Social Robot

My name is Dave, and I am a social robot.

What I mean by that is, as much as I hate to admit it, I rely heavily on words and phrases that I've picked up from other people, TV, YouTube videos etc. My day job is to help customers via online webchat, and in the webchat world this kind of phrases are called canned answers or canned responses. I've always felt that I don't really have an opinion on most things, but I'm starting to realise that it's more that I do have opinions and feelings, but I don't always have the words to express them. Either that, or I don't care enough to have an opinion. Sometimes when I hear people talking about a certain topic I'll take a word or a phrase that I've heard them say that most closely matches what I feel and either repeat it back to them in the conversation to show that I agree with them, or I'll use it next time I'm talking to somebody about that topic. I think politics is probably the main topic that I've done this with because until a few years ago I really didn't have a clue about it. Not that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to politics these days, but I definitely understand more than I did.

This use and recycling of social canned responses is part of autistic masking, but it's also a way to learn about things for me. It gets me involved in the conversation (or what little conversation I generally take part in...) and helps me to pick things up and learn that way. And I guess the fact that most people don't share a lot of my interests probably helps with the masking side of things in that they don't know that it came from a game or a film or something like that.

Not all of my canned responses came from other places. I came up with some of them myself (although they were usually short) and I have been picked up on using the same words and phrases a lot in the past. One that I remember when I was a kid was that I used to "Yeah, fine" a lot and my dad joked that I should have a button to press so that it says it for me. Looking back it probably sounded a bit dismissive but it was the quickest and easiest way for me to express that whatever we were talking about was ok. I never was one for talking lots.

The term "social robot" itself came from a book I read probably around 10 or 15 years ago about how to meet women. The writer used it to compare the performance of meeting people and obeying social rules of "popularity" to how you would normally be in every day life. I feel that being a social robot is better suited to autistics in reference to masking for survival and to get through social encounters with neurotypicals. A lot of us have actively spent time studying social rules and observing neurotypical behaviour so that we can learn the behaviours and communication methods that we can then perform rigidly in our robot state to pass as neurotypical. I personally haven't done a lot of conscious studying of people, although I do definitely pick up bits and pieces as I go through life and they sometimes become so ingrained in me that I can't always remember where they came from, or that it even came from somewhere else in the first place. This is similar to (or maybe part of) how many autistics including myself have confessed that they don't know where the mask ends and where they begin. I would go into masking in more details but it's not something I've really got my head around yet in terms of how/when I do it, so I've asked somebody for a guest post about it from their point of view which should be coming up soon.

In the meantime, as always, please hit the Follow button in the side bar and follow me on social media. I'm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: Black silhouette of a toy humanoid robot on a white background. Under the silhouette is the word "Autism" in rainbow colours, and under that is "Social Robot" in black.]

Autism As A Label

Autism is something that's often considered by neurotypicals as "just a label" and not something you should be putting on yourself. Despite this, the autistic community take a very different stance on it, and that includes those members of the community who are self-diagnosed. As someone with lived experience of being told "it's just a label" prior to diagnosis, and then seeing and fully appreciating the value that said diagnosis brought, I thought this would be an important topic for me to discuss here.

After my first autism assessment concluded that my only issue was a lack of confidence it left me unsupported and without the closure I was seeking as both me and my wife knew there was more to it than the assessors had decided. That's why when I moved back to York I decided to go for a second opinion. The first GP that I saw in York was of an older generation who clearly didn't believe in mental health issues, which was shown by how she dealt with other family members seeking help by pretty much rejecting them and telling them they were over reacting. Anyway, in my particular case she asked why I want to label myself with something like that, she told me I didn't need it and then gave me the details of another mental health service that wrongly sent me to a couple of months' worth of CBT sessions for social anxiety. I soon realised the CBT wasn't working and arranged an appointment with a different doctor who then set the ball rolling for me to get assessed in York (my previous assessment was in Leeds).

Fast forwarding to over 18 months later I finally got my autism diagnosis, but not before I had difficulty at work in requesting reasonable adjustments because my role had changed. I think I explained in a previous post about the issues I had at work so I won't go into it here, but the long and short of it is that I had to fight for months to get any adjustments put in place throwing all sorts of law and regulations at them before I finally got the adjustments I needed, but even then it was on a temporary basis until I got officially diagnosed. My diagnosis came just as the temporary period was about to end and it made sure that it was made permanent. So that's one way in which being "labeled" by a diagnosis would have helped me much sooner when it comes to the world of work.

On a personal level though, the uncertainty of "am I/aren't I?" was unbearable and the acknowledgment that my diagnosis brought gave me so much closure and relief. I felt like I could finally be open about being autistic and discuss it more publicly than just in the online autism community. A fellow autistic online (can't remember who it was, but if I remember I'll edit this to credit them) once said that labels in the sense of food packaging are helpful because they give so much information about the food, nutritional information, allergens and so on, and basically said that an autism diagnosis is the same in that yes it is a label, but it's one that helps others understand that you might not thrive in social situations, or that you might be sensitive to loud noises, or that you might really, really enjoy trains or wrestling or anime or psychology or literally anything else. It's a much quicker, easier and more painless way of communicating your needs and your reasoning. Imagine if someone questions what you're doing when you're flapping your hands. If you answer along the lines that you're self-stimulating to soothe yourself because you're feeling overloaded they're likely to think you're a bit of an oddball, whereas if you answer with "I'm autistic," their reaction will probably be closer to "Oh, I get it now." At least, I like to think so anyway.

Autism diagnosis or a self-diagnosis isn't JUST a label. To many of us it's validation, it's acceptance, it's acknowledgement, it's understanding, it's a weight off our shoulders, it's a word that we can give to society to explain who we are. This is why we should be congratulated when we receive a diagnosis in adulthood instead of commiserated. I like to think that the same congratulations should apply to a family whose child has been diagnosed because it means they've been given a greater understanding of what exactly they may have been struggling with (if struggling at all - each family will be different) and what they need to do to help both their autistic child and themselves as a family. But in reality a lot of parents let their lack of understanding manifest in grief, and/or taking the wrong route in an effort to support their child (such as ABA for example). I guess being late diagnosed may have saved me from something like that in my childhood, but on the other hand there are things that I really would have benefited from had I been diagnosed in childhood.

I was bullied at lot at school and I would hope that having a diagnosis would have helped with that. I think it would have been another target for the bullies to get at me for, but I really, really hope that if I had been diagnosed my school would have done a hell of a lot more about it than what they actually did, which theoretically would have counteracted the bullying.

I've never been good at making or keeping friends and I believe firmly that if I knew I was autistic I would have received much more understanding from my peers as well as possibly known my own limitations and set boundaries for social situations.

Tying into that is my eternal struggle (until I met my wife) with romantic relationships. Each of my 3 previous relationships was shorter than the last, and the first 2 ended primarily because I was a lot more interested in them than they were in me. It's only in the last couple of months that I've discovered this is a very common autistic trait and the person we're dating can become a sort of special interest. Again, I think knowing I'm autistic and being able to explain that to my partners at the time would have theoretically made them a bit more patient and understanding of how I am. Either that, or it could have put them off completely and made them not enter a relationship with me in the first place. If I'm honest I don't know which route would have been better.

And finally, I think it would have benefited me in a professional capacity as well to have known I'm autistic. I've had more jobs than I think most people have, and I left a lot of them on bad terms. I know I've said it a lot here but it all comes down to understanding as I could have explained my needs and my employers could potentially have been more accommodating of them if we knew I was autistic. Don't get me wrong, there were non-autism-related issues that came up with some jobs (like when I was 20 or 21 I would show up to work hung over more often than I should have), but overall it was mostly issues that could have been addressed and dealt with had I been diagnosed autistic earlier on in life.

So there you have it. That's my take on the "label" of autism, and how it can be an extremely helpful thing for an autistic person to have in life. This is just my personal experience though, and I'm sure that there are infinite other benefits that autistic people have/would have experienced from it depending on when they were diagnosed. Please hit the Follow button in the side bar and follow me on social media. I'm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: A red and white name badge that says "Hi, I am" in a digital font, and then "Autistic" in a font that resembles handwriting. This is on a white background with "Autism" written at the bottom in rainbow colours, and under that is "As a Label" in black.]

Social Hangover

Being diagnosed autistic later in life is weird in a way. There are some things that even now, 18 months after diagnosis, I'm still working out about myself and my past even though in reality they should have been clear signs that I'm autistic. The thing that dawned on my most recently was that whenever I went on a night out I would always feel hungover the next morning, even if I didn't drink. There was a period of about 6 months in my early 20's where I couldn't drink because of the medication I was on, and there were other times here and there where I chose not to drink for different reasons, but every non-drinking night out still left me with what felt like a hangover the next morning. Granted, a less intense hangover than if I had been drinking, but other than intensity it felt pretty much the same. I never knew what it was until it randomly occurred to me the other day.

Now that I'm armed with the knowledge that I'm autistic I've put it down to being worn out by social interactions. I would wake up feeling nauseous, which is known to be a common thing in neurodivergents. When you feel anxious or worried for example, you feel it in your stomach which is why a lot of autistics develop stomach issues or other digestive issues. Growing up autistic (especially if you don't know it) is a stressful experience so it makes a lot of sense that my stomach would be sensitive the following day. I also used to feel physically over-sensitive after a night out, which does happen when I'm tired. I don't think that's just due to staying out late because at the time I was largely struggling to find work so I slept in a lot due to having nothing to really get up for. So the tiredness must have been mostly from trying to be sociable and exhausting myself. I sometimes had a headache in the morning as well, although that wasn't as frequent as the other symptoms. They are all signs of tiredness and/or stress which makes a lot of sense if I'd been putting a lot of effort into masking.

Masking isn't something that I've ever been aware of doing, but looking back I must have masked in some way or another through my childhood and up to around my mid-20's for nobody to have realised I might be autistic. It's a common thing for autistics to not know where the mask ends and where they begin so it's not surprising that I've never knowingly done it.

It's just a quick one this week because I just wanted to share that sudden realisation that when I used to go out but didn't drink I got social hangovers. To be honest, I'm not even sure if "social hangover" is the right term for it, or if there's even a term for it at all so I'd be interested to hear what you call it in the comments or on social media. Also let me know if you get social hangovers whether it feels the same or different for you. Please hit the Follow button in the side bar and follow me on social media. I'm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: Black silhouette of a human holding their head with both hands and lightning bolt-like symbols near the head to show distress. Below that is "Autism" in rainbow colours, and under that is "Social hangover" in black.] 

Self-Diagnosis

Self-diagnosis is something that I struggled with a little bit before I was formally diagnosed. Well, maybe saying I struggled isn't quite right, but I didn't feel comfortable in disclosing my autism while self-diagnosed unless I had to. I knew I was autistic before diagnosis but it felt like it might just be in my head so I didn't dare tell anyone except members of the online autism community who I'd never met. Obviously it's most likely not the case that it's just in your head so I wanted to go over some reasons why self-diagnosis is perfectly valid.

1. Autism is often overlooked in women and in minorities because it used to be seen as something that only occurred in white males. We know nowadays that literally anybody can be autistic.

2. Getting a diagnosis can be expensive in certain countries. Here in the UK it's done under the NHS for free, although there is also the option to go private.

3. The diagnostic person/team that assesses you might not be as knowledgeable or up to date as they should be. This happened to me when I was 1st assessed. They decided I wasn't autistic, so when I moved to a different area I had to ask to be referred again for a 2nd opinion where I finally got my diagnosis.

4. Even if you can afford a diagnosis the wait time for it is often ridiculously long. I can't remember how long my 1st assessment took, but I know my 2nd one was 18 months from my GP referring me to me getting my diagnosis.

5. Diagnostic assessment may not be physically accessible. I would imagine there's probably an assessment centre in most (if not all) major cities, but more rural areas might not have one meaning that you'd have to travel.

6. Your GP might refuse to refer you. This happened to me and I know it's not an isolated case. The GP I saw refused to refer me because she decided I didn't need to label myself. This is problematic for a few reasons, not least that it's not for her to decide. It's our own decision whether it's something we want or need.

7. Under the UK's Equality Act 2010 a diagnosis is irrelevant when asking for accommodations at work. As long as you meet a set of criteria your workplace are legally obliged to offer reasonable adjustments for you with or without a formal diagnosis.

8. Some autistics might feel shame or fear around getting officially diagnosed. This could be because of how they personally view themselves and/or autism, it could be due to family pressures, or any number of reasons that they might want to quietly keep their identity to themselves.

9. Some people simply might not want to chase a formal diagnosis, but be content in self-identifying as autistic. Fun fact: Tim Burton has identified as autistic for years, despite not being diagnosed.

10. Nobody knows you better than you!

There is concern within the neurotypical community that with self-diagnosis of autism people will use it as almost a fashion statement, or irrationally jump to conclusions about their own neurotype. I think these concerns are quite reasonable if you're looking from an outside perspective like neurotypicals will be, so I wanted to quickly address both sides to close this post. I want to reassure neurotypials that jumping into a self-disagnosis like that is a rare occurrence. While I'm not saying that everybody who self-diagnoses does so correctly, it's usually more about identity and isn't something that's taken lightly by most people. We take a lot of time, research and soul searching before we diagnose ourselves. And that leads me onto my point addressed to self-diagnosing autistics or those considering it. It's best to take your time and really think and research what autism is and whether you identify as autistic. There are a ton of autism resources online in the form of blogs (like this one!), YouTube channels, Facebook groups, Twitter hashtags and so on that are dedicated to helping anyone and everyone understand and accept autism. There's nothing wrong with self-diagnosing, but all I'm saying is do your research and stay informed.

If this list of reasons for self-diagnosis being valid has been helpful please click Subscribe at the top of the page and follow me on social media. I'm @DepictDave on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: "World Wide Web" logo (a black globe logo with "WWW" running through the middle) on a white background with "Autism" underneath it in rainbow colours, and "Self-Diagnosis" beneath that in black text.]

Guest Post: Autism In Women

I've got another guest post for you this week. This time it's by Vicky of Actually Aspling who is a brilliant and very active autism advocate, a fellow northerner, and has a Vaporeon tattoo on her arm which I love! You'll find her own blog here, and she's ActuallyAspling on both Twitter and Instagram. I realised that one of the biggest areas I haven't discussed yet is autism in women so I asked Vicky to write a piece on it for me since I'm not really qualified to talk about it properly due to being a man. So here we go with Vicky's thoughts:

I honestly can’t remember much from my childhood, only what I’ve been told from my parents, things are quite blurry in that sense. From what I know I was quite passive as a small child, and didn’t have many friends, and to be honest that hasn’t changed much.

I’d say being a girl definitely heightened my experiences in some ways, and for that reason I went undiagnosed for many years. Our understanding of Autistic women and girls is ever-growing, its evolving, and we are learning every day, but sadly it came too late for me.
High school for me was a nightmare, everything went wrong, and I stood out for all the wrong reasons. You could say I was a typical Autie girl. I clung to all my friends, I copied their behaviours, hoping I could survive the school day. It didn’t work. As a result, I camouflaged even more, changed my interests and created a whole new persona, something which many young Autistic girls feel they have to do to pass as Neurotypical. The issue is, we shouldn’t be pressuring Autistic individuals to do so, we should be teaching them, giving them the skills to be themselves, and allowing them to unmask.

Honestly, I think one of the reasons I was undiagnosed for so long is because of this mask, I had created a person who could fit in, who could pass as neurotypical, I appeared ‘normal’ or ‘high functioning’ to some. But the thing is, every Autistic woman is different, just like every Autistic person is diverse, its not one size fits all. I also think the understanding of trait presentation was lacking, especially in medical services.

I remember the first time I went to my doctor, I told her I think I could be Autistic, and I could tell by her face that she didn’t believe me already. So, what did she do? She printed off a biased, probably outdated questionnaire from her computer and proceeded to ask me a set of questions. One of which is ‘do you have friends?’ to which I said yes, and that I did like to go out with said friends. And of course, that meant I couldn’t possibly be Autistic, because we all know Autistic people cannot possibly have friends. I came across as quite social, again like the typical autie woman.

Eventually I sought a different opinion, and I was referred straight away for an assessment. This was fantastic, the only downside? My assessment was completed using the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS), an outdated tool which lacks empirical sensitivity, it is biased and its methods do not reflect traits which are often displayed in women and girls. It’s a tool which follows stereotypical ‘male’ traits. However, I eventually did receive a diagnosis, after years of camouflaging and comments that ‘women can’t have autism’.

So many young girls are going both undiagnosed and misdiagnosed due to outdated tools, a lack of sensitivity and an absence of knowledge. Its about time that things change, we need a new perspective on Autism, but hey, I’m working on it!

[Image description: Vicky sat in her garden cross-legged holding a blue mug with both hands. She has short-ish light brown hair and is wearing a blue t-shirt, blue Christmassy trousers and white socks.]

My Stims

I wrote a post a while ago about why I enjoy chewing. At the time that was my main stim. I do still chew my Chewigem button necklace, but my stims have evolved and changed since then. Either that or I'm just more aware of the things I do these days - maybe a bit of both. Because of that and because almost anything can be a stim I thought I'd go through a few more of the stims that I do.

Just as a reminder, stimming is short for self-stimulatory behaviour and the definition is a repetitive behaviour that appears to have no reason or purpose, although it helps autistics to regulate and ground themselves when they're overwhelmed or emotional.

Finger Stim (No idea what to actually call it!)
One of my more common stims that I've been doing for a while is running my thumb along the inside of my fingers on my right hand. I tend to do that when I'm talking to somebody as I'm often anxious during conversation. It's not usually something that I do consciously (which is the same for most of my stims) but I do notice myself doing it, and I think it's because it's quite a subtle thing to do, especially if I can put my hands in my pocket or something. I find that a lot of my stims are either subtle or "socially acceptable" which helps to avoid detection and awkward comments and so on. I also do it sometimes when I'm concentrating - in fact, I'm doing it now while I write this post. I tried to make gifs of my stims to demonstrate but I couldn't get it to work, so I'll just post a picture of each to help give you an idea. (Let me also apologise for my onesie and messy hair in the pictures. It was a busy day with the kids in self isolation, so I didn't get the chance to have a shower and get dressed until later on!)

[Image description: My hand during the above stim. In the image my fingers are held together and my thumb is reaching down to my little finger. While doing this stim I rub my thumb nail up along my fingers, past my index finger and back down again repeatedly.]

Flapping

It's only recently that I actually realised I'm a hand flapper. Turns out I've been doing it subconsciously for ages, but because the way I do it down by my side and with just 1 hand is very subtle compared to the traditional autistic hand flap it seems to have slipped under even my own radar. It wasn't until just a few days ago when I was tidying up in the kids' play room that I noticed myself doing it. Something else I learned not long ago about flapping is that there are actually different kinds of flap. Obviously there's my own subtle versions like this, and the classic flap where you hold your hands in front of you and flap them up and down with your arms. But it's also classed as flapping if you do it with just a wrist flicking motion similar to how you would shake water off your hands after washing them. It sounds obviously, but I guess it's just one of those things that you don't always register. It wasn't until I realised a flicking motion is also flapping that I realised what I do is flapping. I guess it shows what a difference subtlety can make.

[Image description: My hand down by my side while flapping.]

Leg Swaying/Jigging

This is probably the ultimate in subtle stims because even though it's often noticeable (I used to get told off for doing it by the girl I sat next to at one of my old jobs), it's something that almost everyone does at some point so it doesn't get questioned. I haven't posted a picture because all it's going to show is my leg, but while sitting with my foot on the ground I will either jig my leg up and down or sway it from side to side. I think I do both about equally. It's jigging up and down that I got told off for because we worked upstairs on quite a wobbly wooden floor.

Rocking

This is a classic autistic stim. Typically it's done when sat down and by rocking your upper body either forwards and backwards or from side to side. I also do a standing up variation, usually while I'm waiting in a queue for example, where I shift my balance from one leg to the other and back again to rock myself from side to side. Other than that, the times I've found myself rocking most were when my son was a baby and I used to do the night feeds. I was half asleep and I never used to realise I was rocking until my wife told me to stop it. It was probably just a thing my body did to try to keep me awake long enough to get through the feed until I could go back to sleep. I've also found myself rocking while sat with my kids reading stories or playing with Lego etc. Again, no point posting a picture because it's self explanatory and wouldn't show much.

Bouncing

The last one I'm going to mention is bouncing on my toes, which comes from when my kids were babies. I used to do it while holding them to bounce them to sleep or just settle them down and it's just carried on from there. I only do it at home and it's when I'm waiting for something like my tea to brew. When I'm bouncing I tend to wander around as well in bouncy steps. I try to keep some sort of rhythm to it but I think I usually fail, but it keeps me occupied.

[Image description: Me bouncing on my toes around my dining room. One foot is completely off the ground while the other has just the heel off the ground. I keep my heels in the air the whole time I'm bouncing.]

These are just a few examples. This list is by no means exhaustive for either me or autistics in general and it's always best to remember that everybody stims in one way or another. It's just that autistics usually stim differently, whether that's more noticeably, more often and so on. Don't forget to please click Subscribe at the top of the page and follow me on social media. I'm @DepictDave on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

Autism Myths

When thinking of autism most people will conjure up images of some sort of stereotype, quite often in the form of either Sheldon Cooper or Dustin Hoffman's Rain Man. While some autistics may have certain qualities and/or "super powers" reminiscent of these stereotypes, autistics are much more than just the visible traits seen in the media.

Fellow autism advocate Christa Holmans (Neurodivergent Rebel on YouTube) did a short series of "You can't be autistic because..." videos on her channel that addressed some myths around what people think autism is/isn't. Just because I think she's bloody brilliant I'm going to use one of the myths that she busted as an example for this post. In one particular video she addressed the myth that "You can't be autistic because you have empathy." While some autistics do lack empathy (I do struggle with empathy unless it relates to someone I know and/or care about) the majority of us find that we either have too much empathy, or we just don't know how to show it even though we're feeling empathy. These could result in any number of outward responses depending on the person. Some may be overwhelmed by their empathy, some may not show any outwards signs because they don't know how to, and for others like me it varies depending on the person or situation. For me, even if I do feel a lot of empathy I don't really know what to do with it. If it's my wife who's feeling upset for example, I'll cuddle her and try to talk to her even though I don't know what to say. I don't think I'm empathetic to most people, and overall I'm more empathetic towards animals than people.

Judging by my dad's reaction to me getting assessed for autism I think the reason he's not convinced is because all he can see is the stereotype that we're all severely handicapped and dependent on full time care. Our needs are many and varied, and each person's needs are different from each other. In my case, I've been holding down a full time job for 9 years until recent weeks (I'm still working but had to go part time due to unrelated circumstances), I'm happily married, I'm a dad of 2, I drive, I do a lot of other things that a stereotypical view of autism wouldn't allow. I'm hardly handicapped. And while I admittedly think I'd struggle to live fully independently I'm independent enough to do all of the things above. There are definitely things I struggle with such as dealing with finances and remembering self-care aspects if my routine has been disturbed but I'm far, far from the image that my dad has of autism.

There are misconceptions that we all have "super powers" in the vein of Rain Man who is able to instantly count the number of toothpicks being dropped. Some people do have intense skills not usually seen in neurotypicals, but not all of us do. I remember seeing something online a few years ago about an autistic artist who accurately drew the New York skyline purely from memory. In contrast I've got no intense skills that I know of, just a determined mindset when I'm trying to do something that sees me putting more effort in to achieve an outcome than neurotypicals would. When I used to go to the gym a lot in my early 20's my personal trainer told me I was one of the hardest workers in the entire gym. At work my team leader has got me involved in a project analysing the team stats because I like analysing figures and if I'm stuck I'll either keep working at it or ask for help from someone who knows what they're doing. It's this determination that gets me to where I want to be. In fairness, people with extreme skills might rely on determination like this a lot more than it seems from an outside perspective, but it could be a mix of society's view of autism as well as unseen internal effort that makes it look more natural and easy than it is.

People often don't consider that if somebody doesn't show any physical signs of disability it doesn't mean they're not disabled. Disabilities can also be mental/emotional, and regardless of whether it's physical or mental, a lot of disabilities can fluctuate meaning some days they're bad and some days they're not. Autism is referred to as the invisible disability for a reason and is legally considered a disability in the UK, although some autistics might not consider themselves disabled depending on how much it affects them in daily life. Things like sunflower lanyards are great for highlighting when somebody might have hidden struggles or need extra support while in a public space. In fact, I was recently on holiday at Butlins with the wife and kids, and when we were in the club one night for one of the shows there was a young boy at the table next to us with a sunflower lanyard. I did wonder if he was autistic but there are lots of other possibilities that it could be. Either way, I don't like to ask people if they're autistic - I let them approach me about it when they notice my "This is what autism looks like" hoodie, which has happened a couple of times recently.

These are just a few examples of the myths and stereotypes that surround autism, although there are many more. If this post has been interesting and you'd like to see more please click Subscribe at the top of the page and follow me on social media. I'm @DepictDave on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: Question marks on a white background. The middle one is the biggest and is in rainbow colours to represent autism. The others are black, various sizes and scattered around the image. At the bottom of the image is the word "Autism" in rainbow colours and "Myths" directly under it in black.]

Survey Results

Thanks to all who took part in my autism survey during World Autism Awareness Week! There were 21 responses to it, which isn't as many as I'd hoped for but the results were interesting and I'm pleased to report them here in this post for you. Just as a reminder, these were the questions:

1. Age
2. Gender
3. Are you/anyone you know autistic?
4. If yes, who?
5. What is your understanding of autism?
6. Is autism a disability?
7. Which of these terms are you familiar with? (there were several options including stimming, meltdown, alexithymia etc.)
8. Is there anything that you think autistic people can't do?
9. Is there anything that you think autistic please can do better than others?
10. What autism stereotypes are you aware of?

One of the most interesting things I've noticed from it is that all but 1 answered yes to being/knowing someone who is autistic. The first thing that this implied to me is that people don't seem to care or have any interest in autism unless they're either autistic themselves or have some involvement with autistic people such as family members, school pupils and so on. This is what we need to work on because if the general population aren't interested in autism they're going to know nothing about it other than maybe the common myths and misconceptions. In turn, if society doesn't know anything about autism it doesn't bode well for autism acceptance and creates an environment where autistics have to mask too much, suppress their stims and continue to live in a social environment that's very exclusive of us. Needless to say, that's what I and many others are working to change with blogs, vlogs, conferences, activism and everything else we do.

Age-wise, a third of the people surveyed are 18-25, another third are 30-50, and the other third (other than 1 participant) were under 18. Nobody over 50 took the survey. There were a couple of interesting points that the age of the participants showed me. Firstly, the lack of 25-30 year-olds which I don't understand what it means (if it means anything at all), but it's just interesting because it was unexpected. The other thing that's interesting is that there were no over 50's and there were more under 18's than I expected. I like to think that's an indication that times are changing, and despite the last paragraph it's showing that we are moving in the right direction - or at least beginning to. Speaking of things moving in the right direction, most of the participants answered that they're female. That could be an indication that autism in women is starting to be more recognised and understood, whereas previously it was thought to be an almost exclusively male condition.

Out of the people who answered yes to either themselves or somebody they know being autistic, 62% said it was themselves. 29% (including some of the 62%) said it was members of their family, which shows that there is definitely a genetic and probably a hereditary element to autism as I expected. It wouldn't surprise me if some of the others had autistic family members without realising it, just like I wouldn't be surprised if either or both of my parents are autistic. Some of the other answers include friends, neighbours and children they work with.

For the question asking what their understanding of autism is the answers were pretty much spot on with reality, which is to be expected given that most of the participants are autistic themselves. I was hoping for more non-autistic responses to give a more rounded picture of how society sees autism, but I am pleased that those who did take part have a good understanding of it as it can be difficult even for us autistics to understand. Most of the answers centered around it being a difference or a condition rather than a disability. It absolutely can be a disability, but everyone is different so not necessarily. The answer that stood out to me was that it's a condition that results in slowed learning but doesn't make the person any different. It's not a wrong answer, but because it's a broad spectrum there is more to it than our learning necessarily being slowed. Some might be unusually quick learners (a former team leader of mine at work used so compare me to a sponge because I take everything in), some might be slow, some might just be affected by any comorbid conditions they have, or any number of other factors. There are a couple of answers that used different wordings than I would have used and some that referred to stereotypes but nothing that was inaccurate because most stereotypes have at least some autistic people that relate to them.

For the next question "Is autism a disability?" a strong 62% answered yes, which is interesting because it's certainly classed as a disability by legal definition here in the UK, and is commonly referred to as the invisible disability. With that said, I personally both agree and disagree with it being a disability. My view of it is that autism in itself isn't a disability, but it can certainly cause disabilities based on the varied ways that it affects each individual. More people said they don't know if it's a disability than those saying no, which I'm surprised at as I thought it would mostly be a black and white yes/no scenario.

Where I asked what autism-related terms people are familiar with it was a pretty well rounded response with nothing getting less than 76% - that is with the exception of alexithymia at just 52%. I expected it to have one of the lowest percentages because it's only in the last year or 2 that I myself discovered that alexithymia. If I'm honest, that discovery was probably the biggest "ah-ha!" moment for me but I've already done a post about that a while ago if you want to read more. Meltdown scored 100% which isn't surprising. I would have expected neurodiversity to not score as high as it did (95%) if it wasn't for the participants being mostly autistic themselves.

The next question was whether there's anything that the participants believe autistic people can't do. The answers were pleasantly similar here to the understanding of autism question in that they're pretty realistic and positive. There was a solid understanding that every autistic is individual with their own set of skills, strengths and weaknesses so there's nothing that just the fact that they're autistic means they can't do. Again, there were some stereotypes but I think for the most part these are based on issues that the particular person faces rather than autistics as a whole.

It was the same kind of response for the question about things that autistic people can do better than others - mostly realistic, positive and that it varies from person to person. What I like about the answers to this question though is how much it portrays autism as a strength. There were things like becoming experts/specialists in their special interests, strong sense of logic, and a few other things that I'm not sure whether to class as stereotypes or just extremely common traits that a lot of us share such as being direct and to the point. But overall they do agree that it's different for each person and that whatever each person's traits are it doesn't make them defective or broken.

The final question asked what stereotypes the participants are aware of. The biggest thing I noticed from this was an extension of a stereotype I was already aware of, which is that autism only affects white males and mostly children. What I didn't know was this this stereotype also extends to sexual preferences and gender identities. Apparently the stereotype is that those white males also have to be straight and cisgender. Of course in reality autistic people are as diverse as everyone else in race, skin colour, gender, sexuality, age and everything else. The other most common answers are that we're stereotypically rude, selfish, good at maths and bad at empathy. We're not rude, selfish, badly behaved or any of that. Well, some of us can be but just in the same way that some neurotypicals can be rude, selfish and badly behaved while others aren't. That's not an autistic thing but we're landed with the stereotype anyway. My understanding was that we're meant to be good at computing and science rather than good at maths but I suppose there's links between maths and science. Empathy is another big one. Some autistics aren't good at empathy (myself included), whereas others have lots and lots of empathy but their either considered weird when they show it or they just may not know how to show it.

So that's a brief analysis of the survey results. Thanks again to everyone who took part! Although there was a distinct lack of non-autistic input which wouldn't have been the case had my original plan gone ahead (bloody Coronavirus!), I'm pleased that the answers I did get showed a good understanding of autism. If this has been as interesting for you as it has for me please click Subscribe at the top of the page and follow me on social media. I'm @DepictDave on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

Skill Tree

I was watching a YouTube video earlier today about how to explain autism to people who don't understand it. While watching that I had my own idea of an analogy that could help explain autism to people, so I wanted to post it here and see what people think. One of my biggest self care activities is playing video games, and I'm a fan of video games like Horizon Zero Dawn and Assassin's Creed where you build up your character by earning skill points that can be exchanged for skill from a skill tree. Obviously you'll be stronger and have more abilities and tactics at your disposal with each skill that you unlock, but each given one tends to be optional.

So I came up that this skill tree analogy, where we imagine life as the game that we're playing with a largely neurotypical society being the setting for the game's events. There's an image near the bottom of this post to help explain the analogy, but in this scenario neurotypicals naturally have most - if not all - of the skills shown in the skill tree image. Conversely, autistics tend to naturally grasp few - if any - of these skills although it's not unheard of for autistics to study, learn and achieve some of the skills. If we look at the example image, we can take the example of small talk that neurotypicals tend to naturally be good at and comfortable with. I on the other hand, can't do small talk to save my life. I myself have never taken the time to do some people-watching to study social interactions and try to learn how they work, but there are certainly other autistics who have, and had success with it to the point of being able to effectively "fake" small talk. With that said, how comfortable they may or may not be at the time is a completely different issue.

Empathy is also something that autistics stereotypically struggle with. The reality is that yes, some autistics (myself included) do absolutely struggle to feel empathy, although many other autistics do feel empathy but either express it differently or don't know how to express it at all. Sometimes, an autistic person can feel so much empathy for a person that it overwhelms them and the outwardly become what neurotypicals would deem to be overly emotional. I've never been one to feel or express a lot of empathy in face to face situations, although my empathy has really improved at work where I deal with customers over webchat instead, so the only contact I have with other humans is through a computer screen via instant message. Even then, it took a long time and a lot of work for me to learn when I should show empathy and what I should do to show it properly. If I'm completely honest the empathy is entirely fake, but it's the way that it comes across that's important in a job like mine, rather than whether you mean it.

This will make sense to fellow gamers like myself, but I hope I've explained it well enough for non-gamers to understand as well. Obviously everybody is different whether neurotypical or neurodivergent so each neurotype could have any combination of skills and abilities, but as a generalisation, neurotypicals will have many more of these skills than autistics. It's also worth pointing out that the skills shown in this skill tree image I made are by no means exhaustive as I made it purely for the purposes of example and demonstration.

Let me know what you think of this analogy. As far as I'm aware it's completely original and I hope it proves to be a helpful way to explain how autism works to people. Please remember to click Subscribe at the top of the page and follow me on social media. I'm @DepictDave on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

Theory Of Mind

I thought I'd do something a bit different this week. Every now and then when I'm catching up on the autism conversation I hear about theory of mind. It's something I've looked into before but only very briefly so I'm not really sure what it is. What I thought I'd do for this post then is research what theory of mind is and report my findings here. Please feel free to sound off on whether I've got it right in the comments or on social media.

So here we go... Theory of mind is basically how you understand and anticipate other people's reactions and behaviours. Despite being called theory of mind it's not so much a theory in the sense of a wider known philosophy, instead it's your own theory about the way other people's minds work and their mental state. So for example, if you give somebody some news you'll usually try to predict how they'll react. That's your theory of how their mind is regardless of whether your prediction is right or wrong

Theory of mind wasn't something that was discovered until people started researching autism. Although it's not exclusively an autistic trait (it can be seen in all neurotypes) it seems to be most prevalent in autistics. A child's theory of mind starts to develop around the age of 4 or 5, which would explain why my nearly-3-year-old doesn't seem to grasp that things affect other people quite as much as her 4 year-old brother does. If you're good at putting yourself in other people's shoes that would indicate that you've got a good theory of mind, whereas if you struggle to understand other people's points of view that would indicate that you've got a poor/lack of theory of mind.

So long story short, theory of mind is really the understanding that other people have different thoughts, different feelings and different experiences than you. It sounds like something very simple that anybody should be able to grasp, but in reality it's not that easy for people like me. I remember one point in my teens not long after I left school a friend was talking to me about his complicated love life while we were hanging out one day. I was quite happily listening to him when he mentioned that he doesn't think I understand what he's talking about. I 100% understood the events that he was explaining to me, but I think what he was getting at is the emotional side of it and what affect things had on him. I had completely missed that whole part of what he was telling me because he didn't specifically say it with words, which would definitely be explained as a lack of theory of mind now that I know a bit more about it. In this way theory of mind has also been liked to empathy, and everyone knows the stereotype that autistic people don't have empathy at all. If we go back to purely theory of mind in itself though, there have always been little hints in my personality that my theory of mind isn't very good. I've always struggled to understand how some people don't like wrestling or don't like Nightwish (my favourite band of about 10 years or more). When I'm upset or angry I also seem to automatically think that people will know why even if they've had no involvement in the situation. This isn't helped by my alexithymia meaning I struggle to put words to my emotions.

There is a common theory of mind test that psychologists use on children when assessing for autism. It's called the Sally Anne test and consists of showing the child 2 dolls (called Sally and Anne, hence the name). One doll has a basket and the other has a box. The assessors will then put a marble in Sally's basket, Sally will go away for a bit, and Anne will take the marble and put it in her box. When Sally comes back the assessors ask the child where Sally will look first for the marble. The idea being that children with a good theory of mind will understand that Sally hasn't seen the marble being moved so she'll look straight in the basket where she first saw it. Those with poor theory of mind tend to believe that because they know the marble has been moved it means everybody including Sally knows that the marble has been moved, and they will usually say she'll look in the box because that's where it actually is. I wasn't given the Sally Anne test during my diagnostic assessment, but now that I know about it I'm starting to understand more about certain parts of my assessment and why the assessors did certain things.

For me, learning about theory of mind is one of those light bulb moments when you look back at yourself and think "That's me!" The same kind of moment happened when I learned that alexithymia is a thing, and I hope that by doing posts like this it helps other autistics understand themselves better, as well as helping neurotypicals understand us better. If you've enjoyed this post please click Subscribe at the top of the page and follow me on social media. I'm @DepictDave on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: Black silhouette of a male head on a white background with rainbow-coloured cogs in the brain area. At the bottom of the image is "Autism" in rainbow colours and "Theory of Mind" in black.]

Friendships

As an autistic person I've always struggled to make friends. That's not to say I've never had friends because I absolutely have, but the few friendships I somehow managed to make were mostly temporary and often circumstantial. I had a couple of friends at college but as soon as we graduated we pretty much stopped talking to each other. When I was at school I had a couple of friends who I spent pretty much all my time with, but didn't make friends with anyone outside of our little group of 3 until much later on in the final year of school. Looking back now they weren't all they were cracked up to be as friends, but I enjoyed what I had.

I think one of the reasons that I've never found it easy to make friends is because my special interests have never matched up with what anybody else was interested in so I didn't have anything to talk about. I've always found it hard to know what to say to other people, especially if I don't know them. Similarly, if I see anybody I haven't seen in ages I struggle to know what to say there too, which is why I don't like meeting up with people I haven't seen in years. It's like my head reverts back to them being complete strangers and I start getting anxious, even though I'm a lot more comfortable with those exact same people if I see or hear from them on a regular basis. I wouldn't go as far as saying it makes me more socially competent, but it makes me more comfortable if nothing else.

I think my definition of friendship has changed as well as I've grown older. When I was younger I used to define a friend as somebody I would be happy to go out to a pub with for example. I once explained to some colleagues at one of my old work places that there are lots of people working there who I like and get one with, but nobody I would consider a friend. There were only a handful of people at the time who I would have happy gone on a night out with, and there are even less of them these days. Nothing against most of the people I knew or work/ed with, it's just that I don't value most people's company as much as spending some quiet time on my own in peace.

Nowadays I've come to realise that I wouldn't even necessarily want to go on a night out with a friend. For example, my current team leader at work is probably the closest thing in-work that I've got to a friend. I help her with a few work bits and she's really been there for me when I needed her, brought me out of my shell and massively helped me raise my game at work. I'll be sad to lose her as my team leader when things at work change over the next couple of months, but we'll still be around to see each other which I'm glad about but that doesn't mean I'd want to go on a night out with her. I feel more comfortable going out as a team so that there are at least a few other people there meaning I can fade into the background when I need to. Just as another quick example, there's my friend Emma who I met on Twitter (you can check out her mental health blog here). We've never met in person and I can't say I'm overly keen to change that, but we've got a couple of things in common and we've tried to be there for each other when we needed it so I consider her a friend even though we don't talk online that much.

Going back to my friendships being circumstantial for a minute, almost all of my nights out when I was single had a purpose. That was to get me out and about and hopefully meet someone to start a romantic relationship with. Of course it never worked until I met my wife when I wasn't even trying to (I had bigger things to worry about that night), and it's not that I didn't like being around my friends and have fun because I really did, but for me the centre of every night out was putting myself out there to find love. Looking back, my friends did put up with a lot from me and I appreciate them being there because the search for love in itself became somewhat of an autistic special interest consuming almost every part of my life - which ironically is probably a reason it didn't work! I met my wife one night when I was doing stand-up comedy and was too preoccupied with my set and how badly it failed to worry about meeting anyone, but I did. My comedy group was another set of friends who I almost immediately fell out of touch with as soon as I started working full time and got together with Sarah so I didn't have the time to commit to the actual comedy any more like I used to.

I guess at the core of what I'm trying to say is that I don't gain anything from sociable interaction. It could either be because I'm autistic, or because I'd learned due to bullying etc that I'm better off staying reasonably isolated, or it could be a mix of both. I often wonder what neurotypicals get out of socialising with each other, and especially from small talk. To me, talking to people is a way to get information. I really don't believe that I need or want 90% of the information that people seem to give and take from each other but for some reason that I'll never understand they enjoy it. A perfect conversation for me is if one of us asks for information or an outcome, the other one gives it, and that's the end of it, we both go about our day. I feel very similarly about reading as well. It's rare that I'll ready anything for the enjoyment of it, but if it's something I want or need to know then I'll end up reading everything that I can find about it.

So that's how my autistic mind is with friendships. I'm sure a lot of autistics will likely agree with me, and so I hope it's given you an interesting insight into how we - or at least I - tick. If so, please click Subscribe at the top of the page and follow me on social media. I'm @DepictDave on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: A handshake between a black hand and a white hand. The image is on a white background with "Autism" towards the bottom in rainbow colours, and "Friendships" under that in black.]

Autism Advocacy

It's World Autism Awareness Week so I thought it would be an ideal time to discuss what autism advocacy means to me and why I do it.

I started this blog just over a year ago in the run up to last year's World Autism Awareness Week partly because I wanted to raise money by doing a 10 mile walk with the blog being a way to spread the word of what I was doing, and also to raise autism awareness in general. After I did the walk I carried on blogging once a week because with my busy schedule of work and parenting it's all I've got time to do in terms of advocacy. I wanted to make sure I was at least doing something.

So what is autism advocacy? It's a way for people (usually autistics themselves) to actively engage in the conversation around autism as a condition and to ultimately aid society's understanding and acceptance of us as people. I sometimes see debates online where people argue that we need to focus on autism acceptance rather than autism awareness, and therefore they disagree with things like World Autism Awareness Week. While I do agree that acceptance is the ultimate goal, I also think they go hand in hand. In my opinion, to achieve autism acceptance people need to understand autism, and the way to understand autism is by advocates such as myself explaining it - i.e. raising autism awareness. Autism awareness is about more than just letting people know that autism exists. I don't believe that you can have one without the other, so for that reason I think World Autism Awareness Week is a great thing despite the fact that in an ideal world we shouldn't need to dedicate a specific day or week to it, it should just be the norm. But obviously not much in this world is ideal.

I do wish I could do more for the cause, but my hours at work will be changing very soon so maybe that'll give me a bit more time to dedicate to advocacy in the future. World Autism Awareness Week is 30th March to 5th April.

For now though, I'll just remind you to please click Subscribe at the top of the page and follow me on social media. I'm @DepictDave on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and you can buy me a coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: The word "Autism" in rainbow colours on a white background. Directly underneath it are the words "Awareness", "Accessibility" and "Acceptance", all in smaller black text. Towards the bottom of the image are the hashtags #ActuallyAutistic and #Asking Autistics. This is the image used on my Instagram to promote this post.]

World Autism Awareness Week 2020

Next week is World Autism Awareness Week (30th March to 5th April), making now feel like the perfect time to come back from my blogging break. There's been lots going on while I've been on break, mainly the country-wide self-isolation caused by Coronavirus at the moment. Even in the midst of the pandemic I've been hard at work on a project to raise funds for an autism charity.

The charity that I'm supporting is Autistic Inclusive Meets, which is an organisation based in London and run by autistics, for autistics. They were chosen through a Twitter poll and won by a landslide. To visit their website please click here. So what's the project I've been working on? It's been quite a fun one for me to work on because it involves my most recent interest and it's something I've never done before. I've made a custom Pop vinyl figure of my favourite autism advocate - the brilliant Christa Holmans, a.k.a. Neurodivergent Rebel! I was planning to run through the process of making the figure and the things I've learned, but it'd make the post too long so I'll probably do a separate post just to go through it.
Disclaimer: The custom vinyl figure that I've made as shown and described in this post is NOT an official Funko product, and has in no way been agreed, licensed or endorsed by Funko.

This is now going to be delayed due to us being on lockdown here in the UK, but the plan was to sell the figure (pictured at the bottom of this post) on eBay with the listing running from 30th March to 5th April - the entirety of World Autism Awareness Week. The full selling price (minus postage cost) will be donated to Autistic Inclusive Meets. I fully appreciate that the Coronavirus pandemic is affecting many of us financially, which is one of the reasons I've chosen to delay it. The main reason though is that with us being on lockdown we can now face fines for leaving home for non-essential reasons. Once the listing is up on eBay I'll let you all know, and even if you can't or don't want to bid it would be a massive help if you could share the listing on social media. It's for a fantastic cause, and it's a great opportunity to get your hands on your own mini Neuro Rebel!

While we're on the subject of the pandemic, it is also affecting the other activity that I had planned for next week. Making and selling the figure of Christa was obviously for the purpose of fund raising during WAAW. I was also planning on raising awareness/acceptance by going out into my local community in York and surveying people on their understanding of autism, their their thoughts on it and generally getting a picture of how the people in my local area view autism as a whole. That's now not doable, so I might look at turning it into an online survey and trying to get a wider view of autism rather than just from my local area. If I can do that I'll add a short special post on Monday with a link to share.

A massive thank you to Christa for getting on board with the idea and supporting me by sharing the eBay listing when the time comes. Support from one of the more well known advocates means a lot to me and hopefully together we can do some good for Autistic Inclusive Meets.

As a final note I want to acknowledge that I know that some people dislike and disagree with World Autism Awareness Week because after all, autism exists for more than one week per year and we need acceptance rather than just awareness. I completely agree with those points and I'll be addressing my view on WAAW itself in next week's post. In the meantime, please click Subscribe at the top of the page and follow me on social media. I'm @DepictDave on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest. My Facebook page and Pinterest account are brand new so I'd hugely appreciate a boost from lots of new followers, and now you can even buy me a (metaphorical) coffee at my Ko-Fi account here.

[Image description: The custom vinyl figure that I made of Christa Holmans. Funko Pops are short figures of around 3.5inches in height that have over-sized heads compared to their bodies, large black circles for eyes and no mouth, giving them a cartoonish appearance. This figure has Christa's oval-shaped glasses, her green, blue and purple hair which is shorter on one side, red Converse shoes, dark grey trousers and a lighter grey t-shirt featuring a rainbow infinity symbol which is currently the most recognised symbol of autism.]

1 Year On

It's been a year now since I was diagnosed autistic, and although I don't feel any different in myself as such, I know from feedback from other people that it really has changed my life in some aspects - all for the better. Since my first year as a diagnosed autie has now come to a close, and the end of not only 2019, but the 2010's, is fast approaching I wanted to have a look back at what my diagnosis means to me.

The main thing I wanted when I was going through the diagnostic assessment was closure, and I certainly got that straight away alongside validation that I'm not just awkward or an oddball. I'm me because I'm autistic, and I'm autistic because I'm me. For a few years before diagnosis it kept playing on my mind whether I was autistic or not, and the whole "am I/aren't I?" was really frustrating for me. Although I was self-diagnosed at the time I didn't feel like I could come out as autistic to people because I didn't think anyone would accept a self-diagnosis outside of the online autism community. It enabled me to open up both personally and professionally, which leads me onto the next benefit that I've gained from diagnosis...

It allowed me to get permanent adjustments made at work, whereas before I was diagnosed my adjustments were on a three-month revisionary basis, and even before that I had to spend months fighting for any adjustments at all. I won't go into details about what happened but my diagnosis helped me make my adjustments permanent. And with the intention of helping any readers who may be having similar struggles, it shouldn't get to the point where one of the reasons you're seeking a diagnosis is to provide evidence to your employer. In the UK the Equality Act 210 means that reasonable adjustments can and should be made even without a formal diagnosis. This is of course subject to criteria, but a quick Google search should help check if you meet them.

This blog is another thing that diagnosis has allowed me to do. It helps me advocate for autism by spreading awareness and acceptance. Admittedly I only have a small following so far compared to some of the advocates I look up to (look on YouTube at Neurodivergent Rebel, Yo Samdy Sam and Invisible I just to name a few), but I've had comments and feedback that show that I am helping and making a difference to people, and that's the whole point. It doesn't matter as such how many people I help through this blog (although obviously the more the merrier), just as long as it's helping somebody then it makes it all worthwhile. Without my diagnosis I probably wouldn't have started blogging back in March and it all comes back to the validation I got from it.

On a similar note, people have said that I've come right out of my shell ever since being diagnosed. I recently had my end of year one-to-one with my team leader at work and I was surprised at how positively she views my last 12 months. I personally don't see myself as any different but it's great to hear how pleased she is with my progress and how I'm joining in more with the team, putting ideas out there and so on. My wife has said the same thing about me coming out of my shell so it must be an all-around difference in me rather than just at work. At the end of the day it's about knowing who you are as a person and accepting that it's ok to be you. My diagnosis has definitely helped massively with that, and although I can't speak for everyone in terms of whether diagnosis is right for them, I would say that it can massively help when going through certain struggles. I also know diagnosis isn't possible/accessible to everybody, but if you do have the opportunity, my advice would absolutely be to give it some thought.

I hope everyone has a merry Christmas and I'll be back with the final post of the year the day after boxing day. Don't forget to subscribe with the button at the top of the page, and follow @DepictDave on Twitter. I'll leave you with a picture of my autism Christmas jumper that I designed myself and forgot to include earlier in the month.

[Image description: Me taking a selfie in the mirror wearing my autism Christmas jumper. The jumper is red and the design is a green Christmas tree with a bit of brown trunk showing at the bottom. The tree is decorated with randomly placed baubles in the shape of the infinity symbol. The baubles are in 3 different colours to represent autism; red, gold and rainbow. Across the middle of the tree is the hashtag #AutieAndNice in gold]

Echolalia

Echolalia is a common trait among autistics, and is simply the act of repeating words or phrases that other people have said. Very similar to this is palilalia, which is repeating your own words or phrases rather than those of others. For the purposes of this post, because echolalia and palilalia are almost exactly the same thing (both repeating words of phrases in a manner that might seem meaningless from an outside perspective) I'll refer to them both as echolalia, but of course please do be aware that the two different forms exist.

When I first discovered what echolalia is a couple of years ago it rang some major bells as it's something that I vividly remember doing as a child, and to an extent I still do it now. I remember when I was young (around primary school age although I'm not sure exactly) my mum's friend who used to cut our hair was at our house with her 2 kids, the oldest of which is the same age as me. I can't remember what I was talking to the 2 brothers about, but the oldest one noticed that I was repeating myself under my breath and commented on it. I think he had probably noticed it a few times before as well because from what I remember it's something that I used to do quite a bit. I'm not sure why but I took the fact that he'd commented on it as meaning it was something I shouldn't be doing, so I started repeating myself entirely in my head instead. Looking back, I'm not sure if there had been some sort of negative reaction to it before that. It's just making me wonder because a) why would I instantly take his comment as a negative thing when there was really nothing negative about it, and b) if I was going to repeat myself why would I only do it under my breath instead of out loud?

Anyhow, as well as repeating things I've said, I also repeat things from other people - also mainly in my head although I have been known to do it verbally when I was younger. What I've noticed about this though, is that it doesn't seem to happen in normal, everyday conversation. It's only when someone has said something funny I find myself involuntarily repeating it in my head over and over and over. I've found myself in awkward positions a couple of times because of it. For example, I had an English teacher in year 10 who was hilarious, and because of my echolalic tendency I would often replay the joke over and over in my head and I ended up still laughing at the same thing after everyone else had stopped. I did this with comedy shows on TV as well. I was a big fan of shows like Harry Enfield & Chums, and The Fast Show. But obviously laughing at the same joke for ages in your own home is a lot more comfortable than in public.

That leads me on to some of the reasons that people might repeat things that they or other people have said. In my case the reason depends on where the repeated phrase comes from. If it's from somebody else it's usually just because it's funny and therefore enjoyable. If it's from myself then it's for a more analytical reason. I often find myself repeating words and phrases to check if I could have worded it better, or to break a word down into pieces to help me work out the meaning/origin of it. Just as a quick demonstration, I like dinosaurs as much as the next person which lead me to thinking about the origins of some of their names. I broke down the word Triceratops into Tri-Cera-Tops. I won't bore you with how I reached my conclusion, but I worked out correctly that it translates literally to "three horns on its face". These are the main reasons for echolalia, although it could also just be a pleasurable sound that is used as a verbal/auditory stim.

As always, I hope this post has been informative and maybe even given a bit of a light bulb moment like I had when I first heard of echolalia. If you found this post helpful and interesting don't forget to subscribe with the button at the top of the page, follow me on Twitter @DepictDave and retweet this post to spread the word!

Exciting Things Coming

Just a quick post this week as I'm having a busy day and if I'm honest I haven't been mentally in the best place recently. I wanted to pop online anyway and give you a quick update of things that are planned/happening at the moment.

The first thing I want to mention is that the National Autistic Society is asking people to sign an open letter to all of the UK party leaders ahead of next month's general election. The letter brings to attention the fact that the updates to the government's autism strategy have been delayed because of this election, and it asks that the publishing of it takes a priority as soon as the next government is established. The existing autism strategy (entitled Think Autism ad published in 2014) is in place to support autistic adults by putting a duty on the government to produce guidance for local authorities to help them support autistics in a variety of ways including giving autism training for key staff and developing a clear pathway for autism assessment and diagnosis. The main update to the new strategy is that it will be extended to include children as well as adults. Please click here to read and sign the letter to the UK party leaders. At the time of posting this blog, they need just 600 more signatures to reach they target 5,000.

Second order of business is just a reminder to ask me any and all questions you've got over the next 3 weeks on Twitter using the hashtag #AutQA. I'll answer your questions in the 6th December Q&A post as that's the week of my first anniversary of being diagnosed.

I'm planning on taking a day to go out into York city centre for some market research to survey my fellow locals on their views, opinions and understanding of autism. I've always been curious to find out exactly what the people of York think and the logical/analytical side in me is keen to crunch some numbers and produce a report of my findings. With Christmas coming up it may be the perfect time to get out and find people to talk to so I'm going to aim for a day over the next couple of weeks or so and I'll keep you all posted.

Speaking of Christmas, I spent some time last night designing an autistic Christmas jumper that I'm looking to get printed for myself. Once I've got it I'll model it and post a photo online. The main reason I've designed it is for me to wear it myself, but I'll see what people think of it and if there's any interest in other people buying ones for themselves I might make a few more to sell. Who knows, maybe I'll end up following in the footsteps of some of my favorite autism advocates and creating my own autism clothing range!

The last thing to mention is that I'm looking at expanding the blog's online presence. I haven't really used Facebook for a long time now, but I'm thinking of creating a Depiction Of Dave Facebook page soon when I have the time to sit down and set it up properly. I'm also planning on re-branding my existing Instagram account to be a blog-only one. I've been using it as a personal account since I first installed the app in 2013 but I don't really post that much on it, so if I use it specifically alongside the blog I'll be able to increase my engagements and carve out another way to interact with you guys. Pinterest is another social media thing I'm keen to look at. If I'm honest I don't understand Pinterest but I know people and places that I can learn from as it's apparently a really good tool for bloggers to use.

I think that's everything I wanted to mention this week - just a quick one to keep you in the loop. As always, please follow the blog with the "Subscribe" button at the top of the page because it helps me out loads. Also feel free to follow me on Twitter @DepictDave. I'll keep you updated on any more social media pages as and when they happen, so there'll be loads of ways to follow me.

Victim Blaming: A Sudden Realisation

The reason I write this blog is because it's a way to use my limited time and skills the best way I can in autism advocacy. Any dealings in the world of autism will inevitably cross over into the mental health world although autism in itself isn't a mental health condition - it's just a difference in brain structure. It can also cross over into the way people treat each other and the way we raise our kids. This week's blog post isn't directly about autism other than being about the personal experience of an autistic person, but it does address my treatment at school and the issues it has caused. It's something that I suddenly realised today (although there is a delay of a few weeks between me writing this post and its scheduled publishing date) and it's something that the more I think about it the more I'm really unhappy about it. That being the heavy level of victim blaming that I was put through during my school years.

As a kid I was always bullied. Badly. On the surface of it, it was mostly for being overweight but I think I might have mentioned in a previous post that although I was severely overweight I wonder whether I would have been bullied anywhere near as much if I was neurotypical. It's clear to me that nobody knew I was autistic at the time but I must have been outwardly "autistic enough" to show some sort of difference or weirdness, and although they couldn't pin it on anything specific as they didn't know I was autistic they still saw fit to harass me for it. Targeting my weight was just the most obvious and easiest way they could do that. Why else would the autistic fat kid get bullied when the neurotypical fat kids were all treated absolutely fine? I tried countless times to get help to stop the bullying but my school did nothing about it. I was simply told to ignore the bullies and they'll stop. So I ignored them. They didn't stop. There were at least a couple of times when the bullying got so bad and/or I'd put up with it for so long that I reached breaking point (which takes A LOT for me) and I snapped and I physically lashed out at the bullies. Each time I reached breaking point and got into a fight the school would tell my parents "I'm not surprised, it's been a long time coming" and even "It's been heartbreaking to watch how the other kids treat him." Yet they were happy to punish me after they sat back, watched the abuse that the other kids put me through and did absolutely nothing about it. These teachers at my school were the so-called responsible adults whose care I was under. This is neglect and victim blaming, and it's absolutely not OK in any way, shape or form. It wasn't OK at the time and it'll never be OK due to the lasting damage that it's done to me, even now 16 years after I left school (I'm 32 - that's half my life!).

Because of the victim blaming I was put through I now feel like everything is my fault, or at least is going to get turned around and used against me. If there's something I don't agree with or where I should put my point across I don't, simply because growing up I was always told to ignore these things, encouraged to bottle it up, and then punished when it caused me to lash out. What kind of message does that send to a child at school age? It does nothing but show that their thoughts, their feelings, their opinions don't matter, and that when they reach out for help they'll either be ignored or have it turned around against them. If I'm completely honest I don't know which is worse. And yet people always wonder why I'm the quiet one and keep myself to myself. Your childhood is where you and your view of the world are shaped in preparation for adulthood. If your school can't (or in my case won't) set you up properly for adulthood then not only is it setting you up for failure in later life, but the school itself is failing in its duty of care.

I've always had a hard enough time talking to people and building relationships since I'm autistic but my experience at school certainly didn't help matters. The vast majority of my bullies at school were boys and I'm convinced that this is the reason I've always got on a lot better with girls. In fact, I'd even go as far as saying that I often feel intimidated by men to a certain degree, especially the ones who are overly laddish, macho and full of bravado. I would also partly blame this for my difficulty in forming romantic relationships as well. Because I always got on better with the girls I almost always found myself friend zoned when I hoped for something more. I'll leave the relationship side of it there because I've already addressed it in my previous post on Sexuality. Feel free to check it out if you want to delve deeper.

I have to wonder if things would have been different had it been known I was autistic. Both my primary and secondary school were equally guilty of ignoring the bullying that I went through, but looking back I think there was 1 teacher at my primary school who went as far as bullying me himself. I can't remember much about that part of my life but what I do remember is how he made it obvious that he didn't like me. I remember being put in detention a lot specifically by him although I really can't remember the reasons for it, and I'm not convinced that I knew/understood the reasons at the time. Based on what I can remember I think he probably just didn't like me because I was different, and I'm guessing that there was something I used to do that he saw as acting out when in fact it was most likely just autistic child behaviour. Either way, the way he treated me as well as the way my bullying was handled were unacceptable. I can't help thinking about whether this would have happened if the schools knew I was autistic? Would both primary and secondary schools have done more to protect me if they knew I was autistic? But then on the other hand, would an autism diagnosis have just given the bullies 1 more thing to target me for and made things worse? Would school have done more to establish and accommodate my needs outside of the bullying if they knew?

It's a shame that these questions will never be answered, and it's even more shameful that my experience at school has left me with these scars that I'll have for the rest of my life when they could have easily been prevented. It's strange how I never even thought about it this deeply until I saw a post on Twitter recently about a school that was guilty of victim blaming and it resonated with me so much. It's also strange how even though I always knew what happened at school it never really occurred to me how bad it really was until it got given the name victim blaming. I really wish that there was something I could do about it in terms of the specific schools I went to, but at least by blogging about my experience as well as about autism as a whole I'm raising awareness and educating so that hopefully the same kind of thing doesn't happen to other people.

It's been a bit of an emotional one this week but I hope it's helped put some things into perspective and helped your understanding. As always, feel free to comment if you've got any thoughts to share, and don't forget to follow the blog with the "Subscribe" button at the top of the page as well as following me on Twitter @DepictDave.