when I talk with people one on one... especially the pattern recognition. I only get lost or overwhelmed when there is more people around. P.S. If it ever happens that my partner dies before me, I am 100% to be a cat lady :P The only reasons I am not already crawling in cats is that my partner is extremely alergic to cats.
Thank you for sharing. This is so similar to my experience. I'm 42, I've been in therapy my whole life, have CPTSD. I've been in therapy my whole life. I've been working with a psychologist for the last four years and we have come to think I'm on the spectrum and it's been masked by the PTSD for so long. I'm so good at masking because of the survival skills I had to learn. It made me better at the social reading because I was made to feel responsible for other people's emotions but then highly functioning because I had to become an adult at the age of 8. It all came crashing down in my early 20s and spent years getting through the PTSD part and then went to college and grad school. Now have an amazing job... but realize something is still keeping me from functioning like others. I am already a happy dog lady and have given up on relationships. Waiting on an official diagnosis. I was on a wait list where I last lived, then moved, now on another waitlist.
It took a lot of time to understand and then communicate to loved ones and my therapist that it doesn‘t make me feel better to offload my negative feelings to them. It just feels like retraumatisation. The only kind of conversation that helps me is the constructive/ solution focused type. To talk about my problems as if they were a puzzle to solve.
1:27:00 Im extremely happy hes talking about diet and inflammation. Its a very under-recognized factor of most of the negative symptoms of autism. I was debilitated until early adulthood when I started eating way better, way less sugar, no bread and less processed stuff. Mostly just eggs really. No eggshells
@@anthony-dc4dc I can get up in the morning now even when I don't have 8 hours of sleep. Im still tired, but like, I have this reserve energy that I can use to push myself if I really try where as before I couldn't. Its hard to describe. There is less constant pain in my muscles and nerves, as well as less sensitivity to light and sounds. The sensitivity is still there, but its diminished by like 80% or more, its very noticeable. But it took over 5 years for these changes to occur and a specific hyperfocus on trying to notice those changes. Most people will feel better or worse and not notice why. My mood also felt more even keeled, but honestly this might be a trauma response too so I can't control for some factors that might be related to a lack of an ability to feel emotions in general. It also could have been the weed that I started smoking when I started to get really sick and change my diet. I do feel a lot less irritable and I notice it come back if I eat something like TopRamen which not only has high inflammatory chemicals and additives in it, it also has MSG which is an artificial salt that fks up the nervous system. I am much more irritable and have more headaches after eating that stuff for at least a few days to a week. I could probably go into more detail, but I don't know how much you want.
I am a parent of an autistic 6 year old. He is verbal, but at six barely capable of conversation. I was advised by one of the people who have worked with autism for decades here in Greece that my main task was to understand my child. Here's what i have gleaned in the 3+ years since we got our diagnosis. One of the things neurotypical children do is watch their parents speech and their parent's faces and model after that. Our son never did that, all modelling had to be explicit and because of that he learns things mostly by himself. Because a person who is 3 or 6 does not have the mental capacity or the variety of experience to interpret the phenomena around him, as we do, without a lot of help, his inability to understand the world compounds. That causes feelings of insecurity and anxiety and all the symptoms you describe go downstream from that. I hope this helps someone.
There is a great deal of disinformation in this video. This could be instead called a primer on autistic stereotypes. I am high masking. NOT high functioning. I am autistic, not a person WITH autism. I have meltdowns which I attempt to do in privacy. Tantrums are characterized more as a manipulative tool. I am not attempting to manipulate anyone when I am going through a meltdown. Now, other autistic people DO prefer person with autism labels, but we could ask the person their personal preferences instead of perhaps claiming we don't need to define ourselves by our diagnosis. I personally feel this type of othering happens when our view of that "thing" is negative. My autism is only negative when I have to hide my traits to be acceptable to others. If you are not aware of it, perhaps check out the double empathy problem. As another RUclipsr put it, if a french person and a german person try to communicate but can't it's not one's fault over the other. It's not the German's responsibility to learn french or else. We need to figure out a slightly different option for communication maybe or just be understand and accept that there may be misunderstanding between them. If you were just some person who was uninformed, I might not care as much but you are a professional who is spreading information that is inaccurate. I hope that this was a case of you just not being informed but in that scenario, I ask, why make a video about a subject you know you are not well versed in, potentially doing harm to a community who already dwells in a very vulnerable place. I wish you well, but I think I am going to definitely take a breather from your channel for a while.
Especially with the double empathy and trying to understand each other, we (autistic people) already *are* doing our best to communicate! But we literally have a disorder that makes it difficult to read non-verbal cues, read between the lines etc., it would actually be much easier for non-autistic people to meet us halfway and be a bit more direct or to clarify intent if/when we're confused. In my experience, the neurotypical person will be angry at me for not getting it, but then won't help me to understand them or won't try to understand me. Both people need to acknowledge and understand that some things are going to be missed or perhaps misinterpreted by the other, and we just need to figure out where those discrepancies are and have compassion for the other (which autistic and allistic people are both capable of doing)
Just wanted to pop in here and appreciate this poster's distinction of high/low functioning. That always bothered me because it is centering performance for NTs. I think high/low masking or high/low support needs works better. 🤔
hi! disorders are based on how well someone can live there live that takes place in a certain society! thats what clinical practice is about! even though we can criticise how groups of people are treated in a society, you as an indivial person have to adjust, because you cannot freely choose your environment. thats why the term high/low functioning is useful. Masking is the way you are dealing with social social situations, but it for the goal to function in a society where the majority of people is not autistic. Dr. K did apologize for the wording temper tantrum in the description which is of course not fitting. However, I can feel that you feel very attacked by that, maybe because of past traumatic experiences of how people speak about autistic people. I don't think Dr. K used the term because he actually thinks autistic people use temper tantrums as a means for manipulation. When neurotypical people talk about autism and they are clearly trying their best as Dr K does, accusations of bad intention only complicate communication. Non-autistic people have the same trouble understanding autistic people as vice-versa. Please give us the benefit of the doubt. Dr. K made a hour 3 video on this and speaking from my experience with autistic people, he nailed 90% of the points, while he disclaimed multiple times he is not an expert on this topic. I myself have been waiting for a video of him on autism for a long time and am very glad. Now, if you go out into the world and want to better the situation with autistic people and for yourself, but shut conversations down once someone makes a wrong or insensitive statement, communication has no chance of becoming better, as it never actually started and you might become disappointed. Communication between autistic and non-autistic people needs many feedback loops as both sides have a bad intuition for each other. The best we do it to keep listening to each other and keep being interested! I hope that was not too personal but a observation I often have in this context. Thank you :)
I appreciate you making this video dr.K. I am one of those people whose life got easier after getting a diagnosis of asd. I got diagnosed in my 30s. So i went my whole life without having an explanation for the things that i struggle with, especially issues socializing. At least now I can let people know that im autistic, and thats why I don't behave and talk exactly like them. Also its easier to get help with things that i can't do, because I have an explanation as to why i need help.
44:30 The eggshell analogy is actually a pretty good one. It seems like a small thing but these sensory issues can be a HUGE deterrent. Sometimes you might also eat the egg with the eggshell in it and not even notice its there, other times you will notice and it will make whatever it is you are doing completely unpalatable
I was able to attain an autism, ADHD and PTSD diagnosis this year in yhe process of getting onto state disability. I've burnt out of a lot of things by the age that i am now (26 y/o). While things on a whole are getting better after getting help, I've never been more tired than I have been in the process of recovering. I have had to accept that i will live an atypical life compared to my peers, and i hope to spend the rest of my life expressing myself through creative artforms. Existence in this form, in this way is painful but this way is the only way I know and I realized through the judgments of others not on the spectrum that spiritually, my purpose is to communicate my experience so that people know better how to treat us and each other.
Finally diagnosed at age 58, which explained a lifetime of challenges, misunderstanding, abuse, masking, mental health issues, +++! Finally accepting myself and letting go of the past with a great therapist. LIFE changing!!! Thanks for all your information, giving hope for the future!
Things that have helped me thrive as an autistic person (female, 24 years old, co-morbid ADD): 1) Choosing to be around people who want to accept me: other autistic/neurodivergent people, and also open-minded neurotypicals. This has been the most important thing for me personally. 2) Subcultures! A lot of these have a high concentration of autistic and/or open-minded people (see Point 1). From personal experience, the following subcultures are particularly autism-friendly: - BDSM/kink/"sex-positive" communities - Polyamorous communities - The "Burner" community (people who attend Burning Man and the hundreds of similar smaller festivals & events around the world) - Ravers (maybe not great if you're noise-sensitive) - LGBT+ communities - Any "nerd" subculture 3) Getting in touch with my body and my emotions again after a lifetime of masking and dissociation. (If you wanna check it out, some keywords to look for are: "grounding", "embodiment", "somatic".) Masking and dissociation had been helping me to function more like a neurotypical, so unlearning all that naturally made me "more disabled", but it also allowed me to truly experience life instead of just existing on autopilot. I wouldn't change that for the world.
Love this comment. I have recently realised in my hobby/interest on youtube, first of all several key players left ... but those that remain I think many are Autistic (women). They seem happy kinda hyperfocused on certain aspects of the thing. But tbh I miss the old days & more varied content. I'm not sure what to do ... I wondered if you had any suggestions? I think Autistic people are the backbone of society (both mainstream & alternative scenes) . I just don't have that stamina that I see in Autistic people. I also think that the YT algorithm has been friendly to Autistic people (eg favouring consistency & niching), though perhaps it is changing. I want everyone to have a place & feel welcome.
This might be niche but would be cool to get a video on PDA-profile (Pathological Demand Avoidance/Persistent Drive for Autonomy) autism, maybe a conversation with an expert? It's been a tough but worthwhile journey figuring out what's my autism, my ADD and what's my personality.
„I feel deeply, deeply uncomfortable about the disorganization of this room, I want it this particular way, but when I do it that way my parent with undiagnosed autism wants it a different way and that creates conflict.“ Too real, man 🤣🤣🤣
1:46:31 I would be very interested in hearing more of your thoughts on how Autism and trauma “blend together in a mush of awfulness.” It’s my understanding that there can be overlap making adult diagnosis difficult, but I am uncertain to what degree of complexity.
i have been in therapy for almost 2 years now and i’ve been working with my therapist on a huge amount of trauma i’ve experienced in 20 years of life. Usually her methods work, like EMDR, but i’ve seen little to no progress so far (i havent stopped therapy because its the reason i still havent done serious harm to myself). It’s only recently that i saw her approach me in a different way and ask me questions that sound like something you would ask to a person with high functioning autism/aspergers (its the reason im interested in the topic now). I believe she’s having a real hard time assessing my situation because no matter what i do social situations still disgust me and break me as soon as i get home, even when i perform well. I have a lot of weird tics (which i learned are called stims if i am actually autistic) that my therapist believed were caused by something specific but instead are like ingrained in my brain, they’re like breathing (like sniffing my arm, repeating softly the last word i said, humming constantly, tapping my fingers etc. ) so it’s hard to tell for her if its anxiety or stimming behaviors. My trauma brought myself to believe i have to be perfect so it’s hard to tell if i follow a script in social settings because i want to perform well in front of others or because its the only way for me to act normal in front of others and finally manage to have friends. It’s impossible for me to understand if im masking or not because after years of faking the social game i’ve completely lost my identity and my ‘pleasing’ attitude has completely taken hold of me. I do have difficulties switching tasks, but i cant stay organized at all so i dont have that going for me. I also have broad interests like music, drawing, gaming, so no special interest. Eye contact is excruciating. Making it takes all my focus, and i have to think about if i am looking too much, when do i look away, is the other guy looking, do i look at his hands, etc. Again, is it autism or just extreme social anxiety? Hard to tell, so it’s an hard diagnosis. Therapy has been such hard work and it’s so sad not seeing much results, so i find reassuring the thought of having an ‘explanation’, belonging in a ‘group’. But what if im just looking to be validated, what if im not putting in enough work, what if im just a crybaby? This is why im scared of asking her to actually look for a diagnosis. Im scared to find out that yes, im not autistic and im just broken. And im scared to find out that no, im actually autistic and now i will have to face judgment from all the people i know. I’ve tried talking to them about this stuff, it didn’t end well. It’s invalidating, it’s frustrating, and having to deal with all of this while working on my shitty childhood makes it all the more exausting. Sorry for the text wall, if i cringe to it later i will delete
Autistic people are more likely to suffer trauma and trauma can be worse or simpler to turn traumatic. Simpler is just view point or NT person as to what should and should not be traumatic.
@@25cats thank you for your wall of text 💜 I relate SO MUCH. trying to disentangle trauma from possible asd / adhd feels like trying to separate the eggs and the flour from a cake that’s already baked 🍰
@@25cats First of all, thank you for sharing. Secondly, I think it is pretty common to reflect on behaviors and question what answers might be waiting for you. I think an important thing to consider is the sensory side of Autism. Dr. K touched on it a little bit with the eggs/shells analogy, but it extends to other senses too. Lights, sounds, textures... all seem to have higher intensities in how they affect autistic people. Stims are the tool for self-regulation because it gives your nerves an intended "out" so the stimuli you didn't choose can be ignored a little easier. I think trying to remember if the stims were something you did before the trauma (or if you had very intense sensitivity throughout your life) might give you a bit more evidence. Having a mental health doctor miss signs of autism can also lead to some treatments that feel traumatizing (I'm scared to get tested for autism, even though I'm pretty sure I have it, because of typical treatments not cutting it... I don't trust easily).
I would say it is less that I can’t read people or can’t “put myself in their shoes” and more that I can’t regulate my ability to read people or put myself in their shoes. For instance when I look into someone’s eyes when they are upset it feels like I am being punched by their emotions and I start to feel my emotions as my own. So my options are either see everything everyone is feeling or to not look and catch none of it.
Born in 1980 - I was initially diagnosed with ADHD. My mother elected not to medicate me as she had concerns about the effects of stimulants. I learned at age 35, that I was also autistic, much like all of my younger first cousins on one side of the family. Prior to that diagnosis I had also been battling Major Depressive Disorder and CPTSD. The diagnosis and adoption of the term AuDHD allowed for an A-Ha moment of sorts - which brought so much clarity to my life experience. While I will forever struggle in some areas, the diagnosis helped bring so much closure and much needed healing. :) Thank you for this video. :)
I would recommend looking more deeply into the "evidence" ABA likes to cite. Most of it doesn't hold up to contemporary scientific muster, e.g. only 1 subject studied rather than a large group. There was also a major study done by the Department of Defense not long ago that showed that ABA doesn't really have any positive effects. You should also look into DIR/Floortime, a less-known but growing alternative to ABA that is completely non-behavior-based and entirely client-focused. If you do do a video on autism and dating, I would also ask that you look into the disparity between sexual/romantic encounters in autistic men vs women, I've noticed in my personal life and amongst autistic RUclipsrs I watch that the vast majority of autistics in seemingly happy and healthy relationships are women, and very few autistic men have the same luck.
I'd be interested to see there is any research on this topic. Anecdotally I've seen a lot of autistic women who've experienced disproportionate levels of averse sexual experiences/domestic abuse / predation.
ASD video recommendations: how to live in your body and not your mind (how to feel), beginners guide to unmasking, tips and pitfalls for those diagnosed as adults. Diagnosed last October. Healthy gamer was definitely an important part in pursuing this.
Just feel I have to pop in to say I wish Dr. K wasn’t still using the high/low functioning labels and reducing it to whether people are mildly or severely autistic as shorthand. Both are extremely limited in what they tell you about the autistic person in general. It comes down to how high their support needs are and what they specifically are; high functioning/mild autism to people generally just means that they are intelligent and “normal” enough to pass a lot of the time, but there can still be struggles outside of that that people don’t take into account when looking at it in such a limited fashion. I’m autistic and would be considered “high functioning.” I’m “level 1.” “Level 3” would be the “severely autistic” folks who can’t really function/live on their own. Yet I still have meltdowns over things like unexpected, last-minute change, for example. There are accommodations I make for myself and that my wife makes for me to make things better for me because of my support needs, limited though they may be. But all that gets lost if you just reduce it to “high functioning.”
Completely agree! Its such a surface level perception of autism. Neurotypicals who see me masked will often think I'm a level 1 or not autistic at all, but if they were to see me unmasked at home or in a moment of distress, they'd think I'm a 2 or a 3! I can't tell you how many times when being compared to a level 3 autistic, I'll hear a comment like "but you're not like them, you don't do [stim I only do when alone]." Our ability to mask does not accurately reflect how we experience autism from the inside!
@@LilChuunosuke Yes! I was so confused when he said hand flapping was a more severe level of autism, like...no it's not, you just might not see it as much with some people because they're ridiculed for it 😅
Be so grateful if you could do a video on autism and adhd in women! We get overlooked and things like menstrual cycle for example really impact our medication routine/general health/mood/likelihood of meltdowns, etc. and this isn't talked about enough! Women are often dismissed as just neurotic and emotional
@1:12:40 I could cry right now... how much this whole segment describes what I've been in the middle of. I've assessed and tried everything I can uncover, it does feel hopeless. It does make you want to give up. You realize you can't continue going at the difficulty level life has been at. It feels overwhelming to hear someone else articulate your experience so well.
I frickin hate ambiguity. I now have to spend all week going through all possible meanings, and they're all equally likely. And then I have to pick one that's right? Commit to it and turn out to be in the wrong or hide from it just incase and end up doing nothing and going nowhere in life. Again. I have no script to solve any of it I think. I can eat now as an adult, but in school I would often times eat a plate of gravy. I couldn't eat anything else that was being served that day because of the texture. Mince and mashed potato were the worst. I'd feel physically sick.
I thought it was amusing to read that gravy was your safe food, when I refused to even try it until my late 20s because I was grossed out by the thought of broth (I'm still pretty squeamish about a lot of animal products). My school usually had PB&J Uncrustables as a backup option, so I had those very often.
I'm guilty of occasionally speaking ambiguously after a lifetime of heavy masking, but the nice thing about talking with other autistics is that if an ambiguous statement is made, we can ask for clarity with no social repercussions. Neurotypicals just act like I'm stupid if i don't understand a non-literal statement. 🙄
Would love to see a video on meditation and entrepreneurship for those with ASD, as well as something about how to get out of autistic burnout when you can't slow down or you'll lose your home.
Behavioral treatments are ALL about masking. It seems to me that by definition, it's the goal. The goal is to make you behave as if you were neurotypical. Masking is incredibly harmful. Instead of "fixing" the autistic, maybe let's educate people so we can get the accommodations we need. Accommodations that often help neurotypicals as well, but that autistics need. You didn't talk about is the prevalence of autistic burnout (extreme exhaustion, regression of skills esp exec function and social, increased dysregulation, higher sensory sensitivities, depression/suicidal ideation). This is the problem with not engaging the autistic community. The very few studies on autistic burnout have been done in the last 3 years by autistic researchers. Because neurotypicals only want to research causes.
I've been diagnosed with BPD, tried cognitive behavioural therapy and I agree with you - it feels like you are just taught to be convenient for "normal" people.
i find it odd that dr k did a stream about autism with nobody autistic, as there are a lot of things he got wrong when it comes to the terms of "high/low functioning", meltdowns, and ABA therapy. I wish he had someone on to correct the way he talks about these.
@@weirdo3116 dr k has also interviewed a lot of adhders about their adhd. he hasnt really done the same with autistic people. when he talks about adhd, he talks about distraction and how to regulate your attention. he talks about the symptom the person is experiencing and tries to teach through the lens of helping the person. when dr k talks about autism, he talks about the symptoms others can see instead of the one the person themself is experiencing. he calls meltdowns "temper tantrums", a phrase that fundamentally misunderstands the autistic experience, uses the terms "low/high functioning" (which is honestly just rude, would you use the term low functioning to describe stephen hawking?) instead of "low/high support needs", and makes an argument for ABA therapy, an almost universally hated form of "therapy" that forces most commonly children to mask their autistic traits (which can be very dangerous for the autistic individual). he just got a lot of things wrong about the autistic experience, which sucks since he's kind of an authority of mental health online. also this perpetuates the unfortunate pattern of autistic voices being spoken over by non autistic people. it feels like he got a lot of his research from autism speaks imo ☠️☠️
@@hamnerheads6770 wait has he interviewed people about their ADHD? cause I can't seem to find them on his channel? the ones I found are with famous people some of which have ADHD. But I also see some of those interviews are with famous who also have autism. i assume you mean an interview with someone non famous specifically focusing on ADHD. and that i can't find.
@@weirdo3116 i couldve sworn there was an adhd interview, but i dont think there is one. however, when dr k talks about adhd alone 9 times out of 10 its a reddit post break down. he talks about and explains adhd in relation to someones experience. he did not do the same here. im sure theres a plethora of written autistic experiences in his subreddit that he could use to ground his research, but he talks about autism with no autistic input.
@@hamnerheads6770I think you underestimate DrK. Alot. In his methods, beliefs, beneficial. Let this man cook and use your brakes you want to use on others, on yourself
I would like to point out that people with ASD can sometimes appear to have temper tantrums, but they actually are NOT. Most times it is actually a meltdown, where the brain is so overstimulated that it loses the ability to regulate. There is a major difference, in the sense that a tantrum can be corrected with 'parenting' if you will. However, you CANNOT fix meltdowns, and trying to do so with disciplinary measures will actually make it worse. Even adults with ASD have meltdowns (I sure as hell do as a 35 y/o male) and it has nothing to do with big feelings. It is an expression of 'this is too much... get me out!!!'.
1:41:00 Gender differences As a high-masking woman on the spectrum who has been told multiple times "I never would've guessed you were Autistic" this entire section was in the most eloquently explained way that I have ever heard
I was diagnosed with autism a couple years ago, and it has been a struggle, one thing that has frustrated me is that it is very hard to find this kind of information, especially with this level of detail and clarity. Even in this overview you have been able to shed light on facets of autism that I have been struggling to understand. Thank you.
I (24M) have ASD 1 (formerly Asperger's Syndrome). Early intervention in school really helped me. I had regular check-ins every month with a sponsor, a parent, and one of my teachers. I learned social skills through an extra class too. I also took an advanced social skills class early in college, not sponsored by them. It taught me how to have longer conversations more easily, tell stories, and make good first impressions. Most of these skills have become automatic to the point where I hardly ever have to mask and 99% of new people I meet are completely unaware that I am autistic. Though if I do hang out with someone long enough, I tell them "you will notice some instances where I don't have a rule/script. Those times, I'm not aware that what I'm doing is unusual."
The analogy with the eggs with egg-shells is so similar to the one I use myself! But with lobsters. We associate eating lobsters with something nice and fancy. When I learned that they used to feed lobsters to prisoners back in the days, but that they would just grind it all up, shell and all, and serve it as a tepid, grainy, stinky mess, my first thought was that this is what I'm getting. I'm getting prison lobster and the rest do fine dining. And people will yell at me to shut up because "we all are getting lobster and it's nice if you let it be nice" and so on. BUT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!
Thank you dr K and the rest of the team for this video. I agree with some of the comments about some corrections, but overall I'm pleased with the video, I've been waiting for it for years. I know you guys will take all the feedback and try to get even better. I'm grateful and I hope for more content like this. I actually learned a lot of things, I wish there were more experts in my area who would know more about autism, so for now I'm happy for anything I can get from the internet. 🙏
I haven't made it through the full 3 hours yet, so sorry if you touch on it, but have you seen the study conducted a few years ago that accidentally proved that people with ASD tended to be more empathetic and altruistic? Essentially they took people with ASD and a control group, people who didn't have ASD, and asked them a series of questions. What they found was that people with ASD were more likely to self sacrifice for the good of others even if nobody would find out about it. Unfortunately the results were labeled as "people with ASD are too trusting and naive." If you want more details the study was published to the Journal of Neuroscience in 2021 and is called "Right Temporal Junction Underlies Avoidance of Moral Transgression in Autism Spectrum Disorder"
Dr K made a distinction between his colleagues with autism, and his patient with autism and how they had drastically different presentations. However, this is explained through intelligence and motor control (predominantly inherited traits, as is autism), and not autism itself. This is so obvious to me but he doesn’t even mention this… plz upvote so he sees
Also, instead of calling it ASD just call it Autism… then it doesn’t have the disorder camps label on it and is neutral in its stance. Makes it more understanding and incorporating of both ‘sides’ dr k paints
Simply going to answer your question: leave it up. The value is far outweighing any perceived negativity. I found a handful of things that I would assume someone may be upset with, but I don't think you could have done much better. Thanks, Doc.
@@anoncspan4129 utilitarianism has its flaws though bro. Also The statement don’t think he could have done much better is nonsensical, it’s based on the perspective of his capabilities at the time of posting. He now has community feedback and can improve and iterate if feedback seems necessary. This is philosophical though, practically speaking might not be worth it. I think he didn’t a great job a many things and it’s awesome he and HG is open to community feedback and take complaints serious don’t you :)
I would like to know why you call them temper tantrums instead of meltdowns. My understanding is that they are not the same thing, as temper tantrums are voluntary on the kid’s part (they will pause and check to see if you are watching them) whereas meltdowns are more of an involuntary response to a brain that cannot process incoming information fast enough. Another thing I want to mention is that sensory overstimulation and meltdowns cause, in myself, symptoms similar to traumatic head injuries, including needing a day of recovery after and heightened sensitivity to light, sound, etc. Overwhelming my nervous system like that causes physical symptoms the day after, and also vertigo and migraines, etc. I think if you look into this and agree there is a difference between these phenomena, then it would be important to correct this. “Temper tantrums” communicates something specific to neurotypicals, that it’s willful. In my experience some of the treatments you cite do help (meditation, diet changes, a sensory diet) but those symptoms help not because of emotional dysregulation, but because they control how much stimulus our bodies receive from ourselves. Tolerating my internal environment, and regulating my external environment (with ear plugs and etc) lowers the overall amount of stimulation so that it is easier to regulate emotions. My ability to regulate emotion will be different if I’m in a crowded hall with people yelling and I’m anxious and in physical pain, to if I’m in my living room cuddling a blanket, just like a regular person. Edit: to clarify with that last example, the difference is that my brain does not mute sensory experiences. So a neurotypical person would be able to block out some of the loud room, feel their anxiety and recognize it as a signal to leave. For me, I have to pay attention to my internal cues, actively look for hunger and thirst. Meanwhile I can’t block out sensory experiences, so while I can tolerate pain extremely well, if I go somewhere that just has too much stimulation and nowhere to escape to and my sensory regulators aren’t enough (sensory kit isn’t enough), then I will start having migraines, nausea, and vertigo. On one occasion I lost the ability to see and walk, my vision literally blacked out and my poor partner had to help me walk to my bed and help me wash the smoke out of my hair. So if you trap an autistic person in a room with sensory experiences they can’t escape from and they haven’t developed a monk-like ability to tolerate what is for us extremely unpleasant sensory experiences (in other words, basically torture lol) then an autistic person WILL have a meltdown, it’s not a temper tantrum, their brain will be unable to process the sensory experience. You can widen the window of tolerance by learning to hear your internal signals for self care (eating and drinking), regulating the emotional and mental response to unpleasant stimulus, and so on, but there is a limit to how much the brain can physically tolerate processing, and that seems to be a partial explanation for why autistic people with higher IQs tend to be higher functioning as well, is that people with high IQs process information faster and that compensates for being unable to block out sensory experiences and means the overload builds up more slowly.
I have also never met an nt who did not have restrictive interests. Our interests, as Autistics might be much more noticeable because they present differently than how nt interests present but the nts that I know, and I know a lot of them, are pretty restricted in the things they are interested in. Or they are extremely shallow in a variety of interests. Yet, we are the only ones being pathologized for how we are interested in things. And another note, please educate yourself on the uses of the terms "High functioning" and "low functioning." I realize that my comments are kind of tearing your video apart. I don't want you to get me wrong, a lot of what you are saying is good and accurate. But as a licensed practitioner who works with our community, you need to get these other things right. If you don't, the damage that you cause is astronomical.
As you get older, you obtain more "special interests." I always wonder when my dozens of "special interests" becomes having a broad interest about the world.
As a medical professional, I would highly suggest you do your research when it comes the difference between an autistic meltdown and a-temper tantrum. it is unfortunate when a person who is supposed to be qualified to speak on, this is spreading misinformation, which is inaccurate and unprofessional. I am diagnosed as autistic and I find this disgusting. Do better learn and research before you open your mouth and talk about something you don’t understand.
Any advice on meeting clinicians who brush your problems aside with "That's normal for people with autism"? It's like my problems don't qualify as problems in their minds because they *can* fit under the label 'autism'. But my problems remain, and I bring them to a clinician because I need help; not because I need to be brushed aside and invalidated like a difficult child.
44:00 this actually makes a lot of sense and explains a lot. I remember years as a kid being forced to eat food that I just couldn't stand. I always hated macaroni and cheese asparagus and a few other things.. when I was about 7 years old dad told me I had two choices either eat what's on my plate or take a whooping with a belt and go to bed. I told him I'd rather have a whooping with a belt and go to bed.. I must have broke my dad after that because they never made me eat certain foods again. (Turns out mom was the one encouraging and telling dad to challenge me to eat. But even in the Bible belt and living in a Christian household.. dad still couldn't reason beating my behind with a belt just because I don't like certain foods.
The wait time for an adult autism assessment in my city is currently 8+ years (after referral from a psychiatrist, after *that* referral from my primary care physician), or I can spend $3000-5000 CAD at a private clinic.
a video for the loved ones of people with autism, ADHD, and other neurodivergent stuff would be so helpful. these people usually want to help but don't know how. "just talk to the ND person" - well the problem is that many times they also don't know how to be supported, and are constantly feeling hopeless and helpless (which is completely understandable ofc). as always ty for your hard work, Dr. K and everyone from HG 💚
Fantastic video Dr K, would love more videos about autism. As someone with autism, I've learned recently through being more present, surrendering to what is and recognizing my ego, that all these symptoms of autism arise from the mind having too much control because the body is sort of switched off. The reason why the body is switched off is because of heightened sensitivites to certain sensory input and that they blend together, there is no filter. In my case, I'm very sensitive to sound, touch and taste, but hyposensitive to smell. By practicing voluntary exposure therapy (letting the body experience a triggering event so that it learns that it is actually not dangerous at all) together with bodywork and releasing emotions), I have been able to go more beyond my mind and finding social interactions way more naturally this time. When you are not in your own head, it becomes obvious how to navigate and enjoy moments with others, but it requires a ton of humility to recognize if you are actually in your own head. My life has opened up in ways I could not imagine before and I hope that other people on the spectrum also will transcend the limitations of their autism and not need to compromise themselves at last. Can elaborate on my experience if interested.
“The way that I normally am is not working.” I was told by a friend as a teen that usually friends make eye contact when they talk. I had no clue this was a thing or that I wasn’t doing it. I’m not diagnosed, but after listening to your lecture, I’m aware of more traits I have that might be attributable to ASD. I am going to educate myself more about this. Thank you, Dr. K.
Very insightful. I just figured out I’m on the spectrum a couple months ago, as a 32 year old man. The past makes so much more sense now lol.. Meditation and diet have helped, but you HAVE to be consistent. Masking in social settings is my biggest challenge. Good luck my fellow ASD people and thnx, Dr. K.
What sort of diet have you found helped?? I’m high functioning but really struggling recently and have been experimenting with different foods/diets, I have found exercise fuelled by a high protein diet has felt good so far, just wondered what you found worked :)
I loved this video it was educational emotional and so engaging I had the stop in the middle of the video to work but I was so excited to pick it up asap I loved this
I'd love it if you made a video about twice exceptional people. I'm ADHD and thanks to my intellect, I only found out I've never focused in my life when I entered university. And I only got diagnosed as I was starting my master's degree. My BF has a similar story, ASD genius who's only getting his diagnosis now as he's finishing his PhD.
Great content, which came just at the right time for me. I have diagnosed myself as a person with Autism. This happened last month after learning about the difference between Autism and Narcissism. I had great difficulty, when I assumed I had excessive Narcissistic traits, in managing my masking. I didn’t know anything about Autism in adults before then. I have now accepted my being. I can now manage my anger, as anger, and not assume it would escalate to a narcissistic rage. You are 💯 correct in the ability to manage emotions, being what can assist people to achieve socially acceptable genius level. It is hard work! If sometimes feel it requires an impossible amount of self awareness.
5:00 Intro, Personal Background
12:34 What is Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)?
19:57 Autism Manifests in the World around You
24:35 Core Features of ASD
36:39 Neurotypical Intuition vs Scripts
40:30 Anxiety and Uncertainty
42:16 Experience of Eating
46:40 Labels due to Difference in Behavior
48:03 Dr K's Butt-Ice Incident (Difficulty in Unscripted Behaviors)
53:14 One Sided Relationships & Sacrifices
55:33 Restricted Behaviors, Interest, Activities
1:01:00 Flapping, Echolalia
1:03:05 Emotional Regulation
1:07:53 Comorbidities, Perfect Storm
1:18:10 Where does Autism come from?
1:25:46 Gut Microbes, Inflammation
1:33:09 Inflammation and Emotional Regulation
1:40:45 Differences Gender and Gender Identity
1:51:56 Experience of Being Incapable and Very Capable
1:54:45: Masking
1:59:42: Cat-Q Test for Masking
2:03:10 Self-Diagnosis and TikTok
2:07:21 Treatments: ABA, CBT, etc
2:14:09 ABA is Effective and Traumatic
2:17:10 Treatment Efficiency
2:21:04 Pharmacology
2:24:52 Chosing a Treatment
2:33:00 It's a Spectrum
2:34:10 New Game+
2:38:08 Our Understanding is Improving
2:40:54 Advice for Neurotypicals
2:42:20 Question: Ego Death & Autism
2:44:40 Standard Treatments aren't Great
2:49:10 Ayurvedic Take on Autism
2:39:30 Am I Autistic?
2:52:00 Autism, High Intellect and Suicidality
2:58:15 Outro, Coaching
@@smu4242 boosting this
Thank you for your service. 🫡
Respect
I love that all of these are serious and then we just get "Dr. K butt ice incident" in the middle
This is great and I'd like to suggest that you include 'Suicidality' particularly at 2:52:00, because what Dr K talked about there is incredibly important.
This information doesn't just apply to people with ASD and high intellect, but anyone who's feeling suicidal and has got there with very logical, very intellectual means. This information could be very useful to someone who is feeling suicidal and to those who know people that may be suicidal, and to those who may end up in a suicide/crisis situation.
So it's probably already been said, but there's a bit more nuance to the "Theory of Mind" point than this idea that autistic people are simply worse at perspective taking.
Relatively recently, there's been this emerging idea called the "double empathy problem," which can be summarized as follows: "People of the same neurotype have an easier time understanding each other than people of different neurotypes."
Often, this makes it look like autistic people are just worse at perspective taking than neurotypical people since the autistic neurotype is less common. However, as it turns out, neurotypical people have a really hard time taking the perspective of neurodiverse people. This comes up implicitly at several points in the video every time Dr. K says something like, "Neurotypical people don't get this about being autistic."
If neurotypical people were just universally better at perspective taking, much less about autism would need to be explained to them.
Additionally, there is evidence that autistic people have less impairment understanding each other than understanding their neurotypical peers.
In regards to your last point, was this from a research study? I've never heard this before and I would absolutely love to read about it in more depth
@@LilChuunosuke a lot of autistic people talk about double empathy but this is very muchn something thats been studied with autistics and neurotypicals yes
@@LilChuunosuke the paper "The ‘double empathy problem’: Ten years on" by Damian Milton, the guy who originally coined it, is the most recent scientific article I can easily find on google - hope it helps!
@@LilChuunosuke There are indeed studies on the topic (I've been a participant in a couple of them, in fact!). I'd search for the double empathy problem on Google Scholar and see what you find
sources?
1:10:45 when you're an intelligent person with autism, everyone around you has a tendency to place very high expectations on you (usually academic and career focused) however the autism makes life unexpectedly hard for older teenagers and young adults, which can then lead to depression due to feeling like a failure and feeling hopeless etc. This has been my experience.
Edit: also wanted to add the lack of support from everyone and constantly being told things like "dont worry about it, you'll grow out of (X thing you never grow out of)" and this is especially true if you're undiagnosed or only figure out you have autism later in life by doing your own research.
@@kasiapolakowska8481 You are so right. And it doesn't stop even for older adults
In my early 30s, and yes. A lot of it overlaps with ‘gifted kid’ stuff, but there’s this thing where you’re effortlessly smart and driven and precocious as a kid, so ppl expect a lot of you, but you have none of the skills necessary to develop a career in adulthood. The social environment and imposed structures of life and work and school also tend to become progressively controlling and overwhelming for us as responsibilities and the pressure of outside expectations increase in both size and complexity. Freakin sucks man!
This is exactly what happened to me with ADHD.
I've since learnt that the symptoms of ADHD and autism have a lot more overlap and similarities than I expected.
@@johnb2476 Yes I was happy to leave school despite having some friends and excelling academically because I thought I would have more autonomy and respect as an adult. It's the reverse. At least at school you have control over your study methods and how you produce papers etc. At many workplaces it isn't just enough to produce the required work before the deadline, colleagues will try to interfere or even sabotage the work and managers will monitor and comment on your social interactions and sometimes even control how you do the work (banning headphones or deciding what software you should use etc). At school if you are bullied for expressing your personality at least you aren't at risk of losing your job and becoming homeless. At school you do one entrance interview and that guarantees your place at that institution for several years as long as you don't break the rules. At work you can be fired for as little as coworkers not liking you.
Autism ADHD oof
Topic for next autism lecture: Autistic burnout, autistic shutdown, and autistic meltdowns. Starting with short discussion about the difference between a meltdown and a temper tantrum, and how the two should not be conflated!
Well he calls autistic meltdowns = temper tantrums, so he's not qualified to make your requested videos...
@@lacedhexes I’m trying to encourage him to learn and grow and correct his mistake.
hi Dr K, I've been autistic my whole near-37 years of life, but only this really found myself able to afford testing, and was diagnosed earlier this month (on top of late diagnosed ADHD-I in Sept '21 at age 33, dx'd autistic c substantial support needs 9/3/24, formally diagnosed via a handful of paper questionnaire tools + ADOS-2 and MIGDAS in person across 2 sessions with two different psychometrists administering, on video - reviewed by PsyD at a clinic that solely works with autistic/suspected-autistic patients, she met with me for an hour 1:1 after reviewing the dual-camera angle footage from psychometrist sessions, and issued the formal diagnosis), and truly hope to see what the commenter I am replying to brought up explored on this channel: calling it a temper tantrum is just more stigma we do not need heaped upon us.
hard enough as it is, especially given the correlation with autism / undiagnosed autism and su*c*de (see the work from University of Kent's Dr Damian Milton on the Double Empathy Problem on why our voices truly ought be considered more, especially re: the Allistic deficit in their Theory of Autistic Mind 😉😇 which I bring up due to this video getting into discussing our perceived difficult with Theory of Mind (for example, sit with the possibility that the frustration Allistics experience from a perceived lack of empathy due to behaviors of a one-off autistic person in their life not matching expectation or the typical expression the majority culture might instinctively give, and open yourself to the possibility that an autistic person is experiencing that level of feeling unseen, unheard, misunderstood, and not cared for/not having expressed needs met in the MAJORITY of their interactions, and so we are going to be pretty frayed by this as a standard, and meltdowns are not temper tantrums, they are the raw overwhelm from a lived experience that lacks the comfort of subconscious attunement from the world around us as a norm) additionally recent work from Baron Cohen and others doing an inquest into several hundred deaths from su*c*de and finding a disturbingly high number of likely undiagnosed autistic people among the decedent)
many of us who are undiagnosed until late in life kinda wind up honing in on understanding autism on the way to our diagnosis, so i am very familiar with the progression of our understanding of autism, and the continued progress being made... bettelheim's theory/fridge moms, Aspergers eugenics, autism being under schizophrenia prior to 1980, switch to pdd infantile autism with DSM-III, expansion of the criteria in 87 with the dsm-iii-R, Aspergers introduction in 94 c PDD-NOS category introduced with dsm-IV, rise of autism speaks and the lancet's Wakefield fiasco (those poor kids at that birthday party), controversy around the puzzle piece org, dsm-v release and retiring of Aspergers circa 2013 with reformat to Autism Spectrum Disorder, I try to follow the latest research presented at INSAR annually, etc etc etc
definitely would appreciate your flexibility as a clinician if I were your patient, thank you for trying to meet each patient within a framework aligned with their goals.
I definitely fall more into viewing the issuezms we face thru the lens of the social model of disability camp rather than medical model of disability camp with both adhd and autism, so greatly appreciate how you unpacked that with the desert island, contrast to ramps and braille, etc
also greatly appreciate your intentional recognition of the difficulties girls and women face being accurately diagnosed, especially appreciate the eggshell example - LITERALLY used that example in my MIGDAS session - hearing you acknowledge this and other things does a lot to generally cause me to feel safer with you if I were to be a patient under your care, and it is because of how important that is that I wanna help you avoid getting more flack from folks via the broad strokes references to our shutdowns and meltdowns as a temper tantrum. the care you have is apparent and I want to help you win with us because of that
truly appreciate your work and hope this comment hits gently and that I am communicating effectively!
one more thing re: theory of mind - I am but one person, but have also been pretty active in some online autistic spaces, and for what it is worth (and again, back to the double empathy problem), I definitely have the intellect to parse possible meanings of person's actions and word use, and possibilities of how to interpret them, I just have a pervasive awareness of how often I have guessed wrong, and even if I have gained skill and guess 98% correctly, if anything in that 2% uncanny valley is a high stakes mistake I am still doomed by it and the other 98% is discarded. plus it's kind of the nature of the territory of the uncanny valley that getting 98% of the way to passing as allistic is creepier than being only 50% of the way there. it's not always scripts, sometimes it is manual internal calculus and hopefully lucky guesswork cross checked across a lot of intentional study of both psychology and things like popular media, relationship advice forums, etc which I guess you could say is just a really algorithmically complex script, realizing that as I type this out. I guess my issue with script is that there is, at least for me and many I know, also a portion that is practiced improv based on internal llm training on the aforementioned archtypical script examples. so like a good jazz chart, there is the main skeleton, but soloing does happen on top of that framework
anyways this is a long comment so I'll stop there.
PS LOVE the ng+ illustration, as it's actually a way I have thought about my own life as an undiagnosed-until-recently autistic woman, and I love doing challenge runs - I think I am the only person in the world who has done horizon zero dawn on ultra hard with no HUD / no reticule and investing zero skill points. so that illustration really hits nicely! be well 🧘🏻♀️
I should imagine hes much more qualified than you. @lacedhexes
@@iggyharl5780 read the video description. he admitted this was a mistake. you're just being a jerk.
One thing to be aware of as far as autistic scripting is that autistic people aren't inherently scripted. When interacting with each other, autistic people don't feel a need to script. Autistic people socially script not because we feel a need to script, but instead as a coping mechanism specifically to deal with neurotypical people. You see scripting because the scripting is for you. It's not an inherent aspect of autism. It's an inherent aspect of how autistic people interact with YOU because the autistic perception is that neurotypical people punish autistic people who don't behave in exactly the right way.
This was a huge point I got from this video. I have no issues talking to other neurodivergent people. I feel the most anxiety and masking when talking with neurotypical people. The exception is neurotypicals who have experience interacting with neurodivergents.
yup, and the punishment often comes in the form of bullying at work or in school.
I think this is less about whether the other person is neurotypical and more about how comfortable you are with that person. Im autistic and i know autistic people that i mask or script with because i dont feel comfortable with them. I also have neurotypical friends that i am very vulnerable and genuine with, and dont overthink my interactions with them. It would make sense that you would feel the need less with other autistic people not because they're the same type or person as you, but because theyre more likely to relate to you, have patience with you, and comminicate with you the way you need them to. This is possible with neurotypicals, they just need to learn how you work and have compassion.
I don't even remember if I ever did. Masking must have happened when I was a very little child.
@@justin7532The double empathy theory. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻.
Having listened to this entire thing, I’m concerned that there seems like there may be a conflation of temper tantrums in the place of meltdowns, as in, calling meltdowns as though they are temper tantrums.
They are NOT the same in results or motivations or how to handle them.
This needs clarification.
I was also immediately concerned when he said it like that; along with missing other overwhelm responses like shutting down. Around the 1hr mark, everything seemed to subtly conflate autistic experience with being more angry or hostile. We're not inherantly angry people, we're more likely to feel any emotion more intensely, to a point of overwhelm.
Edit: This comment is/was only regarding the way meltdowns are discussed here as being emotional 'tantrums.' this is a harmful conflation as Strictnonconformist7369 calls out.
@@SaphosCorvid I have very good emotional regulation, certainly so long as I can self-regulate in my normal way. I don’t get visibly angry without a very solid reason, and emotions aren’t actually a reason that makes me likely to have a tantrum or a meltdown.
By far, most of the root cause for me to have a meltdown is sensory overload and/or stress over a very prolonged period of time, and a final bit of emotion overflow may finally push me over the edge. But, I’m talking years in between! Even decades. It’s to the backwards scenario that I finally had what was clearly autistic burnout last year at 51, and being unable to sleep more than 4.5 hours of sleep per night for over 2 weeks while also experiencing extreme work stress (employment insecurity) that finally pushed me into a meltdown, while in burnout.
And it wasn’t violent or angry in nature.
I’d be curious if others are more likely to go into burnout before a having a meltdown, I’ve not read or heard of it working this way for anyone else.
Also I've found with the spectrum, as people age and get older their meltdowns tend to turn into shutdowns majority of the time and the actual meltdowns happen much less.
@@aster_11this is interesting because I don’t really have meltdowns, even as a kid I get shutdowns a lot so people just assume I’m cold or aloof
I call it brain malfunction because I’ll just freeze like a computer program crash
I felt the same way, it seems both a disrespectful and incorrect choice in wording. An autistic person responding to very real overwhelming situations and a toddler acting out for attention are two very different things.
When you talked about su*cidal*ty, I completely lost it. I just broke down in tears... this have been my entire life experience, since childhood... when I had my first ideation at age 10. And to hear that 25% of us are struggling the same way. I am heartbroken for myself... and for all of my fellow people on the spectrum. I'm so sorry, you guys are not alone! Even though we feel alone or outcasted and alone. I just want to say Thank You Dr. K. PLEASE CONTINUE TALKING ABOUT THIS... Too many of us are deeply suffering.
The people who push me more into masking are the people who presume they know what it's like but don't listen.
100%
Would like for there to be a video on a topic of HOW to find a mental health professional who is qualified to perform an ASD diagnosis. I went through 3 professionals who all insisted I wasn't ASD. Confident in my findings and data sheets that I spent 2 years putting together, the 4th professional I found had experience diagnosing ASD for 40 years - at the end of our 15 total hours together she concluded, "There's no doubt about it, you're definitely autistic!" Why are there so many "pro's" who don't understand ASD and feel confident telling others they couldn't be ASD, when their knowledge about ASD is bupkis?
I think the problem lies in how the professional knowledge about ASD is evolving rapidly in recent years. And I think there are many new discoveries in the field in the near future. It took me 4 years from the moment I've suspected to an actual diagnosis. And the start was psychiatrists asking me "why do I even need a diagnosis?". From my experience in Poland you either go to specialists in Warsaw or try to count on some younger specialist who is much more up to date with current approach to ASD. I was diagnosed by a young psychologist but when it comes to actual help, there was no psychiatrist in my city, who had any idea how to help me in a crisis even with a diagnosis.
@@lilijagamingPsychiatrists should have mandatory tests to check knowledge on new research every couple years - if I'm paying price that is worth couple hours, or even days worth of minimal pay job I expect to not be able to poke holes in their words after doing hour of reasearch on topic that interested me,
Mental treatment experience is like trying to get cured from phisical injury 600y ago, but they prescribe antidepressants instead of blood letting to get rid of Your deamons lol
Adult diagnosis is SO hard. Finding someone who works with adults at all is the first major hurdle. Then finding one in that pool who really understands how adult ASD works and can dig through decades of masking is another one. It's tough.
I can second this, although I would like to extend that in general knowing more about how to find professional help would well... Be a huge help. It's a thing constantly repeated online: "Find professional help" but the steps in doing so are incredibly unclear to a lot of people, and difficult even to people who do know the steps. It would really help people with autism to have a "script", so to speak, on the actual process, what to expect, what could go wrong or right, and where you should start when you are already at different levels of treatment or diagnosis. I know it'd be a boring video for most, but it's potential to help real people I think outweighs that.
I should have mentioned that my path to diagnosis was started through calling the psychiatry departments of my state's medical universities. They connected me with people who may know people (who then may know people) that have experience with adult ASD. I had to go through four levels of this but found someone. Be sure they are certified in ADOS-2.
If an NT want to know what it feels like to be autistic? Imagine that everything you do that you think is right, is actually wrong, and everyone treats it as such, and wants you to behave in a way you just cannot decipher in a short time, it takes years of trial and error to even get some things right a chunk of the time. And then, for no discernable reason, the things that you were getting right are suddenly wrong, and everyone blames you for getting it wrong without ever explaining why its wrong.
This is not an exaggeration.
Yes.
IT ISNT AN EXAGGERATION AT ALL
As a person with ADHD, and a lot of people with ADHD, ADHD+Autism or just Autism, I can think I can relate what you are describing. I recognize that my experience must be different than yours, but what you wrote still resonates with me.
I don't think I have enough traits to be diagnosed with ASD, but I have some behaviours and experiences that feel to me that could be related to ASD rather than ADHD.
It feels awful to try your hardest and then most of the time the result is that it is wrong or not enough, and I cannot seem to figure out why?
First off, I consider this a good overview. I think the way autism is explained here should be somewhat relatable for my general understanding of neurotypical thinking. So thank you for that!
But I have a few things I would like to note:
1. “Temper tantrums”
Calling autistic meltdowns “temper tantrums” is completely ignoring what is happening from the view of an autistic person having said meltdown. From the neurotypical adult view they might look the same. They are NOT.
A temper tantrum is usually enacted by toddlers or younger children in a conscious effort to reach a certain goal (e.g. make their parents buy certain sweets). Labeling an autistic meltdown as a “temper tantrum” invalidates the utter distress and overwhelm, often even complete loss of control, an autistic person experiences, often due to overstimulation of some kind. The meltdowns are in no way a conscious decision to have, cannot be stopped by the person experiencing it and make them feel like sh** even afterwards. Meltdowns don’t stop happening when an autistic person grows up, adults can have them just like children, even if they may outwardly show in a different way.
This topic cannot be adequately covered in a comment section, so please consider this a short abstract of a much larger topic and look for further information if interested.
2. Eye contact
In my personal experience the thing about eye contact is not necessarily that it’s uncomfortable. It has more to do with the “social situation to get through” experience. Eye contact just doesn’t come naturally, just like many other things around socializing (recognizing social cues, tone, body language, etc.). While in a conversation I listen to the words while CONSCIOUSLY analyzing your facial expression, your tone of voice, how you move your body in tiny ways… and simultaneously process all this while scanning my rules for how to act myself. Oh, and trying to know when it is my turn to speak and what to answer and how to answer. If you ask me to also look at your eyes, making me think about when and how often to blink, the strange rules I STILL haven’t figured out about when to briefly look elsewhere and for how long before looking back and having to do the blinking thing again… it is EXHAUSTING!
I promise I am listening and interested when I am not looking you in the eye. I can also promise you that, when I do look you in the eyes, I am still trying to listen to you… but I might miss a lot more of what you are saying and may respond inappropriately because I probably missed a lot of all the other things important for a conversation.
It does not mean I do not want to listen to you, it does not mean I don’t like you or I am generally insensitive or can’t relate. It just means I do not have the capacity to process all of that at the same time as your words and I will probably not answer how I usually would have liked to, had I been able to get all of that at the same time.
Quick disclaimer: this is my personal experience. If you have met one autistic person, you have met one autistic person. For someone else the experience might be completely different. Our brains are not only different from neurotypicals, our brains also differ from each other. There is no ONE autistic experience that is universally applicable to every autistic person.
3. ABA therapy
I am glad the topic was approached the way it was here. To be frank in many cases ABA is abusive. People are taught blind compliance and nothing else. In general a dog trained in dog school is met with more consideration and understanding than a child in ABA therapy.
And yes, there may be exceptions, there may be cases where this helps without causing trauma and/or PTSD, but that does not change A LOT of autistic persons are harmed by ABA therapy. So please consider very carefully, especially as a parent or caretaker of an autistic person who can not advocate for themselves, if there is really no other way to work WITH the autistic person to make life easier BEFORE sending them to ABA therapy.
And no, I will not further discuss this topic.
4. Self-diagnosis
Self-diagnosis is not seeing a few things on TikTok. If you get the idea you might be autistic from TikTok, and you truly are autistic, chances are you will go down that rabbit hole. Start researching, read articles, get in contact with the autistic community. Chances are you will have some kind of data collection on both autism and what applies/ doesn’t apply to yourself. There will be documents, spreadsheets, entire folders of what you consider valid data and facts before even broaching the possibility you “might be autistic” with anyone else.
Seeking out professionals is not possible for everyone, for various reasons. I can promise, most of the autistic community will not care about you not having the paper saying you are autistic. Interacting with an other autistic person is often more eye opening than anything else you can research. At least it was for me.
A diagnosis does not change who you are or how you experience the world. Your life will not suddenly change, because you get the label autistic. What will change is your perspective on life and yourself. If you are lucky, are able to get an official diagnosis and live in a country where a few accommodations exist, congratulations! There are chances this is not the case.
What is the purpose of a diagnosis? Is it for accommodations (if they exist)? Sometimes an autism diagnosis can be harmful to your carrier, no matter your performance prior the diagnosis. In some cases one may be better off without an official diagnosis.
So, if the diagnosis solely serves the purpose for yourself to be more accommodating to yourself, if you want a diagnosis to find people where you feel like you actually belong, who cares where it comes from? Maybe you find out down the line you are not autistic after all, but an HSP or whatever else that might be similar. You still found a starting point in learning about autism to learn more about yourself. In my opinion this is far more important than worrying about “being wrong”.
In science you always start with a thesis, that might not be true. That doesn’t mean in hindsight it was “wrong” to look into it in the first place. And if the only takeaway from the entire endeavor is to have learned more about the topic, that is just as valuable as being “right”.
Such good points, and so well explained! I agree with all of these from my experience and research.
On distinguishing temper tantrums vs meltdowns, also worth noting that adults do have temper tantrums too, i.e. angry outburst to achieve a result. Though probably not a (fully) conscious decision, it's definitely controllable (which is not the case with a meltdown). In my very autistic family, there's a lot of this. But I'm not generalising! This is just about my experience in my family. In my family we tend to shutdowns rather than meltdowns, but we all struggle with so many things and we do get angry as a way of trying to gain control. It was only as an adult that I realised that what we engage in is a form of bullying.
I'm not autistic.
Your explanation of problems with eye contact is very elucidating, thank you.
Thank you so much for writing this up, I identified the exact same issues with the stream!
@@tiddlypom2097 that is a good point about the tantrum/meltdown part. Thank you for the additional info 😊
As you noted there is always a lot going on, so it is sometimes hard to keep things straight. Growing up in my family of 4, 3 of us are autistic (bless my mom, she is the most patient human I know!) and temper tantrums were never a thing for us. I guess I attributed tantrums to younger people due to the larger amount of data on temper tantrums in children compared to adults (though I don’t really get why anyone would think that to be a good idea, but I digress).
An other point to add to my research backlog 💜
@@Hexanitrobenzene thank you! I am glad to know it helped you understand my experience. I often struggle to describe my point of view in a way others understand and I am so happy it worked for you! 💜
I also wish you would talk about double empathy. Autistics don't generally have trouble socializing with autistics, just like neurotypicals get along with neurotypicals. It's when an autistic and a neurotypical try to socialized that there are issues.
The reason self diagnosis is more accepted in the autistic community is because people who are autistic tend to spend 100's of hours doing research on it, including the DSM criteria. We don't take 1 test, we take 30 (and look at the scores). I don't know about TikTok, but my research was largely on RUclips. By the time I went for my formal diagnosis (because I am privileged enough to be able to) I had a 12 page document matching my traits and experiences to the DSM criteria. I was diagnosed with Level 2 autism (and ADHD Combined) at 51 years old.
I'd love to get a formal assessment, but my options are to pay $2000-5000 that I don't have or get referred to join an 8+ year wait list. But I've read 4 books and tons of blog posts and articles about autism, watched lots of videos from autistic RUclipsrs, chatted with other autistic people, and scored well within the autistic range in every screening test I could find. I also have a family member who's confirmed to be autistic as well as another suspected one, and my family has actually brought up the possibility of me being autistic in the past. I'm slowly getting past the imposter syndrome of self-diagnosis.
Same here, I had a DSM5 criteria alignment sheet and just attached it to my intake form before my evaluation
@@estreet83 I used Prosper Health, telehealth in FL. I only had a month wait and it was $950 out of pocket. I now have an official ASD L1 diagnosis I can use to justify remote work
66 pages and counting of notes documenting all my thoughts and memories that fit into the diagnostic criteria, and I've been synthesizing that information into a graphic I was told is called a mind map (now half the size of a sheet of poster board in small freehanded print, lol). Since the flow lines include categories like "motor skill related" I'm not sure "mind map" is the best name for it... but on the other hand, I guess everything, whether physical or mental, is driven by my autistic brain, so.
(saw the mind map thing shown on the Autistic AF RUclips channel; before he could explain what it was in the video, my brain instantly comprehended what I was seeing & also knew it was what I had to produce in order to talk usefully about it to my psychiatrist... he thinks I can't be autistic because I got good grades in school, played orchestral French horn in school - ie, creating music in a group - and because I have friends. Wish me luck with this guy... )
I have the opposite result with socializing with autistic people, being autistic myself. The feeling is that we, in the spectrum, are from a different world in this world of allistics. But just cuz we are all aliens, doesn't mean we came from the planet. By that i mean that what often bounded us together was solely the, often traumatic, outsider stigma.
If you would like to do another video on autism, PLEASE include another autistic content creator like Meg (I'm Autistic, Now What?), Quinn (Autistamatic), or Mike (Autistic_AF).
Because while you did a WONDERFUL job, especially as someone who does not experience or specialize in autism, you are getting a few minor things incorrect, using language that the autistic community has clearly expressed we do not like, and perpetuating harmful stereotypes (a meltdown is not a temper tantrum, it is a state of extreme dysregulation that often comes with memory loss!)
It is extremely important to not only have an autistic person by your side to correct this misinformation, but to give a more accurate portrayal of what it's like to EXPERIENCE autism. I would love to hear you discuss, alongside autistic creators, current prevailing autism theories that are rarely discussed by neurotypical professionals such as double empathy.
Yes he said for neurotypicals the most important thing is to be compassionate or empathetic (can't remember exact word), so following your advice he could put his money where his mouth is!
I noticed a few things that we would have considered unhelpful when I became interested in Asperger's/Autism in relation to family members in the 00s. - so this video seems "a bit 20th C" to me.
This is a good suggestion. Similar to his vid with asexuality, this topic would be much more meaningful if he were in conversation with someone from the communities he talks about. I'm sure there are folks in his field and it would greatly reduce the amount of statements that go unchallenged and may reflect data that hasn't aged well.
Unless that's intentional on his part to drive up engagement since I'm sure 20%+ of comments are corrections. 💀
1:00:00 As an autistic person I want to take my life not just because. It is because a shitty life. It's objectively bad. Even with 4 degrees the best I can do is a min wage. There is no help. The discrimination is EXTREME. I in my life am stuck in a situation where I have toxic family members, I have cptsd due to my sister. And if it wasn't for my parents I would be homeless.
I don't think it is not being able to see a happy future when there is one. I flat out don't see any possibility at all outside of extremes like winning the lottery my life can get better.
Like even if I can use my degrees. I'm dealing with autistic burnout and I can't even remember basic things some days.
My heart goes out to you.
I know I cannot really help you solve your problems. And even if some things sound familiar, only you know your own struggle. However, no matter how shitty the life is, as long as you are breathing, there is a chance. My 20s where an absolute hell on Earth. In the 30s things started to look a bit better but the job that made things better at first, has become a trap I'm having hard time getting out of. And only now in my early 40s I'm starting to have something I can call a plan for life.
There is also one thing that surprised me greatly - few weeks ago I was sure I will never get back to work. My psychiatrist was horrible and instead of being honest with me that she has no idea how to help me she kinda started blaming me for "not wanting to get back to work". Last month I've finally changed a psychiatrist and he tried a type of antidepressant I've never heard about before and it clicked. My mind went from "I am quitting my job here and now" to "I see a possibility of giving it a try" (however with a new approach and if it's still bad, then I will quit). I am not telling you this example so that you do the same or I do not claim there is a pill that will help you. Rather an example of "you never know". I know that when you are in hell there is no hope. I've been in such a spot. People can get out of hopeless situations... all kinds of people can. Are there completely hopeless cases? Maybe. But I think those are really rare and extreme.
When you are in hopeless hell, even a possibily of hope in the future can be enough to hold onto. I wish to you that you find or build your own possibility of hope.
I wanted to comment to sort of reassure you with the whole ‘everything will be okay’ BS, but fuck me do I feel the same way. Part of me deeply just doesn’t want to be on this planet at all, I quite literally feel alien, like I’m cosplaying as a human and being so hyper aware/analytical of every social interaction or thing is exhausting to say least.
I have attempted in the past to ‘end it’ shall we say as a nicer way to put it.. but what I will say is that even as I nearly went through with it I had almost instantaneous regret, which really hit me- as if I don’t ACTUALLY want to do this really, it’s just I’m fed up of playing by other people’s rules/expectations of what I should be or act like..
So start doing things that really touch your soul, try to reframe using these neurotypical accolades as a driving force cuz that’s just an empty pursuit.
That might be quite vague obviously not knowing much about you but at least find comfort in the fact that their a people, like me, in the world that relate to this n are struggling also, cuz who knows one of those people might end up being a friend/partner :)
@@myles5388 the problem with the "do what you love thing". While I agree generally. The problem is, when society shits on you all the time. Like I'm in my mid 30s, unemployed, and I don't have a physical disability. I deal with situations often that makes my ctpsd worse because my other choice is homeless or death. But at the same time I'm treated as a loser for not making it. Or those around me very much use it against me. The best thing I've ever done was giving up. The problem is, I've been giving up for 5 or so years and it's basically impossible to fully give up since you only need 1 good job, 1 good person, etc and things could work out.
Its a damn if you do and if you dont
Exactly. I feel the same way and most of the other autistic people I know are in the exact same situation. It's hard to not feel hopeless when the world is basically designed to keep you out.
I wonder whether you might think daydreaming or thinking "if only (...)" is unfruitful or even heartbreaking and you prefer to not do it. Do you think so?
"I don't like the way that your behaviors make me feel; I want you to change so I feel better." Hit the nail on the head. In all aspects of life, this happens, and I'm so damn tired of it. Thanks for the vid; I'm getting an assessment done soon.
This was a really cool video, and I'm another person who felt heard throughout. Two points I'd add: finding professional help is often difficult with autism, as most of the literature is based off of children with autism, which obviously oftentimes differs from how adults display autism. Before I got diagnosed at Embrace Autism, the website you where you showed the masking questionnaire, I tried in two different countries to get answers. In one, both my psychiatrist and psychologist told me they thought I had autism but didn't know what the procedures were to get an adult diagnosed, and in the UK I got the same response from a GP there -granted, GPs are not specialists in mental health, but she didn't even know who to ask. If the professionals don't even know where to start, how can we? We cannot trust social media, oftentimes cannot trust the internet, and the professionals are oftentimes unaware as well - it took me over two years from suspecting I was autistic to getting a diagnosis, and I've heard many accounts of this issue.
The second point is that autism also presents differently, and can be perceived differently, based off of culture and gender. In cultures where physical touch or visible displays of emotion are less commonplace, many autistic people may "fly under the radar" more easily, and vice versa - I myself had to get told at every social gathering to remember to go hug and kiss everyone before scurrying off to play alone, and even was even asked by family members if I didn't think it was odd I the way I acted. Totally agree with you on the "getting too focused on whether it's a boon or a curse" thing, though I'd like to add a thought on social interaction. Though autism is associated with a social deficit, that social deficit is oftentimes far more prominent when we interact with neurotypicals than with other autistic people. For example, I find myself constantly overexplaining myself to neurotypicals because as a kid and teenager I was frequently misunderstood and got into trouble for it - however, when I interact with other autistic people, or those who understand autism, I'm reminded I don't have to overexplain myself, as they get what I'm saying. They know I'm not saying words with the negative connotations they are often associated with, but rather as just their basic definition. They know that my more intense eye contact is not meant to be aggressive, I just don't know when to look away from people. They know that my facial expression sometimes doesn't match my emotional state, and they can just ask me. They know that when a car goes by, I get dazed, and go quiet and can't understand what they say - so they expect it. All this to say, our communication doesn't always look so deficient when we are communicating with people who either experience the world the same way we do, or who understand it even if they don't experience it themselves. The problem isn't always "there is a deficit in social capabilities *period*", but it can also be "there is a mutual misunderstanding when allistic and autistic individuals communicate" - or other problems altogether, of course, this is just my experience.
The experiences of autistic people are vast, and can be vastly different from one person to another, as you said. There's so much I couldn't speak of, as I don't experience it myself, but it's so awesome to see this topic on this channel and watch different people get together and explain their perspectives!
I feel profoundly seen by this comment. Thank you.
Not only is the old literature based on children, it was almost all measured from an outside perspective on what reduces perceived "autism symptoms" and not on the actual well-being of the person. The exposure treatments given are literal torture that cause ptsd for many. It seems to be changing now with autistic lead research, but its important to understand that a lot of research was not done with our best interests at heart. Aspergers was literally defined by nazis...
@@skidmark5308 The point about "autism symptoms" stuck out to me as well. My immediate thought was "yes, you reduced the symptoms, but where does the actual patient come into this equation? Does the person you 'treated' actually have an improved quality of life, or does it just appear that way from an NT perspective?" It would be like training someone not to vomit when they're nauseous, but never actually addressing the nausea.
It's something that needs to be more open too. Autistic children eventually grow into Autistic adults, regardless of being professionally diagnosed.
There actually is research backing up your experience. It's referred to as the Double Empathy Problem, and it shows that autistic people have no problem communicating with other autistics, just like allistics have no problem communicating with other allistic people.
Problems start to arise when people with autism and neurotypicals try to communicate. And usually, the person with autism is blamed while communication is a two-way street
The way you're talking about repetative behavior is not about being high or low functioning. Nearly all of us stim, some of us have learned to do it covertly (and then have to unlearn it later). High verbal and high achieving folks also use echolalia.
And you need to stop saying temper tantrums. Meltdowns are not tantrums! It's not about not getting our way, it's that our nervous system is overwhelmed. This is especially harmful for kids, when people think they are just throwing a tantrum, when their sensory, exec function and or social cjallenge literally overwhelm their nervous system. We don't have control over a meltdown. It's not a choice. Please stop saying tantrum.
It is about getting our way. The state we need is LET ME BE ALONE AND COMFORTABLE AGAIN AND IN A SAFE ENVIRONMENT, we can't go either way, absolutely not. A kid throwing a tantrum at a supermarket can live and function without that candy, an autistic can not exist in bad environment. It is exactly a tantrum, only a stronger one.
@@inesx3071I'd argue most kids also feel high level of stress when they do that, don't believe in machiavellian toddlers. (the difference lies in cause and severity.)
@@inesx3071Temper tantrums are intentional and meltdowns are not. Kids learn to behave a certain way to get their way but meltdown isn't a learnt behaviour. When in meltdown, you're not constantly checking if people are willing to give in on your wishes and then just crying even harder, to make it happen.
@@HigoIndicoThis was exactly my point.
@@inesx3071We do need conducive environments. But I think there is a real danger in calling a meltdown a tantrum. If a kid wants candy, you say no and they throw a tantrum, but then you turn around and give them the candy, the tantrum stops becausethey got what they wanted. A meltdown won't, because it's not a tactic to get something.
You might have a meltdown because something in your environment is bad for you, and you may want that thing to change. But you don't have the meltdown in order to get that change. I'm betting you don't say to yourself, I don't like that thing I think I'll have a horrific meltdown so someone will fix it.
We have meltdowns because our nervous system gets overwhelmed and we lose control. I don't know about you, but even if I 'got' that environmental change it wouldn't stop my meltdown while it was happening because it wouldn't immediately reregulate me. It might prevent one in the future, but I'm not having a meltdown to make someone give me something. I simply get overwhelmed and lose control.
If we call a meltdown a tantrum, we feed into the stereotype that we're just being manipulative to get our way (like with the candy) rather than the reality that it is the result of a very real need not being met. If people think we're 'just throwing a temper tantrum' they will, imo, continue to not listen to us and not take our needs seriously.
Starts at 8:56
You're a light unto the world
Much love OG
Not all heroes wear capes
Hate this intro lol
Just FYI, but if y'all grab the extension called sponsorblock you can submit timeline segments of a video and each type of segment (ad read, filler, tangent, intro, end card, etc.) can have a different action (skip, mute, etc.). It's a truly wonderful extension and if y'all feel bad about skipping ad reads you can disable that functionality. Cheers!
As someone diagnosed with autism as a kid, your style is good with accepting that you aren't an expert and also really shows you aren't an expert. ABA has a bad reputation because people with very narrow psychology education push experiments seemingly without ethics committee review, or getting any actual psychology experts' views to prevent obvious trauma.
I agree, there are some things that can be changed. minimizing the risk for trauma, is really good.
Been working in ab ABA facility as lead direct care, and shift supervising for 10 years.
Every person holding a degree in ABA treatments and approaches is never the person dealing with the aggressive children. And you all have the exact same philosophies and parrot the same balogna that gets staff injured and often permanently, because you expect adults to just take beatings from violent children and do nothing that MAY cause trauma. All in the name of your degree and self-supposed moral superiority.
Staff safety counts too. ABA is as harmful as physical restrictive measures and restraints, it just manifests different. The children need to learn boundaries, especially with violent outbursts. Especially if that violence is hospitalizing your staff.
As with ANY program geared towards minors on the spectrum, there is no one-size-fits-all solution and each child should be programmed on an individual basis. Sometimes ABA is the solution. Sometimes ABA is the problem.
This new "hands off" push happening over the past decade is harming as many kids as it is helping.
@@bbsoldiertwitch The argument is to take steps that prevent obvious trauma, which goes beyond ABA. If you read everything as some new hands off push then you are misinformed.
Instead if drugging kids, what if you modified their environment so it wasn't so antagonistic to their nervous system?
yea I found the whole "antipsychotics to reduce temper tantrums" thing very disrespectful and dangerous. all behavior is communication, and meltdowns are not tantrums.
Yeah. Understanding and accommodating go a long way. We as a society shouldn't be looking to take away the "bad behaviour" but to understand what lies beneath and what caused it - it's the challenges in living in a world that is built in a way that's hostile to your neurotype.
"drugging kids" why did you phrase it like that? If you think he's evil just say that. But don't go acting like giving kids medication for a mental illness is inherently bad.
ADHD drugs are some of the best forms of treatment. Especially when started at a young age. Aka when you're a kid.
@@weirdo3116 That's not quite what they said based on how I understood it. For autism *specifically* - giving kids meds to calm them down instead of addressing what's agitating them and accommodating their needs is the issue.
It's like trying to manage symptoms without even trying to understand the underlying issue; like drinking your problems away instead of doing something to help.
@@ivanljujic4128 they said "drugging kids" and left it at that. I can only go off of what they said. Maybe he meant just for autism. But if so he should specified.
Just the same as others here do with Dr.k.
a good idea for another autism stream is to interview an autistic content creator (preferably a neurodiversity-positive one). i think Meg from "I'm Autistic, Now What?" youtube channel would be a great pick, as she reacted to your old interview mentioning autism.
Yes I love her channel . And can offer a female perspective
That's a great idea!
yes I want to see this so bad! I think she would be a great person to talk to about some things that didn’t get covered in this video, like burnout, stimming, monotropism, PDA, etc. since she has made some really great videos of her own on these topics
I know it's a lot to cover on one live, but I do think he missed some important things. The double empathy problem, meltdowns/shutdowns/verbal shutdowns, the theory of monotropism, intense world theory, our ability to see patterns and details others miss, autistic burnout. I'm sure others in the community could add more. It would be really good to have an actually autistic perspective.
Meg is great and does good content. It includes also research information.
Other content creators are a good option too.
I self diagnosed last year and got the diagnosis this summer at age 44. I love my autism. Life has been hard and now I know and understand why. That has made my relationship with myself and life much easier, because I finally got permission to stop chasing „normal“. I always knew I wasn’t normal but was scared that I was just being entitled or arrogant. In 2020 I started my journey with plant medicine, and especially the ego death healed that hole in my soul, which I now understand came from masking/not being my true self/not being in touch with my soul. Psychedelics helped me get to know the true me and fall in love with it. They helped me open my heart and get in touch with my feelings. That presents a new set of challenges, but life is much more enjoyable now! 🙏
This comment turned out long, but I do hope it comes to your attention HG:
I am autistic, recently diagnosed, I spend A LOT of time particularly engaging with autistic communities online, and holy shit this video is so conflicting for me. There are a lot of things in this video that I think HG put really well, like the eggshell analogy to me seems very accurate. But then he refers to meltdowns as temper tantrums, which I get is likely just ignorance to a more accurate term, but it is a bit weird hearing misused terms from someome taking a platform with a status of authority on mental health related topics and misusing some basic terms. I dont want to harp on that so much, I see other people talking about it in the comments too, but I do want to talk about his self diagnosis section.
If you read this HG, I do not mean this to be offensive, but that section on self diagnosis is very poorly discussed. It seems, at least in the way you presented it, as though you have only considered one angle, that self diagnosis is not valid, and that online discussions of autism are misleading. You also seem unaware of difficulties around late diagnosis, and social media's role in helping adults learn about autism who otherwise may have never considered that they are autistic.
So first off, a clarification: I agree, 1 tiktok cannot give anyone enough information to diagnose themself. It is far too narrow and simplistic a view into autism. And I know there are some people identifying as autistic when they likely are not, but they relate to autistic people in some ways. And I understand that can be harmful for autistic people. However, a lot of people now learn about autism through online and social media exposure, at least initially. I did. This is not a click on a single video situation for most of us who are autistic. You start with 1 video of course, or one short clip. For me, it was a youtube video that resonated with me to a scary extent. Then I spent about 6 days straight diving into and learning about autism via social media, tests like RAADS-R, CAT-Q, AQ, and many more, and reading about it. All of this, was just to boost my confidence to even consider there might be an explanation as to why im different besides me just being a failure. Then after months of engaging in online autistic communities and learning about it more passively, I finally worked up the courage to get evaluated. And then I backed out and cancelled, then tried again months later and finally did it, and turns out I am autistic like I thought. I didnt go around telling people I was diagnosed during this time, I did however tell people that I was very confident I am autistic, and I that was not diagnosed. This helped get me some accomadtions I desperately needed pre diagnosis in multiple areas, including work.
The reason I bring any of this up, is that someone in your position wholey devaluing social media presentation and discussion of autism without first trying to understand other perspectives, discourages people like me from getting help. If I had seen this before my diagnosis, especially early on, I likely would have internalized that my exposure to autism was misled and invalid, and that I was making a bad decision by relating to autism and investing intense general stress and financial stress into a formal diagnosis. Imposter syndrome is a serious issue for a lot of us learning about autism who are undiagnosed later into life. And yes, I know you mention seeing a professional if you suspect something, but that is so mucj easier said than done. Especially for mamy of us late diagnosed autistic people, and of course many others in need of help. Seeking proffessional opinions is not easy and for many many people like myself is not by any means accessible. Also there is an issue of misconception and a lack of understanding regarding autism, particularly around masking, in clinical and other professional perspectives. For many people, self diagnosis, or self identifying, is as good as it can get, due to mental health, social, financial, or misunderstanding reasons. Im lucky I was able to get evaluated, and that I actually was able to go through with being evaluated.
This stream put some things i to words really well that I could not have before, but it also perpetuates some frustrations someone like me sees from people who do not understamd autism. And it is especially frustrating to see some of these issues or ignorances coming from someone who is in the online sphere of psychology, is a psychiatrist and holds that status of authority, and is obviously well researched in many areas. I know HG is not an expert, and I appreciate his readiness to clarify that. But to me at least, it still feels as though he comes at this subject from a perspective of heavy research and understanding, but then perpetuates certain things that I think would be easy to avoid by simply engaging with wider autistic communities, particularly online communities, since this video is contributing to a social media conversation it is clearly somewhat removed from.
Seriously such a strange experince watching this. Some moments, about half, felt incredibly exciting to see someone in a position of authority talking about and handling so well, and the roughly other half was incredibly frustrating for the exact opposite reasons.
Sorry for the long comment. I'm very hyperfixated and passionate about autism and its complexities. I overall appreciate this video, and I hope this comment ends up being contructive criticism.
I am going to lecture, and this could be a stretch. But with how the video was pieced together you can kinda see that his perspective was mainly informed through research, and him putting it into his own words ( which is the point of the channel ). The words he chooses are also designed to be understandable to a general audience.
Maybe a stretch again, but I am sure he knows of the term "autistic meltdown" but decided that temper tantrum would be more understandable to a general ( which is bad or good depending on how you view. I am not autistic myself, but maybe a better analogy would be like an "overdose from sense" but again I don't know much about this topic. )
I guess the only concern is that when I think of a "primer," I think of the thing as an introduction to a subject, not necessarily the end all be all. But it seems like definition of the word means "excellent," but depending on how you see the word this video can be taken differently.
Lets zoom out from the ideas though, the point of this video is not a complete autistic guide ( clearly, I would say ) since it is an "intro". If a person is wondering if they could be autistic and are involved a gaming community ( or they just want to learn more about it), this could be a start. Then they can research more about autism on own their own.
I would say this is alike how the complex numbers or restrictions or more complex ideas in mathematics are not introduced in elementary school. But they are introduced later on as we learn more about the topics. This video is just the starting town ( where the starting town represents a video that could incite more research about autism )
Maybe cope, this is just how I see it. I suspect I am autistic myself, but I haven't done any research and my brain is too scrambled to do so.
@@owlfrogelephants I think it wouldn't be so bad if it was just simplified, but he's basing a lot of explanations off of negative, *incorrect* understandings of autism. If a meltdown is too hard to understand, then comparing it to a panic attack might be better (both uncontrollable, and because the environment/situation is overwhelming, and deserve sympathy from other's not ridicule). Calling it a tantrum make us sound more like children causing a fuss because we didn't get our way, instead of accurately explaining that we find things a lot more distressing than most people. He sort of set this up earlier, saying we're more likely to hate the gym or food far more than non-autistic people, so I don't think there's a good reason why he wouldn't expand this concept to meltdowns.
He also uses outdated terms which also leads to him miscategorises things. The mild to severe scale of autism has been made redundant now, basically, it's a very inaccurate way of understanding autism. Autism isn't like anxiety or depression that work more on a scale of intensity, because it's a pervasive condition (affects many areas of your life) you may exceed in certain things but really struggle in other areas. Instead, support needs are a better way of understanding autistic individuals because there's more of an understanding that people need different things to support them. Maybe one person only needs headphones to be able to cope with overly loud noises, but maybe another needs to leave the situation altogether. And maybe the person who only needed headphones really struggles with minor changes to their routine and will experience meltdowns from that, whereas the second person is completely unaffected by it. We can't say Person A has "mild" autism because they need less help with noises than Person B, and we can't say Person B is more "high-functioning" because they need a less rigid routine. They both just struggle in different areas, so comparing one autistic person to another based on only one of their struggles doesn't make sense. This is what the Spectrum part of the name refers to. I think this misunderstanding also leads to Dr K categorising hand flapping and echolalia in the "severe" autism category, when any autistic person can experience these things regardless of their level of support needs (and I think also defines echolalia incorrectly, or at least only gives the most extreme example).
The problem isn't necessarily that it isn't a complete guide, but that the foundations which this video is trying to set up are flimsy, and promote an outdated understanding of autism as well as some more negative stereotypes. For example, by setting up in this introductory video, that autistic people find it difficult to put ourselves in other people's shoes is questioned by the Double Empathy Problem. Which basically states that both neurotypical and autistic people struggle to understand each other because we both perceive and understand the world differently. It's not that autistic people are bad at this, I'm sure many of us autistic people have had neurotypical people make negative assumptions about us and then treat us poorly because of it (bullying being a common experience of autistic people...not very empathetic of the neurotypical people to bully us, I don't think...). But, because Dr K has already made the claim that it's an autistic issue, if he ever talks about the Double Empathy Problem and clarifies that it's not down to us being horrible, heartless monsters, people will have to unlearn something that he said in this video which might make it even more difficult for people to understand because they're being given conflicting information.
@@looc_96 I still believe what I said still holds from everything you said. If not, and I swear half the things you said were addressed in the video ( sensory explanation ) and/or are simplifications/inadditions ( double empathy problem, low/high functioning ), and other things.
I just don't know enough about this topic to say with high confidence, aswell as I don't have any interest in continuing to follow it. So I am done commenting on this chain.
Just in summary, it seems like the autistic people watching his video just nitpick his analogies and simplifications ( which I know doesn't mean anything for a lot of autistic people (I know from experience), but socially it looks really bad. That doesn't mean that much to me, however many others though I know will not like what they comment )
@@owlfrogelephants If you don't know about the topic, and people with the condition are telling you he's spreading misinformation about their condition, what makes you think that you're more correct than people with the disorder?
The things weren't addressed in the video, were not "nit-picking", autism is still stigmatised and using the most up to date terminology does matter. Non-autistic people having an issue with autistic people correcting misinformation about our own condition looks bad on them, not us. You don't understand why it's bad because you know nothing of the topic. That's your ignorance at play, and not wanting to follow the topic anymore is part of the problem of non-autistic people not understanding us.
Dr K said we have "temper tantrums" and said we can't really put ourselves in other people's shoes, that presents us in a horrible light, and you assuming everyone is "nit-picking" when we're explaining why this is harmful only proves the point further. You're assuming the worst out of us, and don't want to adjust your perception when you admit to not knowing about the topic. Have some humility.
I remember being a kid and my older sister accused me of not having any common sense as an insult. When I was a teen she said I have no common sense with concern. Now I'm helping her navigate having an autistic kid from a point of experience.
I just got told by a frustrated loved one that I really “lack certain kinds of common sense “ just three days ago 😂 for context am a 27 year old woman and they have known me for a long time
My Dad used to say I had only book smarts, not street smarts.
Now I'm making him rebuild his life from afar after distancing himself from literally every single one of his children due to his undiagnosed ADHD, childhood trauma and NPD.
Book smarts sometimes ARE street smarts.
You need both though.
@@TransNationaleIt depends, as much as I'd like to travel, if I were to travel to like a high criminal area I would end up on liveleak. Because street smart also means aware of your surrounding, reading between the lines, knowing what to say to the robber with a gun etc. If I got myself into that situation I'm a gonner. This is even proven statistically, autistic people are more vulnerable; in like most regards.
If you're autistic like I got some literally life changing advice from a youtube channel called autism from the inside and I can't like emphasize enough how much his playlist on emotions explained helped me.
Absolutely agree!
It's a great channel. Paul is late diagnosed autistic and has some really great information, panels and discussions.
Literally the channel that helped me so much when I felt the most lost and confused about whether or not I thought was I autistic, and what to do about it.
Yeah, great channel. He was the first person who described my experience accurately.
Im definitely on the stage 2 because stage 3 need actually help daily. But it might help someone. My only problem is I don't value anything that is considered work or employable and have so much anxiety trying to make something new.
Thank you so much for this, Dr. K. I've recently started coming to the realization that all the confusion, frustration, loneliness, trauma and misery in my life have all stemmed from having undiagnosed autism. I'm still in the process of trying to figure out how to get a formal diagnosis without money, but I relate to all of the descriptions of autism in a way that I have almost NEVER related to anyone around me. Almost everything you said felt like you were reading from that script I was supposed to have, but never got.
Everything you said made all the woes of my life feel seen and validated. I've never had anyone hear my descriptions of how it feels to be me and respond with anything other than dismissal, mockery or condescension, no matter how calmly and carefully I've broached the subject. I feel like I've had my rights to be a human revoked before I was even born.
This stream has been such a game changer for me in understanding who I am and what I've been dealing with all this time. Thank you so much for advocating for people like me and letting the neurotypical world know that we're really hurting out here and could use even a tiny bit of understanding and patience. It'd help tremendously.
I disagree with this as a necromancer with autism i find my autism actually helps me to obtain souls more effectively.
How do you collect these souls, pray tell? I'm new to this and could use some pointers.
Soul gems, enchanted weapons, occasionally the spell ‘Soul Trap’ (I picked up my tome from the College of Winterhold,, but you can find them at most Alchemy Shops) /j
If anyone missed the point, he's making a joke that often autism actually helps you get that job which will make you "high functioning" in the society's eyes. It's ridiculous to suggest to medicate autistic people.
I think your description of food sensitivities is spot on, I think it's the best I've ever seen it explained by someone who doesn't struggle with it themselves.
Additionally, while I would agree that trauma does not cause neurodivergence itself, I think you talked about it as if they are two independent things. I think this is also wrong. You mentioned a list of issues (emotional dysregulation, "temper tantrums"/meltdowns, executive dysfunction, socialization, etc) that are shared by autism and PTSD. While I don't think trauma _causes_ autism, I personally am pretty convinced a lot of the difficulties autistic people experience are related to trauma responses. There's a great TED talk about it by a guy called Guy Shahar which explains this very well.
The idea is that autistic people are wayyyy more sensitive to a lot of things such that in extreme cases, a parent expressing disaproval with a slightly judgemental tone can be extremely traumatic, which could actually directly cause a lot of "symptoms of autism" such as the inability to talk, meltdowns, etc. This perspective really aligns with my own experience, while i where often I would get judged for things when I had no bad intent, which just hurts so much and really crushed my willingness to interact with others. This resulted in my displaying a lot of so called "problem behaviour", and the way people treated me for it is like adding a lot of salt to my wounds. It made me start to hate a lot of things including myself somewhat (though fortunately a part of me always remained knowing there was nothing wrong with me).
Thank you. As one of the many who's pestered your comment section in the past asking for this ( many times) THANK YOU SO MUCH
(Context: I'm a late diagnosed autistic person, working as a therapist)
Great video and a good resource to share with friends and family who want a better understanding of autism.
And also great for autistic people that are curious about the clinical perspectives (vs. lived experience that you see a lot of on social media).
Would've loved to hear a different term for tantrums (sounds like a child who doesn't get his way. I assume you meant meltdowns).
Secretly enjoyed the stereotypical examples with trains, though interests are extremely varied among people with ASD.
Otherwise: extremely helpful, great metaphors (especially the quote at 1:51:55, and the eggshells on your eggs)
Love to see a follow up!
On being raised without a diagnosis... (I am now diagnosed with asd lv 2)
My parents slapped me many times when I was a child for being disrespectful... I still can't understand what I did wrong.
It was fucking confusing not knowing why I was punished...
Another thing is that none of my needs where knew or accommodated, ever, so they made me eat disgusting things, they scolded me for doing repetitive behaviors, and for having an hyperfixation.
They didn't know what a meltdown was, how to avoid it or manage it...
I remember the feeling of drowning and being held in a bathtub full of water, after the diagnosis I asked about it, apparently I was screaming and hitting myself so it was a meltdown , they view it as tantrum and they dealt with it that way.., I am 39 years old and I am still very afraid of water.
All of those and many, many more experiences with poor parenting turned me into a child and an adult with selective mutism. Which, combined with my autism, made me a target for predators as a child, teenager, and adult.
I'm thankful for these tiktok things happening tbh, I think a lot of parents will be more educated about ASD because of it...at least I hope so...
(Btw, I don't speak English. Sorry for all the mistakes)
So sorry you had to experience such terrible parenting.
Your English is perfect! 😊
@tiddlypom2097 thanks, as I view it rn, all of that was ignorance and two undiagnosed adults, idk what tipe of diagnosis they have but ignoring your child's struggles so much is not normal tbh x for example dismissing the school when they say your child is not talking a word or just , having a baby that cried for a day and a half straight on the first travel outside that you had to travel back is not normal for a baby.. or if your baby cant stand crowded places, or a toddler that teaches themselfs math before knowing how to read... Is not normal... All of it were symptoms that something wasn't right
Not diagnosed yet, but this sounds so similar to my childhood.
I spent so much of my childhood begging for my parents to explain to me what I was doing wrong so that I could fix it, only for them to insist "you know what you've done!"
I oftentimes think that my parents may have recognized I was behaving like a disabled person, but genuinely believed I dedicated my entire childhood to faking a neurodevelopmental disability for attention and praise. Because to this day, I don't see how it wasn't blatantly obvious that I wanted to be a good kid and didn't know how.
You say that because we have difficulty with eye contact, we can't "see"into people's souls. So what does that say about blind people? Most of us, Autistic people, are amazing empaths. Some of us can "see" better in people's souls than you can.
Also you nts need to understand that your lack of theory of mind is often less developed than ours but yet, you never choose to pathologize your own lack of theory of mind, you only pathologize what you assume is ours.
1:55:38 Autistic person here. The eye contact thing is very much related to nervous system overload and inflammation. I have gotten WAY better at appropriate eye contact as ive gotten older, but I still struggle a bit. Eye contact can be uncomfortable in a similar way to staring at a bright light can be. It triggers emotions, directly linked to the serotionergic pathways because making eye contact needs to trigger emotions for survival reasons (my guess). Its also very difficult to guess what someone else is thinking, and when you look them right in the eyes its like it makes you feel naked. Someone is looking at embarrassing parts of you, you know they are judging you in those moments, and you'd rather just look away. Gets better with age when you understand people better, and assuming you reduce inflammation and nervous system complications along with a lot of practice. More practice than a "normal" person would need to do.
I look just above people's noses. Apparently with family, my eye contact is very normal. If I am having an intense conversation or one that demands concentration, I look to the side of the person's head. I am much more focused on the content of the conversation when I'm not looking at the person. But I know what you mean about "nakedness." With people I don't know eye contact feels overly intimate.
@@steveneardley7541 Yeah im often the same way, which is why I have to force myself to look at people at least occasionally otherwise they will think im not paying attention, when in reality me not looking is me paying attention because my brain isn't occupied with visual stuff
My first therapist went from "i wish everyone listened to me like you do" to saying that i was a difficult person just because i was asking all the time how things are: I told hereI didn't know what i should wear, how to act, how to speak... And that i felt "my inner critic" speaking from getting up to going to sleep because i didn't know how to act like th rest, and she just told me that k was a difficult person.
So i left. After some time I decided to go back to therapy because I wanted to know "what normal was" because i felt that i was losing reality. I went and when the therapist asked me what my purpose was, I said that I wanted to know what normal was, to adjust and so, to have a touch with reality. The therapist, to my surprise at the time, was very surprised and didn't understand. I tried to explain that i wanted to know what was a normal way to dress, live, etc. Somehow, it didn't ring any bells, he told me that I was an evitative person 😅
After more therapists, a friend with 2 diagnosed autistic kids told me that she and the father were clearly on the spectrum and knew after taking the kids to the specialists and that made so much sense suddenly. I changed from the worst continuous anxiety to almost no anxiety (just tge usual) and from despair of feeling defective and worthless to just wired different and not a problem, only different.
I’m really not sure if I’m on the spectrum or not. What confuses me is I can be exhausted a lot and it’s hard for me to break momentum of not being consistent with routines. But before autism got “popular” I never had any issue as far as people saying I acted different or saying I was strange etc… but now that Autism is all over TikTok all my friends are always saying “I’m so autistic” and they’ll call me autistic aswell. And I just doubt that a lot of these guys are autistic or even have any idea of what that really means
@@michaelbain9086 I have a spasticity problem, it causes parasite micro orders to be sent to my legs. There is no apparent movement but when I walk it reduces the precision/range of my movements. I was very surprised when I discovered the use of the term "spastic" in English and found it at least a insulting.
Considering my experience and what Dr K said about the increased risk caused by a lack of oxygen at birth... I am pondering more and more if I am a little bit on the spectrum too. I have an amazing ability to listen which was useful at school but even with a well treated handicap socialization was... hard and it lead to what looks like a gifted kid graph. I have a neuro-psychological test planned in the near future. So that may finally put logical explanations where I had problems to fit in society.
@@williamboisdenghien2849 Goodluck hope you find the answers you seek
I am really sorry you had that shitty experience with therapists. Been there too, and have been met with the same generic unhelpful answer. They don't get it.
Personally, I've had some horrible experiences with therapists, but once I got my autism diagnosis, I've found that I do so so much better with therapists who have experience with it. There were just so many frustrations "why can't you just *do* x??" from therapists who didn't *get* it, while those that know autism know how to tell me things in a way I understand.
On the point of "You decide whether you have a disorder or whether you're just different":
Feels worth it to mention this, since a lot of y'all are statistically more likely to view the world in black and white :D
It doesn't have to be one or the other.
In myself (diagnosed neurodivergent) I see some aspects that I like and that make me me, and some aspects that really are just detrimental that I'm working on mitigating or even losing. Mix and match techniques to suit yourself, no need to decide on an entire approach!
After I got diagnosed with autism, my life became a lot easier shortly after. I live in a country (Denmark) where there are schools for people with autism and adhd, and where asessment is free. The main thing that made a difference was meeting people who were different like me, who accepted me and were honest with me. The school itself didn't actually do much for me personally, and I struggled a lot with anxiety when I left school, but it has gotten better.
I have ARFID and learning to cook has actually helped, because now I can make healthy food without destroying the texture. I can keep the foods seperate if I want to. People don't understand my problems with food, but health is all that matters in the end.
A note on the life expectancy in the past: People didn't always have children at a young age, and the life expectancy was 40 because many children died back then. People who reached adulthood lived longer than forty.
That last part was also my thought 😂🎉 Thank u!
That's amazing! Nothing is perfect obviously, but even the fact that getting diagnosed is free is amazing.
@@ALG3228 Yeah, I think it is sad to hear about people who have to save up to get diagnosed. There is some traveling expense if you don't live close to a place where they test people, but other than that it is free.
where do you live?
@@MagiqPatryk In Denmark.
ARFID has been my single greatest difficulty in life and was a driving factor for what led me to investigate if I have autism. The eggshell analogy used here is the single best explanation of ARFID that I've ever heard and highlights how something as simple as eating can be incredibly difficult for people on the spectrum.
@@KohiVR ikr omg I felt so validated!! I'm so glad ARFID is being talked about more often in the recent years
i think you are hung up on 'temper tantrums' (expressive overwhelm, meltdowns) in an actively outward aggressive form but by your own discussion there's a internalized passive expression of overwhelm and struggle. You say it's more seen in women, but also that women get missed because their presentation doesn't get noticed... maybe you're missing those in men too because it's not loud and showy/disruptive. your focus on 'tantrums' dismisses the autistic individuals (If we are saying the brain is wired different, then it's not something people have, it's the structure of their interface with reality, it's the neurotype) who deal with shutdown predominate response to overwhelm and masking strain.
Holy shit thank you, I’m just starting the video, my autistic roommate told me to look up female presenting autism and so so many things that clicked into place.
Agreed, the term temper tantrum equates the behavior to that of a spoiled child acting out, not a disregulated or sensory overwhelmed person on the spectrum. It's a loaded term that places a lot of shame on the individual. Shutdown or meltdown is preferred by most.
This guy just lost my respect. Understanding the difference between the ASD meltdown and “temper tantrums” is common knowledge. And he is supposed to be a “professional.”
I would say a good amount, if not most, professionals make that mistake and probably know even less than this on that topic.
Shaming people doesn’t encourage them to grow, it pushes them out of a space.
Also 100% how my boomer parents would understand it; they would need much more of an explainer on meltdown/shutdown etc, and at the end of it they would still say, “so, a tantrum?” Not everyone uses and understands language the same way.
@@darbydelane4588 it's most definitely not common knowledge. I don't know where you're getting this from. Up until 20 minutes ago when I saw people criticizing Dr.K for this i thought meltdowns and temper tantrums were essentially the same.
**TIMESTAMPS**
[05:05] - General Disclaimer & Intro
[06:18] - Announcements (references, social anxiety stream next week, new coaching spots open)
[07:11] - Quick overview of coaching for those unfamiliar
[08:54] - Today's Itinerary
[11:07] - Disclaimer about Dr K's approach to ASD
[12:34] - How is autism diagnosed and why is it classified as a disorder?
[14:13] - The neurodiversity movement
[15:51] - Dr. K's approach to the "disorder vs neurodiversity" debate
[19:45] - Diathesis-stress model
[22:58] - BRIEF INTERMISSION
[23:10] - Lackluster accessibility accommodations for neurodiversity
[24:23] - CORE FEATURES OF ASD
[24:50] - #1: ASD is a spectrum
[26:38] - #2: Difficulties with social & emotional reciprocity
[26:54] - What does that mean?
[30:49] - Symptoms
[31:33] - An analogy from video games
[32:23] - The treatment philosophy
[33:38] - Example illustrating the difficulty of living with autism
[35:29] - Symptoms (cont'd)
[36:41] - Scripting
[40:29] - Symptoms (cont'd)
[41:43] - Digression about ARFID & differences in perception
[46:26] - Symptoms (cont'd)
[47:35] - The importance of context
[48:03] - Anecdote illustrating how context matters
[49:23] - The importance of context (cont'd)
[50:52] - The trauma of growing up with autism
[52:34] - "Appropriate" behavior
[53:13] - One-sided relationships
[54:23] - Being "taken in" by a friend group
[56:06] - #3: Restricted/Repetitive behaviors, interests, or activities
[56:30] - Explanation
[57:10] - Autistic Savants
[57:26] - An example from the 2008 financial crisis
[1:00:02] - Autistic Savants (cont'd)
[1:00:54] - Flapping, Echolalia, Patterned object use
[1:02:11] - Rituals, Patterns of behavior
[1:03:05] - #4: Emotional Regulation
[1:03:31] - Amplified emotional & stress responses
[1:06:38] - These core features, genotype and fenotype, short explanation of masking
[1:07:54] - COMORBIDITIES
[1:09:31] - (TW: Suicide) Suicidality & ASD
[1:15:41] - Increased risk of trauma
[1:18:30] - INTERMISSION
[1:19:41] - WHERE DOES AUTISM COME FROM?
[1:22:10] - Genetics
[1:22:44] - Intra uterine environment
[1:23:13] - Mitochondrial Dysfunction
[1:23:52] - Gut/Brain interactions
[1:40:41] - GENDER DIFFERENCES
[1:41:14] - Differences in ASD presentation and cultural socialization makes diagnosis harder for women
[1:48:28] - Gender identity and ASD
[1:51:31] - THE EXPERIENCE OF AUTISM
[1:51:56] - A quote from parents on the experience of having a child with (high-functioning) autism.
[1:52:50] - Being simultaneously capable and incapable
[1:54:30] - MASKING
[1:54:30] - Explanation
[1:55:18] - Example: eye contact
[1:57:19] - Example: making friends
[1:58:01] - Explanation (cont'd)
[1:59:51] - The Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q)
[2:02:41] - Social interaction is not enjoyed, is a labor to get through
[2:03:10] - SELF-DIAGNOSIS
[2:03:25] - ASD misinformation on TikTok
[2:03:55] - What is needed for an ASD diagnosis
[2:07:26] - TREATMENT
[2:07:55] - Disclaimers
[2:08:10] - Treatment/Interventions
[2:09:57] - The earlier, the better
[2:10:50] - Parental Involvement
[2:13:50] - Behavioral Interventions (ABA/CBT)
[2:19:23] - Pharmacology/Medication
[2:23:27] - Social skills training
[2:24:16] - DR. K'S APPROACH TO WORKING WITH ASD PATIENTS
[2:33:01] - DR. K'S THOUGHTS
[2:38:05] - ENDING ON A HOPEFUL NOTE
[2:39:54] - A NOTE FOR NEUROTYPICAL PEOPLE
[2:42:20] - Q&A
[2:42:28] - "Does experiencing ego-death help coping with autism?"
[2:46:53] - "Can trauma such as PTSD cause neurodivergence?"
[2:49:10] - "What is the ayurvedic take on autism?
[2:49:43] - "How do I know whether I'm subclinical/highly-masked ASD or just modelling my ASD parent's behavior?"
[2:52:10] - "Any specific advice for genius- or savant-level autists?"
[2:58:14] - CONCLUSION
Thank you!
@@Keawe You're welcome! :)
Thank you so much this is so helpful ! ✨️
@@doriane_do Happy to help :)
I'm a late diagnosed autistic woman. I was diagnosed when my child was. I know A LOT of autistic women with similar experiences. I see y'all. ❤
How hard is parenting with ND... I was wondering why I was feeling so overwhelmed and unable to follow simple routines day in day out ... Lol can't mask my way through a 24/7 job.
I keep hearing on videos "if you have a diagnosed child you should get screened" then you ask to be screened around here as an adult female and all of the doors slam shut. Too many are still falling through the cracks. Thank you for seeing us and it's good to see at least somewhere women are getting proper care.
@@spiderling88 Good luck, as an adult male their eyes glaze over when I want to discuss autism just because I outwardly seem normal. They usually just ignore me when I mention it. 10 years ago, after only talking to me for about 3 minutes which just invovled basic greetings, I mentioned I thought I was autistic. He told me emphatically I was not. He didn't ask me any of my symptoms, and when I mentioned all the different problems I had he dissmissed them and said they could be caused by any number of factors.
Your language around this topic is getting better/less offensive. It used to be hard to listen to, but I can tell you’re trying to pick your words carefully.
The preferred terminology within the autism community is “meltdown,” NOT tantrum. These are two fundamentally different things. Also, “high(er) support needs” or “low(er) support needs.” Saying someone is high or low functioning is insulting and/or inaccurate for either side.
Most autistic people have spiky skill profiles. So what does it even mean to be high or low functioning, when most of us are not functioning at a consistent level across the board. Some autistic people are lawyers AND don’t know how to make/maintain friendships. Some autistic people are doctors, but can only tolerate eating 4 different foods without becoming ill. Some autistic people need round the clock care, but they are profoundly compassionate and great at bringing people together.
Hey Dr K, loved the stream, and since you asked us for ideas on what else to talk about autism, here are some things I would have liked to see addressed (with love and understanding that you can't fit everything in a single stream haha) - the theory of monotropism, the experience of autism for lower-needs/high-masking people especially people who go undiagnosed until adulthood, the self-doubt when you're pretty sure you are autistic but you don't have/can't get a professional diagnosis especially for high-masking people/women, the ethical concerns of the autistic community regarding ABA and a better description of what it is and how it achieves its goal, and last, one small detail I kept thinking about was how, in my experience as a woman, it's also very common for neurodiverse women to congregate in fandom/fannish spaces (including gaming, but things such as partaking in fanwork creation/consumption seem more female-dominated). Thanks for the stream, it was very nice to have you as a body double buddy for the evening and hear you talk about autism!
Really great list! Yeah fandom spaces are all full of women who either have ADHD and/ or autism it seems like for sure. I'm on the ADHD side of that. Been a fanwork creator (fanvideo editing aka vidding on this channel, also fanfiction and podfic) since 2006. It's been 18 years now.
The CatQ and all those kinds of questionnaires are so clearly developed by neurotypicals bc of the unstated assumptions like you were talking about in the beginning. Like all the questions about social situations for example. They keep using the word "people" but there are huge differences between people we know and feel safe with, people we know and feel unsafe with, acquaintances, coworkers, people in authority, and strangers. So which people? I generally am able to avoid interacting with *most* "people" these days to avoid dealing with a lot of these issues. And the only person I see regularly is my safe person who I am able to be almost completely unmasked around, at least I'm the least masked with them. I'm more comfortable with my family but there are some in my family even where I know I'm unsafe to really be myself. Obviously work is not a safe place, but I'm fully remote now. So if you're like me and have basically weeded out 98% of unsafe social interactions, but you're still autistic😅😅 that means you might take these questions and think about your recent interactions and say no I don't have a problem with that see, I have a solution! Just never interact with people 😅
So true! I was thinking along the same lines. I hardly socialise at all, and now I work remotely in a tech/data job with other geeky people (mostly men). When I have work meetings I know I have to try not to over-explain & talk too long. And with my partner I am practising being easier to get along with (less pedantic and cranky). But other than that I have very little human interaction so there's a lot of "not applicable".
As a general note: questionnaires especially Likert scale do my head in. I'm trying to work out what assumptions the survey writer is making, and whether how they interpret my answers is actually going to portray me accurately.
Thankyou for making this available on RUclips Dr.K. and thankyou for sharing this information.
Yes. My life has been sprinkled with egg shells. Thank you so much for this. Love your light hearted explanation of REAL ISSUES. I was diagnosed ASD one year ago at age 50. Just beginning to understand my life and trauma.
Thank you so much for this video. I learned so much and found some understanding of myself and my life from this. I cant describe how much it means to me that you, and people like you are trying to understand and help us understand ourselves.
My experience is as someone who has autism, probably has excellent theory of mind, and can emulate parts of other people inside myself with such precision that I can then empathise with the person. The upsetting thing is that, because my emotional responses are so intense, empathising with other people can be extremely painful. My understanding of other people and what their lives are like makes them criticizing me (often non-constructively) worse, because I am understanding where they are coming from and that I am making their life more difficult. The realisation that them being frustrated is unfair to ME and my anger about that then mixes with their frustration, and you get this incredibly volatile cocktail of other peoples feelings mixed in with my own. Two or so years ago, I would had been completely unapproachable in "solving" this because I had been exposed to so many people trying to argue that I should "just have better emotional regulation" in this constant, destructive loop where ordinary people try to "force me to be better" and I just accepted that because I wanted people to be more comfortable around me. As you can imagine, this lead to a whole back and forth between my empathy and the part of my brain that rationalises that it's all hopeless because "self-improvement" has never worked before.
Now, I realise that I have this incredibly uphill battle of being someone who has already figured out a lot of their problems just by being generally smart and obsessively introspective, but has to work on my emotional regulation in a clever, good way (that is distinct from people's incessant bullshit that I'm a terrible, problematic person) while having no idea where to start because of all the work I've already done on myself. Oh, and on top of that the emotions are far more extreme and more prolonged than the average person, too. Fun. I have no idea where to start.
I think my experience is actually fairly similar to yours and for me, just stopping my thoughts and listening into myself without going for any peticular goal while simultainiously trying to be more alright with just doing an ok job at things, so that I don't feel the need to work through everything to the end anymore helps
When you're at the point where you're doing everything and you're still not mooving forward, often times, at least for me, the problem is that I'm over - trying and over - thinking, not that I'm not doing these things enough
extremely relatable but it seems like I have an easier time being an asshole - basically just choosing that sometimes. plus it's easier bc my empathy is almost always is only cognitive, not affective, and I started to get more affective empathy only when i got enough empathy from others myself + with some trauma work. what you describing seems extremely painful though, hope it would get better with adaptation and more understanding community.
I like the Buddhist framework of ego/mind. For me Eckhart Tolle has the clearest and most actionable information for dealing with an obsessively introspective mind. Dr K also covers this, but not as extensively as he covers a lot of different things.
Dr k’s videos on emotional regulation would be really helpful for ya! I’m sorry life’s been so hard but there is hope. always. From the short paragraph that you wrote, I can say that you are intellectualising your feelings/emotions and have a hard time actually noticing them and letting them be. That is the essence of meditation and therapy so any video of Dr.K’s on this topic would be very helpful.
You can even start with the meditation on emotional regulation and try it for a week and journal before and after it to notice how you it goes and how you feel. Best of luck!
Just what is the evolutionary reason for this shiat? so exhausting 😩
1:05:26 I (autistic) have mostly the reverse. My emotions have a delayed onset and last longer (severity I can't really gauge).
As you may be able to imagine, this delayed onset of emotions causes real problems for emotional reciprocity.
Yeah, sometimes your emotions show up like delayed Amazon packages that finally arrive in a crushed box
@@roxannirelandthat you don’t even remember ordering…
A follow-up on the combined type of ASD and ADHD aka AuDHD would be greatly appreciated =)
Also thank you for the insightful stream to remind me of what I already learned and need to keep applying or pick up again.
I second this
Yes please!!
Yes please!
yess
Yes please
I am a late (self) diagnosed autistic woman. Spot on on how hard it is for a woman to be diagnosed. I specifically went for a diagnosis and the doctor said I am not autistic because I had empathy and the amount of emotional energy it took to actually go and get that diagnosis only to have the doctor fail me (because I mask well, unfortunately it's automatic and I don't know how to shut it off with strangers).... Its critical I have an official diagnosis but I just can't bring myself to try again. It was so devastating to hear his ignorance and old school biases in telling me why I couldn't be autistic. - I discovered I was autistic right when I fell into the deepest, darkest autistic burnout that lasted nearly a year and impacted my life so hard that I could not leave my house. Except to *try* to get that diagnosis.
Anyway, to the question on ego death--- 100, 000,000% yes, it not only helps but it enlightens, it heals, it clarifies. ( Yes I realize that technically there is no 100, 000,000% but outside of space and time, everything is one, and those rules do not Apply. 😉) Be forewarned --- it can be a very scary and painful experience. Set and setting is crucial, and if you do decide to go that route, don't fight it, go with it. Be safe all.
I am a 42 year old female and I have been diagnosed with Autism in May this year. I suspected since 4 years ago. I've been in therapy my whole adult life due to depression and anxiety. It helped a lot with trauma but I've hit a wall. I've known there is something more that prevents me from functioning the way I would like to. I've just started working with a new therapist that specializes with working with neurodivergent people. We both suspect that I am AuDHD (or how I like to describe it: my autism has ADHD... tho maybe it's more ADD ;) )
I am high masking for sure. And it's masking that became a problem. I am very capable of not giving any signs. But it is absolutelly exhausting. It has always been like that and was increasing in severity the older I was (first it was adult life being suddenly much more complex and then obviously simply becoming older).
I've always tried to belong but for me experiencing people often feels like touching someone thru foil. I understand the purpose of social behaviours but many of them don't make sense to me. I've also noticed that there is no one set of rules or morality (I would say there are really very few that are used by all people). My flavour of autism specializes in noticing that things are wrong. However I lack tools to explain to people why things are wrong. I just "know" they are because my brain is sending me "error alarms". And then I get obssesed with trying to figure out why but I've learnt the hard way that people do not want to cooperate with my investigations. Since I was a child I got angry when hearing that something is inappropriate. I've heard it so often and so many of those things didn't make any sense. Why I cannot say that I don't like olives when I am a guest and someone served olives? I don't know why I remember this one so vividly but it's just one example. But as an adult when I look back at those situations I realize that my brain was correct and the adults where wrong.
I am noticing recently that I have been conditioned to feel like I am difficult. And I am really anxious about being difficult to others. I do my best to not be difficult to people but somehow I still fail quite often. And over the years I have suppressed all the anger that would be natural in all those situations when I was given negative feedback I had no way to working with. This anger has been bursting out from time to time but it was never solved.
I have managed to be employed for the last 12 years at the same place. But since 7 years ago I've understood my place of employment is not healthy for me (so is this patch of career cause this kind of artistic community I am in is chaotic and toxic in far too many situations). But hey... try to change something when you are autistic :P I am still happy I have made huge progress in preparing myself to leave my current place of employment. Tho, I've recently had a major burnout episode in April and I am only now coming back after a sick leave. Now I am sure things will have to change really soon. In fact my mind was set on quitting. But some new meds managed some of my symptoms enough I've decided I can give my job a try for a while and see how it is but I will be much more mindfull about things that burn me out. And if there is something important to me that cannot be accomodated I will just quit. At the same time I am giving all my focus on getting ICF certified coach (I am gathering the required practice). And maybe I can also start the path of becoming a therapist. Cause I know some of my natural qualities shine when I talk with people one on one... especially the pattern recognition. I only get lost or overwhelmed when there is more people around.
P.S. If it ever happens that my partner dies before me, I am 100% to be a cat lady :P The only reasons I am not already crawling in cats is that my partner is extremely alergic to cats.
Thank you for sharing. This is so similar to my experience. I'm 42, I've been in therapy my whole life, have CPTSD. I've been in therapy my whole life. I've been working with a psychologist for the last four years and we have come to think I'm on the spectrum and it's been masked by the PTSD for so long. I'm so good at masking because of the survival skills I had to learn. It made me better at the social reading because I was made to feel responsible for other people's emotions but then highly functioning because I had to become an adult at the age of 8. It all came crashing down in my early 20s and spent years getting through the PTSD part and then went to college and grad school. Now have an amazing job... but realize something is still keeping me from functioning like others. I am already a happy dog lady and have given up on relationships. Waiting on an official diagnosis. I was on a wait list where I last lived, then moved, now on another waitlist.
It took a lot of time to understand and then communicate to loved ones and my therapist that it doesn‘t make me feel better to offload my negative feelings to them. It just feels like retraumatisation. The only kind of conversation that helps me is the constructive/ solution focused type. To talk about my problems as if they were a puzzle to solve.
1:27:00 Im extremely happy hes talking about diet and inflammation. Its a very under-recognized factor of most of the negative symptoms of autism. I was debilitated until early adulthood when I started eating way better, way less sugar, no bread and less processed stuff. Mostly just eggs really. No eggshells
No shells 🤣🤣
What changes did you notice in mood and energy/bodily function after your changes to diet?
@@anthony-dc4dc I can get up in the morning now even when I don't have 8 hours of sleep. Im still tired, but like, I have this reserve energy that I can use to push myself if I really try where as before I couldn't. Its hard to describe.
There is less constant pain in my muscles and nerves, as well as less sensitivity to light and sounds. The sensitivity is still there, but its diminished by like 80% or more, its very noticeable. But it took over 5 years for these changes to occur and a specific hyperfocus on trying to notice those changes. Most people will feel better or worse and not notice why.
My mood also felt more even keeled, but honestly this might be a trauma response too so I can't control for some factors that might be related to a lack of an ability to feel emotions in general. It also could have been the weed that I started smoking when I started to get really sick and change my diet. I do feel a lot less irritable and I notice it come back if I eat something like TopRamen which not only has high inflammatory chemicals and additives in it, it also has MSG which is an artificial salt that fks up the nervous system. I am much more irritable and have more headaches after eating that stuff for at least a few days to a week.
I could probably go into more detail, but I don't know how much you want.
I am a parent of an autistic 6 year old. He is verbal, but at six barely capable of conversation. I was advised by one of the people who have worked with autism for decades here in Greece that my main task was to understand my child. Here's what i have gleaned in the 3+ years since we got our diagnosis. One of the things neurotypical children do is watch their parents speech and their parent's faces and model after that. Our son never did that, all modelling had to be explicit and because of that he learns things mostly by himself. Because a person who is 3 or 6 does not have the mental capacity or the variety of experience to interpret the phenomena around him, as we do, without a lot of help, his inability to understand the world compounds. That causes feelings of insecurity and anxiety and all the symptoms you describe go downstream from that. I hope this helps someone.
There is a great deal of disinformation in this video. This could be instead called a primer on autistic stereotypes. I am high masking. NOT high functioning. I am autistic, not a person WITH autism. I have meltdowns which I attempt to do in privacy. Tantrums are characterized more as a manipulative tool. I am not attempting to manipulate anyone when I am going through a meltdown.
Now, other autistic people DO prefer person with autism labels, but we could ask the person their personal preferences instead of perhaps claiming we don't need to define ourselves by our diagnosis. I personally feel this type of othering happens when our view of that "thing" is negative. My autism is only negative when I have to hide my traits to be acceptable to others.
If you are not aware of it, perhaps check out the double empathy problem. As another RUclipsr put it, if a french person and a german person try to communicate but can't it's not one's fault over the other. It's not the German's responsibility to learn french or else. We need to figure out a slightly different option for communication maybe or just be understand and accept that there may be misunderstanding between them.
If you were just some person who was uninformed, I might not care as much but you are a professional who is spreading information that is inaccurate. I hope that this was a case of you just not being informed but in that scenario, I ask, why make a video about a subject you know you are not well versed in, potentially doing harm to a community who already dwells in a very vulnerable place.
I wish you well, but I think I am going to definitely take a breather from your channel for a while.
Especially with the double empathy and trying to understand each other, we (autistic people) already *are* doing our best to communicate! But we literally have a disorder that makes it difficult to read non-verbal cues, read between the lines etc., it would actually be much easier for non-autistic people to meet us halfway and be a bit more direct or to clarify intent if/when we're confused. In my experience, the neurotypical person will be angry at me for not getting it, but then won't help me to understand them or won't try to understand me. Both people need to acknowledge and understand that some things are going to be missed or perhaps misinterpreted by the other, and we just need to figure out where those discrepancies are and have compassion for the other (which autistic and allistic people are both capable of doing)
Just wanted to pop in here and appreciate this poster's distinction of high/low functioning. That always bothered me because it is centering performance for NTs. I think high/low masking or high/low support needs works better. 🤔
hi! disorders are based on how well someone can live there live that takes place in a certain society! thats what clinical practice is about! even though we can criticise how groups of people are treated in a society, you as an indivial person have to adjust, because you cannot freely choose your environment. thats why the term high/low functioning is useful. Masking is the way you are dealing with social social situations, but it for the goal to function in a society where the majority of people is not autistic.
Dr. K did apologize for the wording temper tantrum in the description which is of course not fitting. However, I can feel that you feel very attacked by that, maybe because of past traumatic experiences of how people speak about autistic people. I don't think Dr. K used the term because he actually thinks autistic people use temper tantrums as a means for manipulation. When neurotypical people talk about autism and they are clearly trying their best as Dr K does, accusations of bad intention only complicate communication. Non-autistic people have the same trouble understanding autistic people as vice-versa. Please give us the benefit of the doubt. Dr. K made a hour 3 video on this and speaking from my experience with autistic people, he nailed 90% of the points, while he disclaimed multiple times he is not an expert on this topic. I myself have been waiting for a video of him on autism for a long time and am very glad.
Now, if you go out into the world and want to better the situation with autistic people and for yourself, but shut conversations down once someone makes a wrong or insensitive statement, communication has no chance of becoming better, as it never actually started and you might become disappointed. Communication between autistic and non-autistic people needs many feedback loops as both sides have a bad intuition for each other. The best we do it to keep listening to each other and keep being interested!
I hope that was not too personal but a observation I often have in this context. Thank you :)
I appreciate you making this video dr.K.
I am one of those people whose life got easier after getting a diagnosis of asd.
I got diagnosed in my 30s. So i went my whole life without having an explanation for the things that i struggle with, especially issues socializing. At least now I can let people know that im autistic, and thats why I don't behave and talk exactly like them. Also its easier to get help with things that i can't do, because I have an explanation as to why i need help.
44:30 The eggshell analogy is actually a pretty good one. It seems like a small thing but these sensory issues can be a HUGE deterrent. Sometimes you might also eat the egg with the eggshell in it and not even notice its there, other times you will notice and it will make whatever it is you are doing completely unpalatable
I was able to attain an autism, ADHD and PTSD diagnosis this year in yhe process of getting onto state disability. I've burnt out of a lot of things by the age that i am now (26 y/o). While things on a whole are getting better after getting help, I've never been more tired than I have been in the process of recovering. I have had to accept that i will live an atypical life compared to my peers, and i hope to spend the rest of my life expressing myself through creative artforms. Existence in this form, in this way is painful but this way is the only way I know and I realized through the judgments of others not on the spectrum that spiritually, my purpose is to communicate my experience so that people know better how to treat us and each other.
U smoke weed at all?
@@L0wSkiller not anymore, causes me paranoia. my anxiety meds + good diet do alright for me these days
Finally diagnosed at age 58, which explained a lifetime of challenges, misunderstanding, abuse, masking, mental health issues, +++! Finally accepting myself and letting go of the past with a great therapist. LIFE changing!!! Thanks for all your information, giving hope for the future!
Good to hear!
I wish you could have gotten a diagnosis sooner. Glad you found out though.
Things that have helped me thrive as an autistic person (female, 24 years old, co-morbid ADD):
1) Choosing to be around people who want to accept me: other autistic/neurodivergent people, and also open-minded neurotypicals. This has been the most important thing for me personally.
2) Subcultures! A lot of these have a high concentration of autistic and/or open-minded people (see Point 1). From personal experience, the following subcultures are particularly autism-friendly:
- BDSM/kink/"sex-positive" communities
- Polyamorous communities
- The "Burner" community (people who attend Burning Man and the hundreds of similar smaller festivals & events around the world)
- Ravers (maybe not great if you're noise-sensitive)
- LGBT+ communities
- Any "nerd" subculture
3) Getting in touch with my body and my emotions again after a lifetime of masking and dissociation. (If you wanna check it out, some keywords to look for are: "grounding", "embodiment", "somatic".)
Masking and dissociation had been helping me to function more like a neurotypical, so unlearning all that naturally made me "more disabled", but it also allowed me to truly experience life instead of just existing on autopilot. I wouldn't change that for the world.
Love this comment. I have recently realised in my hobby/interest on youtube, first of all several key players left ... but those that remain I think many are Autistic (women). They seem happy kinda hyperfocused on certain aspects of the thing.
But tbh I miss the old days & more varied content. I'm not sure what to do ... I wondered if you had any suggestions?
I think Autistic people are the backbone of society (both mainstream & alternative scenes) . I just don't have that stamina that I see in Autistic people.
I also think that the YT algorithm has been friendly to Autistic people (eg favouring consistency & niching), though perhaps it is changing.
I want everyone to have a place & feel welcome.
I disagree with these immoral and toxic communities, and a serious reason is that you will be prey for psychopathic people that want to exploit you
This might be niche but would be cool to get a video on PDA-profile (Pathological Demand Avoidance/Persistent Drive for Autonomy) autism, maybe a conversation with an expert? It's been a tough but worthwhile journey figuring out what's my autism, my ADD and what's my personality.
„I feel deeply, deeply uncomfortable about the disorganization of this room, I want it this particular way, but when I do it that way my parent with undiagnosed autism wants it a different way and that creates conflict.“
Too real, man 🤣🤣🤣
Shoutout to all the autistic people explaining every single thing wrong with the video in extreme detail😭✋
1:46:31
I would be very interested in hearing more of your thoughts on how Autism and trauma “blend together in a mush of awfulness.” It’s my understanding that there can be overlap making adult diagnosis difficult, but I am uncertain to what degree of complexity.
i have been in therapy for almost 2 years now and i’ve been working with my therapist on a huge amount of trauma i’ve experienced in 20 years of life. Usually her methods work, like EMDR, but i’ve seen little to no progress so far (i havent stopped therapy because its the reason i still havent done serious harm to myself). It’s only recently that i saw her approach me in a different way and ask me questions that sound like something you would ask to a person with high functioning autism/aspergers (its the reason im interested in the topic now). I believe she’s having a real hard time assessing my situation because no matter what i do social situations still disgust me and break me as soon as i get home, even when i perform well. I have a lot of weird tics (which i learned are called stims if i am actually autistic) that my therapist believed were caused by something specific but instead are like ingrained in my brain, they’re like breathing (like sniffing my arm, repeating softly the last word i said, humming constantly, tapping my fingers etc. ) so it’s hard to tell for her if its anxiety or stimming behaviors. My trauma brought myself to believe i have to be perfect so it’s hard to tell if i follow a script in social settings because i want to perform well in front of others or because its the only way for me to act normal in front of others and finally manage to have friends. It’s impossible for me to understand if im masking or not because after years of faking the social game i’ve completely lost my identity and my ‘pleasing’ attitude has completely taken hold of me. I do have difficulties switching tasks, but i cant stay organized at all so i dont have that going for me. I also have broad interests like music, drawing, gaming, so no special interest.
Eye contact is excruciating. Making it takes all my focus, and i have to think about if i am looking too much, when do i look away, is the other guy looking, do i look at his hands, etc. Again, is it autism or just extreme social anxiety? Hard to tell, so it’s an hard diagnosis.
Therapy has been such hard work and it’s so sad not seeing much results, so i find reassuring the thought of having an ‘explanation’, belonging in a ‘group’. But what if im just looking to be validated, what if im not putting in enough work, what if im just a crybaby? This is why im scared of asking her to actually look for a diagnosis. Im scared to find out that yes, im not autistic and im just broken. And im scared to find out that no, im actually autistic and now i will have to face judgment from all the people i know. I’ve tried talking to them about this stuff, it didn’t end well. It’s invalidating, it’s frustrating, and having to deal with all of this while working on my shitty childhood makes it all the more exausting. Sorry for the text wall, if i cringe to it later i will delete
@@25cats don't cringe, you don't know who you'll help with this comment. also i relate a bit
Autistic people are more likely to suffer trauma and trauma can be worse or simpler to turn traumatic. Simpler is just view point or NT person as to what should and should not be traumatic.
@@25cats thank you for your wall of text 💜 I relate SO MUCH. trying to disentangle trauma from possible asd / adhd feels like trying to separate the eggs and the flour from a cake that’s already baked 🍰
@@25cats First of all, thank you for sharing. Secondly, I think it is pretty common to reflect on behaviors and question what answers might be waiting for you. I think an important thing to consider is the sensory side of Autism. Dr. K touched on it a little bit with the eggs/shells analogy, but it extends to other senses too. Lights, sounds, textures... all seem to have higher intensities in how they affect autistic people. Stims are the tool for self-regulation because it gives your nerves an intended "out" so the stimuli you didn't choose can be ignored a little easier. I think trying to remember if the stims were something you did before the trauma (or if you had very intense sensitivity throughout your life) might give you a bit more evidence. Having a mental health doctor miss signs of autism can also lead to some treatments that feel traumatizing (I'm scared to get tested for autism, even though I'm pretty sure I have it, because of typical treatments not cutting it... I don't trust easily).
I would say it is less that I can’t read people or can’t “put myself in their shoes” and more that I can’t regulate my ability to read people or put myself in their shoes. For instance when I look into someone’s eyes when they are upset it feels like I am being punched by their emotions and I start to feel my emotions as my own. So my options are either see everything everyone is feeling or to not look and catch none of it.
Born in 1980 - I was initially diagnosed with ADHD. My mother elected not to medicate me as she had concerns about the effects of stimulants. I learned at age 35, that I was also autistic, much like all of my younger first cousins on one side of the family.
Prior to that diagnosis I had also been battling Major Depressive Disorder and CPTSD. The diagnosis and adoption of the term AuDHD allowed for an A-Ha moment of sorts - which brought so much clarity to my life experience. While I will forever struggle in some areas, the diagnosis helped bring so much closure and much needed healing. :)
Thank you for this video. :)
I would recommend looking more deeply into the "evidence" ABA likes to cite. Most of it doesn't hold up to contemporary scientific muster, e.g. only 1 subject studied rather than a large group. There was also a major study done by the Department of Defense not long ago that showed that ABA doesn't really have any positive effects. You should also look into DIR/Floortime, a less-known but growing alternative to ABA that is completely non-behavior-based and entirely client-focused.
If you do do a video on autism and dating, I would also ask that you look into the disparity between sexual/romantic encounters in autistic men vs women, I've noticed in my personal life and amongst autistic RUclipsrs I watch that the vast majority of autistics in seemingly happy and healthy relationships are women, and very few autistic men have the same luck.
I'd be interested to see there is any research on this topic.
Anecdotally I've seen a lot of autistic women who've experienced disproportionate levels of averse sexual experiences/domestic abuse / predation.
@@BearingtonT I've definitely seen/heard about that too anecdotally. Really sad if true.
ASD video recommendations: how to live in your body and not your mind (how to feel), beginners guide to unmasking, tips and pitfalls for those diagnosed as adults.
Diagnosed last October. Healthy gamer was definitely an important part in pursuing this.
Just feel I have to pop in to say I wish Dr. K wasn’t still using the high/low functioning labels and reducing it to whether people are mildly or severely autistic as shorthand. Both are extremely limited in what they tell you about the autistic person in general. It comes down to how high their support needs are and what they specifically are; high functioning/mild autism to people generally just means that they are intelligent and “normal” enough to pass a lot of the time, but there can still be struggles outside of that that people don’t take into account when looking at it in such a limited fashion. I’m autistic and would be considered “high functioning.” I’m “level 1.” “Level 3” would be the “severely autistic” folks who can’t really function/live on their own. Yet I still have meltdowns over things like unexpected, last-minute change, for example. There are accommodations I make for myself and that my wife makes for me to make things better for me because of my support needs, limited though they may be. But all that gets lost if you just reduce it to “high functioning.”
Completely agree! Its such a surface level perception of autism.
Neurotypicals who see me masked will often think I'm a level 1 or not autistic at all, but if they were to see me unmasked at home or in a moment of distress, they'd think I'm a 2 or a 3!
I can't tell you how many times when being compared to a level 3 autistic, I'll hear a comment like "but you're not like them, you don't do [stim I only do when alone]."
Our ability to mask does not accurately reflect how we experience autism from the inside!
@@LilChuunosuke Yes! I was so confused when he said hand flapping was a more severe level of autism, like...no it's not, you just might not see it as much with some people because they're ridiculed for it 😅
Be so grateful if you could do a video on autism and adhd in women! We get overlooked and things like menstrual cycle for example really impact our medication routine/general health/mood/likelihood of meltdowns, etc. and this isn't talked about enough! Women are often dismissed as just neurotic and emotional
@1:12:40 I could cry right now... how much this whole segment describes what I've been in the middle of. I've assessed and tried everything I can uncover, it does feel hopeless. It does make you want to give up. You realize you can't continue going at the difficulty level life has been at. It feels overwhelming to hear someone else articulate your experience so well.
I frickin hate ambiguity. I now have to spend all week going through all possible meanings, and they're all equally likely. And then I have to pick one that's right? Commit to it and turn out to be in the wrong or hide from it just incase and end up doing nothing and going nowhere in life. Again. I have no script to solve any of it I think.
I can eat now as an adult, but in school I would often times eat a plate of gravy. I couldn't eat anything else that was being served that day because of the texture. Mince and mashed potato were the worst. I'd feel physically sick.
I thought it was amusing to read that gravy was your safe food, when I refused to even try it until my late 20s because I was grossed out by the thought of broth (I'm still pretty squeamish about a lot of animal products). My school usually had PB&J Uncrustables as a backup option, so I had those very often.
I'm guilty of occasionally speaking ambiguously after a lifetime of heavy masking, but the nice thing about talking with other autistics is that if an ambiguous statement is made, we can ask for clarity with no social repercussions.
Neurotypicals just act like I'm stupid if i don't understand a non-literal statement. 🙄
@@LilChuunosuke Thats a good point. It's also a different kind of ambiguity we use maybe. I need to think about that.
Would love to see a video on meditation and entrepreneurship for those with ASD, as well as something about how to get out of autistic burnout when you can't slow down or you'll lose your home.
Behavioral treatments are ALL about masking. It seems to me that by definition, it's the goal. The goal is to make you behave as if you were neurotypical. Masking is incredibly harmful.
Instead of "fixing" the autistic, maybe let's educate people so we can get the accommodations we need. Accommodations that often help neurotypicals as well, but that autistics need.
You didn't talk about is the prevalence of autistic burnout (extreme exhaustion, regression of skills esp exec function and social, increased dysregulation, higher sensory sensitivities, depression/suicidal ideation). This is the problem with not engaging the autistic community. The very few studies on autistic burnout have been done in the last 3 years by autistic researchers. Because neurotypicals only want to research causes.
I've been diagnosed with BPD, tried cognitive behavioural therapy and I agree with you - it feels like you are just taught to be convenient for "normal" people.
i find it odd that dr k did a stream about autism with nobody autistic, as there are a lot of things he got wrong when it comes to the terms of "high/low functioning", meltdowns, and ABA therapy. I wish he had someone on to correct the way he talks about these.
Why is that odd. He did the same with ADHD.
@@weirdo3116 dr k has also interviewed a lot of adhders about their adhd. he hasnt really done the same with autistic people.
when he talks about adhd, he talks about distraction and how to regulate your attention. he talks about the symptom the person is experiencing and tries to teach through the lens of helping the person. when dr k talks about autism, he talks about the symptoms others can see instead of the one the person themself is experiencing. he calls meltdowns "temper tantrums", a phrase that fundamentally misunderstands the autistic experience, uses the terms "low/high functioning" (which is honestly just rude, would you use the term low functioning to describe stephen hawking?) instead of "low/high support needs", and makes an argument for ABA therapy, an almost universally hated form of "therapy" that forces most commonly children to mask their autistic traits (which can be very dangerous for the autistic individual).
he just got a lot of things wrong about the autistic experience, which sucks since he's kind of an authority of mental health online. also this perpetuates the unfortunate pattern of autistic voices being spoken over by non autistic people. it feels like he got a lot of his research from autism speaks imo ☠️☠️
@@hamnerheads6770 wait has he interviewed people about their ADHD? cause I can't seem to find them on his channel? the ones I found are with famous people some of which have ADHD. But I also see some of those interviews are with famous who also have autism. i assume you mean an interview with someone non famous specifically focusing on ADHD. and that i can't find.
@@weirdo3116 i couldve sworn there was an adhd interview, but i dont think there is one. however, when dr k talks about adhd alone 9 times out of 10 its a reddit post break down. he talks about and explains adhd in relation to someones experience. he did not do the same here. im sure theres a plethora of written autistic experiences in his subreddit that he could use to ground his research, but he talks about autism with no autistic input.
@@hamnerheads6770I think you underestimate DrK. Alot. In his methods, beliefs, beneficial. Let this man cook and use your brakes you want to use on others, on yourself
I would like to point out that people with ASD can sometimes appear to have temper tantrums, but they actually are NOT. Most times it is actually a meltdown, where the brain is so overstimulated that it loses the ability to regulate. There is a major difference, in the sense that a tantrum can be corrected with 'parenting' if you will. However, you CANNOT fix meltdowns, and trying to do so with disciplinary measures will actually make it worse. Even adults with ASD have meltdowns (I sure as hell do as a 35 y/o male) and it has nothing to do with big feelings. It is an expression of 'this is too much... get me out!!!'.
1:41:00 Gender differences
As a high-masking woman on the spectrum who has been told multiple times "I never would've guessed you were Autistic" this entire section was in the most eloquently explained way that I have ever heard
I was diagnosed with autism a couple years ago, and it has been a struggle, one thing that has frustrated me is that it is very hard to find this kind of information, especially with this level of detail and clarity. Even in this overview you have been able to shed light on facets of autism that I have been struggling to understand. Thank you.
I (24M) have ASD 1 (formerly Asperger's Syndrome). Early intervention in school really helped me. I had regular check-ins every month with a sponsor, a parent, and one of my teachers. I learned social skills through an extra class too.
I also took an advanced social skills class early in college, not sponsored by them. It taught me how to have longer conversations more easily, tell stories, and make good first impressions. Most of these skills have become automatic to the point where I hardly ever have to mask and 99% of new people I meet are completely unaware that I am autistic. Though if I do hang out with someone long enough, I tell them "you will notice some instances where I don't have a rule/script. Those times, I'm not aware that what I'm doing is unusual."
could you tell me the names of the program?
@@williampan29 the first one was having an IEP with a school counselor. The second was an online program, Charisma on Command.
Great overview on the topic, thank you for the video and thanks to the people in the comments giving their perspectives. Very interesting!
The analogy with the eggs with egg-shells is so similar to the one I use myself! But with lobsters. We associate eating lobsters with something nice and fancy. When I learned that they used to feed lobsters to prisoners back in the days, but that they would just grind it all up, shell and all, and serve it as a tepid, grainy, stinky mess, my first thought was that this is what I'm getting. I'm getting prison lobster and the rest do fine dining. And people will yell at me to shut up because "we all are getting lobster and it's nice if you let it be nice" and so on. BUT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!
Thank you dr K and the rest of the team for this video. I agree with some of the comments about some corrections, but overall I'm pleased with the video, I've been waiting for it for years.
I know you guys will take all the feedback and try to get even better. I'm grateful and I hope for more content like this. I actually learned a lot of things, I wish there were more experts in my area who would know more about autism, so for now I'm happy for anything I can get from the internet. 🙏
More on autism and emotional regulation and dealing with sensory overload
I haven't made it through the full 3 hours yet, so sorry if you touch on it, but have you seen the study conducted a few years ago that accidentally proved that people with ASD tended to be more empathetic and altruistic? Essentially they took people with ASD and a control group, people who didn't have ASD, and asked them a series of questions. What they found was that people with ASD were more likely to self sacrifice for the good of others even if nobody would find out about it. Unfortunately the results were labeled as "people with ASD are too trusting and naive."
If you want more details the study was published to the Journal of Neuroscience in 2021 and is called "Right Temporal Junction Underlies Avoidance of Moral Transgression in Autism Spectrum Disorder"
Dr K made a distinction between his colleagues with autism, and his patient with autism and how they had drastically different presentations.
However, this is explained through intelligence and motor control (predominantly inherited traits, as is autism), and not autism itself. This is so obvious to me but he doesn’t even mention this… plz upvote so he sees
Also, instead of calling it ASD just call it Autism… then it doesn’t have the disorder camps label on it and is neutral in its stance. Makes it more understanding and incorporating of both ‘sides’ dr k paints
Simply going to answer your question: leave it up. The value is far outweighing any perceived negativity. I found a handful of things that I would assume someone may be upset with, but I don't think you could have done much better.
Thanks, Doc.
@@anoncspan4129 utilitarianism has its flaws though bro.
Also The statement don’t think he could have done much better is nonsensical, it’s based on the perspective of his capabilities at the time of posting. He now has community feedback and can improve and iterate if feedback seems necessary. This is philosophical though, practically speaking might not be worth it. I think he didn’t a great job a many things and it’s awesome he and HG is open to community feedback and take complaints serious don’t you :)
I've been waiting for this foreverrr
I would like to know why you call them temper tantrums instead of meltdowns. My understanding is that they are not the same thing, as temper tantrums are voluntary on the kid’s part (they will pause and check to see if you are watching them) whereas meltdowns are more of an involuntary response to a brain that cannot process incoming information fast enough.
Another thing I want to mention is that sensory overstimulation and meltdowns cause, in myself, symptoms similar to traumatic head injuries, including needing a day of recovery after and heightened sensitivity to light, sound, etc. Overwhelming my nervous system like that causes physical symptoms the day after, and also vertigo and migraines, etc.
I think if you look into this and agree there is a difference between these phenomena, then it would be important to correct this. “Temper tantrums” communicates something specific to neurotypicals, that it’s willful. In my experience some of the treatments you cite do help (meditation, diet changes, a sensory diet) but those symptoms help not because of emotional dysregulation, but because they control how much stimulus our bodies receive from ourselves. Tolerating my internal environment, and regulating my external environment (with ear plugs and etc) lowers the overall amount of stimulation so that it is easier to regulate emotions. My ability to regulate emotion will be different if I’m in a crowded hall with people yelling and I’m anxious and in physical pain, to if I’m in my living room cuddling a blanket, just like a regular person.
Edit: to clarify with that last example, the difference is that my brain does not mute sensory experiences. So a neurotypical person would be able to block out some of the loud room, feel their anxiety and recognize it as a signal to leave. For me, I have to pay attention to my internal cues, actively look for hunger and thirst. Meanwhile I can’t block out sensory experiences, so while I can tolerate pain extremely well, if I go somewhere that just has too much stimulation and nowhere to escape to and my sensory regulators aren’t enough (sensory kit isn’t enough), then I will start having migraines, nausea, and vertigo. On one occasion I lost the ability to see and walk, my vision literally blacked out and my poor partner had to help me walk to my bed and help me wash the smoke out of my hair. So if you trap an autistic person in a room with sensory experiences they can’t escape from and they haven’t developed a monk-like ability to tolerate what is for us extremely unpleasant sensory experiences (in other words, basically torture lol) then an autistic person WILL have a meltdown, it’s not a temper tantrum, their brain will be unable to process the sensory experience. You can widen the window of tolerance by learning to hear your internal signals for self care (eating and drinking), regulating the emotional and mental response to unpleasant stimulus, and so on, but there is a limit to how much the brain can physically tolerate processing, and that seems to be a partial explanation for why autistic people with higher IQs tend to be higher functioning as well, is that people with high IQs process information faster and that compensates for being unable to block out sensory experiences and means the overload builds up more slowly.
I have also never met an nt who did not have restrictive interests. Our interests, as Autistics might be much more noticeable because they present differently than how nt interests present but the nts that I know, and I know a lot of them, are pretty restricted in the things they are interested in. Or they are extremely shallow in a variety of interests. Yet, we are the only ones being pathologized for how we are interested in things.
And another note, please educate yourself on the uses of the terms "High functioning" and "low functioning."
I realize that my comments are kind of tearing your video apart. I don't want you to get me wrong, a lot of what you are saying is good and accurate. But as a licensed practitioner who works with our community, you need to get these other things right. If you don't, the damage that you cause is astronomical.
As you get older, you obtain more "special interests." I always wonder when my dozens of "special interests" becomes having a broad interest about the world.
As a medical professional, I would highly suggest you do your research when it comes the difference between an autistic meltdown and a-temper tantrum. it is unfortunate when a person who is supposed to be qualified to speak on, this is spreading misinformation, which is inaccurate and unprofessional. I am diagnosed as autistic and I find this disgusting. Do better learn and research before you open your mouth and talk about something you don’t understand.
It feels like he did less research than the average autistic adult does on the journey towards diagnosis 😣.
Any advice on meeting clinicians who brush your problems aside with "That's normal for people with autism"? It's like my problems don't qualify as problems in their minds because they *can* fit under the label 'autism'. But my problems remain, and I bring them to a clinician because I need help; not because I need to be brushed aside and invalidated like a difficult child.
44:00 this actually makes a lot of sense and explains a lot. I remember years as a kid being forced to eat food that I just couldn't stand. I always hated macaroni and cheese asparagus and a few other things.. when I was about 7 years old dad told me I had two choices either eat what's on my plate or take a whooping with a belt and go to bed.
I told him I'd rather have a whooping with a belt and go to bed..
I must have broke my dad after that because they never made me eat certain foods again.
(Turns out mom was the one encouraging and telling dad to challenge me to eat. But even in the Bible belt and living in a Christian household.. dad still couldn't reason beating my behind with a belt just because I don't like certain foods.
The wait time for an adult autism assessment in my city is currently 8+ years (after referral from a psychiatrist, after *that* referral from my primary care physician), or I can spend $3000-5000 CAD at a private clinic.
Amazing topic review! Would really like to know more about PDA (Pathological demand avoidance) profile!! Especially how it works with relationships
a video for the loved ones of people with autism, ADHD, and other neurodivergent stuff would be so helpful.
these people usually want to help but don't know how. "just talk to the ND person" - well the problem is that many times they also don't know how to be supported, and are constantly feeling hopeless and helpless (which is completely understandable ofc).
as always ty for your hard work, Dr. K and everyone from HG 💚
Fantastic video Dr K, would love more videos about autism. As someone with autism, I've learned recently through being more present, surrendering to what is and recognizing my ego, that all these symptoms of autism arise from the mind having too much control because the body is sort of switched off. The reason why the body is switched off is because of heightened sensitivites to certain sensory input and that they blend together, there is no filter. In my case, I'm very sensitive to sound, touch and taste, but hyposensitive to smell.
By practicing voluntary exposure therapy (letting the body experience a triggering event so that it learns that it is actually not dangerous at all) together with bodywork and releasing emotions), I have been able to go more beyond my mind and finding social interactions way more naturally this time. When you are not in your own head, it becomes obvious how to navigate and enjoy moments with others, but it requires a ton of humility to recognize if you are actually in your own head. My life has opened up in ways I could not imagine before and I hope that other people on the spectrum also will transcend the limitations of their autism and not need to compromise themselves at last.
Can elaborate on my experience if interested.
How and where do you get these kinds of therapies?
“The way that I normally am is not working.” I was told by a friend as a teen that usually friends make eye contact when they talk. I had no clue this was a thing or that I wasn’t doing it. I’m not diagnosed, but after listening to your lecture, I’m aware of more traits I have that might be attributable to ASD. I am going to educate myself more about this. Thank you, Dr. K.
Very insightful. I just figured out I’m on the spectrum a couple months ago, as a 32 year old man. The past makes so much more sense now lol.. Meditation and diet have helped, but you HAVE to be consistent. Masking in social settings is my biggest challenge. Good luck my fellow ASD people and thnx, Dr. K.
What sort of diet have you found helped?? I’m high functioning but really struggling recently and have been experimenting with different foods/diets, I have found exercise fuelled by a high protein diet has felt good so far, just wondered what you found worked :)
I loved this video it was educational emotional and so engaging I had the stop in the middle of the video to work but I was so excited to pick it up asap I loved this
I'd love it if you made a video about twice exceptional people.
I'm ADHD and thanks to my intellect, I only found out I've never focused in my life when I entered university. And I only got diagnosed as I was starting my master's degree. My BF has a similar story, ASD genius who's only getting his diagnosis now as he's finishing his PhD.
Great content, which came just at the right time for me. I have diagnosed myself as a person with Autism. This happened last month after learning about the difference between Autism and Narcissism. I had great difficulty, when I assumed I had excessive Narcissistic traits, in managing my masking. I didn’t know anything about Autism in adults before then. I have now accepted my being. I can now manage my anger, as anger, and not assume it would escalate to a narcissistic rage.
You are 💯 correct in the ability to manage emotions, being what can assist people to achieve socially acceptable genius level.
It is hard work! If sometimes feel it requires an impossible amount of self awareness.