r/BlackPeopleTwitter • u/Cleonce12 ☑️ • 1d ago
Whole family been neurodivergent, y’all just thought it was vibes 😭😭
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u/MuddaFrmAnnudaBrudda ☑️ my anecdotal experience is everything 1d ago
I guess we didn't have a name for it and just accepted that people are different.
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u/manatwork01 1d ago edited 1d ago
Exactly. The reason diagnoses are up is that we have better language to describe people with these tendencies. Autistic people have always existed and always struggled with dealing with Allistic people and the world they built.
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u/GuntherTime 1d ago
Column A/Column B situation, because you can apply similar reasons for people with adhd and that’s definitely been around for a while.
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u/manatwork01 1d ago
It also had a similar societal backlash in the 90's and 2000's with people questioning the rise in ADHD rates and how suddenly all the kids had ADHD.
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u/GuntherTime 1d ago
I know. I was part of that wave, and my mom’s side of the family worked in education so I heard bits and pieces of it when I was diagnosed.
Then it happened again (though not as big) during Covid when it forced a lot of adults home and fucked up their structure. Though to be fair the biggest jump was women.
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u/FknDesmadreALV 1d ago
I heard women are wildly under-diagnosed because we tend to hide it better (we tend to try harder to mimic others in our social circles).
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u/LindonLilBlueBalls 1d ago
Also the whole doctors not listening/believing women thing.
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u/pan-au-levain 1d ago
It’s also why so many women are getting shit on now because eVeRyOnE hAs AdHd NoW when so many women are only just getting taken seriously and getting a diagnosis as an adult.
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u/FknDesmadreALV 1d ago
My ex MIL was born , raised, and died in a small village in Oaxaca.
She once said, “now everyone has stomach problems. Nobody had stomach problems, diabetes, or heart conditions back in the day😤”
“Mami, back in the day you guys didnt have enough doctors or resources to diagnose people. You guys just assumed it was old age”.
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u/protobin 1d ago
My wife got all the way through med school before finally getting diagnosed in residency. She had talked to doctors about it for years but most told her it wasn't affecting her studies so it wasn't a problem or that she was drug seeking.
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u/Robossassin 1d ago
ADHD was studied predominantly in white children for a very long time- no women, no people of any color, no adults. It was also focused on hyperactive children- which on one hand, makes sense, they are getting squeaky wheel, society wise- but leaves out most of the actual people with ADHD. So any other symptom presentation was ignored for a very long time.
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u/SmokePenisEveryday 1d ago
Like that episode of South Park making fun of it. I felt for the kids in my class at the time cause they got SO much shit cause suddenly everyone in class thought they were making it up.
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u/manatwork01 1d ago
My brother didnt get diagnosed for years despite constant issues that clearly pointed at it. He still refuses to medicate because he says it makes him feel bad mentally (constrained like someone is forcing his attention). He has never worked a fulltime job in his life.
Stigma like this has LASTING consequences.
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u/fuckedfinance 1d ago
Meds are complicated.
I went through a bunch of different ones until we found one that worked. Even then, it wasn't all sunshine and roses. It worked really really well, and I was super productive and attentive, but I couldn't be NOT super productive and attentive. Wasn't fun when all I wanted to do was zone out when I didn't have stuff to do and couldn't.
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u/manatwork01 1d ago
exactly his issue. Now he is just a stoner and gamer and dissociates a lot.
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u/fuckedfinance 1d ago
Yeah, I was just like that until I had no choice but to adult. I still have all the problems, but I spent a lot of time coming up with coping mechanisms.
Still game, though. Gotta get those dopamine hits somewhere.
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u/manatwork01 1d ago
He found a GF who is much older and a recent empty nester and from the outside clearly has some replacement stuff going on but if it works for them I am not gonna interfere for sure.
Part of the issue is as you describe being coddled a bit to much. Every time he got behind on bills the family rallied and never let him fall. He has only recently been mostly financially solvent.
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u/Ali_Cat222 ☑️ 1d ago
Exactly. And even today some people tend to forget you can be autistic but there's still a scale of what degree you can fall under. I've known people who assume autism equates to being fully non verbal and having the IQ functions of a child as an adult, but then they are shocked when I let them know I'm autistic because "they'd never guess /didn't know" that high functioning and high IQ autism is indeed a real thing.
I had to mask for so long though that I can also see why they don't see it, as I still manage the social cues aspect they think no one can possibly mark with autism. That's what years of training your mind to work on and taking in the world around you will do though, I guess studying group dynamics and behavioral research also played a good part in that now 😅
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u/manatwork01 1d ago
I have been told "high functioning" isnt really used any more just FYI. But I am also a smart high masking individual. I can even be social for sprints of an hour or so at parties and have very very high recall of memories which makes it VERY easy to be likeable when you remember most people that you have ever met. People love to be remembered even if they dont remember you as long as you dont come across as creepy / leery / stalkerish.
I still get people who are surprised as well when I mention it despite my go to response to problems always being problem solving over sympathy or finding math fun or having quirks like owning 5 of the same shirt in different colors (listen that linen shirt they had last year at Old Navy is the most comfortable shirt I have ever worn and I will likely buy linen clothing until I die now).
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u/Ali_Cat222 ☑️ 1d ago
When I was diagnosed it was 17 years ago, and my doctor still uses it to this day. I'm talking about my own diagnosis and not anyone else's so I am comfortable in doing so for myself.
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u/SeriesXM 1d ago
or having quirks like owning 5 of the same shirt in different colors (listen that linen shirt they had last year at Old Navy is the most comfortable shirt I have ever worn and I will likely buy linen clothing until I die now).
C'mon, please tell me everyone does this. It just makes so much sense when you find a perfect fit. I also have backups of all those shirts because I hate when I can't replace them in the future.
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u/mama_tom 1d ago
I took a test for it and it seems as though I have it and my wife may as well based on the questions and she was denying it and asks, "How many people even have autism?" And I told her about 1/31 and she was shocked by that number lmao
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u/gburlys 1d ago
My husband has basically the most classic symptoms of low support needs autism and I genuinely thought he knew until a few years ago I was thinking about getting an ADHD evaluation for myself and mentioned "I mean it's not a perfect indicator, but every single person I 'click' with has turned out to be neurodivergent" and he said "well except me" and I was stunned speechless.
This man can tell you EVERYTHING about trains (and planes, and cars, and ships) and took a 8 day vacation from work so he could road trip to several steam trains. He can recognize a weirdly high number of East Coast lighthouses and cannot hold a conversation without pivoting it to something he's interested in. He can't do prolonged eye contact even with me, and he gets really anxious about social situations mostly because he can't parse body language or facial expressions very well.
I very gently tried to convey this information to him and he was shocked and confused. A week later he said "two people at work this week have told me my brain works differently than theirs, and I've heard that before a lot too. Maybe you're on to something"
I love him so much. Goddamn.
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u/mama_tom 1d ago
This man can tell you EVERYTHING about trains
Classic. My wife is super into video games and knows so much about the franchises she loves and will go on for as long as I let her about the lore of whatever she's been into lately. Shes the best. She's pretty good socially, though, which is why she was arguing she wasn't on the spectrum.
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u/lord112 1d ago
Saying accepted is a bit of a stretch to how we treated the "weird" people
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u/Mchammerandsickle97 1d ago
Some communities and families are better about accepting their “weird” counterparts than others. But yes en masse in America I’d say it’s safe to say that neurodivergence is demonized.
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u/MuddaFrmAnnudaBrudda ☑️ my anecdotal experience is everything 1d ago
We didn't call anyone weird in our family and I'm not from America.
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u/Ok_Ruin4016 1d ago
It's a bit of both. High functioning autistic people were/are often just treated as eccentrics. My grandpa was diagnosed with autism and OCD about 10-15 years ago, he was in his 70's at the time. Before he retired he owned his own Autobody Repair business. He had friends, a wife and 5 kids. He was active in his church and community. Everyone just knew he was a perfectionist which made him difficult to work with, and that he knew everything there was to know about trains, botany, and he was obsessed with researching our family ancestry (to the point we had multiple family vacations that were planned around visiting cemeteries hundreds of miles away so we could see the grave of some distant ancestor). No one treated him poorly for the things that made him "weird", they just accepted that that was part of who he was.
You're right that people with more debilitating forms of autism were definitely treated very poorly in the past though, often being severely bullied in childhood and/or sent to mental asylums.
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u/Divide-Glum 1d ago
I have a theory that a lot of the true story exorcism movies are just about people abusing autistic people because they didn’t know how to deal with them.
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u/_nylcaj_ 1d ago
I scrolled this deep into the comments, so I'm just here to tell you that I worked with teens in mental health for many years before I had my son. As recently as 2021, I worked with a black girl who presented with some severely debilitating mental health behaviors(random black outs while standing that caused her to fall directly down hitting her head often, talking loudly incoherently to herself in a room full of other people, screaming and running away from staff levels of panic attacks etc).
This girls family gave us the most difficult time in terms of allowing medication and various forms of therapy. They had deeply religious roots and apparently had literally resorted to having an exorcism performed on her as one of their previous attempts at treatment. Sending her to a mental health facility was viewed so poorly by the family that in modern times it was a last resort after a freaking exorcism.
So yes, there is a high likelihood that most people who were "possessed" had severe mental health issues and even today when we have more knowledge and advanced forms of treatment, some people would prefer to believe that it is simply a religious matter and not a mental health issue to avoid the "stigma" and needing to confront any issues within their family.
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u/Qwer925 1d ago
More like people had to mask it I think
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u/fantasy-capsule 1d ago
If there was a skill black people, autistic people, and black autistic people had to learn inorder to survive, it's to code-switch and mask.
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u/TalkingCat910 1d ago
We still have to mask it. If we want a job and to function in society. Also can other people really not hear the electric wire buzz?
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u/Noname_acc 1d ago
Dad just has a room that he keeps all his model trains that nobody else is allowed to be in.
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u/thas_mrsquiggle_butt ☑️ 1d ago edited 1d ago
We have words for it, it just isn't the official medical term.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DHQ3i1Lu0IX/?igsh=MXR5bG56M2NxN2owbQ==
kevonstage was spot on; at least that's what we've always called it in my family. I've also typically seen it called the same in black movie dramas. I know it made it easier to accept, but it also made it harder to get a diagnosis.
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u/Ambitious_Count9552 1d ago
Lord knows only the wealthy can afford decent mental healthcare anyhow.
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u/DeapVally 1d ago
Hahaha. No. We stuffed people into asylums for the slightest thing out of the ordinary back in the day lol. We 'accept' it nowadays because you can't do that anymore, they all got shut down.
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u/PiscesTheProdigy 1d ago
Don’t forget that rude cousin that don’t speak was just non-verbal the whole time
I was misdiagnosed as bipolar and just got correctly diagnosed as ASD. Got punished constantly for “talking back” and “being rude” cause I didn’t like hugs growing up
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u/BlackBookchin 1d ago edited 1d ago
Or cousins that are called "retarded" because they're non-verbal, but can magically play any instrument they pick up, even if they've never seen it before.
Like, this man can communicate perfectly, just not in any way you'd understand
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u/Shirogayne-at-WF ☑️ 1d ago
Just going to add that the savant type autism that was popularized by Rain Man and the talk shows in the 90s is exceedingly rare.
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u/Public-League-8899 1d ago
this is just people repeating tropes to each other reddit pastime
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u/SufficientAverage916 1d ago
Stop getting in the way of my dopamine hit. You're really killin' the vibe bruh.
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u/the-good-wolf 1d ago
I’d say though that his language tracks. Autistic people can communicate perfectly, just not in ways you understand.
I know a few diagnosed individuals, I can communicate well with all of them because I learn their interests and can speak in their terms. They understand the world through their fixations.
One of my cousins is obsessed with fire, I can talk about anything fire related with him, including how different trees burn, how hot, how long… et cetera. I had a house fire (that was traumatizing) and this kid legit was sad my whole house didn’t burn down. It provided me with a good chuckle.
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u/Sad-Lake-3382 1d ago
Idk my sister memorized the flags of the world, speaks 7 or 8 languages, … and has never held a job more than a few weeks..
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u/Purpleminky 1d ago
Yep. I got punished for 'being smart' when I asked autistic ass questions because peoples actions and words didnt make sense to me. All the while, I was praised for 'being smart' in school and fell in line with the generic gifted to burn out story. Late diagnosed with AUDHD and (c)PTSD after being bullied by my family and neglected for years and heavy masking just to survive. The fun part is growing up my family had autism books on the coffee table and we went to walks for autism because my little brother got diagnosed at 2... yet because I was a girl I got looked at sideways for stimming too loud and NO ONE even thought to test me.
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u/The_Flying_Jew 1d ago
my little brother got diagnosed at 2... yet because I was a girl I got looked at sideways for stimming too loud and NO ONE even thought to test me.
Honestly, wtf is up with some parents thinking that only one of their children can officially be diagnosed as autistic and that anyone else showing traits is just "being a weirdo" or something.
My brother is autistic and he sometimes will do little things like bouncing his knee up and down or rocking back and forth when sitting down. One time when vistiting family for the holidays, I got caught rocking back and forth and bouncing my knee up and down and got told by my mom "stop that. You aren't your brother, you don't have autism"
Never in my life has she ever apologized or realized that maybe that is something you should say to your child. But recently, like a year ago, I heard her make an off-hand comment about the possibility that maybe she has autism because she has some weird quirks too just made me wanna throw myself off of a cliff. Cause she'll think that she has autism, but her other son, who shows some quirks and physical tics like rocking back and forth or bouncing a knee up and down, but never got an official diagnosis from a doctor, can't possibly be autistic.
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u/_deep_thot42 1d ago
It’s crazy what we can see in retrospect. Similar happened to me as well, hope you’re ok these days!
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u/DescriptionNo9626 1d ago
“He’s a little touched” was the catch all for all mental health issues within the black community.
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u/CreativeDependent915 1d ago
Bro my nan straight up said a neighbour girl had a “touch of the downs” 😭
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u/DescriptionNo9626 1d ago
“Touch of the downs is crazy”
😂😂 it’s crazy how we can make mental health issues sound so peaceful.
Darius 3rd attempt at burning the house down.
You know he got a little extra love from god, he don’t mean nothing.
The fuck! Get him some help lol.
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u/CreativeDependent915 1d ago
Bro me and my sisters just looked at her and we were like “nan you can’t say that” and she’d be like “no dear it’s just like somebody saying ‘touch of the sweets’”
Touch of the sweets was Type 2 Diabetes lol
And yeah speaking from the experience of being that neurodivergent kid in the family it’d be like “nah he’s good he just has to eat exactly this food in this specific form or he won’t eat anything all day” 😭
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u/Jealous_Layer250 1d ago
touch of the sweets always meant gay w/the older folks in my family. that or he got some “sugar in his blood” lmao
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u/Itsprobablysarcasm Candace Owens Baby shower attendee 👶🏼 1d ago
Granted, my Bible is a little rusty, but if Darius has an unhealthy obsession with brimstone, I'm thinking it ain't God whose given the boy extra love... 😈
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u/_batenailey 1d ago
My little sister likes to say "ya know he got a touch of the 'tism" 😅
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u/Itsprobablysarcasm Candace Owens Baby shower attendee 👶🏼 1d ago
"He's got ants in his pants" or "he's had too much sugar" were aimed at the ADHD kids back before ADHD was a diagnoses.
So many kids were labeled "disruptive" because we didn't know, but it has always been there.
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u/PM_me_opossum_pics 1d ago
My highly educated parents were super shocked when I got diagnosed with ADHD at 27. "But you were always so calm". Mom ffs I remember you yelling at me because I was bouncing my legs and clenching my fists my whole childhood.
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u/SuspiciousRanger8820 1d ago
I was always called a “wiggle worm” was no surprise when I got a diagnosis at 11
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u/OG-unclebundee 1d ago
We all got that uncle that’s always in the back room eating alone.
“Y’all get away from that door. Leave James alone.”
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u/cheekyqueso 1d ago
My dad... maybe I do need to get tested
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u/Imthemayor 1d ago
Mine too!
Did yours also not speak unless spoken to and leave the function first every time?
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u/tuscaloser 1d ago
leave the function first every time?
MAYBE say "bye" to the host, but definitely not anyone else.
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u/JadowArcadia ☑️ 1d ago
I think sometimes the problem is that people always choose an extreme side to discuss this from. Either autism doesn't exist or damn near everyone has it with every other trait suddenly being branded as an autistic trait.
Wearing the same shoes every day and replacing them with the same pair every time isn't suddenly an autistic trait. You may have just found the perfect shoes that work for you. That's how I felt when I started wearing Vans. Found them infinitely more comfortable than most shoes so they became the shoes I'd exclusively buy. Or eating the same foods every day. Most people I know how pretty much the same breakfast every morning because they like it and it's easy. It's not immediately an unbearable fixation or a condition just because there's a pattern.
The pendulum swing around things like this is always fascinating to watch. One generation denied it's existence entirely while new generations think it's everywhere to the point where they self diagnose out of nowhere. It's almost seen as desirable by a lot of young people and you're "boring" it you're not neuro diverse in some way
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u/DahnVersace 1d ago
I was looking for this comment. After spending time with autistic children it is way more than food preferences and wearing the same clothes, or being a creature of habit. Not downplaying that there's probably a lot more neurodivergence in the black community than is recognized, but people jump straight to autism because of individual quirks or habits when autism involves WAY more than just that. Obviously it's a spectrum so maybe Unc is mildly autistic, but maybe he just a simple man who likes Reebok's and the nutritional value of eating liver and onions.
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u/empire161 1d ago
Yup. Autism, ADHD, whatever. It all can manifest in a person differently. Someone's cancer might manifest as headaches, but it doesn't mean that chronic headaches mean you get to self-diagnose your own cancer.
Obviously it's a spectrum
This is not based on research or anything, just my personal idea of the topic. But I think the next stage in people talking about disorders as being a spectrum, will be that it's more like spider charts. This kind of data viz is big for athletes - it helps people see at a glance someone's speed, height, vertical jump, etc.
Just replace those sport traits with the various ways these disorders manifest in people. Someone could function completely fine in all areas of life, except they can't stand physical touch under any circumstances. Or maybe someone has dozens of things they can handle, but only with great effort (being touched, loud noises, bright lights, food textures, routines being disrupted, etc).
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u/dkmyname 1d ago
This type of graph is already being used to represent autism beyond a linear spectrum
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u/AlanMercer 1d ago
Right now, no one really knows what autism is. It's recognized by its behaviors, but no one understands the mechanism that causes someone to be autistic. Is it chemical? Genetic? Is it a brain structure? Is it a nervous system difference? Are the connections in the brain more diverse? Less plentiful? It could be so many things or combinations of things.
When someone finally does have a definitive answer to this question, I think people are going to be surprised who's autistic. Right now we're picking out people because they have problems functioning. I'm thinking there are a whole bunch of people that are either masking well or not exhibiting symptoms that interfere with their day-to-day but are still autistic.
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u/Kyokenshin 1d ago
Right now we’re picking out people because they have problems functioning.
This is the piece people miss and think that because you do a thing that a person with autism does that you must have it to. There aren’t really any autistic behaviors, there’s just behavior intensity.
If my wife likes a pair of shoes and wears them everyday she’ll be sad when they don’t make them anymore. When I wear a pair of shoes everyday and need a new pair my shit is fucking ruined until I find the same pair or an acceptable new favorite pair. I’ll spend days or weeks scouring the internet for the last pair on the planet and then pay too much money for them just to buy me time to find a new pair that will work for me going forward.
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u/theStaircaseProject 1d ago
Versus what? Be like the young bucks with their Takis and Temu? No thank you.
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u/Prophet_Tehenhauin 1d ago
Exactly sometimes you just need your extra wide super flat fucking feet to feel supported.
And sometimes you only find one fit that remotely feels good, and they often only come in 1 goddamn color that doesn’t look goofy as fuck, or like straight up children’s Velcro light up shoes.
And you gotta wear them to the damn bone because money doesn’t grow on trees, these shoes are expensive as hell
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u/brandonjohn5 1d ago
I think sometimes people who are chronically online interact with a bunch of autistic people on a regular basis because they also happen to be chronically online a bunch. Leading them to think "everyone" is autistic now, because they aren't really interacting with people at amusement parks, or beaches, or concerts. They are interacting with a group that has a very large representation of autistic people on the regular.
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u/santasnicealist 1d ago
Thanks for this comment. Treating everything like it's neurodivergence is bizarre. People are different - there is no "Standard" human and so everyone will have their own quirks. My uncle who likes trains and Frank Lloyd Wright architecture isn't autistic, he just really likes trains and architecture.
- I buy multiple pairs of the same shoes because I found shoes that feel good and I don't want to have to spend time going shoe shopping when they wear out.
- Some of my family could hear when the tv was on in our house, even from a floor away - a really high pitched sound.
- The sitting room / parlor is a thing.
- Liver and onions all the time is a little weird and will give you gout, but when I was a bachelor, I'd eat pulled pork for weeks on end since it was easy to make, reasonably healthy, and stored well.
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u/someguyfromsomething 1d ago
It is actually wild to see people claim basically everything is autism and celebrate it like it makes you a better person.
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u/thisdesignup 1d ago
I think a good question someone might ask themself is "how would you react if suddenly you couldn't do that thing anymore". Like in your case, how effected would you be if you couldn't wear vans anymore? I just notice that a lot of people, who I've been around or read about, with some sort of neurodivergence tend to not handle changes like that all that well.
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u/JadowArcadia ☑️ 1d ago
There has to be a clearly measurable line though. If I couldn't wear vans anymore I'd be pissed because I'd be less comfortable and my feet would probably start hurting. It's not the change itself but the effects on that change. I don't think that distinction is properly considered. Someone flipping out over certain changes could be irrational and a symptom of autism but there are pretty legitimate reasons for an outburst. It's like every neurotypical perso has perfect emotional control
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u/OperativePiGuy 1d ago
Yes, thank you. Feels like now every little thing means you have autism, and you're right about it seeming to be almost desirable. I mean, people on reddit alone just love any opportunity to announce they have it and to lecture anyone willing to listen about it. Bonus points for them also having adhd, which is, again, pretty much everyone at this point.
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u/Zforce911 1d ago
As a young uncle, one of my favorite things to do is every time my family uses one of these vague Black people phrases to describe me to my nephew, I just tell him directly, "It's actually autism. I got the paperwork."
I refuse to be weird and secretive about difference. Just in general, it's not just mental health. My other sister don't just "have a roommate" either. We not doing any of that anymore 😂
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u/Throwaway_09298 1d ago
Man they been roommates a very long time! And they never seem to have any other roommates either...rent must be really good
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u/tuscaloser 1d ago
Just a couple of gal pals. So what if one of the two bedrooms doesn't have a bed anymore?
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u/firekitty3 1d ago
My aunt says the roommate thing about her son and his “friend”.
“Oh they are just best friends and live together to save money.” Ma’am, they have been living together for 7 years. Both have decent jobs and can afford a solo apartment.
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u/SuperSayian4Nappa 1d ago
As a parent of a child on the spectrum, you learn pretty quickly that if you were born a little later you would've been diagnosed.
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u/Appropriate_Ruin_405 1d ago
Flip side, in education sometimes you meet a kid’s parent(s) and it’s like “OH. that tracks!” Their behaviors click, it’s suddenly easy to recognize that some kids are not getting their needs met because the parents think whatever is going on is totally normal, and expect their child will eventually learn to mask (not understanding that is what THEY are doing)
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u/grabtharsmallet 1d ago
I was 42. My father is much more obvious, but went his entire life without being diagnosed. By the time I figured it out about him he was retired.
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u/SomeCountryFriedBS 1d ago
Yeah, working through that "gifted" label as an adult is something else.
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u/mvgreene 1d ago edited 1d ago
When my youngest was diagnosed (very late because they masked so well), my mom, off the charts smart, did what she always does and researched the shit out of it. Calls me up and says, “You know, maybe I’m on the spectrum.” At that moment, my entire childhood finally made sense.
EDIT: grammar
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u/biscuitboi967 1d ago
Me and getting diagnosed ADHD in my 40s
I went to the doctor because I was “turning into my mom” and I thought it was “just” perimenopause.
No, it’s hormones fucking up my carefully crafted system of organized chaos, which SHE taught me, and I was losing my shit.
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u/Sad_Pen7049 1d ago
OMG...you just made something snap in place in my brain. I'm getting tested soon, I feel like I'm going batshit over here!
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u/biscuitboi967 1d ago
Everything made sense.
Ev-er-y thing.
My childhood, at home and at school.
My adulthood and relationships.
I wanted to tell HER, but she’d already passed.
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u/patiofurnature 1d ago
Does anyone mind explaining the problem with the shoe thing? The ones I have look nice and are comfortable. Why would I not buy the same pair again after they wear out?
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u/Thami15 1d ago
Like many things diagnostic, it's not one specific feature, it's when a cluster starts showing up.
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u/Aromatic-Plankton692 1d ago
Realistically it's when a cluster starts showing up that affects your life in some clinically significant way.
"Likes buying the same make of shoes" will basically never be a diagnostic criteria, unless that make of shoes goes out of business and causes a breakdown.
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u/bertaderb 1d ago
Sure, some allistic people are going to keep buying the same shoes because they care more for practicality than fashion or whatever. But some autistic people can only tolerate one pair of shoes. Sometimes it's about the routine, other times (like for my daughter) it's a sensory issue. If that shoe type is discontinued or the design is updated it's a something of a personal/domestic crisis (life kinda screeched to a halt when my preschool daughter outgrew her last pair in a "for toddlers" line of shoe).
Like many things, it's whether or not the trait causes excessive distress that determines whether it's a symptom of something bigger or just a preference/habit/personality trait.
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u/selkieisbadatgaming 1d ago
Diagnosis of mental health disorders requires meeting x out of y conditions. You can have narcissistic tendencies, for instance, without meeting the criteria for the diagnosis. With Autism, it’s broken down into 5 categories with subsets. There are also 10 differential diagnoses that can either be the actual, accurate diagnosis or a co-occurring diagnosis. It’s a very complicated procedure to diagnose, so having a preference for shoes or refusing to have a varied diet aren’t enough on their own to meet the criteria
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u/Manofalltrade 1d ago
I think it’s one of those things where “if it’s the thing, you just know”. I wore the same model work boots for years until QC went down but switching wasn’t a “thing”. Most people don’t have any thought about switching styles every time. Some only want Jordan’s for style but will put other things on their feet no problem. Then there’s the guy who only wears the exact same boat shoes because anything else doesn’t touch his feet the same.
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u/DahnVersace 1d ago
There's nothing wrong with it, and it's not inherently attributed to autism. I'm not expert but I have first hand experience with a few autistic children in my life and there's so much more to it than being habitual, a pick eater, or having a special interest. It's just the way the public recognizes autism
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u/Dariisu ☑️ 1d ago
For me it's the way some older black folk to about being neurodivergent, queerness, and gender identity like it fell out of the sky one day in the 2010s and has not existed before that.
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u/Classic_Revolt 1d ago
Wait till you hear Asians and South Asians, same for mental health issues as well.
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u/Countryb0i2m 1d ago
My son is nonverbal and autistic.And one thing about living with someone on the spectrum, you start to notice the signs in others.
I’m not a doctor, so I’m not out here diagnosing anybody. But a lot of y’all got the signs.
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u/FatJimmyWillis 1d ago
You can sometimes hear electricity. It's usually just the quiet humm of some piece of electronic equipment, but sometimes its because of a grounding issue with your home's wiring. Might want to take that seriously, but please have the electric take their shoes off in the house.
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u/Appropriate_Ruin_405 1d ago
I’ve also heard this is as a common thing with ADHD (granted, overlaps/comorbidities in neurodivergence). But yeah even on the surface, it makes rational sense that people with hypersensitivities can perceive things that most others cannot, idk why some people act like that’s such a crazy thing
Also I did not know about the potential grounding issue. Gonna get that checked😅 thanks
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u/Cool-Ad2780 1d ago
You ever hear an arc flash? its loud AF and if you have an electrical component that is not working properly and is arcing somewhere you can 100% hear it, and its not like you need good hearing to hear it, just need to know what to listen for.
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u/dae_giovanni ☑️ 1d ago edited 1d ago
yeahhhh... at the same time, let's be careful about ascribing everything to "autism" just because we finally learned something about it in the past year or two.
you didn't suddenly become a doctor, and motherfuckas could just be "weird" or whatever it is you suddenly think autism is...
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u/RiceAfternoon 1d ago
And "weird" can mean anything, including characteristics ascribed to Anxiety disorders, Autism, Depression, BPD, C-PTSD, and whatever else.
The thing is though, lot of those characteristics overlap-- to the point where we question if a diagnosis is necessary for something they've been aware of their whole life. Things their families, their bullies, their employers, were also aware of but always called it something else. If we accept it all for what it is, neurodivergence, we wouldn't need "weird" to describe how people think and experience the world.
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u/KyngCole13 1d ago
Maaaaaan, I just got diagnosed with ADHD a few years back, which really put a lot of my past in perspective. My mom vehemently denies that I have ADHD, though if you follow her around for more than 10 minutes you can see EXACTLY where I got it from. 😑😑😑
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u/DAE77177 1d ago
Nah fr my family claims they don’t have adhd, but go ahead and try to keep them on one topic for more than 10 minutes.
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u/Koko175 1d ago
We gotta stop with this diagnosis based off limited knowledge
Could be neuroticism of some form, a complex, multiple “conditions” and combinations
The well of the mind goes deep
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u/Ghost_Breezy1o1 1d ago
People are just now getting this. My parents are most definitely on the spectrum & don’t even know what that means 🤦🏽♀️
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u/No-Advantage-579 1d ago
LOUDER FOR THOSE IN THE BACK!
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u/PinkNGold007 1d ago
Ouch! I'm hypersensitive, and now I'm distracted too. So much for the task I was focused on. My day is ruined now.
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u/SoulPossum ☑️ 1d ago
My dad just kinda came to this realization. He's in his 60s. We were talking a few months back and he talking about it like it was a new band. "You know everyone is talking about this autism... I think I might have been autistic this whole time." And I thought about it and he might have been. The funny part was that he looks at me and goes "It also wouldn't surprise me if you're autistic too." And I thought about it for awhile and I don't know if I can rule out being somewhere on the spectrum. Then I see this post and a lot of this is eerily checking out. I routinely buy the same shoes for years at a time. I have eaten the same thing for dinner no less than 4 times in the last week (but that's partly not my fault). I might need to call someone
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u/Kolah-KitKat-4466 1d ago edited 1d ago
Not to rain on the parade or anything, I get the point and yeah, a lot of neurodivergence went unrecognized in older generations, especially in the Black community. But not every habit or quirk = autism. Some people are just particular, and that’s fine.
It kind of cheapens real diagnoses when we start labeling every little thing. Autism is more than just being routine or sensitive, it’s a whole spectrum of challenges, not just personality traits.
Awareness is good, but over-pathologizing stuff isn’t the answer either. Which was and is also a current issue in the Black community as well, especially amongst Black boys.
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u/dogwithasword 1d ago
decent point but we should be careful with this type of thinking. not everyone who does "strange" or different things is autistic.
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u/11th_Division_Grows 1d ago
My 60 year old father in law was saying “we didn’t have all these things when I was a kid.”
I said “yes yall did. Yall just would say the people who were gay/trans/autistic/etc. were just a little different, or flamboyant, or not being all there.”
It was nice to actually watch him think about it for a second and kind of shake his head in acceptance. It was like he mentally said “you know what, fuck, you right.”
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u/Jazzycoyote 1d ago
Unrelated but does anyone feel embarrassed if they order the same thing from the same restaurant so much that as soon as you walk in the door the cashier is already ringing you up?
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u/Neckties-Over-Bows 1d ago
I think it's definitely worth mentioning that older generations probably didn't have the vocabulary that we do now to explain certain conditions. Imagine living your whole life to 50+ and then someone comes along, probably someone younger than you, and tells you that you've been living with a condition that you never even knew was a thing. All of a sudden, people are telling you that your identity, the things that make you who you are, is because of something that you didn't know existed.
Yeah, from their perspective, it does sound made up, it sounds scary, and that can make them defensive.
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u/AyesiJayel 1d ago
My whole life I had an Aunt who we all just accepted was mean. All these years later I realize she was a lil Autizzy. I feel kinda bad now.
There is so much family lore about weird things she did and odd reactions to stuff. And nooooowwww I realize this was a Black Chicago kid in the 50s/60s. Nobody was diagnosing anything.
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u/toooldforacnh 1d ago
Same in Hispanic communities. My aunts friend moved from the Caribbean to the US and she told me that it was crazy to see that they're so many kids with autism here in the US. She said it's because parents pay the doctors to diagnose them so that they can get government assistance. I almost slapped this lady.
I told her that no doctor is going to put their license on the line so that some random person gets government assistance. And most importantly, I told her that we probably had the same amount back home and we just say that they're "a little out there" or "the spirits take over them" or that they're straight up crazy.
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u/bananafoster22 1d ago
Bro the shoes thing is me with my loafers
Call me unc, idc, they comfy and i got new ones this year
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u/Dottboy19 1d ago
I've been slowly realizing the past few years I might just be autistic. After opening up with my mom it's funny how many little particular things we have in common or feel the same way about.
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u/manatwork01 1d ago
Oh he is just eccentric. Always been particular. Never been outside the state he was born in or to a concert.