- Signs of autism in adults. What do the symptoms of autism actually look like in real life? Many of us do not look
autistic on the outside, we mask, we have coping strategies, we seem to be "high functioning", at least on the outside most of the time. For many years, I myself thought that I
couldn't possibly be autistic, because all I knew about were the stereotypes
and medical definitions. So it's not always easy to
see how behavior in real life matches up with the official
diagnostic criteria. So today, we're going to
link those two together. We'll step through the criteria, the seven outwardly
visible signs of autism, with tons of everyday examples and a special focus on adult men. Autism in women is highly overlooked and deserves a video of its own. So check the links for specific
resources on that topic. Even restricting the
topic to adult Aspie men is still really broad and I'm not gonna be able to
cover everything under that. If you're new, my name is Paul and I discovered I was on the
spectrum at the age of 30. On this channel, I make weekly videos showing the human side of autism occasionally sharing my expertise in emotional intelligence
and relationship coaching. So you know what to do, hit subscribe if you wanna
hear more about that. So let's get into it today. We're taking the diagnostic
criteria from the DSM-5, which is like the diagnosis rule book from the American Psychiatric Association. The diagnosis criteria is
broken into two main sections. The first is persistent deficits in social communication
and social interaction. And the second is restricted repetitive patterns of behavior,
interests or activities. So there's some medical
jargon there but don't worry, this will all make sense very shortly once we get into the examples. Okay, so the first section. Looking at social
communication and interaction. So number one is
social-emotional reciprocity. And what this looks like
is being socially awkward, not necessarily getting it wrong but just awkward, unsure, unnatural. We're often hard to engage in conversation or talk too much with and
not know when to stop. We may forget to say things like hello or just leave without saying goodbye. Hating small talk is also very common, not knowing how to
initiate a conversation, and then going like full fire hose with information and facts, even if it's not appropriate. We are often out of sync emotionally with a group or a crowd. We might laugh at inappropriate times, or fail to pick up when
things suddenly get serious. We often have delayed or subdued emotions, always seeming cool, calm and collected on the outside at the time,
as if nothing fazes us, but then much later, it
comes out in different ways, possibly in a meltdown or shutdown. So this is part of the reason of the myth that autistic people lack empathy. We still have emotions, but they're often expressed
in a different way or even delayed and come out later. So because we don't respond
socially and emotionally to what is expected, we're often misunderstood in that sense. So number two is nonverbal communication. All right so this looks like having a strange way of interacting. Sometimes it's not easy to put your finger on exactly what it is. It may be not making eye
contact or overcompensating by making too much eye contact. It may be having some
strange body language or an odd tone of voice
or an odd way of speaking, like are you, is the
person being sarcastic? It's impossible to tell sometimes. Facial expressions may be hard to read, if they exist at all. Some of us have what
they call flat affect, which means that we have very little facial expression at all, right? We may look like the grumpy cat even when we're feeling good, and that confuses other people. And this is the main
problem with this one, what it feels like to the
person we're talking to is that they have to do a lot of work just to figure out what
we're trying to say, right? We may look upset, but sound happy, right? And it's hard for other people to know what's going on with us. This often makes neurotypicals stressed
anxious and uncomfortable just interacting with us, which is kind of ironically, not unlike how many autistic
people feel most of the time trying to decipher the neurotypical code. So number three, is
relationship management. This is the big one. This is the one that can seriously negatively affect our
lives in the biggest way. And then we realize we're 50 or 60, and suddenly we've got no job and no partner and no
friends and no family and specifically without the skills to go back and start repairing
some of these things. So what does it look like before we get to that catastrophic stage? Someone who has difficulty developing, maintaining and
understanding relationships looks like an overly logical person who just doesn't get people. It's hard to imagine how normal
people might think and feel. So we often get it wrong. Social faux pas are common. We take things literally. We respond to rhetorical questions. We miss the subtle complexity
of social communication, and may ask really basic questions about social expectations, like, "Oh, it says dress code formal. "Does that mean I need to wear a tie?" Like those those kinds of things. We often object to social conventions. Do I really need to do that? Isn't that just a stupid social rule? There's often a big difference in our behavior when we're tired and we can't keep up
the performance anymore. We may be hyper social or even just regularly social when out, and then absolutely crash
when we get home, right? This looks like being all or nothing when it comes to relationships. Periods of intense connection followed by sudden emotional withdrawal, which seems like it comes out of nowhere. We shut down we go silent,
we forget to text anybody. I see this a lot in my
relationship coaching. Sometimes we go weeks or months without making any contact at all and then just expect to
pick up where we left off. I know I did this for a long time not realizing the damage it
was doing to my relationships. So the second section in the
DSM-5 diagnostic criteria is restricted interests and behavior. So number four is stereotyped
or repetitive motor movements. So this category basically covers all types of stimming, right? Things that we do because they feel good. We actually need to stim, need to give ourselves sensory input for emotional regulation purposes, but from the outside, it mainly looks like strange or repetitive
movements or behavior. Actually, the neurotypical population has stimming behavior too. Singing, dancing, bobbing
your head to music, right? Going on a swing or going
on a roller coaster, getting a relaxing massage, but autistic stimming is basically anything
that is uncommon enough to look weird or seem strange. It could be things like singing or humming or
beatboxing to yourself, constantly quoting your
favorite TV series, moving your body because it feels good, clicking, tapping, pacing
around, rocking, bouncing, stretching playing with your hair, clicking, I probably
already said clicking, scratching with your skin,
watching a lava lamp. The list is absolutely endless. So to give you a specific example for me, you may notice in some of my videos, I do this kind of twitching
thing with with my shoulders. And I do that because it's
like they're never comfortable. They always wanna be stretched. They always wanna be moved. And it looks a little bit odd because it's something
that most people don't do. Another personal example is I often rock my legs and
like to bounce my head a bit. So if I'm in public, I put on earphones,
pretend on listening music, and then all of a sudden
it's socially acceptable. Okay, number five. We're on the homestretch now. Insistence on sameness and
inflexible adherence to routines. In other words, someone who
loves rules and routines, right? We all have habits, we all have routines, and sometimes autistic people
take them to the extremes. We may eat the same food every
day, I did a video on that, wear the same outfit for years at a time, organize our time down
to the smallest detail or just dislike change in general, because our routine is so awesome and meets our needs so well, that something new is probably not gonna be as
good as what we've already got. An insistence on sameness is often highly correlated to anxiety and the desire to live in a
safe and predictable world. We just wanna know what's going to happen so that we can deal with it. No unpleasant surprises. We love rules because
we can understand rules, not like the complicated
and dangerous social world which often does not make any sense to us. Okay, number six is highly
restricted, fixated interests. In other words, having
an uneven skill set. We often have intense interests and excel in a number of specific areas at the expense of knowledge
and skills in other areas, especially common things that apparently everyone else knows. So, we may leave you
thinking something like, how could someone so smart be so stupid? It looks like having a fantastic
memory for some things, but not others, needing constant prompts and reminders for seemingly basic things
like saying hello, for example. We often notice small details, sometimes getting fixated
on those small details. And we also often find it hard to switch between tasks, right? We have a very long
transition time oftentimes, preferring instead to
hyper focus on one thing and do that one thing again,
at the expense of all others. So you can see that things that
we like, things that we do, things that we put in our routine, we tend to be really good at, and other things that are more difficult, like the social side tend
to get poorer and poorer because we don't practice them
and don't like to do them. Number seven, the final one,
hyper or hypo reactivity to sensory input. Most of us have a highly
atypical sensory profile. Common examples include
eating only plain food, a dislike for fluorescent lights, or annoying high pitched noises, an aversion to touch or strong smells, often coupled with very high
tolerance for other things like spinning forever
and not getting dizzy, or other things like that. I personally avoid shopping centers due to light, sounds
and smells, for example, especially and increasingly, the video billboards that they've put almost
everywhere these days flashing at me from every direction. That's terrible. And the worst for me personally is the perfume fragrance holes that they have at big shopping centers. I make no apologies for
covering my nose and mouth and breathing through my shirt if I ever have to cross one of those. Okay, so. There you have it, seven
outward signs of autism, according to the DSM-5
diagnostic criteria. We had being socially awkward, having a strange way of interacting, being overly logical
and not getting people, stimming, loving rules and routine, having an uneven skill set
with intense interests, and finally, sensory sensitivity. Now, a quick note on a very
important topic before we go, do not try to convince someone that they are on the spectrum. I do not care how obvious
it is that he's autistic. It's a deeply personal thing to realize you're on the spectrum, right? It's highly tied to our
identity as a human being. It's something that we
can discover for ourselves in a positive way, not something that can be forced on us by an unqualified friend. I personally have friends who are obviously on the spectrum, obviously tick all of
these seven categories and I do not tell them because it is not my place to tell them. If you do that, the message you
will likely unwittingly send is something along the lines of, there is something wrong
with you, everyone knows it, you know it, everyone else knows it. And this disorder explains
what it is, right? That's not a very helpful message. I actually get this a lot
in my relationship coaching. How do I get him to realize
he's on the spectrum? Most of the time the answer
is, don't go down that path. There are much, much
more effective strategies for creating the intimate
relationship that you want, that do not involve forcing him to accept the fact that he's on the spectrum. Almost all of us have trouble with maintaining healthy
relationships, right? It's the number three criterion
in the diagnosis list. We all struggle with it. The good news, though, is that we can actually
learn these things, right? My solution, the one
that worked in my life, and the one that I teach others is essentially learning
emotional intelligence, right? I could go on forever, the world could use a lot more emotional intelligence, right? Because learning these skills
allows us to manage ourselves and build healthy relationships. That's exactly what
emotional intelligence is. So, I wanna encourage you, you've probably tried generic advice, it probably didn't work. We are unique individuals and we need to find our
own unique solution. So if you're struggling with these things, or you're dating an Aspie, and you need help with your relationship, you can find more information
at emotionsexplained.com.au, and learn how to build
the relationship you want. Okay, so I should really stop there before I launch into
an entirely new topic. Criteria number one, saying goodbye, I've never
been good at saying goodbye. So thanks, I think is
what I'm supposed to say. I hope you enjoyed this video. Remember to subscribe if you liked it, and I will see you next week. Bye.
