What Women With Autism Want You to Know | Iris

when people think of a disease they think of something that is degenerative and that will hurt you and kill you autism is not a disease it is a developmental disability it's about living our best possible lives with this condition I don't know I you know always get that you don't look autistic thing autism is like an internal thing not an external thing no one looks autistic and people find that out the first thing I like you don't act autistic like you know I had to go through a lot of stuff to learn how to mask my idiosyncrasies autism isn't a linear spectrum of high or low it's a whole bunch of different traits that are on their own spectrums it's kind of a 3d weird mess autism is simply a different way of thinking seeing and you know and interacting with one's world I view autism as realness the words high functioning and low functioning are used by people again who are talking about autism from an outside point of view so rather than using those labels we tend to say minimal support needs and high support needs to describe two different kind of levels of the spectrum that people fall on I definitely would disagree with the idea that we're not emotional I think we're actually highly emotional I think that we just many times we don't express it the way that people expect I like the comparison to Vulcans in Star Trek you know lore the Vulcans feel more strongly than humans they just like don't show it we're feeling it it's there it just might not come out and then other times it might be overly expressed I mean sometimes like we'll cry I mean I may be at like weird moments I mean well you might think they're weird I don't think they're weird it can be so overwhelming I'm so intense that in order to function you kind of have to sort of be still or shut down a bit we can't filter them out because we feel them so strongly so we shut down as a way of processing all those emotions it takes a lot of effort to appear like the way I right now like it takes a lot of like conscious awareness social skills are like a muscle for us people will often say to me oh you're so high functioning I would never know you had autism unless you said something and I say well you don't live inside my skin you don't know how hard it is for me sometimes just to get through a day it's very very draining you know even with people that I care for enjoy being around I have to psych myself up to be around them all the little things that everyone does unconsciously autistic people do manually so that adds up what I'm doing with every part of my body I am to some degree aware of and trying to do a lot of women women that I know who are autistic are not diagnosed until their 20s 30s or even beyond a large part of this is because the way that we diagnose autism is by using criteria that were created observing boys and autism looks different in girls and women than it does in boys people don't expect to see someone that looks like me or my two youngest children who we're on the spectrum also we know about anyone can you know be on the spectrum I didn't become aware of Asperger's I was already an adult at the time finding a doctor was really difficult because there were people that were like oh women don't have that and then there were other people that were like well you're too high-functioning I was in my early 30s when I was diagnosed myself after my children were I don't think I would have been otherwise women are under diagnosed black women especially and I think there's also this idea of you know the strong black woman you kind of have to hold down the family and um be able to just keep going and not address you know your you know whatever needs that you have your support needs not prioritize self-care we just kind of slip through the cracks for the majority of our lives I remember parent-teacher conferences of teachers telling my mom that I should be in special ed I was an ideal homeschool candidate there was something wrong with my brain I remember that one that was cool you know and now I feel a lot better I feel like okay I know why I'm this way I know why other people are the way they are so I can bridge this gap you invite a girl back to your apartment to watch a movie and she thinks you're just watching a movie Netflix and chill doesn't literally Netflix and chill that often does happen when you have someone who is inherently a little bit more naive because they're so literal we think of people on the spectrum is not being interested in sex not having any kind of sex drive or sexual interest and it's just not true we just may need more support in order to learn how to make that happen we don't naturally understand the nuances that are involved in this and there are a lot of nuances there's a huge thing where people think that people on the spectrum you know that they all don't have relationships and if they do that it doesn't even reach a sexual point having or not having those things does not determine whether one is on the spectrum or not some of the ways that I show love and he might have thought broad he now understands it's just mine you know my love language my way of communicating and and a sense he kind of serves as my interpreter so the nurse of the world often I'll just people don't get taught sex ed at all let alone like how to protect themselves in like the real world from like date rape these are topics that often aren't taught to autistic teenagers because adults like don't want to deal with it it's people on the autism spectrum especially women are more likely to experience sexual assault or some sort of violent incidents than the neurotypical non autistic population we are we are very vulnerable we definitely can be more trusting because we are very honest and upfront people so we don't think that other people might not be so honest and might you know be trying to hurt us one of the traits of autism is not reading between the lines in social interactions and so much of like dating and sexuality is supposed to be indirect and subtle and that it's like inappropriate to talk about sex in a direct way even when you're teaching it as sex ed most of what they tested us on were like the mechanics and like can you label the diagram you know no one's teaching the social aspects and honestly this is where autistic people are the Canaries in the coal mine teaching the social aspects of sexuality would help everyone autistic people need it but it also benefits everyone there's the stereotype that everyone with autism is and science and math and stuff like Rain Man but a lot of people with autism women actually especially like a lot of us are into the arts my experience autistic girls are also just as obsessive as autistic boys they're just obsessed with you know fantasy novels or like their favorite bands or whatever like not you know planes trains and automobiles that's what I'm more of a social science and literary person and I've met a lot of other people on the spectrum who are into languages or music or art and I think we thrive in some of those non-traditional areas I just sang at Carnegie Hall I'm a writer I definitely started off with the interests of astronomy and I actually ended up being one of the Mars one finalists but it tends to be a stereotype and I did fall into that stereotype when I was younger and I had no outlet you know nobody wanted to hear from me and I felt that I couldn't be myself so I turned to writing people picked on me for any number of things and I didn't know why I didn't know what it was that they saw that was different nobody would ever tell me that you know it's it's like somebody making fun of a blind person only in this case you're blind socially I I felt broken I felt strange I felt different everything was so simple for other people everything they understood so easily that I couldn't understand that I couldn't grasp or do I just didn't understand what was so wrong with me the travails and and difficulties I experienced with bullying and with being suicidal from a very young age and I would say that we all start from somewhere but that that isn't necessarily where we're going to end up and you have to believe that there is going to be a future I didn't have that belief at that point I didn't know that I was even going to have a future is very difficult to go through many many years especially as a child you know having no friends and no one willing to extend a hand out of friendship to you as I got older like there were like high school college afterwards there's enough misfits in the world like people who got picked on there's so many of us so you do finds your tribe to finally have friends is such a big big deal I I think if that ten-year-old girl could see what her life is gonna be now she wouldn't believe she would think it was some fairy tale or something out of a movie I can't believe it because it almost seems like a dream at times that I've gotten to where I am that I have a master's degree that I've started my own business and I also can believe it because I worked for it and so I am willing to give myself the credit that I think I deserve which has always been something I've also struggled with I wished I could go back to that little marine okay and give her a hug and let her know that she was just fine the way she was and that she was gonna be all right I think things are gonna be a lot better for the next generation like I'm actually really hopeful they are going to be diagnosing children more and there is gonna be more social acceptance you know your kid might be behind their peers but it doesn't mean they're gonna be behind forever your kid is a full human being who will grow and change just like everyone else I just love to see every autistic person living up to their fullest potential whatever that is for them success is about your time growing up to be the best version of themselves that they can be whoever and whatever that is

Channel: Iris

Views: 2,973,712

Rating: 4.9059811 out of 5

Keywords: autism, women with autism, autistic, autistic women, women with autism say, autism and women, autistic girls, autism spectrum, girls on the autism spectrum, women on the autism spectrum, women want you to know, what women want you to know, autism video, autism interview, interviews with autistic women, autistic women speak, here's what you should know about autism, know about autism, autistic women interview, women on the spectrum, on the spectrum, want you to know, autist, iris

Id: NwEH9Ui4HV8

Length: 10min 1sec (601 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 12 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/FilmsByDan]

I'm a male, but I don't think it makes a difference. Anyone know how to find a support group for those of us on the spectrum? I'm in a bad place right now and really need to find some people that can relate and want to form a friendship. Feeling really lonely...

[u/TxtCarlosDanger]

Maybe I’m wrong but the fact they all seem to take special emphasis to enunciate every word they say gives me the impression that they most definitely have the need to “flex every muscle” when it comes to human interaction. Sounds exhausting. This video gives me a real reason to pause and empathize with that struggle.

[u/_Piratical_]

This sounds like an absurd thing, even to me, but I had never really even considered that there were women with autism. That’s not something I’m proud of not considering. Every single person I have come in contact with that is on the spectrum is male. I know that statistically there are women who are on the spectrum, but I just never either noticed them or was unaware. This actually turns my head around. Wasn’t expecting this.

[u/poundaweek]

People don’t seem to realise that there is a low functioning end of the spectrum. Autism can be and is debilitating to loads of individuals and their families, and whilst we should try to normalise the condition, I sometimes wonder if we are leaving the people most affected behind.

[u/dfwupvotememenopoltc]

I don't know. I've worked with people with severe autism. Low functioning pretty much describes it.

[u/TheRabidDeer]

Interesting video. Makes me wonder about myself a bit. It feels like autism may be a very difficult thing to diagnose at times.

[u/Ubarlight]

More people need to see this.

Having taken part in internet culture I got to see the progression of insults go from "you're a retard" to "you're a fag" and nowadays to "you're an autist."

I dunno what the next one will be, because there probably will be one, but there was some uphill battles for the culture to reduce the insults of retard and fag, and I'll be happier once the autist insult fad dies out.

[u/The_Withheld_Name]

"No one looks autistic." -Actually, people with severe autism have intellectual disability & that is quite easy to spot indeed.

[u/Vladzy]

I'm still trying to understand what autism is. It's definition got so complicated over the years.. If I'm not mistaken, by their explanation, pretty much, a majority of people have some sort of autism. Aren't those emotional and social difficulties created by today's society, towns and cities with high population, social media etc.? As older I get, I'm realizing that almost every person i meet has some kind of weirdness to them. I guess they are on the spectrum if they say so, but I'm really struggling to cope with the fact that people with dysfunctional autism have much much bigger problems in life than just feeling weird sometimes when you engage someone else.. Can we just create a different words for functional and dysfunctional autism?