Look Alike Traits?

[FayetheADHDsquirrel]

Below are some examples.

1. When bullied (probably around age 10) for refusing to do something and called a chicken - expected response would be to either succumb to the peer pressure or else be hurt or angry - my response was to cluck and act like a chicken and then bust out giggling when the bully got embarrassed and confused as I had anticipated. If AI is right, this actually demonstrated advanced theory of mind.

2. When in tweens or early teens, I developed a system of rotating my music CDs in a certain order over and over. On the surface this looks like rigidity in ASD; however, my reason for doing so was not a manner of liking routine. If anything, I was sometimes disappointed due to being in the mood for a certain CD and it's turn being several days away. The reason I did it was basically so my Dad would not mistakenly think I was selecting certain CDs to make some implication. By limiting myself to a rotation when he was home, I could be more likely to listen in peace even if it felt limiting because he knew whatever was in was whatever was next in line.

There are many other good examples, but these are pretty good to get the point across for now lest this post should become incredibly long.

 

[717]

This is interesting game, that example 2 really raised some questions in me... specially because I also had some abuse during the childhood, I wonder now if autistic people are statistically more victimized than NT... ok, i just google it right now and yes, that is a thing... did you also had to get a bunch of CDs that you did not like, just to hide the patterns of liking certain ones? I mean a random rotation would do less for you if the CD collection is not random in topics... ?

1. I eat the same foods no because routines, but because I spend a lot of time calculating calories and stuff, then I have to figure it out how to cook the actual dish and then I have to like the final result... all this means I put a lot of work and effort into it, so I have developed a really limited menu I can actually cook and eat.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

Another thought... not all behavior that seems "odd" on the surface is "autism". Sometimes it has a specific reason... as thought through by a neurodivergent mind. I have come up with countless ideas that clearly were thought through and purposeful, but not anything that a neurotypical would have come up with.

 

[FayetheADHDsquirrel]

@717 Not so much getting CDs I disliked as just making sure they were listened to in a certain order rather than by what I wanted to hear at a particular time. I just try to ignore sarcastic or weird remarks now though.

 

[FayetheADHDsquirrel]

I know AI does not qualify as a diagnosis, but it typically thinks that it is highly unlikely that I really have ASD as it is currently defined. It has said that I might have qualified for PDD NOS back in the day due to that being a catch all that covered people who had autistic symptoms, but not in enough categories and/or severity for a diagnosis of Autism or Asperger's. It typically seems to view me as 2e gifted and ADHD (combined presentation) and with possible Sensory Processing issues. My childhood self was too naturally outgoing and aware of body language and facial expressions to have a high likelyhood of meeting criteria A. Also, the pattern of my obsessive interests seems to match ADHD better due to rotating between so many things and frequently adding more combined with general curiousity as well.

 

[Outdated]

Regarding music I had an advantage that no one else I knew had - my father loved contemporary hard rock and I grew up in the 70s. So AC/DC, Queen, Led Zepellin, Suzi Quatro, Cold Chisel, all those sorts of bands I could play at home and the old man loved it. We could crank it up and if Mum complained he'd tell her to shut up. He was a domineering arsehole but he loved music.

As for your first point though, similar experience but different reaction. At the beginning of Grade 6, I was younger than all the other kids, almost 10, I worked out how easy it was to start arguments between them and when they were all busy arguing with each other they left me alone.

My teacher at the time kept me back after school one afternoon. She told me that I was becoming an intellectual bully and that on that level there was no other kid in the school that could compete with me. She said I needed to be taught a lesson for my own good. She said she'd already discussed it with the headmaster and he agreed that missing a couple of days from class each week wouldn't hurt my grades in any way. As it was I used to wag school 2 or 3 days a week and I always got straight As for everything.

For two days a week I was in the Oppo's class as a teacher's helper. The Opportunity Class was an idea by some tree hugging do gooder with bright ideas and little intelligence. It was a class for children with severe disabilities in a mainstream public school, the idea being that at least they'd get to play with other kids their own age. I promise that whoever came up with that idea had never had kids of their own.

The disabled kids could never leave the classroom without one of the special teachers chaperoning and protecting them and they had to take their lunch break at a different time to the rest of the school because that was the only way the teachers could protect all of them at once. Kids are cruel.

I loved my time in the Oppo's class, no one picked on me in there and the special teachers were nice to me and always thanked me for my help. I did that for 2 years until the start of high school, there was no such thing as middle school back then. Tuesdays and Thursdays were the only days of the week when I never wagged school, I liked being there and I got to take my lunch break with the Oppos instead of having to cope with all the "normal" kids.

 

[RemyZee]

Hmmmm I had to think about this. A need for constant motion ( usually in rocking) has been there since I could sit up--ADHD? Also trauma, which I've had, can apparently look like autism. I was diagnosed with PDDNos years ago, but relate more to ASD1. Maybe PDDNos can kind of bend into different leanings. For some people PDD may be closer to something like ADHD, but for others it may show up more on the autie side. I tend to lean more toward ASD because there are things I've done or experienced since birth: the rocking, spinning, intense interests (I went through a time when I was 6 that I was obsessed with learning how to tie knots beyond any reasonable explanation). Unusual approach to relationships? I guess that can be due to trauma or autism. Also, about the only people I relate to are other autistic people.. Sometimes I think all these things get a bit smushed together. People are fluid not static and every time I try to define human beings things change.

 

[Hazel_1914]

@717 Not so much getting CDs I disliked as just making sure they were listened to in a certain order rather than by what I wanted to hear at a particular time. I just try to ignore sarcastic or weird remarks now though.

A lot of this sounds more like abuse than just autism's effects. I was abused as a kid too even though my parents didn't mean to be. That didn't stop them from hurting me deliberately (they just didn't want to define that as abuse.).

One target was music. I had an old-fashioned phonograph in my bedroom and if I was playing music my father would frequently make disparaging remarks about the music. I was scared to listen to music when he was home so I would play music only when home alone.

When I left home I had to leave the phonograph behind but I came back for it. Dad had mocked my musical tastes (he liked swing, I liked classical and jazz and prewar pop music) and he broke my record collection and all that but I am still collecting and my faithful old Victrola is 111 years old this November.

 

[FayetheADHDsquirrel]

Hmmmm I had to think about this. A need for constant motion ( usually in rocking) has been there since I could sit up--ADHD? Also trauma, which I've had, can apparently look like autism. I was diagnosed with PDDNos years ago, but relate more to ASD1. Maybe PDDNos can kind of bend into different leanings. For some people PDD may be closer to something like ADHD, but for others it may show up more on the autie side. I tend to lean more toward ASD because there are things I've done or experienced since birth: the rocking, spinning, intense interests (I went through a time when I was 6 that I was obsessed with learning how to tie knots beyond any reasonable explanation). Unusual approach to relationships? I guess that can be due to trauma or autism. Also, about the only people I relate to are other autistic people.. Sometimes I think all these things get a bit smushed together. People are fluid not static and every time I try to define human beings things change.

The ADHD is it's own condition. PDD NOS was something like an almost autism condition for people who had multiple autism symptoms but were lacking one or more key components necessary for an autism diagnosis more or less. Some people who would have had pdd nos fit the current ASD criteria. The ones who fit criteria A but not criteria B probably fit what they now call Social Communication Disorder. Those of us who could probably fit criteria B but not criteria A don't seem to currently have a diagnosis that we fit. If I understand correctly, they will sometimes note subclinical features of ASD along with another diagnosis. Like in my case, the best they could probably do would be to say so like (ADHD - autistic features also present but does not meet the threshold for ASD) or something to that effect if I am understanding everything correctly.