When I first signed up, people requested that I explain the story behind my username and claims I made about autism. Here it is:
I was born with autistic traits. I’ve always had a slow processing speed and nonverbal impairments that made me socially awkward and made it harder to understand people, fit in, and make friends. I consider the above problems to constitute the core symptoms of autism and believe all of them are genetic.
However, I attribute most of the problems I had that are part of the DSM-V criteria for autism to believing I was fundamentally different than other people. When I was a child, I felt I couldn’t understand people, fit in, or belong because I was different and born that way which caused me to avoid social interactions and not be interested in my peers. I repeated phrases (echolalia) because I was afraid to use my own speech because I feared other people would judge me for being different. When other people told me I was weird, it reinforced that belief and made me feel more alone. To cope with feeling like I didn’t belong, I created a world of my own inside my mind and lived in my head so I could avoid emotional distress caused by negative social interactions. It's hard to know what emotions I experienced because I had alexithymia (inability to identify and describe my own emotions) which was probably caused by suppressing and avoiding the many negative emotions I experienced in the real world. The internal stress caused by my belief that I was different and the problems it caused made social interaction overstimulating. I insisted on sameness and inflexibility adhered to routines as a way of coping with stress in a world I found confusing and hard to understand. I got extremely distressed at small changes and relied on rigid thinking patterns to help make the world seem simpler and easier to understand. The depression I felt from feeling alone caused me to have few interests. Since I didn’t have any friends or fit in anywhere, I devoted an excessive amount of time to the few interests I had.
When I later noticed that I felt better when people were nice to me and that people who had friends seemed happier, I started to want to have friends. However, my belief that I was different made me very cautious around other people. I didn’t initiate conversations because I couldn’t think of anything to say (my peers weren’t interested in computer programming and I didn’t have any other interests due to being depressed). Since I wasn’t aware that depression was the cause, I attributed not being able to think of anything to say as more evidence that I was different and born that way. When other people initiated conversations, I said little because I feared they’d find out I was different and wouldn’t like me because of it. My belief that I needed to diligently hide, or mask, my differences to avoid being judged and rejected was stressful and made social interaction overwhelming. My belief that other people were different than me made me anxious, suspicious, distrustful and fearful that something bad would happen if I said or did something wrong which impaired my ability to develop, maintain, and understand relationships. The chronic stress I experienced made me much less sensitive to pain and also caused me to have digestive problems and trouble sleeping.
After I learned about unhelpful thinking patterns while studying CBT to treat depression, I realized I was engaging in mental filter (focusing on the negative and avoiding the positive) to protect myself from being harmed. I realized I magnified my problems, thinking they were much worse than they really were so I could remain vigilant to prevent something bad happening to me if I offended someone or said the wrong thing. Most importantly, I learned that my belief that I was fundamentally different was the result of a cognitive distortion called black and white thinking (putting people into two rigid categories, different/autistic and normal/neurotypical). By focusing so much on social difficulties, I failed to consider that everyone else had weaknesses and flaws too. Sure, there are differences between autistics and non-autistics but that’s also true of bipolar disorder, personality disorders, and every other condition. Everyone has things about themselves that make them unique or different than other people but none of those things make anyone fundamentally different than other people. We’re all human beings with similar wants and needs, we all have flaws and weaknesses we often try to hide, and we all have odd traits and other quirks that make us unique individuals.
I used to blame autism and other people’s response to it for causing me to be depressed, have anxiety, and not understand people very well. I now know it was my own belief that I was fundamentally different than other people that caused those problems (along with all of the other coping mechanisms I used to deal with problems caused by that belief). I now know my brain wasn’t wired differently, like I thought. Instead, the stress that resulted from thinking I was different than other people and the ways I coped with it altered how my brain worked which made it difficult to understand other people. After addressing the cause of my problems instead of avoiding or coping with them, my alexithymia went away and tests show I now have above average emotional intelligence (which is amazing considering I was well below average my entire life until recently).
That maladaptive and distorted belief that I was fundamentally different than other people caused me more problems than all of the genetic symptoms of autism combined. I still have the same core autistic traits that everyone with autism has but no longer have deficits in developing, maintaining, and understanding relationships nor do I have any of the restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior listed in the DSM-V other than adverse responses to clothing and being more sensitive to sound. I’m not depressed, don’t have much anxiety, have very little stress, and understand people very well (Although, since part of the reason I didn’t understand people very well was due to a lack of experience in social situations, I didn’t instantaneously understand people perfectly but I was able to learn things much more easily by socializing just like most people).
The best part of acknowledging and correcting my distorted beliefs is that I can finally be myself. I no longer have to hide, or mask, anything. Social interaction that was stressful, overstimulating, and overwhelming in the past is now much easier and natural. I feel much better since people like me more and they like my true self and not the normal person I pretended to be in the past.
Resources I recommend are:
15 Common Cognitive Distortions
10 Proven Methods for Fixing Cognitive Distortions & Stop Automatic Negative Thoughts
I was born with autistic traits. I’ve always had a slow processing speed and nonverbal impairments that made me socially awkward and made it harder to understand people, fit in, and make friends. I consider the above problems to constitute the core symptoms of autism and believe all of them are genetic.
However, I attribute most of the problems I had that are part of the DSM-V criteria for autism to believing I was fundamentally different than other people. When I was a child, I felt I couldn’t understand people, fit in, or belong because I was different and born that way which caused me to avoid social interactions and not be interested in my peers. I repeated phrases (echolalia) because I was afraid to use my own speech because I feared other people would judge me for being different. When other people told me I was weird, it reinforced that belief and made me feel more alone. To cope with feeling like I didn’t belong, I created a world of my own inside my mind and lived in my head so I could avoid emotional distress caused by negative social interactions. It's hard to know what emotions I experienced because I had alexithymia (inability to identify and describe my own emotions) which was probably caused by suppressing and avoiding the many negative emotions I experienced in the real world. The internal stress caused by my belief that I was different and the problems it caused made social interaction overstimulating. I insisted on sameness and inflexibility adhered to routines as a way of coping with stress in a world I found confusing and hard to understand. I got extremely distressed at small changes and relied on rigid thinking patterns to help make the world seem simpler and easier to understand. The depression I felt from feeling alone caused me to have few interests. Since I didn’t have any friends or fit in anywhere, I devoted an excessive amount of time to the few interests I had.
When I later noticed that I felt better when people were nice to me and that people who had friends seemed happier, I started to want to have friends. However, my belief that I was different made me very cautious around other people. I didn’t initiate conversations because I couldn’t think of anything to say (my peers weren’t interested in computer programming and I didn’t have any other interests due to being depressed). Since I wasn’t aware that depression was the cause, I attributed not being able to think of anything to say as more evidence that I was different and born that way. When other people initiated conversations, I said little because I feared they’d find out I was different and wouldn’t like me because of it. My belief that I needed to diligently hide, or mask, my differences to avoid being judged and rejected was stressful and made social interaction overwhelming. My belief that other people were different than me made me anxious, suspicious, distrustful and fearful that something bad would happen if I said or did something wrong which impaired my ability to develop, maintain, and understand relationships. The chronic stress I experienced made me much less sensitive to pain and also caused me to have digestive problems and trouble sleeping.
After I learned about unhelpful thinking patterns while studying CBT to treat depression, I realized I was engaging in mental filter (focusing on the negative and avoiding the positive) to protect myself from being harmed. I realized I magnified my problems, thinking they were much worse than they really were so I could remain vigilant to prevent something bad happening to me if I offended someone or said the wrong thing. Most importantly, I learned that my belief that I was fundamentally different was the result of a cognitive distortion called black and white thinking (putting people into two rigid categories, different/autistic and normal/neurotypical). By focusing so much on social difficulties, I failed to consider that everyone else had weaknesses and flaws too. Sure, there are differences between autistics and non-autistics but that’s also true of bipolar disorder, personality disorders, and every other condition. Everyone has things about themselves that make them unique or different than other people but none of those things make anyone fundamentally different than other people. We’re all human beings with similar wants and needs, we all have flaws and weaknesses we often try to hide, and we all have odd traits and other quirks that make us unique individuals.
I used to blame autism and other people’s response to it for causing me to be depressed, have anxiety, and not understand people very well. I now know it was my own belief that I was fundamentally different than other people that caused those problems (along with all of the other coping mechanisms I used to deal with problems caused by that belief). I now know my brain wasn’t wired differently, like I thought. Instead, the stress that resulted from thinking I was different than other people and the ways I coped with it altered how my brain worked which made it difficult to understand other people. After addressing the cause of my problems instead of avoiding or coping with them, my alexithymia went away and tests show I now have above average emotional intelligence (which is amazing considering I was well below average my entire life until recently).
That maladaptive and distorted belief that I was fundamentally different than other people caused me more problems than all of the genetic symptoms of autism combined. I still have the same core autistic traits that everyone with autism has but no longer have deficits in developing, maintaining, and understanding relationships nor do I have any of the restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior listed in the DSM-V other than adverse responses to clothing and being more sensitive to sound. I’m not depressed, don’t have much anxiety, have very little stress, and understand people very well (Although, since part of the reason I didn’t understand people very well was due to a lack of experience in social situations, I didn’t instantaneously understand people perfectly but I was able to learn things much more easily by socializing just like most people).
The best part of acknowledging and correcting my distorted beliefs is that I can finally be myself. I no longer have to hide, or mask, anything. Social interaction that was stressful, overstimulating, and overwhelming in the past is now much easier and natural. I feel much better since people like me more and they like my true self and not the normal person I pretended to be in the past.
Resources I recommend are:
15 Common Cognitive Distortions
10 Proven Methods for Fixing Cognitive Distortions & Stop Automatic Negative Thoughts
