Are you autistic ? (poll)

[unluckysadness]

I see a lot of posts of people telling they have autism. We know that suicide rate is sadly higher for people with autism. I have 90% autistic traits but not diagnosed as the tests are different according to countries. But I'm neurodivergent for sure (my psychiatrist agree). Thanks for your answer

 

[ultradespair]

Not diagnosed because I hate going to the doctor but quite confident that I am

 

[Sad_Autistic_boy_101]

Yes I am Autistic. I was diagnosed as a child. I have high support needs but due to the fucked up system there is little support for people like us. This is defeintly what contributes to suicidalness as well as masking and not feeling like I belong anywhere.

 

[nobodycaresaboutme]

My doctor was hesitant to give me a diagnosis for some reason. I didn't have so many problems at that point, so I have left myself undiagnosed until now. Additionally I believe the diagnosis will never make difference even if I get it now

 

[Namelesa]

Yep, was diagnosed as a child. I am not really sure what mental problems are worsen or caused by it but some aspects of it I like such as hyper-fixation and stimming.

 

[Wolf Girl]

Yes, I'm diagnosed. It doesn't surprise me at all that many SaSu members are on the spectrum. When the world just wasn't made for you then of course you're likely to want out of it.

 

[AnimeSlayersFan]

Got diagnosed, thought it was gonna be a moment of like "wooow, now I get support and I can finally start my life!" That was a brief illusion and now I feel like crap, and even more so, in limbo, everything moves around me but I can't do shit, my mom says to "leave the house, do things you enjoy" and "just get a job cause I'm tired of you"
"I wanna help you out but it's exhausting seeing you in pain all the time, stop talking about it, be patient" "Take responsability over your mental health" "don't obsess over one thing" And so on and so forth, also, I didn't want to take more, but I'm gonna start taking 1mg of my benzo, clonazepam, night and like midday, my psychiatrist told me to do it but I didn't want to, I already feel the cracks of elevated anxiety when I don't take it. Shit didn't get better.
Idk man, I go outside and I have this urge to just piss myself, which is the pain of my existance, I did tests, and the people around me told me it is just anxiety, which could be, but like, what's the fix? And what? Just take a bunch of pills and lose all your sexual function? Then why live? As a castrated happy rat?
All while people are like angry at me and tired of my struggles. My best choice was buying that 7mts of rope, and now my uncle which I liked a lot is gonna come from spain, and SEE ME in the deplorable state that I am, I feel horrible to be honest.
Also, this is gonna sound like disgusting, but, porn is like the source of dopamine I can get, and If that's like taken away, what's the f-ing point? I heard that antidepressants cause sexual disfunction, and also, can cause PERMANENT disfunction.
Idk man, being autistic wasn't so cool after all, I was living in this "magic bullet diagnosis" that was gonna fix everything, and now I'm just a few weeks older, still with the same struggles, but more anxious, so I gotta take more of these benzos, and now I know that I will get a big anxiety crash when I stop taking them, and that I'm building tolerance over time, and that even when taking them, I have some kind of "different" anxiety too, which could be like adhd maybe, but Idk if my psych is gonna prescribe me anything for that. Idk man, in this part I would usually end up on "I WANNA KILL MYSELF" usually.
But hey, idk man, now I can feel my benzo kicking in, my anxiety going down a lil bit. But my issues are real, and damn, they suck.
I do love rats though. Nice picture.

 

[jazzcat621]

Not diagnosed because my mom didn't want to have an autistic kid and cherry picked a doctor who wouldn't diagnose it, but yeah. Honestly if she had me stay with my original doctor who wanted me to have a para, therapy, and other treatments for autistic kids, I would be in a much better place in life both physically and mentally. Instead I was left to constantly feel like an outcast to everyone, including my own family, and find out Im autistic at the age of 25.

 

[InTheAbyss]

Got diagnosed as an adult. As such I was denied access to all of the treatment programs that I could find. Either because I was too old or too smart. Either you had to have an IQ under 75, be diagnosed as a child and/or be under 30 to receive treatment from the autism support programs here. Since I was over 30 when I was diagnosed the places that didn't have an IQ requirement wouldn't take me. Figuring that if you made it to 30 you didn't need any supports...

 

[Takeme2whereibelong]

Yep and its only in the last few yrs ive started to talk openly about it and be a proud autistic and its all thanks to the autism youtube channels i watch. I dont hide from it anymore. I found once i started letting people know, you could see the lightbulb in there head go "oh now it makes sense." Im a very high masker majority of the time but since my dog died i havnt been able to mask. My dog was my autism buddy he was the only one i could be completely free with completely maskless and he was the only one that never once looked at me weird when vocal stimming or physical stimming, he was always there to try and prevent a meltdown or try stop a meltdown from continuing. A have incurred a substantial amount of concussions over the yrs due to violent head hitting during them and i was diagnosed with stage 1 cte. Its unfortunately not talked about in autism as most people see it as sport condition unfortunately due to the media.

 

[unluckysadness]

Yep and its only in the last few yrs ive started to talk openly about it and be a proud autistic and its all thanks to the autism youtube channels i watch. I dont hide from it anymore. I found once i started letting people know, you could see the lightbulb in there head go "oh now it makes sense." Im a very high masker majority of the time but since my dog died i havnt been able to mask. My dog was my autism buddy he was the only one i could be completely free with completely maskless and he was the only one that never once looked at me weird when vocal stimming or physical stimming, he was always there to try and prevent a meltdown or try stop a meltdown from continuing. A have incurred a substantial amount of concussions over the yrs due to violent head hitting during them and i was diagnosed with stage 1 cte. Its unfortunately not talked about in autism as most people see it as sport condition unfortunately due to the media.

I wore a mask too since my childhood but now I talk about it freely and it makes sense to the people who know me. It took me 40 years and I accepted it after my physical disability

 

[AnimeSlayersFan]

Not diagnosed because my mom didn't want to have an autistic kid and cherry picked a doctor who wouldn't diagnose it, but yeah. Honestly if she had me stay with my original doctor who wanted me to have a para, therapy, and other treatments for autistic kids, I would be in a much better place in life both physically and mentally. Instead I was left to constantly feel like an outcast to everyone, including my own family, and find out Im autistic at the age of 25.

I found out and I'm 25, look at that timing... I was also diagnosed with adhd, but I'm scared my psychiatrist won't give me anything for it and just prescribe antidepressants

 

[UtopianSoliloquies]

I'm in a funny situation where I am technically diagnosed with ASD with low support needs although I don't identify as such. I don't really know how I feel about my own diagnosis, especially when it seems that it's only ever used to dismiss anything I say without having to engage with it. When I was still in therapy, my therapist had this almost obsessive insistence that I was on the spectrum and convinced my mother to have my evaluated by a psychiatrist. I had multiple conversations with several different people including a speech therapist whom actually ended her evaluation immediately and started just having a conversation with me instead because I had no issues in that respect. Everyone I spoke to throughout the evaluation was wonderful and a majority of them openly questioned why I was even there. In the end, my therapist sent the psychiatrist a letter providing "context" for why I should be diagnosed with autism despite my explicitly asking her not to do so. Her letter was frankly absurd, claiming that during sessions, I would not notice small temperature changes when she did, which indicated a lack of sensitivity to stimuli, despite the fact that testosterone helps regulate body temperature so the simple fact that I'm a guy could have explained the discrepancy. Even in the report for my diagnosis, the psychiatrist repeatedly notes that I displayed little to no autistic traits during the interviews and still concluded that I was to be diagnosed. I thought for a long time about the diagnosis because I feared the prospect that I was only in denial due to an internalized ableism that made me adverse to the prospect of carrying that identity; I went through tons of YouTube videos and quizzes, and though such content isn't particularly rigourous, in the end I could only conclude that none of other people's experiences or the psychological models of ASD described my internal experience from day to day. I don't really think about it anymore, I'm frankly doing a lot better now than when I first came to this forum. The diagnosis doesn't really affect my life and I'm not adverse to telling it to other people, but the whole experience was so surreal and frustrating.

 

[guestguest360]

I was diagnosed last year at age 23. Whilst I'm relieved to have answers it's been so hard to take in. Autism has truly destroyed my mental health and I don't see things improving for me. That's why I joined the forum today.

 

[InspectorGrain]

I see a lot of posts of people telling they have autism. We know that suicide rate is sadly higher for people with autism. I have 90% autistic traits but not diagnosed as the tests are different according to countries. But I'm neurodivergent for sure (my psychiatrist agree). Thanks for your answer

Yeah I'm diagnosed. Got diagnosed at 4 years old.

 

[SchizoGymnast]

I was diagnosed as PDD NOS in the early 90s and I have a co-occuring severe learning disability. It definitely increases your risk for certain mental illnesses as well as medical complications, ie severe allergies, bowel obstructions, epilepsy, etc.

 

[Unicron]

I'm autistic but wasn't diagnosed until adulthood though. Childhood was an absolute hell for me.

 

[UnusedGate]

Not diagnosed but I'm socially awkward so maybe I am autistic?, I mean, I can pick up on social ques pretty well but I don't know how to respond correctly ever. Maybe it was the social isolation? But I was socially isolated because no one gave a fuck about me. So what came first?

 

[Nightfoot]

My counselor told me a few years ago that she had considered a diagnosis of Asperger's, which has since been rolled into ASD, at a low level. Once I learned about it, a lot of things from my past that I didn't understand seemed to make sense.

 

[_AllCatsAreGrey_]

Not diagnosed (it's expensive in my country), but my therapist and my psychiatrist both consider it highly likely. I'm trying to find an affordable and accessible option.

 

[hesitation]

I never received an official diagnoses but have memories as a kid that people noticed and tried to put me into a special ed class for children with sensory issues as a result .

This made my dad mad so he yelled at them to take me out .

Fast forward years later , and I reflected on things I noticed about myself and it lead to me suspecting autism . Then that memory came back to me and I'm just like .. huh. Weird .

Anyway yes . I honestly think we should all just kick the bucket if we don't like it here (not in a eugenics way - I don't think an autistic person is any less deserving to be in this world ). But it's just another thing that's denied in our autonomy often .

 

[notanormalguy]

34% diagnosed goddamn, I remember being in the office with my mom and the doctor said that she could tell I had it before they even gave me the exam lmao

 

[unluckysadness]

This thread makes me think a lot. When medias talk about autism, they almost never talk about suicidality...

 

[kazatte]

i've known i was likely on the spectrum since i was 8 and i've been telling my mother ever since but she hasn't listened to me; she doesn't believe that i am because i'm verbal (her exact reasoning). when i graduate college and have my own life, i will try to get a diagnosis

 

[-nobodyknows-]

No idea. Wouldn't be surprised if I was though.

 

[dogwolfybark]

Lots of other people on the spectrum here. Its funny
nobody really understands its a struggle being autistic sometimes.
lots of strained friendships, hard to make friends.
People don't understand you, give up on you.
become angry and irritated by you.

 

[uzl lover]

I was diagnosed with autism when I was 13.

 

[Bowerbird]

I was diagnosed professionally as a kid.

 

[LackOfDetermination]

Not diagnosed, but I have most of the traits and anyone who knows me (coworkers/family/classmates) always assumed I had asbergers, which doesn't exist as its own thing and is considered to be on the spectrum these days. My parents were also told by the therapist they made me see for a lil bit that I was likely autistic. My parents decided to get my younger sister diagnosed because she is extremely similar to how I am/ was as a kid as well, though they refused to get me diagnosed even though I was still underage and on their insurance at the time since the waiting time would be too long and "I could just do it myself since I'd be 18 in a few months" and they didn't want to deal with it. I don't have health insurance, nor can I afford it, and even if I could, I wouldn't with some pos like RFK jr in any position of power.
Edit: forgot to mention my parents refused to believe autism was a thing that exists while simultaneously believing it's caused by vaccines until I was 16 as well. Now they only believe the latter

 

[unluckysadness]

I've found this and I understand better why there are so many autistic people here. I'm speechless with the results of the studies

"[Rates of death by suicide among teens and adults have increased more than 30% since 2000 in the United States, and an estimated 800,000 people die from suicide worldwide each year] ... [20% of autistic children and teens reported suicidal ideation in the past year, and 10% reported suicide attempts.6 Non-autistic children and teens comparatively report rates of 14.2% for suicidal thoughts and 4.5% for suicidal attempts.7 This suggests that the rates of suicide attempts are double in autistic children and teens compared to non-autistic children and teens. The comparisons for adults are even more striking.]

For autistic adults, 42% reported suicidal ideation in the past year, and 18% reported attempts.6 In studies of people who were first diagnosed as autistic in adulthood, over 60% reported having suicidal ideation.8 Comparatively, non-autistic adults reported rates of 4.8% for suicidal ideation and 0.7% for suicidal attempts.9 Therefore, available data suggests that autistic adults are 25 times more likely to make a suicide attempt than non-autistic adults.

Full article here : https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11042491/