Life expectancy with autism

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The article might not have been a representative sample

The definition of "autism" has changed and the article might use a different definition of "autism"

Some autistics undiagnosed

Some diagnoses wrong

Quality versus quantity

Some articles claim that autistics on average earn a lot less cash than neurotypicals

Some articles claim that autistics have epilepsy a lot more often than neurotypicals

There is something wrong with everything

Autism is comorbid with plenty of diagnoses, such as clinical depression and anxiety disorder

Old age is often riddled with plenty of diseases

What is so great about being old anyways?

Some potentially key factors that were not mentioned are our living environments, our work environments, & we tend to be on various psych meds to help deal with our various comorbids. Those things could vary a lot by the autistic individual.

My doc has me on a diabetes med & also a med to lower my cholesterol partly because I'm on an antipsychotic that can potentially raise that. I was prediabetic & my cholesterol was in the medium-high range before starting the antipsychotic a couple years ago. Since I was close to 40 & was on lots of other various meds, my doc wanted me to be on those two meds as a preventive measure after my psych put me on the antipsychotic. The diabetes med has also been helping me gradually lose weight & might be helping me binge-eat & pig out on snacks a little less. I really need to change my eating habits some more & exercise more because my dad started having some heart problems about half a year ago. My dad is 70 & was always in great physical shape & worked in construction till he retired a couple years ago & now he stays active doing things around the house. He has never been on any medication regularly long-term till now. His dad was a bit younger when he died of heart a heat attack after having heart problems for a while before he died. My eating habits & physical activity are aLOT worse than my dad. That said, in some ways I'm not really afraid of dying if I do it somewhat peacefully & don't suffer a lot before I do. In some ways I'm a lot more scared of continuing to live in this hellish word that is rapidly going downhill.

I've heard a few times in research reports by autistic people that it's 9x greater than the general population, but I can't remember what their source was.

UK stats from https://www.autistica.org.uk/

What's even worse



^ shocking

Well then! Thanks for that! ^

I know we shouldn't speculate but I wonder if Kate Spade was autistic.
I watched some vids about her after she died and it seemed quite obvious imo.

It's hardly the point. I just get triggered when I see threads like this about autistic people having a shorter lifespan because I already feel unfortunate and victimised by autism as it is, without having to feel like my physical health is under threat too and that I'm going to live a shorter lifespan than my neurotypical peers. It just doesn't feel fair.

I think it's quite misleading to publicise these articles and studies to make it sound like we're born with physical abnormalities that can lead to shorter lifespan that we cannot control, when really it's just down to lifestyle. While suicide is tragic and sad, it's still a decision made by the individual, not like dying of a terminal illness like cancer or heart disease. So me dying of suicide doesn't frighten me (suicide only frightens me if loved ones do it).

Also reading articles like this make neurotypicals seem to lucky. Yes I do know they get problems too but I'd still rather be neurotypical than ASD.

I read that our average is 54, so was very happy when I made 55. Now, if this 58 is correct, I have to go through it all again and celebrate when I turn 59...

Doesn't matter what goes into working out the average, since the same process would be used to work out the average for neurotypicals, and we'd still be 58 and they'd still be about 80.

Suicide? No surprise there. I've struggled with depression all my conscious life. I expect there'd be more depressed us than depressed them. We'd be depressed, struggling to succeed in work, marriage, whatever. Yup, I wouldn't be surprised at all to find out that on a per capita basis, our suicide rates were higher than there's.

It's likely higher than 9x, because stats wouldn't include undiagnosed people, or people who don't have the info on file with their doctor / family. I don't know how much of an investigation is mandated after suicides but chances are they need to dig a bit into the person's mental health to rule out homicide or misadventure. I think it's prudent to bring this issue to public awareness so more can be done to support ASD mental health preventatively, or even as a source of information to help families grieve in the aftermath. When my grandpa ended his life none of us talked about it but if we'd been given any insight about ASD it could have been quite helpful.

Well I'm just an odd case. Maybe I should be studied and call it "The Joe Effect". This can describe people who have been diagnosed early in life and got a lot of support growing up, yet they still really hate their diagnosis, are often confused at their diagnosis, and often feel they would have been better off without getting the diagnosis.
I suppose this all comes from trauma of being treated differently by my peers because of the diagnosis that got blabbed out to the whole class without my consent.