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Does "lot of people have autistic traits" starting to bother

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Sweetleaf
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14 Aug 2016, 1:45 pm

saxgeek wrote:
Pretty much every symptom of autism is seen in NTs, but to a much lesser degree, so in a sense, it's true that everyone has autism to some degree. I see the autism spectrum ranging from the very social NTs at one end to the severely impaired nonverbal autistics at the other end. But it's wrong for someone to trivialize your condition and blow it off with "lots of people have autistic traits". For someone to be diagnosed with autism, it has to have major effects in their life. Sure, an NT may have trouble socializing sometimes or understanding body language, but it's likely nowhere near the impairment that an aspie faces every day.


But that's not how it works....people who don't have autism are not included on the autism spectrum. The mild end of the spectrum would be higher functioning/aspergers individuals not neurotypicals. Also having a trait or two similar to autism doesn't mean that person is 'a little autistic' it means that person has a trait in common but not significant enough or combined with enough others to imply they're on the spectrum. Lots of people might have a trait or two related to autism but that doesn't make them at all autistic.


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Sweetleaf
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14 Aug 2016, 1:53 pm

League_Girl wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
League_Girl wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
This was sort of addressed in my psychology class before I dropped out of college, basically mental disorders/conditions are extremes of 'normal' human behavior. So essentially most people have traits of various mental conditions, but not enough for a diagnoses...whether or not someone has a given condition depends on if it significantly impairs functioning and how many of the symptoms they have. It's certainly not a perfect system and has flaws, for instance in the case of personality disorders it doesn't always actually 'impair' functioning but they will still exhibit problematic extreme behaviors.

I think some people are exaggerating that that to mean things like 'everyones a little autistic, narcissitic, ect.' or maybe they just misunderstand, but that is not actually what it means.



But yet no one says people have mentally ret*d traits or Alzheimer's traits or schizophrenia traits and so on so I don't agree that many people have traits of a disorder. No one is going to say someone has that Asperger's trait if they do a meltdown at a airport because they missed their plane for on their way to a funeral. That did actually happen in a foreign country and someone has posted that video online.

it is my understanding about how often these things need to happen to someone for it to be a symptom.


Alright well the traits/symptoms that exist in mental conditions aren't completely alien behaviors never observed in humans at any time....they are things that exist in general human behavior. basically its human behavior taken to an extreme or occurring more often than normal. like some people get bothered by a messy house but that doesn't mean they have OCD for instance....with OCD someone can be bothered by messes but they'll likely get more upset about it and have more of a 'need' to clean it up than someone without. People with autism have sensory issues, yet they aren't totally unique to us people outside the spectrum can certainly have sensitivity to various stimuli as well.



I notice anything I did was always made a big deal while everyone else who does it, no one bats an eye so that is how I also knew I was different. Like with clean houses, I loved out house being clean and messes would always upset me and I couldn't relax until it was picked up. But yet I have seen my mom come home and be upset about our house not being clean and she has complained to me about it and I tell her "that was how I felt as a kid and everyone called it OCD so very weird." Now this is where I get lost and confused because I still feel sometimes I got picked on so I was thrown in therapy for it while everyone else can get upset about a clean house and not be seen as having something wrong with them. I do wonder why was it OCD for me but isn't for my mother? I feel the same about anxiety too. Why can other people get upset and no one calls it anxiety but when I do, it's called anxiety? I have said the same about Asperger's. Doesn't everyone get worse when they are upset and my husband said I go extreme with it.

My mom says my AS comes and goes and now I am hearing everyone has it at one point in their lives so what does this mean for me? Why is it that everyone else can have it but no one else will say theirs comes and goes and call it Asperger's but my mom says that about mine? It just doesn't make sense so I hate hearing now lot of people have autistic traits. Even in high school I said everyone interrupts so I didn't see why it was a big deal for me to interrupt. People interrupted me and I saw people do it all the time so I didn't see why I had to fix that about myself.

My aunt also gets very upset about messes too but yet she doesn't have OCD so why was that OCD about me as a kid and teen? :?


Getting upset by messes alone doesn't imply someone has OCD one would have to exibit more symptoms/traits than that...perhaps you also exhibited other symptoms related to it? And that is why people figured you had OCD. As for anxiety it could be the things you get anxious over or how often and what extent you get anxious...that implies to people you may have an anxiety disorder rather than just experiencing regular anxiety.

Also, it is blatantly false that everyone has autism at one point in their lives whoever told you that is very misinformed.


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League_Girl
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14 Aug 2016, 2:23 pm

Because saying lot of people have autistic traits is implying they have symptoms that are impairing and saying they have this or that every now and then that is part of autism is implying theirs comes and goes. That is how my mom talks about my AS so it's very confusing and then hearing this about other people who aren't on the spectrum.

You may be right about what you said about my OCD and anxiety.


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14 Aug 2016, 2:30 pm

Do you mean the clinically defined traits or the fact that many autists are either narcissists or completely naive?



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14 Aug 2016, 4:18 pm

League_Girl wrote:
So that is where the term "That is so ret*d" came from and then for some reason it became a hurtful thing to say and then ret*d became unPC.


Mental Retardation was the diagnostic name when we grew up for what is now categorized as Intellectual Disability. Many autistic people were likely misdisgnosed as mentally ret*d back then and whisked off to institutions never to be heard from again. When people sarcasticslly ask "Where are all the 50 something Autistics" or categorically state "There were no people with autism when I grew up" they are not taking this into account.


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14 Aug 2016, 6:49 pm

AutieUberAlles wrote:
Do you mean the clinically defined traits or the fact that many autists are either narcissists or completely naive?



I'm lost. What does this have to do with my question?


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kraftiekortie
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14 Aug 2016, 7:10 pm

Probably nothing. I think she's having fun at our expense.



Aniihya
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14 Aug 2016, 11:59 pm

I doubt she's having fun at our expense. Sometimes aspies can be pretty narcissistic though and that can count as a trait. But league_girl, you probably mean stuff like being so honest that it can hurt and having an eye for detail, although linguistically speaking, people on WP are pretty awful at reading comprehension.



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15 Aug 2016, 12:10 am

Aniihya wrote:
I doubt she's having fun at our expense. Sometimes aspies can be pretty narcissistic though and that can count as a trait. But league_girl, you probably mean stuff like being so honest that it can hurt and having an eye for detail, although linguistically speaking, people on WP are pretty awful at reading comprehension.



I was asking in my OP if it bothers anyone else when they hear lot of people have autistic traits and if that is the same as saying lot of people have schizophrenic traits or intellectual impairment traits or dementia traits or learning disability traits, etc.


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15 Aug 2016, 1:54 am

It doesn't bother me as each disorder or "difference" has it's own catalogue of symptoms.



vanillabean
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15 Aug 2016, 4:18 am

It does bug me, because often it's said to invalidate autistic people.

If "everyone was a little autistic," we wouldn't feel so alone and face so many unique obstacles.



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15 Aug 2016, 7:35 am

When they say, "everyone has ASD traits", they are saying, "You are not a Special Snowflake".

"Special Snowflake Syndrome"
"The Special Snowflake (Also referred to as one with the "Special Snowflake Syndrome" or "SSS") is a person who believes they are different and unique from everyone else because of something there are or do".
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... 0snowflake

This is their cutesy way of dismissing you.



kraftiekortie
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15 Aug 2016, 7:37 am

Every snowflake IS unique.

I'd rather be a Special Snowflake than a Generic Raindrop.



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15 Aug 2016, 10:31 am

SSS also refers to people who throw a fit and act like a dictator when their forced individuality (wanting to be different/nonconformist/non-mainstream) is questioned. This is how you get hipsters and the SJW stereotype. Not being yourself doesn't make you anymore of an individual than everyone else.



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15 Aug 2016, 11:02 am

LoveNotHate wrote:
When they say, "everyone has ASD traits", they are saying, "You are not a Special Snowflake".

"Special Snowflake Syndrome"
"The Special Snowflake (Also referred to as one with the "Special Snowflake Syndrome" or "SSS") is a person who believes they are different and unique from everyone else because of something there are or do".
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... 0snowflake

This is their cutesy way of dismissing you.


I suppose a good reply would be "I can see why you might think that, as you've obviously got the social ineptitude trait in spades."



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15 Aug 2016, 12:56 pm

Could seem like it but, Things that look like something doesn't mean it is something.


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