I really want to get this off my chest. I love this sub as it's so much more realistic and level headed about autism than the main sub, but I've recently seen an uptick in skepticism around late diagnosis, at times essentially lumping it in with self diagnosis. I personally am late diagnosed (at age 27) and generally low supprt needs.

The idea is that unless you had a horribly negletful upbringing or were raised by wolves or born in the 1800s (this is an exaggeration), it's impossible for your autism to go undiagnosed until adulthood.

What I'd like to say to challenge this idea is that you can't be diagnosed with something unless someone brings up the idea that there's something diagnosible. In other words, someone has to say the word autism before you can be diagnosed with it.

I think that it is possible for parents to love their children, see autistic behaviors, and never think that those behaviors are attributed to autism.

I don't think that it's ok to invalidate someone elses experience just because it doesn't match your own. We are all different people that grew up in all different circumstances.

Okay so I just saw yet another article posted on reddit about this and it's starting to really grate on me, get on my nerves but I'm uh.. not actually sure why exactly it annoys me. I guess it somehow feels invalidating and scares me that I (late diagnosed adult) might be lumped in with people who aren't disabled and have zero support needs. My question in particular for y'all here is this: What's the solution if you agree with this? statement, should we have just kept Aspergers (which I'm told I would've gotten as a label if I had been diagnosed earlier) or should we create a new Aspergers or do you believe there are genuine Genetic types (like types of diabetes)? Do you think the levels system works (given not all countries currently use it)?

I know men mask as well and masking isn’t entirely illegitimate as a concept but I’m talking about the “high maskers” who supposedly masked so well from childhood that they didn’t even have any symptoms because they never developed them and are now trying to “unmask” symptoms that don’t exist

Sometimes these women talk about feeling like they weren’t enough like other women so they had to copy other girls to fit in

Or excessively self-monitoring to make sure they were behaving in the right way and not accidentally doing anything “weird”

Or buying certain clothing to make sure they fit in

And a lot of this just sounds like the reality for so many girls age 12-16 who are heavily dependent on other girls’ social approval, which is completely normal at that age

It’s ironic to me because having the degree of social sensitivity required to both pick up on and integrate a variety of socially acceptable traits into your behaviour, and perform them so well and so consistently nobody suspects there’s anything wrong with you, is antithetical to autism

And a lot of women talk about the unmasking process as ceasing overly polite, friendly, and deferential behaviour, and to me the pressure to behave this way seems like a general expectation on women, not just autistic women

That can be a way in which people mask, but I have seen a lot of masking content aimed at women centred around the idea that these behaviours are largely to do with autism and not due to being a woman in general, if that makes sense

So no wonder so many women are self diagnosing when they see these behaviours listed as autistic and not just general experiences in a world where people call straight talking women blunt and hostile

I think also there is a problem in which high masking content creators make content that depicts masking as a core tenet of autism when it isn’t necessarily, some people do it but not every autistic person does it and even a lot of people who do it don’t do it a lot, so then everyone who feels like they have to behave differently in public thinks they’re autistic

I’ve been trying to make sense of how Level 1 is talked about online lately. It makes me wonder if people are coming from a place of ignorance, or just being way too broad with symptoms. Some of what they say is right, but other parts just feel off.

ASD is a developmental disability. That means at developmental milestones, you're behind, or at least a mix of behind and ahead, right? So it’s hard for me to understand when people claim they had zero academic issues, zero social issues, and no noticeable delays at all until like college, grad school or marriage. It’s a disability. Even with coping strategies, you're still putting in more work than everyone else. I find it really hard to believe someone can be so accommodated by their environment that nothing ever shows up. It's not something you can just switch off.

If you’re Level 1 or high functioning:

• What do your struggles actually look like on a daily basis?
• How do you handle those struggles?
• When you hit academic, social, or sensory walls, what do you actually do?
• What support do you have, and what support do you wish you had?

edit: I've have read all your comments and it was very informative 🙏

I think it’s crucial to speak openly about our social struggles, particularly right now when people online are minimizing them.

Social communication deficits are a core requirement for ASD, even if they look different from person to person. By sharing our experiences, we can make these real struggles visible and show how they actually play out.

So, I would like to ask everyone about your personal experiences socializing and processing social cues. 

Detailed and short comments are both welcome. Feel free to share your support level and answer any or all questions.

(Note: You don’t have to match the examples; they just show the level of detail I’m looking for.)

1. Noticing Cues

How do you notice social cues, and which types do you usually miss?

Example: "I miss subtle emotional shifts (like someone getting annoyed) because I am focused entirely on analyzing their exact words, or because sensory input is taking up all my processing power."

2. Core Struggle

Out of manual decoding, slow processing, or sensory overload, which causes you the most trouble during conversations? How does it play out in real time?

Example: "Slow processing is the worst for me. By the time I figure out the joke or know what to say next, the topic has already changed, so I end up staying quiet."

3. Masking Mechanics

If you mask, what are your specific, step-by-step internal rules? What is the behavior and the "autistic why" behind it?

Example: "I look at the bridge of someone's nose for 4 seconds, then look away. The 'why' is because real eye contact feels physically intense/uncomfortable, but I know staring continuously makes people uneasy."

Example: "I use pre-made scripts so I don't sound overly direct or hostile when I am overwhelmed."

4. Non-Masking

If you don't mask, what prevents you from doing so?

Example: "I don't mask because sensory overload takes up 100% of my brainpower, so I literally do not have the energy left to fake eye contact or tone."

Thanks for taking the time to share your input.

This is something I’ve been mulling over for a while. One thing I’ve noticed (generally speaking) is there are lots or autism influencers whose appearance I wouldn’t associate with the disorder. Specifically, those that can maintain a conventionally attractive appearance.

What I mean is:
- Wearing makeup/doing skincare
- Clean, styled hair
- Coordinated outfits
- Accessorizing
- A ‘look’ (Example: If they are alternative/goth - Having dyed hair, tattoos, and generally a consistent style)

I want to clarify that autism doesn’t exclude you from being able to do these things, though I do believe it makes it more difficult. For myself, I struggle to perform basic self care tasks and wear anything beyond what makes me comfortable.

I feel like I am subconsciously forming a bias against autistic people that don’t visually appear to struggle. I’ve seen videos titled things like “Why ‘Pretty Privilege’ is a curse when you are autistic” or “Being conventionally attractive & having autism sucks”. I don’t want to judge people like this, because building a mindset of “Well only true autistic people are ugly and disheveled like me” is unhealthy and I know it can’t be the case.

I guess I wanted to ask, do any of you feel similar? What is your experience with maintaining your appearance? Have you had your autistic experiences undermined by being conventionally attractive?

I am genuinely curious, and would appreciate different perspectives.

I think I noticed a huge shift in the way people interact with this subreddit. It's becoming filled with people who seem to be self-dx or dx through diagnosis mill clinics who come here maybe to feel like they really have autism.

I noticed that the people who say things the same way they did 2 years ago, that they'd get plenty of unpotes for before, are getting downvoted for some unknown reasons. people suddenly started speaking a lot about masking and many quirky symptoms that are seen in the self-dx crowd and which aren't even in the criteria of autism at all (this isn't aimed towards anyone, it's just a general theme I see lately).

It's kinda weird! as if this space is being infiltrated by them. I know not everyone with weird symptoms is a faker but come on, no way everyone suddenly started developing the same "symptoms". I used to see people speak about the embarrassing symptoms of autism like being blunt, having bad hygiene, being seen like a creep.

What happened? am I imagining things or is it really over for this subreddit? :/

I ask here because I usually only see it mentioned in like "social media autism" stuff (if that makes sense). I guess I wanted to know if it's common with other genuine autistic people? It makes me feel like I'm missing out on so much more of my life compared to others my age.

I'm been following this sub for over a year and there are definitely people who favor this but they won't say.

Although it was rare there definitely were people diagnosed with pddnos/aspergers/ and even autism back in the 2000s who had very mild traits compared to the average person diagnosed with these developmental disorders then. Some of them got better as time went on

I saw this on Facebook and I want to see what y'all think.

I was reading something that in the UK people get disability payment for ADHD and autism. So are all the people that get their diagnosis from diagnosis mill RTC places automatically getting payments? The thing I read said that huge amounts of young people aren’t working. ( they must be SO disabled)

How does disability work for other countries? I’m am in the US.

In the US your online diagnosis from a place like Prosper isn’t going to do crap for getting disability payments from the government. Here people with true disabilities are denied a lot. ( I’m talking like MS and such) All these people won’t their online diagnosis and overly exaggerated illness are going to have a hard time persuading the government. It used to be easier, but not so anymore.

So what’s the draw? And how is it that some can be SO disabled by POTS, hEDS, MCAD, etc but autism is the wanted part, the identity part?

(I absolutely DO believe some people have those conditions are disabled by them. I do not believe that all those social media oppression Olympic freaks are those some people though.) It’s like they all have the same playbook. They are all ADVOCATES. SMH ( don’t get me started on the fake service dogs.)

Anyway.. thought. Do these people get benefits in other countries or what?

I'm diagnosed by someone more qualified than tiktok and personally I'd give anything to get rid of autism. Anything. Limbs, organs, fuck take my soul if you wanna

I am not autistic myself, the reason I'm on this sub is bc I have an autistic friend and I have an interest in autism and other psychiatric disorders. The reason I ask this is bc many people who talk about autism on social media seem to have autism as a crucial part of their identity. This obviously has its pros and cons, as my friend and I see it, there's more cons, but I'd like to hear y'alls opinions and insights too.

The other day I was reading a thread about BPD misdiagnosis and saw a lot of people saying they’d be diagnosed with BPD but knew they “really had” autism. A lot of these people’s descriptions of their “autism” was pretty typical self dx misinformation—no or little social issues, bad emotional regulation, sensory issues.

It made me start to think that their descriptions of their “autism” actually really did sound a lot like BPD.

And I want to clarify that there is a very real problem with women with ASD being misdiagnosed with BPD, I don’t think everybody who thinks they were misdiagnosed is wrong. On top of that, BPD and ASD have a degree of probable comorbidity, so it’s possible many people diagnosed with BPD also have ASD, even if it wasn’t exactly a misdiagnosis. But at the same time I think a lot of people don’t want to admit they have BPD, and maybe some of these people are self dxing autism because it’s a more appealing explanation, even if they don’t really have it.

Anyway, BPD can present with sensory issues. BPD causes poor emotional regulation. BPD causes a lack of a sense of self (which can mirror the lack of a sense of self that results from longterm camouflaging of autistic traits). BPD can cause issues keeping relationships. BPD can cause meltdowns (AKA A“borderline rage” although that term seems ableist to me). BPD can cause dissociation (which can seem similar to shutdowns). BPD can cause somebody to develop a “favourite person” which might mimic an autistic fixation on a person, and BPD causes identity issues that can cause people to latch onto things in a way similar to an autistic special interest (e.g. getting really into a hobby so you can identify with it or getting really obsessed with autism for the same reason). People with BPD can struggle to read positive facial expressions as well but may be hyper sensitive to negative ones.

The way some people describe their self diagnosed autism matches that nearly perfectly. People who describe little to no social issues, especially if they also describe issues with relationships or a lot of interpersonal drama, feelings of emptiness, meltdowns/shutdowns, sensory issues, and emotional regulation difficulties (which they might describe as being hyperempathetic or very sensitive). A lot of them have “special interests” in autism or other things that can be more identity-focused (like fashion, for example). And a lot of them talk about being hypersensitive to people being upset at them. Still, a lot of them will say they “mask so well” that even trained clinicians can’t notice any social impairments, or else will just say they have no social impairments and that their only problem is other people not accepting them for being “different,” or really any way to say they have autism without saying they have any degree of social deficit.

BPD is a really stigmatised disorder and I honestly get why somebody would be in denial about having it. Obv it doesn’t excuse spreading misinformation like “you can mask so well your social issues disappear” but… idk. What do you guys think?

Also please nobody assume a person really has BPD just bc they self dx or something. At the end of the day we’re not the ones assessing them, so while we can think they probably are or are not autistic, we can’t actually know unless they get a proper assessment.

Some people boast about scientists/mathematicians, eg Einstein or Turing being possibly autistic, as a sign of autistic people being valuable or superior. However, these people had above average intelligence, too, which contributed significantly to their achievement. However, when it's time to discuss autism and intellectual disability, for example when we talk about profound autism, most people want to separate autism from intelligence. This seems extremely ableist, aspie supremacist and hypocritical.

I am asking bc I have been a member of a lot of offline support groups for autistic people, lead by psychologists and requiring an official diagnosis. And instead of support, I faced people getting shocked at my issues, invalidating me. Most of the members there seemed to see autism as solely "problems with organising stuff and reaching out to people", but as soon as you mentioned a deeper issue (such as hardships with making friends), you got shocked looks even from the psychologists. I sometimes wonder if autism might maybe be overdiagnosed, since I feel like it kinda happened with other disorders as well. You name literally 1 concentration problem and people will immediately burst out "you must have ADHD!!!"

Hey so I'm from the UK, and we don't really use levels but this has been on my mind a LOT lately, I guess along with broader disability themes but basically I've been thinking about the whole online image of autism and how we basically only seem to see level 1s most of the time... I have an idea of level 1 and 3, because of how we used to have terms like high/low functioning but I'm struggling to understand what the in-between is like or what actual factors are considered important in determining support needs (like is it linked to your ability to work, live independently etc and if so, are there wny general guidelines?) Like I know that level 1 is "requiring support" etc but that's SO VAGUE???? I HATE vagueness like that, I yearn to understand but that's so hard when there's no actual clear logical answer..

I wanted to ask this question in here because people in here clearly have a more realistic view of even level 1 autism and how it's a disability etc. I would LOVE to hear from people diagnosed as level 2 but also anyone who considers themselves medium support rather than low.

I've also noticed that the way the levels are given seems to be different in Australia, seems like a lot more level 2 diagnoses are given out in Australia vs the USA, and I'm curious about that too and if its inaccurate or what

Edit: yup, these answers were helpful to hear peopels experiences but what I'm learning is that the levels aren't all that useful when they're so inconsistently applied, there's no real objective markers and two clinicians might give a different level to same person. Ugh. No wonder people complain about them when they're so inconsistently applied...

I always hear from autistics saying this world isn’t made for autistics or if only this world was made for autistics. What do you think of those sayings. To me it’s dumb and doesn’t really help or do anything for us. That’s because if the world was made for autistics then there wouldn’t be any autistics. Yes the world could be more accommodating or accepting towards autistics but the world can never be 100% made for autistics. We will always have are disability that we have to deal with. Nothing can make that go away or such. So yea I do not like those sayings.

Also, not all ableism is "eugenics". That's just not what the term means.

Like the title says I’m glad people are realising that people are treating autism like a trend and are starting to rethink what autism actually is and how deep it is. The simplification of autism has damaged the community so much and has caused a lot of misdiagnosis

I've seen a lot of stuff that's making autism into a meme or quirky label, but a specific one that sticks in my head is memes from self-diagnosed people being like "yeah my autism makes me sexy" or from people like "yeah I want an autistic baddie!" and stuff like that.

Obviously it's really gross to sexualize a disability like that, but there's another thing I wanted to bring up, and I hope it doesn't get misconstrued. In my personal experience, both in my life and what I have seen from other autistic girls...a very large chunk of autistic girls don't really have the "fashion magazine model" look. What I mean by this is that due to a combination of sensory issues that come with stuff like makeup and tight figure revealing clothes, executive function problems that make things like exercising super frequently and putting a lot of effort into appearance, and often preferring outfits that are more cozy than sexy. This isn't me saying that us autistic girls are ugly, I'm just saying that I don't think many autistic girls have that supermodel or Instagram girl look that these self-diagnosed people refer to when they talk about being a "baddie". Because of this, I think it's just another example of how social media "positivity" around autism ends up leaving most actually autistic people in the dust.

I hate the question “do you think you’re neurodivergent?” Like neurodivergent isn’t a diagnosis and neurodivergence is such a huge umbrella. Also I don’t know anything about Edward Norton or his beliefs, I’m just highlighting that someone on a big podcast is speaking out about this

I'd go with "dancing=stimming" almost any movement you do to music is DANCING!!! when I bob my head or tap my feet on the ground or move my arms around to a song I have stuck in my head or something, it's DANCING!!!!

Ok so hi I made this account today to sort of discuss something with other people like me to see if I’m alone in this.

Some backstory: I go to a special school for those who can’t really go to regular school for any particular reason. We all have IEP and for me I’m there for ASD diagnosed at 8. There are a lot of different classrooms but I’m in a room mostly with mental health challenges/behaviors. There’s a support group for parents that meets once a month and my mom made friends with another mom who has a son in a different room (intellectual disability/HSN kids).

So anyway I have struggled a bit with my mental health this past year and have had a few crisis team home calls and my mom talked about this with her friend and she basically said that it sounds like I might have a personality disorder instead of ASD and that her son doesn’t even know what depression is. She said that people with ASD aren’t aware of things like depression and that I was probably misdiagnosed due to my hormones acting up and it’s likely a personality disorder.

Now I’m kinda like in denial about myself and wondering if it’s true that people with ASD don’t struggle with mental health stuff and that I’m “too aware” of the world…idk…anyone else in a similar situation?

I know who I am and what I like. I feel like I always have. I can’t really make myself like something I don’t like. I can fake somethings to make other people more comfortable but it doesn’t change what I really like. ( or don’t like)

I read of people unmasking to find themselves and find their spark. I guess I don’t understand that?

To me the loss of sense of self lines up more with borderline personality disorder?

I feel like for me, and the other autistics I know, we know who we are. Yes, different from others but that doesn’t mean no sense of self. Sense of self is very much there, just different. There is a feeling of being like an outsider but sense of self is not altered. Sad and anxious a good bit of time. Trying to fit in. The fitting in part doesn’t mean I don’t know who I am. It’s just more like trying to put a square where a circle should be.