Welcome to From the Spectrum Podcast. This is a podcast about autism. It is my
goal to explain what is autism. I intend to use a mixture of scientific literature,
personal experience, and opinion. With opinion, I will explain why. I feel the
way I do and give examples. I will provide links to various references for
each episode. For each episode, we will discuss various aspects of autism. The
From the Spectrum Podcast will mostly avoid causes of autism and I will try
avoiding the increase of diagnoses of late. This is like playing tug of war with
barbed wire and I don't think I want to travel down that path. For today's episode,
we will discuss more symptoms of criteria A from the DSM-5-TR. Remember, these
symptoms are crude and intense to capture the spectrum. Criteria A are deficits in
social communication and interaction. We will cover criteria A as a part two
before covering more of criteria B because of the amount of social interaction
the world provides. In other words, criteria A captures our socialness. In
other words, can you fit into the social norms in our environment and culture or
not? Are you like the so-called normal people or not? Typically, autistics are
more interested in facts, reality, and logic than they are make-believe or
fairy tales. I am extremely methodical. I believe this is a super power. Some have
said too methodical. It's just too much for them. It's just too much for others. I
see bottlenecks. Bottle necks in society. I see things that are wrong or could be
better and I try to fix that or I point those out with hopes that maybe somebody
can fix them. And if not, if I can't do anything about it, it's very annoying.
It's very annoying every time that I have to encounter that and whenever I do
encounter it, it's just rapidly going through my mind how this doesn't make
sense. And I am very much annoyed when people say, well that's just the way it
is. I hate. Well that's just the way it is. However, we stand strong and still
prefer the methods and structure of processes over navigating unknown
exploration. This has vast implications to relationships and socialness. I hate
maybe more than anything people apologizing to me. Traffic annoys me.
Remember the B movie example. Often it feels like others are disrupting the
flow and productivity of the day. Especially turning lanes and turning lanes
at stop lights where time is crucial. Notice the next time at a turning lane,
the distance in between cars as they're traveling and moving. Walking across
parking lots or where cars travel, when people are walking diagonal and
increasing the time in the car's path. If you go diagonal, you're increasing the
time it takes to cross. And maybe that is disrupting the flow of traffic. Just
walk straight across to get across and then turn towards your destination. I
know this item has some criteria B in it as well. I am horrible with names,
especially the names that I know I need to remember. I must associate something
about them to them. A favorite for me is connecting a famous person to them, when
possible. When I was younger, late teen and early adult, others would disagree
of my famous person associations. However, it typically worked for me. The
trouble with names remains as an adult. However, I have superpowers and remember
silly nuances and details about others. Recently I spent the first two weeks in
a new higher education program looking at other students in our small cohort and
quizzing myself on their names. Later in the semester, I called someone Landon.
Landon is not his name and that struck me as something that the other students
was not experiencing. By then it seemed they have picked up on each other's names.
I suspect my monotone voice and low voice saved me from many people hearing. I
hate when people repeat things to me. You already said it at least once,
sometimes two, three, four times. Why? I hate when people say, like I said, I hate,
like I said. One, it is unnecessary and two, it means you're about to repeat
something. I often say to myself, this doesn't make sense. When I'm out in
the social world, I often say, this does not make sense. And I observe and think
about how much verbal conveyance is unnecessary in the social world. So it's
probably no surprise. Romantic interests are complicated. They do exist from time
to time, but they are rare. And often I suppress them or they just don't last
long. Thankfully. I know other autistics are the same way. So that makes me feel
better. And romantic relationships do not exist on a spectrum. I think that was a
decent joke. Romantic relationships or interest are either falling in love
fast or zero interest. And typically that so called falling in love fast, and I use
that loosely, meaning I'm just trying to capture the meaning here. It does seem to
happen. But maybe put quotations around that. Perhaps we could put love in
quotations to who knows what that is. Modern definitions confuse me. Examples
include cisgender and pansexual and so forth. I've looked up cisgender, the
definition, but I cannot seem to retain it. I just cannot understand why it's
relevant or what purpose it is. It just doesn't make any sense to me. I hate when
people say my name to capture my attention. It requires a verbal reply to
them. Just say what you are going to say. Skip the other part. It is not
necessary. This might sound silly, but lots of times that reply wears me out.
Remember the metabolic energy. One, just say what you're going to say. But two, I
am blasting out that energy with whatever I am thinking about. Remember, I'm
probably within myself here. I'm fixated on something, a thought, an interest, and
just evaluating things in my head where I want to be, where I enjoy being, and
prefer to be. Shifting this attention requires a lot at times, even
though I can still hear you and I can still follow you. It's not uncommon that
people with autism have superior hearing. Remember the sensation and the rapid
firing and the increased rate with the excitation and inhibition? We can hear
you. I'm with you. I'm following. You cannot know about this unless this is you.
So please don't try. This will likely sound ludicrous to you. So what? And maybe
now you can understand why we have a propensity of being monotone too. Get it?
Understand it? Just remember how powerful criteria B components are. Regarding the
soundblance discussed in the first episode of criteria A, remember the
Beatles comparison. This has a rapid onset, meaning it is here without warning.
But however, as I have gotten older and maybe experienced and learned about
myself, I can notice this at times. However, it's still coming on quickly. I can
notice those slight nuances happening inside my body. Or it is just an
overprotective factor warning me. Remember the first episode about this
protective measure? I don't know the case, but this is coming on rapidly. Social
media and putting good deeds out on social media confuses me. I think this
is strange. For instance, when people give or donate something and then they
post a picture of themselves doing that deed. I don't quite understand that. I
know I evaluate that feeling as strange and that's my evaluation of the
situation. But I tend to lean towards that higher power, the message of this
higher power of saying you don't need that affirmation whenever you do these
types of actions. Maybe even better to keep that secret. When I force myself to
make eye contact, and I do, I try to improve this and work on this. Often I
find myself noticing. I am staring at one eye. And I will wonder if they notice I
am looking at just one eye. I wonder if they look at a specific eye or if
people just look at a general area around the eyes. This whole eye contact
phenomena is very fascinating to me. Remember I kind of went off on the
previous episode of it's not necessary for communication. But humans say it is.
But we're not exactly always right. You cannot look at both eyes at the same
time anyway. We are not birds. We only have one fovea, not two. And the sixth
peranium nerve, the easy one, the abducens prevents us from looking at both
eyes at the same time. In social settings often I just leave. No goodbyes or
anything. I suspect others, especially family gatherings and so forth, I expect
they have noticed. Two things. One, enough has been enough and it's time for me to
go. And two, I hate those standard goodbyes. Remember the awkward phone
conversations too. This stuff is just awkward to me. But I suspect this
manifests from questioning and communication about that. Such as where are
you going? Or what are you going to do? Or maybe why are you leaving so soon? And
finally, you're leaving already? Those comments and questions are just awkward.
Yes, yes I am leaving. Enough already. And I have found out you don't need me. The
gathering will gather without me. That's another joke, by the way. I have found, as
an adult, I can better control this. I can negotiate having this experience or
just avoiding it altogether. Just avoiding those seemingly pseudo
conversations. Remember, I like and I need that out in a social setting. That
makes the commitment to the social setting easier. It's very complicated.
High fives and so forth are strange. Have you ever watched people doing this?
Seems like people mostly go through the motions or reflexive emotions. Now, at
times, these emotions do spark and they're releasing some sort of
emotion. Yet, because they are not autistic in this motor movement or
because they don't have a motor disorder like Tourette's or Tix or ADHD, that
action, that high five movement is not considered stereotypy or stereotypy.
Whatever is your preference? I hate when people do favors for me. The reciprocity
is strange. So are the feelings of thankfulness. And I hate the feeling
like I owe someone a favor. Really, I often pay back much greater because, just
quite frankly, I don't know what is even or appropriate. I wonder if others feel
this and consider comparison of the favors. Is it equal? Does your
favor and my favor have to match? Is this appropriate? This is very awkward. How
equal does the payback need to be? So I rather not others do favors for me.
Remember, we are self-sufficient and can manage that isolated environment. I often
think I would rather be Henry David Thoreau than navigate the social world.
I think Thoreau's quote, rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I
think that hits autistics just right. Remember the self-sufficiency. We're very
efficient for ourselves and this is learned over time. Remember this starts
at a young age, maybe even before the critical period. And it just continues
with us every moment of our life. This is preference. This is neuroplasticity. It
kind of reminds me of this as I've observed the masses in society. We're in
this experiment now for over 20 years, it seems, like with self-checkouts. This is
a preference now for the masses. It's just preferring the self-checkout. We'll
just do it ourselves. It's just, it's reliable. We know what to expect here. We
have come to prefer this and we've learned to just incorporate this into the
experience of whatever it is we're shopping for, wherever we are shopping at.
And just from observations and conversations, both direct and indirect,
it's just people prefer the self-checkout now. And this is how I think
autistics live their life. We just prefer to be self-sufficient. Occasionally, when
people do something for me, I get extremely thankful. And this is occurring
on the inside and that feeling can be awkward. Experiencing emotional empathy
is intense. I cannot convey how it makes me feel accurately, but it is intense. My
inability to convey this is not on me or you. We are just unique with a capacity
for different experiences and emotions. Even just a slight difference changes
everything between humans. Okay, I have spent a significant amount of time
reflecting over my life. I have the time and opportunity and the pleasure of
doing this. I am not talking about rumination or harmful thinking and such.
I'm talking about debriefing the events and my experiences. What went well, what
didn't. Remember that critical thinking and appraisals of myself covered in the
first episode of Criteria B. Remember others that interact with me on this
doesn't touch my level of critic. There is no way that you are going to be more
harmful or more critical of me than I am of me. This is opportunity to understand
myself and understand others. However, it maintains the perfectionism and
perfectionism is often seen in autism. Mistakes are nearly non-negotiable or
unacceptable to me. So all of that to explain this. As far as I can remember, I
absorb other people's lives. The interactions or observations are intense.
I will consume them and after the interaction or observation. Remember,
this is visual thinking. I am running their life through my head like a movie
and it's very captivating. I will continue the thoughts and visualization
piecing together information about their life, especially if there are future
interactions. Plus, this is an opportunity to confirm or correct things
about others. Often, I find it accurate to normalize this. I do it because I have
a strong genuine curiosity of others. I can't help it. The emotional empathy, the
emotional empathy type is intense. This activity feels a good portion of my time.
It's like another way to supplement relationships or, of course, the lack of
relationships. However, if it interferes with my criteria B, I can easily task
switch and get onto my fixated interests that are perfect in intensity or focus.
I just made another joke there. It was a shot at the DSM which uses abnormal to
describe the intensity or focus on the fixated interest. They say it's abnormal.
In short, emotional empathy is moving. Just physiological responses and it's very
moving on the inside. Also, on the echolalia, this can be if we are hitched on
a word or phrase while interacting or it can simply be something catchy, something
that catches our attention. Sometimes it is just us slowing down time, trying to
keep up. And sometimes it is us having words or phrases catch our attention and
songs are brutal to me. Songs frequently get stuck in my head and it takes
deliberate action, deliberate attempts to remove those from my head. I think the
last thing I want to cover is fitting in. It's hard. You probably know this
already. It's complicated for us or for me. If we don't want to generalize it,
when younger, to ease the social pressure, I would mimic famous people or people I
enjoyed and so forth and try to look like them and try to act like them. I was a
teen in the 90s and New York hip-hop emerged and made its way to my small
town and we liked it. For me it was the art of the hip-hop beat and the
lyrical flow, just how that gelled and meshed together. We were teens and very
malleable. At least I was or maybe I was more so than the other neighborhood kids.
Being like others removed the pressure and stress and gave me a blueprint on how
to act in the social world. So here I mentioned New York hip-hop and said
blueprint. If you know, you know. Also as a young adult we were into like older
rock and roll, like The Beatles, Free For Dead, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan and so
forth. So that was my blueprint. It was extreme, it was bizarre and it made
socialness easier. So be it. So in short with the 90s hip-hop and then the older
rock and roll, that gave me a model to how I want to present myself in social
settings. As we wrap up today I want you to understand the complications we have
with socialness, the social communication and interaction and how
there's a lot going on on the inside. Remember the episodes on the excitation
and inhibition and how difficult it is to interact and keep up, keep pace, make
meaning of everything and so forth. If you are listening and enjoy the episode or
enjoy the podcast please feel free to leave me a review or rating. In podcasting
reviews, ratings and downloads are huge and I very much appreciate your feedback.
If you would like to contact me you can reach me by email at info.fromthespectrum.com
and before we end I would like to remind you don't try to change an autistic
person because they are different than you or different than others and don't
let that offend your beliefs and capacity to apply critical thinking in life.
Thank you for listening to From the Spectrum podcast.