Watching Yo Samdy Sam's Video About Autism Diagnostic Criteria

 This morning I watched Yo Samdy's Sam's video about autism diagnosis criteria.

My feelings throughout the video ranged from major imposter syndrome: Oh shit. Why did I even think I'm autistic? I can't believe I wrote all these blog posts about autism. I feel like such a pathetic fool

To.....

Yeah. I think I'm quite autistic.

Anyway....

I really appreciated what Yo Samdy Sam says towards the end of the video.

She says: 

Right, so we're onto category D which is my least favorite of the categories, and you'll soon see why. 

Category D: Symptoms cause clinically significant impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

So this is really the one that I think needs rethinking the most. You could agree with every single autistic trait, symptom, or whatever. But because it doesn't cause distress, that means you're not autistic.  That just doesn't seem very likely.  

The thing that is hard is living in a world that is not set up for you.  Let's say you grew up in a family that accommodates your needs without really knowing that's what they're doing.  Maybe you found a job in a very autism friendly industry or company.  You had a few friends who happen to be autistic. So maybe it never gets to the point of distress. You have a simple life. You have a stress-free life. But that still makes you autistic.  And I would say that the more stress you put on autistic people, the more obvious our traits can be.  

I understand why they put this in. "Because their reasoning is if all these happy little autists get diagnosed, first of all it would be an epidemic. It would be an autism epidemic.  But the system would be overrun. They'd have to support all these autistic people. So maybe we should save the diagnosis for those who really need them".

I don't agree with this, because you can be functioning fine at a point in your life. you relate to all the autistic traits,  and they say, Yeah, but it's not really causing you any problems. Maybe 10 years down the line, it does start to cause you problems. You're no more autistic than you were 10 years ago.  

But for most, many, a lot of?  I'm not exactly sure the numbers, but for some autistic people, especially if you were not diagnosed in childhood, when you were diagnosed as an adult, you're usually diagnosed because of a breaking point.  And this could be a period of depression, a period of anxiety, losing friends or a partner, losing your job, etc.  Or struggling to find employment, and even a full-blown autistic burnout.   

And all of these things do count as being clinically significant. So don't think that just because you haven't had a meltdown in public or you haven't done this, that you don't have clinically significant signs of autism.  Because if it's causing you suffering in your everyday life, you need to get that across to the diagnostician.  But I think it's a problem that we won't diagnose a neurotype, on the basis of well, you're not suffering now, are you?     

I do think the category D in the diagnostic criteria makes sense and is fair if autism is being seen as a disease/disorder.  I think it's more than fair, because it wouldn't be right to label happy, well-adjusted, but weird people, as being sick, not-right, defective, etc.   

But for those of us who see autism as a neurotype rather than a disorder, category D excludes people who very much should be included. 

If anything, wouldn't it be great for autistic people to have happy, well-adjusted autistic people to look up to and be inspired by?

It's funny. I read D and feel I wouldn't qualify. Yet I definitely don't feel I fit the description in the small paragraph about this one.  

I find it hard to imagine my experience as being either inspiring or clinically significant. 

But the lack of clinical significance is probably less about me not-struggling and more about my avoidance of seeking help.

I did go to therapists as a child and teen.  I remember at least four different therapists/psychiatrists. 

As an adult, though, I've avoided it until recently. A part of it was related to what I mentioned in my previous post—not liking appointments, cost, worry about feeling judged, etc.

Then there was the idea that if I went to a therapist, this would be confirming that my family was right. I WAS the one who's defective. They were the (almost) perfect, wonderful family they imagined themselves to be, and I was the stain.  

I guess one of the main things that stopped me was the knowledge that therapists are human and biased. 
They have their own cultural biases, ethnic biases, religious biases, etc. They each have their own ideas about what behaviors and feelings are okay and which are not okay.  And they each have their own set of values. 

To me, it feels less risky and more helpful to watch therapist videos on YouTube, read therapy posts on Instagram, read articles written by psychologists, etc.  This way I can read the stuff that applies to me and makes sense to me, and turn off and/or ignore the stuff that does not.

All this being said, there was a time that I was especially struggling, and I emailed two or three psychologists.  Not one of them wrote me back, and I took that as yet another rejection and/or the universe telling me I didn't deserve help.

I don't struggle everyday. Often I'm happy. But I think part of that comes from making my own accommodations for my life. One of my biggest thing is when I'm feeling rejected, neglected, lonely, hopeless, etc. I find comfort in things like TV shows.  OR also I sometimes avoid all those feelings in the first place by relying on fictional people for companionship and comfort more than real people.  

I have wondered lately that if I HAD gone to a psychologist or psychiatrist in the last few decades, when I was struggling, would that have led to an autism diagnosis?

There's a chance it would have.

But there's probably more of a chance it would have not.  I've seen a lot of stories of autistic people being previously diagnosed with other things such as anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, etc.  They get diagnosed with the comorbidities of autism, but it's much more of a struggle to get to the actual autism diagnosis.  

All in all....watching Yo Samdy's Sam's video this morning gave me even stronger motivation to avoid seeking an autism diagnosis.  

I feel/think I AM autistic. I have social problems. I have sensory issues. I DEFINITELY have special interests. I have the stimming.  But I don't have all these issues in stereotypical-autistic ways, and unless the therapist was very flexible and open-minded, I don't think I would qualify as being DSM-level autistic.  

So...I shall probably take the thousands of dollars and apply it to my future participation in the metaverse.  

I bet there will be a lot of autistic folks in the metaverse.  

 

Read my novel: The Dead are Online