Life of women who do not know they are autistic

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the hierarchy of victimhood
(take the Uboat)
the winning loser-status
gogogo
for it

I've just been reading a study of Repetitive behaviours, insistence on sameness and anxiety in ASD children. The study participants were 110 males and 10 females

Yes that's what Sophie thought too.



This description is subtle. She launches into her explanation. This denotes ott enthusiasm. And she's obviously gone on too long about it because the interviewer gets irritated and has to cut her off.

The author has been clever her describing it from Sophie's perspective rather than saying "she started monolouging at him". The author shows that she thought she was just answering the question and Sophie is now confused about why she's irritated the interviewer.

I would add the intensity of the anxiety, going into a shutdown and the poor motor coordination.

But there's nothing in the description that clearly suggests that she shutdown. As far as I could tell, she just blacked out. There's nothing about autism that necessarily causes more intense anxiety. And nothing suggested poor motor coordination. Lots of people lose their balance when buses suddenly brake, and distress can make people more clumsy than usual.

I'm going to assume that if the woman the article is about is actually known to be formally diagnosed, then anything seemingly inaccurate which the writer of the article mentions about her effects of autism may just be the writer's misapprehensions.

The overall point of the article is being overlooked and missed, here.

Assuming this Sophie did indeed end up being diagnosed with ASD, lets focus on the actual point of the article, which is, as we know already to be true, the fact that adult females of the "missed generations" have lived with autism without knowing that's what their range of traits and challenges actually are because of.

I relate to that larger message because I was one of them, not that I've ever fallen off a bus. The bigger picture is, lots of women are suffering without know what is at the bottom of all their various issues. Lets not pick apart the story the writer chose to tell, as the writer is clearly not focusing on probably the most salient issues of the experience of this woman.

Actually we are all free to focus on whatever aspect of the article we choose, and no such focus implies that anyone overlooked the main point.

Sure, you're free to focus on whatever, but in my opinion you are nitpicking a detail that derails the main point of the article. And I'm free to point that out, and how derailing it really is.

The main issue of the underdiagnosis of females who suffer long years of not having a handle on why they experience issues, is such a crucially important one that it really appalls me that you are throwing that baby out with the bathwater over your own cynicism of the subject-person's autism based on simply what a probably not that informed writer chose to write about.

You are derailing. It's a free country and board and you can do that but at what cost to the main issue?

I have no more time for you. You're devaluing a really, really important topic. Shame on you. I'm done here.

I could me misreading things here but I think it's a real shame that posters have apparently fallen out over opinions about an article that was written to try and highlight issues suffered by undiagnosed women on the spectrum.

I think the problem was we couldn't actually relate to the protagonist.

I get that, but the point of the article not just the quoted part was to highlight that some woman on the spectrum show signs that are less obvious - clearly .

What would you add to the story to make it more relateable to you?

Well yes an alternate explanation can plausably be given for a person whose behavoirs completly mimick the DSM 5. If you have the inclination, time,money power, and influence and are a professional who thinks autism is way overdiagnosed you could undiagnose or change the diagnosis for the vast majority of diagnosed autistics plausibly.

Sophie is a fictional charactor described as autistic by her creator. Her fictional traits were meant to be caused by autism because the charactor is meant to be used to describe some things that resemble what non fictional autistic adult women experience. So her tripping was likely meant to be autism related moter co orderination issue and her collapsing on the sidewalk was meant to be understood as some sort of autistic shutdown. That the behavoirs and thoughts and smell sensitivity described when combined are autism caused is very plausible explanation.

Sorry Sophie, no diagnosis for you. Let me get you some Alprazolam for your anxiety.....

I can't tell if your empathising or being sarcastic

Okay the article could have been poorly written or it was so well written it showed why you didn't see autism in the article. If Sophie were diagnosed, then doctors and none doctors would see it because they would be looking for the signs. Since she doesn't have a diagnoses, doctors and none doctors are not going to see it in her which is why I say the article could just be describing anxiety. People with anxiety can also have sensory overloads and shutdowns and be over stimulated and also be hospitalized and mess up at interviews. I wonder how many of them would be able to relate to this article? People with anxiety can get overwhelmed by lot of sound and smells. But it's a matter of what is coming first, is Sophie having anxiety because of her sensory issues or is she having sensory issues because of the anxiety. Same can go for social situations. Is she having social problems because it's the anxiety that is making her mess up (the interview for example when she started talking about her degrees and classes she took) or is she having anxiety because of her social problems.