10 personal facts that I’ve gathered from questions I’ve answered on Quora.
- High Functioning Autism doesn’t mean you’re a savant, it means you’re capable of living independently.
- We’re not all Math geniuses, there’s plenty of literary and artsy types.
- Getting diagnosed as an adult is a thing that happens and it doesn’t mean you don’t actually have it; Autism is a form of neurodivergence and doesn’t just go away if you learn to hide it.
- Not all of us are introverts, there’s plenty of extroverted autists, we just tend to be clumsier about it.
- Plenty of autists have served in the military or other high stress jobs.
- Autism itself is a politically correct term. It’s not an insult; Autism Spectrum Disorder is the official DSM-5 diagnosis, which replaced the previous separate stand-alone Pervasive Developmental Disorders (Autism, Aspergers, PDD-NOS, and CDD).
- Autism is used in insulting ways by people that either don’t understand it, or simply don’t care. “Autistic” basically replaced “retarded” and “gay” as the go-to insult for people as the latter two are no longer PC.
- Weighted blankets are a popular method of dealing with anxiety related to Autism. My ex also has Aspergers and slept with one; I didn’t actually understand why she used it until I read Temple Grandin’s book (Thinking in Pictures) and learned about her “squeeze box”, which is actually an hilarious name.
- I’ve personally always been a big walker/pacer. Whenever I’m thinking I’ll either go on long walks or just walk in circles while rubbing a pen in my left, non-dominant hand. When I first separated from the Navy and my anxiety was at its most severe level, I would actually go on long walks just to stop my panic attacks.
- Individuals on the spectrum are just as diverse as those not on the spectrum and can’t be bluntly categorized.
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