The Autism Constellation
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- čas přidán 18. 03. 2024
- What do you think of the subtle per-chapter background images I've tested in this video? Tell me in the comments!
I have grown from an autistic child who needed weekly lessons from a childhood psychiatrist in order to learn how to make eye contact, into an autistic adult who is flying high in an aeroplane made out of comprehensive coping mechanisms.
The way I have made sense of my life, is to find repeated patterns and groupings of traits, the same as we do for the night sky. There does appear to be a unifying autistic core trait, however, which surprised me:
Detail-oriented thinking.
📓 What I Mean when I Say I'm Autistic by Annie Kotowicz
Available at: neurobeautiful.com/book/
📑 Unmasking Autism by Dr. Devon Price
Available at: www.penguinrandomhouse.com/bo...
Special thanks to my friend Carin S. Calder-La Croix for her advice on this video. / link_carin
❤️ If you would like to support what I do, I have set up a Patreon here: / noboilerplate - Thank you!
📄 All my videos are built in compile-checked markdown, transcript source code available here github.com/0atman/noboilerplate this is also where you'll find links to everything mentioned.
🖊️ Corrections are in the pinned ERRATA comment.
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My name is Tris Oaten and I produce fast, technical videos.
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ERRATA
- What do you think of the subtle per-chapter background images I've tested in this video? Good idea? Bad idea? Tell me in the comments!
- 3:00 I mentioned 'visual learner' just for familiarity, it's an outdated idea: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles#Criticism
- To the people who are saying I'm spelling Benejeseret Cucumber wrong, I'll remind you that all spellings of his name are equally funny, and therefore correct 😀
Days since last errata: 0
I really liked the thumbnail matching the CZcams dark mode color, other than that the video itself could definitely have fun background images. The stars in this vid were very nice.
I really like the constellation metaphor. I have been thinking for a long, long time that "autism" in some ways seems to be the latest term on the semantic treadmill that gave us "retarded" - a catch-all for a cluster of "symptoms" and ways of existing that society hasn't wrapped its head around yet. I've found myself arguing with people that allowing "retarded" to have become a disparaging term is a symptom of an oppressive society. We should instead push back against the hatred as the abuse it is instead of telling victims to "just get over it".
"Refusing to perform neurotypicality is a revolutionary act of disability justice. It's also a radical act of self-love." That resonates so loudly with me right now, between work and my therapist, everyone just keeps telling me I need to act like everyone else.
Dang, I was coming to the comments to say "I'm surprised to hear you believe learning styles are a thing." Ty for the errata :)
The background images were giving me the impression that my screen was dirty. Guess I failed to see the bigger picture, whoops
Hi,
I have never seen such an autistic way to describe autism.
Thank you very much.
Complement accepted!
I couldn't agree more
Idk, I feel like you could one up it by throwing in some Fourier Analysis and spectral decomposition
compliment ;) @@NoBoilerplate
@@freedmen123 I gagged LMAO Ive never been so personally attacked by a youtube comment :)
"You cannot persuade me of the simplicity of the world" hit so personally i nearly cried
“The truth resists simplicity” -John Green
Bro has the wildest titles and ways of explaining it
GOTTA KEEP YOU GUESSING!
Almost like he thinks about things from a little bit of a different perspective...
Makes better sense to me than most things do.
Love from,
Another Autistic Person Who Likes Rust
@@dbptwg Good thing he’s a fantastic producer whose video format likely enabled you to realize your base assumption on the content of the video from the title was incorrect in under 28 seconds and definitely before 1:40 when the introduction concluded. Hope you enjoy the rest of your morning, I will knowing the odds of future interaction with you has been reduced.
@dbptwg you're mad that an amazingly informative and interesting channel clickbaited you into watching a video that had a lot of thought put into it?
also i don't see how it's supposed to be clickbait, did you really think there was a star constellation called autism? i feel like it would be more natural to just assume it's a way to conceptualize autism. as opposed to "the autism spectrum", which is what you usually tend to hear about
Not gonna lie, I got hyped to learn about a constellation that nicely fits into the word "autism" and I'm severely disappointed.
same
Same
"5 whys" sounds like looking at stack traces or jumping to definitions in your editor in order to track down the actual logic
I really like the call stack trace analogy
I use the 5 why's in Engineering to investigate serious incidents.
Root cause analysis is a vital skill that too few people have or use. The 5 whys is a good start.
As long as my stack traces don't look like Java's, I can do something proactive with it xD
I just realized that I debug with the 5 whys. Maybe I should debug myself more often.
As an autistic person, I think the DSM still doesn’t really know what it’s talking about here, and its account of autism is as convoluted as the geocentric solar system
yeah, the DSM is by definition a backwards-looking resource, it's a flawed framework we must contort ourselves to.
I guess originally, the DSM was used for statistical research to classify participants in a study. So it wasn't really a mechanism for diagnosis until later on.
Idr where i heard that. I'm just some idiot on the internet. Don't take me too seriously 😂
The DSM being a diagnostic tool necessarily has to look at traits from the outside, so in a way it misses the trees for the forest
The monotropism survey does a better job imho
Can you blame them? It's made by someone who, mosy likely, doesn't have autism. It will be interpreted in a way that those who doesn't have it can understand.
okay that "Cheaper than a therapist" part was personal.
where rust
upd. nevermind, after watching the video, I realized that rust and autism are more related than I thought
Totally. Many of those Rust folks focus on being really, really correct, that's why it's their language of choice. I'd even say, they're scared of "good enough" solutions. The most cruel thing that can happen to such individual is: "this will break when X, but we don't have a time to rethink this so let's just ship it". Non autistic people won't care, the guy above said it, it's on them now, but autistic people will be distressed.
@@perz1valoh no…
As an Autism, I need to see this
Edit: This is probably why I failed at my old sales job. I was too focused on the details of what was best for the customers that I didn’t realize that I was on the chopping block until it was too late.
So easy to do! I have trained myself to stop and think "what have I missed" when I notice things seeming strange
As an autistic former insurance agent I feel this personally
@@NoBoilerplateBe careful with that! For the longest time I struggled with human relationships because I made "What have I missed?" into a science, thus turning me into a paranoid shell of a person. I got out of that loop because I eventually found friends open-minded enough to have an honest conversation about boundaries and social cues. They are comfortable with my asking "Have I missed something?" and have learned to autisticify the information they have gathered. More importantly, it's okay to miss things. Nobody can internalise everything about social interaction, otherwise their mind would collapse under a million different indicators.
*shudders*
A sales job? I tried that once. Never again.
it is AGAIN the case that my favorite people online are autistic.
I always wonder why that is, I sometimes call it "aura of autistic thinking" or "autistic sensibilities" that I so much relate to. And You are yet, another example that prove me (possibly) right.
thank You for the video.
Thank you!
Like attracts like.
Or in other word, you are more likely to better understand someone who thinks in a way that is closer to the way you think. As you observe another person presenting their thinking, and understand what they are saying, this understanding causes the neural connections associated with that understanding of what they're saying to react.
Now if it so happens that the neural connections that light up in the course of this understanding, are ones that usually light up in the course of your own thinking, and in similar order and/or combinations, it will likely cause you to feel closer to the speaker, as it's like they're projecting what is very close to your own thoughts.
So yes, "like attracts like" is actually kinda based in how our brains work.
@@georgesi2006real recognize real
same here
I have something like a gaydar for autistic people. I thought about it a lot and realised that Neurotypicals scare me. If I'm not instinctively scared of you, you may be autistic
As a diagnosed autistic, I did never notice that I am a Detail-Oriented Thinker, because I took it for granted that everyone is. But I is so true. When for example being in a argument about moral, I need an argument that is so detailed, that it basically becomes a mathematical proof, in order to be acceptable by me, because it becomes non-detailed arguments become hard to understand for me. I also get to notice how I elaborate things too much. Definitely good to know, to find a new thing that I need to cope with.
Right!
i was always told that when explaining things i lose myself in the cases where the generalization i am explaining does not hold. only through this video i realized that this is just another of my symptoms
"The varied autistic traits are like a constellation of stars" a beautiful start thank you for this
thank you!
Yess. I love how good nb is at making very good analogies too, it makes unintuitive concepts suddenly seem completely self explanatory
@@Rose-ec6he i think making good analogies is an autism skill some of us have. Because we see the patterns within things that others miss.
Paused partway through the video because the “showing your work” thing speaks to me so hard. Often I get myself into trouble trying to untangle misunderstandings rather than letting them go, because how the misunderstanding happened feels like it matters a lot more than it really does
Right, people think we're disbelieving instead of curious!
Thank you so much for this video. I'm currently going through a revision of what seems to be false negative diagnosis and it's really validating to see how all the different constellations can relate to one another and understand each other's pain. My therapist's main argument for my negative result was that when comparing me to his other patients (mainly children), my symptoms weren't as visible or as debilitating as theirs. That was like a gut punch to me because I actively mask my symptoms in a way that I can't easily turn off to let others see the real me. That has only lead me to a life of inexplicable pain and constant identity crises due to never letting myself discover my own person. I hope the lessons from this video will help me build a better life. Thanks for all you do!
Always remember that therapists can not diagnose with anything. They are not taught to diagnose. The only medical professional that can diagnose these things are psychiatrists.
I went my entire childhood getting told that I was completely normal and that I didn't have anything, be it adhd or autism or depression, after going to a psychiatrist and telling her how my life had been she looked at me like I was joking. What therapists called quirks, she saw as symptoms. If you want to get diagnosed then please go to a psychiatrist
wow. diagnosing by external symptoms is barbaric! Do get a second opinion
Change therapists. That one is obviously incompetent.
I like the subtle backgrounds. I find it good that they are NOT MOVING. Too often I try to watch a video with good content only for it to be ruined by the creators choice to have a background of constant visual noise moving about.
I don't know how anybody else feels about this, but having something always needlessly moving in frame heavily distracts me from enjoying the content.
I assume that this done deliberately to increase viewer engagement, as some people with short attention span may click off without constant visual stimuli and when only text is on screen.
This also applies to background music, I could not watch a very interesting video yesterday just because of the constant beats.
This is another reason why I enjoy the videos done by you, they don't assault my senses and try to manipulate me on a subconscious level to keep watching.
Thank you so much for the feedback, I'm delighted you approve - My video style is an accessibility choice:
no animations, no sound effects, no quick cutaways, not too many memes, no lolrandom bits - all the interest in the video has to be to do with the CONTENT not the presentation
@@NoBoilerplate It definitely is appreciated; even slight details like the color matching 2px high progress bar at the bottom of the video are so useful to avoid context-switching. Thanks a lot !
the teachings of R. Astley are truly profound
He just wanted to tell us how he's feeling.
He wanted to make us, understand.
NEVER GONNA GIIIIVE YOU UP -
well great, now it's in my head
4:28 - Gotta love that subtle Rick Roll, well played No Boilerplate, well played...
I didn't even notice lol
if not for the background, even i would've missed it lol.
Did I seriously just get Rickrolled by an autism video 😂
R. Astley, Philosopher
gotcha!
I don't think I have ever left a comment on a video before, but I really do feel compelled to for this one. I just really want to say thank you. I have been struggling with so many autism and ADHD symptoms through my life and now into adulthood. My parents never got me checked, and it has gotten to a point where I feel so lost in life (especially without a job), almost like my symptoms are now affecting my day-to-day life more than ever.
Your ADHD video was the very first thing on the internet that truly made me question myself. A lot of people (and even doctors) say that autism and ADHD have become "trendy" due to short-form content like TikTok. But even through all of that, I never once truly questioned myself.
It was your video that so clearly made me realise that I may need to get myself checked. I think part of the reason may be because the way you presented everything was non-judgemental and empathetic, and it made me feel seen for the first time. I have been doing so much research and gathering evidence for both my possible autism and ADHD now, so this video could not have come at a better time for me.
All in all, you have really helped me at least get one step closer to understanding myself and my brain, and for that, thank you, Tris.
I'm so pleased, thank you for commenting, and well done for gathering strength and evidence to pursue your own diagnosis!
Small-minded people are always like this - shrugging off new mental health conditions with "this wasn't a problem in my day, we were tougher" arguments.
The answer, of course, is that just because something is invisible, or doesn't have a name, or can't be spoken about, doesn't make it not exist.
If we aren't making life easier for every new generation, what's the fscking point!
A helpful aid to the Incident review would be a supplementary running list of things that you find you enjoy vs things you dislike. I was diagnosed with Lvl 1 ASD last year, at 29. Discovering it so late has still really helped me.
The number one thing is the list of dislikes so I can review it after a meltdown to see if anything was on there that could have helped exacerbate the situation.
The list of liked things helps in recovery, when I'm so burned out that I can barely think on what to do to pick myself up, the list is there to tell me. It's my past self reminding me "hey you like pine scented candles, there's one above the fridge you've been saving, go be nice to yourself" once I can get myself on my feet again.
Thanks for these videos, Tris. I love all of them.
Very good additions! And thank you so much! :-)
What made you suspect ASD/seek a diagnosis at 29?
@@someone7554 long story short: reddit's subreddit suggestions leading me further down esoteric meme rabbit holes until autismmemes and a couple other ASD subs were recommended. Everything related a little too closely and got me questioning all the things that happened to me during my life. Childhood events, being ashamed of what I now know were meltdowns as a teen when I felt I couldn't manage my emotions as well as other people could, etc. It has helped me immensely to trust myself more and let myself know that it's ok to be me.
I'd add "Untypical, The world is not designed for autistic people and what we should all do about it" to the book recommendations. Its the book that far and away helped my neurotypical friends begin to understand compared to the other two. The informal tone and humor also made it feel a lot less daunting to them than the other books. Turns out an english degree helps in conveying information more than most methods.
Thank you! I've put it on my list
I think that "monotropism" is a concept you will appreciate with regard to the way our minds work when engaging a topic.
I'm familiar. I chose to use the term "detail-oriented" because it encompasses monotropism in a phrase that doesn't require explanation.
Clarity in language is a feature!
@@NoBoilerplate true enough
@@NoBoilerplateit seems to me that it requires explaining that non autistic people are often able to switch between detail oriented thinking and abstraction oriented thinking. Otherwise many people might interpret it as if detail oriented thinking implies autism. Which you chose to explain. Loved the video btw. You rock!
I really like monotropism, I have adhd and have found so much of the autistic experience really relatable. But a casual internet test of autism scored me really low, but it turns out I am still really high in monotropism. It almost seems like both could be different expressions of how we process "consciousness".
I get much joy out of your garden path sentence: "Autistic people, like mathematicians, want ..."
hehe, yes I tried to word it differently, but I like how it sounds!
Autistic here,
Obviously this video is aimed at people trying to figure out and help their autism from someone with an autistic view point. I wanted to further help people with some other suggestions
If you struggle to communicate and understand the untold rules of talking etc etc, you should look into “linguistical discourse” /“discourse linguistics”
This is the study of those untold rules.
Here’s a list of stuff to get you going
-social distance
-face needs: positive and negative face needs and their threats and strategies
-functions of conversation: there are 6 functions that define all conversation, Referental, Ludic, Metalinguistic, Emotive, Conative, and poetic
-Cohesion and Coherence: what makes a sentence comprehensive(there are a lot of sub-topics in this area)
-register:formality of a sentence
-cultural context
-the idea of purpose: is the speaker trying to create more or less social distance?
-Tenor: 3 factors make tenor, Register, Status of the speakers, and function/purpose
-situational context
-audience: whose this aimed at
-semantic field:what’s it about
You also have things like paralinguistic features (like your waves, winking, chuckles, non linguistical things that convey meaning but they are there own thing with body language)
This won’t make you perfect but it’ll make you a lot more aware of the things people are trying to convey, if you can answer all of these
Start from the top down if you do intent to look into them
Best wishes and lovely video
Thank you so much, great pointers, many new to me!
i use arch
use nixos instead
Poor soul, yet cool 😎
typical symptom
@@ern0plus4 Archtism.
I'm pretty sure that's the second diagnostic criterion after "likes trains".
Gives us an explanation for how autistic people experience the world in a detail oriented way.
Then goes into the implications of that fact, extremely detail oriented. It's perfect, thank you.
thank you!
Video hit differently because I am currently on the way of getting an official autism diagnosis in adulthood and it's such a damn struggle for me.
Well done for starting the process, keep going! :-)
I got my diagnosis 4 years ago, at the age of 17. Being diagnosed fairly late has opened my eyes and explained a lot of struggles I had during my childhood. It also guided me to treating my social anxiety and helping improve my life overall. Hope you'll get your diagnosis soon enough! It's totally worth it.
P.S. you've got a great profile picture.
It may sound weird, but this video helped me understand that I am not autistic, but I am neurodivergent. It's an extra step in my self discovery. It is also helps me understand people with autism better. Thank you.
If this is the only thing source you are citing for reasons you aren't autistic, please get others too. I'm not saying you can't take points from this and use it in your own self discovery, but using a single source for anything is less than ideal.
@@CardinalTreehouse good point
@@CardinalTreehouse you could argue that the simple fact that this conclusion was reached from a single source already hints very strongly towards "non-autistic" :p
i tend to accidently/unknowingly suppress not only feelings but memories as well whenever something of high intensity, regardless if it was positive or negative (but mostly negative), happened.
Therefore it's most of the times very difficult to find the reason, correlation or if even a solution.
Your incident review template, however, seems appealing to me with its clear, comprehensible, systematical and direct instructions; no need to aimless fill each part with extensive paragraphs as i would had done in previous templates, which i in the end left blank.
thank you very much
My pleasure, I hope it helps, and you find even better ways for you!
I often forgot something that not interesting to me, literally less than a minute. Including work related. But I could spend 20 hours straight for something that i'm curious of. Regardless how many times I reset the progress of what i'm doing in order to explore the alternative path.
HAHAHA, I cackled at the Smaug logic.
Autism => portrayed as genius in media
Autistic Genius in media => Usually played in media by Benedryl Cucumber
Benefit Calculator played Smaug => Smaug is Autistic (and checks some boxes too)
Q.E.D.
I'm impressed you know all of Benejeseret Concubine's names!
@@NoBoilerplate Buildadeck Captncrunch is just such a talented performer. Truly a man of many names!
An impressive skill indeed! But at what cost? I personally find the prerequisites for that benefit cumbersome.
@@scorch855 🤣
I gotta remember to watch your video on ADHD next, because I'm really interested in your perspective on it after you described autism as bottom-up thinking. I have both, and I tend to start by diligently trying to understand things bottom-up, and then impatiently jumping to the top because the slow process is boring, and feeling like I didn't really understand anything and need to back up and make sure it makes sense, even though I *did* jump to to top-down and *can* do whatever the thing is. It's like, "I understand but I don't *really* understand (couldn't keep the necessary focus to sift through the details) so I'll do the thing but don't ask me about it, I don't know how it works and wouldn't be able to tell you and that bothers me more than it will ever bother you, but yeah sure we'll do it".
For me, my autism and ADHD mask each other - but another way of saying that is *complement* each other. Over the years, I've taught myself to let my autistic ways of thinking temper my ADHD, and visa versa. The video's here if you're interested! czcams.com/video/Ck9FMtIGVxQ/video.html
This sounds disturbingly much like every time I'm trying to learn a new programming language or large framework. Coincidentally I found the channel a few weeks ago while trying to learn Rust.
I feel the most seen by this comment
I've been consuming content about autism since I first suspected it a year ago. This is possibly the best video I have seen on the subject, as a programmer and logical thinker everything you said here really resonates. Thank you for this, I'm going to be sharing it with others to help them understand me better.
wonderful! I'm glad to help - do read Unmasking Autism for way, way more detail and super interesting stories!
I listened to the audio book of unmasking autism 4 times already, I've never done that with an audio book or any book before.
It's just so good.
oh amazing!
I know you said in the beginning you weren't interested in the cause of autism, despite this I'll share what my psychiatrist told me about the current understanding of autism and ADHD. To preface, I was diagnosed with ADHD earlier this year as a 26 year old man.
What I was told during my sessions was that ADHD and autism are two sides of the same coin. The underlying trait in both is response to stimulation. Any given person has a "floor" and a "ceiling" for stimulation. Reach over this ceiling and you get over-stimulated and dip under the floor and you get under-stimulated. When this floor or ceiling deviates noticeably from the norm, you get ADHD and/or autism. People with a high floor have ADHD, and opposite a low ceiling is autism.
I found this to be very true to my life experience. And I'm sure others here can try to view their behaviors from this perspective and draw logical conclusions from cause to effect. For me, I have the opposite way to think from you. As you relate to detail-oriented thinking, I find it much easier to work big-picture and large connections. I can only work on a detail level if I'm truly invested and interested in the topic.
And in my big-picture brain I often think about how humanity as a collective have probably evolved to have or need people like us, the "neurodivergent" and other "disorders" to function better as a whole. To simplify, if what stated earlier about stimulation is true. We can possibly infer a division in labor like this. Neurotypical people run the machine, "ADHD" people explore, seek out, and find new things to add to the machine, and "autistic" people are the ones capable of understanding, finding uses for, and applying these new things to the machine.
Should be said, just in case, the last paragraph was not something my psychiatrist told me. It was my own unfounded ramblings.
I'm an autistic Software Development Lead. I only discovered my autism as an adult. This video was so spectacularly amazing and so perfectly described what it is like being autistic for me. I am saving this and am going to try to apply as much as possible from this video in my life. Thank you so much for your videos. This touched me and I hope it helps as many as possible.
(PS. I pray some day to be played by Benejeseret Cucumber)
I heard a plausible explanation of autism recently that it's primarily about having a brain which is good at analyzing static information in great detail, but can't handle streams of constantly changing information. Like we're running a compute cluster and everyone else is running a RTOS.
Finally someone else undersrands. I am not smart. I'm just easily percieved as smart by people around me because of my autism.
The mental health incident report format is something I have done all my life, never having been shown how to do it. Introspection about why I acted the way I did in situations and understanding what feelings/actions caused my actions is something I have done since early childhood. It has lead me to a very peaceful/successful adulthood, despite facing a lot of adversity. I think this type of introspection can help everyone and I am glad that you created an easy to follow guide.
I'm glad it's intuative - great minds!
I took some quotes from this video and sent them to my wife, but I stopped, because pretty much every sentence is so significant to my family and me. Thank you so much, Triss, for talking about your experience. Came for Rust, stayed for psychological revelation.
Thank you so much for saying so, I hope it helps!
I hope analyses and explanations like yours become more the norm; I forgot that most people talk about Autism like only children experience it, until after the video ended and I looked at the CZcams recommendations sidebar!
Thank you! Yes, it was only recently that adults were beginning to be considered, do read Unmasking Autism for 1000x more detil!
Bro cooked fr this Time
While im proud that i already figured all of this out on my own, i *really* wish someone had just told me of these things decades ago. It would have saved so much time
What really did help me was the philosophy of the Stoics, especially Marcus Aurelius and Seneca. It really helps to be able to differenciate between the rhings that lie within your influence and those that don't. Helps with meltdowns, sensory overload as well as managing expectation. IMHO a practical philosophy every on the spectrum should read.
I'm a huge fan, I also like Epicurean philosophy, which is very compatible with Soticism. The four-part cure is good:
Don't fear god.
Don't worry about death.
What is good is easy to get, and
What is terrible is easy to endure.
As a person with Autism that endlessly read books on it when I was younger in pursuit to understand myself, I wanted to give you my compliments on this video. It seems very accurate to me and rings close to home.
Thank you very much. If I may make one book recommendation, it's 'Unmasking', links in the description. WONDERFUL book that helped me understand myself more.
When you put Autism as thinking in a detailed-oriented way from the bottom-up, it suddenly makes so much sense why I see so many autistic people (myself included) being into programming.
yeah! makes a lot of sense!
"If you break your arm, the cause is a parent"
I'm not autistic I have undiagnosed socialism lol.
Video Rating: 🍿🍿🍿🥤🥤
I'm engaging in some focused 'unmasking' (no one @me bro lol) work presently and find myself without the words to express what I'm actually feeling basically every sentence when tasked to do so. Videos like this have been crucial to building a vocabulary that is able to articulate my experience to whomever and I'm thankful for yours.
Be I autistic or not, (I have been officially diagnosed, for most of my life, I don't know why I am still on the fence about this,) It is telling that I couldn't have told you what anxiety felt like until like two months ago. Now I know how anxious I am! Or maybe thinking about autism so much is making me anxious. Nah I couldn't possibly be autistic, nevermind everything I just said.
I discovered your channel through your Obsidian video and you are like a bible to autistic people. I got diagnosed last year and I'm turning 20 years old in 4 days.. I now feel even more compelled to get my life together. You give me a lot of hope
The "ask any woman" part is also very real. Another reason why I was diagnosed that late
I'm so pleased, thank you for saying :-)
I'm an Autistic Data Scientist (late diagnosed) and do a lot of software engineering ans system architecture. I very much relate on the 5 whys and self study and study of others. I started that in middle school and it was the secret to my success.
I agree with more or less every point in your video. Also thumbs up for the per-chapter backgrounds, so long they are muted and subtle. The autism infinity symbol in the background felt like a little too much.
"You cannot persuade me of the simplicity of the world - I can only see the complexity" to me was the most impactful quote of this video, and to me it captures my experience with really well.
As for comping mechanisms: I developed some form of the 5Whys method myself in my teens, and it was generally helpful. Where it falls apart though is when you arrive at a "I don't know"/"I can't tell", which happened (and happens) to me a lot in social situations; specifically where it is also not feasible to ask for specific feedback. If you don't know what's going wrong, you can't adapt, and if you already emulate to the best of your ability, you're stuck. This, paired with maladaptive and dysfunctional coping mechanisms developed during childhood, are the things I struggle with the most.
Still, I find your videos inspirational and uplifting. I'd love to see your take on the specific interactions between autism and ADHD, since the combination can display very differently to the two conditions on their own.
Thank you so much for you kind words and feedback. Yes, subtlety will be vital for the design of my videos, I want them to be calm and accessible.
My autism and ADHD certainly mask each other, which is positive on the whole, for me! I don't believe I really understand it enough to do a video on - though check out my Coping Mechanisms video for more about my experience here
the quote at 5:29, I remember saying this exact same thing!! I’ve never felt so seen before … maybe my friend was onto something when they said they think I’m autistic lol
Great minds!
My favourite saying: "Autism is one hell of a drug."
Heavily recommend looking into the idea of Monotropism, which is essentially detail-oriented thinking. My partner independently wrote an essay on this before knowing the concept (but called it ‘vertical thinking’).
It does seem that lot of autistic people who are studying their own internal and personal experiences have arrived at this exact idea.
“writing” is the best way to express and model a worldview
the difference between science and screwing around is writing it down! :-D
10:55
*"Remember kids, the difference between science, and screwing around, is writing it down!"*
*God*, mythbusters was the best thing ever. I cannot thank Adam and the team enough for getting me into the right mindset from an early age
I ADORE Adam Savage. If you've not read his autobiography, Every Tool's A Hammer, you should, it's got wonderful tips for making and life on every page, such as my favourite "Learn as widely as you can, because there will come a day where you need to use all that you have learned"
@@NoBoilerplate Ah, that one. I heard of it but i didnt know it was his autobiography. I hadnt paid much mind to it but i guess now that you recommended it i'll put it on the list.
The advice about learning wide is 100% true, and i thankfully learned that very early on, by myself, i often just called it 'living your life with open ears and eyes, and paying attention to your surroundings', because as it turns out, if you dont rush through life, and you 'smell the flowers', then you're going to learn *a lot* even without meaning to. Being curious about anything and everything pretty much made me learn wide, and that comes in handy *a shocking* number of times!
It’s kinda like heuristics for security software, the any/or of a certain set of conditions would identify a specific action type.
Oh nice to see you here, love your appearances on Emkay and your own channel
@@laundmoThanks!
I'm surprised to see you here and yet it makes perfect sense - ditto to the above, love your videos! :>
Right, or lead and lag metrics - building a model for ourselves!
Thank you, this is perfect. Finally a video I can show people that explain the practicals, not in a sympathetic "doesn't know any better" shit that's been perpetuated whuru it's looked at as a fault to fix and cope with, but rather a different mentality to work with.
Also didn't know my preference for configuration over convention was that much a part of Autism lol. Although saying it like that is a bit deceptive .I think of all of these traits just as traits, too be understood and worked with, as part of my identity, not symptomes to be dealt with.
As a neurotypical (I think) who wants to understand the world around me, I find these videos very interesting ! The part in the incident report about setting a timer to take a break remind me of the beans method that Astrid uses in the "Astrid and Raphaelle" French tv show.
To bumped to such an on point and structured description of my condition really moved me! Thanks a lot for the video! Keep up the great work.
Thank you so much for your kind words!
adding this to the handful of videos you've made that have changed the way i approach my daily life
I'm so pleased :-)
I always love the way you state your thoutghs, thought trough, reflected and interesting. Love it, keep on doing what you are doing.
Thank you! Will do!
As someone who has recently been diagnosed at a later age your videos are really helpful for learning about stuff im intrested in as well as learning more about myself. Thank you :]
Never Gonna Give You Up reference with an actual screenshot from the music video as a backdrop, 10/10
with Rick digitally removed
5:04 was literally my obsession which supplanted the previous one of a methodical way to narrow down the answer.
The absolute miracle of finding this video right as I was starting to figure these things out myself. You've helped a huge amount, thank you
I'm so pleased! good luck with your journey :-)
I've been almost confident that I am autistic my entire life, as has my family. Were I to explain some of my previous behaviours, I expect everyone else would agree. However, to join the English military, I must not be diagnosed.
This video has finally convinced me that I undoubtedly am. I'm really thankful.
Glad it has helped, there's lots of good you can do outside the military, you'll figure it out :-)
Wow, wow, wow. I have tried so many times to succinctly explain this, but it always feels like the neurotypical folks are seeing the stars from their own planet (to borrow your analogy). Invariably, and especially agitated by that good old ADHD, the explanation just kind of trails off because the listener decides I’ve either been talking too long or that they “get it” and need to “yes and” a bunch of points they didn’t grasp. The second one usually causes me to be the exasperated party. Wonder how many people besides me will print the transcript and save it to their phone for reference in future conversations.
To say “well done,” or “thank you” in a CZcams comment really doesn’t even come close. This is priceless. We probably won’t ever meet, but I owe you one. I’ll be looking for ways to pay it forward. My gratitude is beyond words. Bravo 🎉 👏 ❤
Thank you so much for this - I'm so glad it's helpful, my video is a poor version of Unmasking Autism, I'd highly recommend that as fascinating, interesting further reading!
Love the videos, I am a rather new subscriber as I only discovered your work a couple months ago.
My wife got diagnosed with autism recently, an explanation for her struggles throughout her life, and I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your content on the subject. It helps me understand it a lot better, as your explanations are fantastic!
Thank you so much, it sounds like you should both read both of the books I recommend - 1000x better than my video!
This is gold, thanks a lot. I saved it in my favorites to re-watch later.
I’ve always hated the way autism is portrayed in media/film.
It’s always so black and white. So binary. Either a non-verbal awkward, child whose parents can’t cope or a genius savant who’s more than everyone else, it’s a prodigy at their field.
It drives me nuts. Because that is not how I’ve experienced the world. It’s not how I’ve lived.
Generally, I can’t help but feel let down by society and the world at large. This idea what I’m overwhelmed. It’s idiotic.
Growing up, I would get seriously hyper and loose myself in my bubble. Not aware that from the outside I was being odd. It used to infuriate my parents. My mother spent years trying to get me to spot these moments and preemptively take myself out of the loop to fit in.
But, as I’ve grown, I’ve come to realise that it’s idiotic. Why should I care. As long as I’m not hurting anyone why should I walk away and stop having fun? Why should I regulate myself in such a way?
Society is littered with these systems and expectations of us that I don’t care to go along with.
You be you. Don’t ever feel ashamed or embarrassed or ever let anyone make you feel like you should be.
Autism isn’t a disease, it isn’t a super power. It just is. It’s hard enough getting through life, without carrying baggage of others unrealised expectations.
So, just keep going and you’ll find yourself on a good road.
I will say, keep an eye on your mental health. Sadly, I have come to accept that depression and anxiety are super common and potentially linked to Autism. So keep an eye on it. Seek help if needed, lean on friends and loved ones if you find yourself feeling stressed or depressed. And give yourself permission to feel what you are feeling. But don’t feel like you have to be what anyone wants.
Hear hear! You would love Unmasking Autism, that's the core thesis!
@@NoBoilerplate I’ll give it a look. My biggest realisation was that the idea that I’m having a meltdown is idiotic. I’m not having a meltdown. I’m struggling to centre myself after being knocked off centre. That isn’t the same thing.
Society doesn’t give people the space they need to find their centre again, and it results in what they label as a meltdown. To outsiders it looks insane, like a tantrum from a toddler. But the truth is, for us (me at least) it’s painful. It’s heightened anxiety, it’s panic, it’s fear, it’s overwhelmingly stressful. And it’s only made worse by the idea that I need to “calm down” or “stop it”. That kind of language was all over the place when I was growing up. But, back then, Autism, Asperger’s, ADHD etc weren’t understood nearly as well as today and were often seen as a disease and we were often treated poorly by the system. Things have changed a lot over the last 30 years. But not that much.
So, I’ve come to terms with that fact and that my experience is soo different from the world at large. That I no longer feel the need to worry about how I appear or look to others.
My biggest issue rhat still remains is that they talk about autistic people as a monolith. They don’t give room for divergence within the autistic spectrum.
Modern work culture around “neurodivergence” (damn I have that word) goes into it as if their ideas or topics are universal to all of us. It’s just not true. So I don’t buy into it.
But, I will say, it’s great to see that people are trying better than before. They still get so much wrong, but, it’s less shame based and less othering than it used to be.
like every time so far, you light a candle. thank you.
You are so welcome
"Sometimes these traits cause such apparent genius in people that that person is portrayed in film by Benedict Cumberbatch." LOL. Great video btw. (All your videos are great.) I have an appt for an ASD evaluation in a couple months. Took me a full year to send all three emails I needed to get it scheduled (yes, ADHD confirmed several years ago). It feels good to finally be taking these steps. Anxious but good.
Thank you very much! Well done, you'll never regret it!
Great video, this is honestly the best explanation of what I go through on a daily basis thank you.
No matter your constellation, there's astrometric plate solvers to guide you.
While I’m sure you got some nasty/weird comments for this one I just wanted to say thank you.
As someone else who also has this disorder the increasing conversation around how people deal with it is very important.
Especially for the youth who with a little help might learn the coping skills we both needed to a little easier and a little sooner
It's my pleasure, I'd hoped that my video could help exactly those people. And don't worry about the weird comments, they get banned and you'll never see them :-)
I was completely non-verbal (currently I'm mostly non-verbal), extremely sensitive to sensations, could not interact with anyone even looking at someone people would not stand out more than any other thing, and lived entirely within my own world. I never had a problem with people knowing "yeah, she's autistic, like super autistic". I'm really glad I did know really early on, heard other people complain about the label sticking with them, but I am an extreme case, but it also gave me the most amount of time to work on myself. I fully understand that I'm autistic and that things that for others is automatic is unintuitive for me.
My older sister is autistic, not at the same level as me, and she is oblivious to being autistic and so she's never recognised she needs to put in extra effort. She actually looks down on me for being autistic and she makes remarks to try and insult me and she thinks that our family is on her side but she is unaware that she's seen as a joke. Her son is absolutely autistic but she's offended by the idea of getting him a diagnosis seeing it as a negative, I like being autistic the upsides outweigh the downsides and it's one of the qualities my wife loves about me, I'm direct and to the point and while I do often have tone issues it's something I'm forever trying to work on and the time between mistakes increases gradually.
What's sad is that my sister is trying to get a masters in psychology so she can become a therapist, I would not want anyone to go to her. I think that being autistic it does automatically make it difficult to be a therapist but to also be unaware that you're autistic you can't do the job.
The arbitrary stuff really annoys me. Especially around gender, I consider myself to be agender because gender rules seem like an unnecessary restriction on everyone and I don't understand why most people are happy to live by them.
I would not want to not be autistic. I'm very much in the camp of not caring about fitting in, in my backpack I always have my ear defenders and sleeping mask/blindfold, and I will use them if overstimulated, both if I need to, sometimes then being led by my wife.
The ingrained shame of Autism leads people to make very poor choices.
7:07
This part hits too close to home and makes me remember how much more difficult it is for me to discuss injustices and potential solutions with neurotypical people. Also, it makes me wonder if any of the leaders of socialist thought were autistic.
You are extremely inspiring my friend, freedom for all!
Thank you!
You could talk about anything with this voice, and it would work.
I promise to only use my powers for good!
Thank you for making these videos!
I've personally been suspecting that I am probably somewhere on the Autism spectrum for a while now, (and there is probably some ADHD mixed in there too). These videos have been, and still are a great resource to figure out more stuff about myself.
(I should probably go and get assessed, but for various reasons, like anxiety, I'll probably just continue to put it off)
Keep learning :-)
I think I just found my new favorite channel! this was a great video!
Thank you so much! Do check out my adhd and coping mechanisms vidoes :-)
tysm for your videos. I am going to immediately share this with all of my friends and loved ones, especially those who are struggling to understand autism. 💕
I'm so pleased! I hope it helps a little :-)
i'm more on the ADHD than the autism side of the diagnosis but these videos are still incredible. I can't help but notice a connection between these videos and your Rust evangeglism (complimentary) videos - ultra-strongly-typed languages help me a lot, because I can't "float" the full context of a JS / Python / PHP codebase like some of my peers are able to! I (hyper)focus on the details right in front of me, and leave the larger context to the type checker.
Very likely!
The constellation analogy is genius. Thank you for sharing your experience.
Thank you, my pleasure!
Sitting at work having a bad day; decide to get some youtube music playing the background; open youtube and see a notification; click it and see "The Autism Constellation" ...
Man, No Boilerplate is the gift that keeps on giving 🙏🙏
Thank you so much!
6:46 YES! YES! I've not had a job in 26 years yet my brain might as well be a computer with how crammed full of Special Interest it is! WHY AM I UNEMPLOYABLE?!?!
"R. Astley, Philosopher" took me tf OUT
I laughed so hard with the Benedict Cumberbatch joke!
Thank you! You saw my coping mechanisms video? I figured them out, over decades, by critically looking at my life, my actions, what happened during the days, and asking myself what I could change.
1.00^365 = 0
1.01^365 = 37.78 - tiny changes compound over time.
"You know the rules, and so do I."
R. Astley, Philosopher
I always assumed I was slightly autistic and maybe I am but the more I learn about and watch videos like this the more I doubt I am.
Love your videos btw
thank you so much! Do read Unmasking Autism for a much better investigation!
You described me so incredibly well. As an example of bottom up learning consider this. I was learning to interpret E.C.G I couldn't learn it using short cuts everyone else uses. I had to understand the chemistry behind it
:D
Man idk what it is but I've been seeing more and more content bubbling up in my algorithmic interest feed... and the more I see and hear about it the more I get curious about my own relationship with... well, whatever you'd refer to "autism" as if not by its own name. This video in particular identifying meltdown experiences and coping mechanisms surprised me in its relatability.
What makes me hesitant to accept it as being a possibility however is that for the longest time, I don't feel as though I had these specific types of issues; having ADHD, I always was the opposite of all of the described traits (at least by my own perception.
What changed is that I started taking Concerta as an adult about 4 years ago, which unlocked a whole new world of capability with regards to attention to detail, focus, follow through, and generally just actualizing ideas. Above all else, it was incredible in that it allowed me the room to develop internal methods of maintaining lines of thinking - especially during active conversation - where before I would struggle to express an idea, let alone respond to one in the dynamic miasma of normal social interaction, which is to further say nothing of conflicts/terse/emotionally fraught situations.
Since then, I feel like I've developed so many behaviours that align with colloquially described presentations of autism, but it's hard to parse whether that's something I AM or something I'm SEEING AFFINITY WITH. Ultimately, I don't think the label matters that much to me; whether I am or am not autistic, the fact that I've independently been developing internal coping mechanisms that mirror some of the things you've posted here just says to me that there's some validity in my line of thinking and gives me points of inspiration, and the successes I've seen from their implementation don't need to mean more than just that - that they work for me.
Anyways, it's a question of self I've been chewing on quite intensely since starting Concerta - where does the me that lived under the cloud of unaddressed ADHD start or end, and how much of that was BECAUSE OF the "condition" vs IN SPITE of it - and these videos describing the experience of Autism further give me vocabulary to use in that internal conversation.
If I may, I quite enjoyed a video from another creator on CZcams that discussed their choice to "self diagnose" with Autism, and I think you may enjoy the social commentary that the video is laced with given your asides in this video about how society does/does not provide an adaptive space for folks not quite neurotypical: Alex Avila's "TikTok Gave Me Autism"
If you do read this, thanks for taking the time! Your video prompted the reflection, and you seem the type to take some value from seeing how your material lands for others. Looking forward to more of your content, even as a programming neanderthal 😅
ADHD and Autism can absolutely mask each other, or interact in unpredictable ways - I bet they're part of the same, larger constellation that we will discover over time!
Just wanted to say, that I laughed quite hard at your second joke. Your dry delivery and no pause to just go to the next point was genius. :)
Hehe, thank you!
I recently was a groomsman in a wedding. I wore earplugs at the reception, and it was still so loud that I had to leave after dinner. I practiced violin on the balcony to de-stress until my carpool was ready to head back home, but I could still feel all the noise through my feet. At almost every such event, every neurotypical person I speak to recognizes that the loudness is excessive and says they wish they had brought earplugs, yet these events keep transpiring with loud noise and no earplugs. It doesn't make any sense.
The world is insane. Allistic people find it much easier to tune out the insanity. Why can't we just... not have an insane world?
Do read Unmasking Autism, it's incredible.
Yeah, it's bizarre. Like I understand why nightclubs and raves are overwhelmingly loud. Because they're for immersing yourself in music and dancing. But it makes no sense to crank up the music and drown out conversation in bars and other social events.
Also though. Go and get yourself some custom moulded earplugs. They're way more effective.
Or maybe it does. It's not hard to imagine that person who professionally sets up the music does that so often that they are already completely deaf.
I'd like to share my variation on the 5 why's method for when I find myself stuck or encountering the same problem repeatedly - a sort of manual bypass for local maxima.
Rather than accepting a single answer to each why, you come up with two or three possible answers, then ask the next 'why' about the answer you feel is *less* likely. Its generally more intense and time-intensive, but really helps getting unstuck by bypassing our intuition and logical understanding of the situation in order to manually uncover new approaches to problems.
I tend to drill down with this until I find a task which may affect things and takes less than 5 mins, then act on that. Since difficult problems usually have a large number of contributing factors, breaking it down and tackling just one of them both helps me feel like progress is being made and sometimes finds actions which have unexpectedly outsize effects - like changing where my shoes are stored to avoid gravel getting in them, packing a sewing kit purely for peace of mind, or switching the place I am charging my phone.
I love you and your channel so much man, great work!
Thank you so much, I'm trying to use my powers for good!
Your videos have been the most beneficial and impactful to me! Cannot thank you enough!
Thank you so much for saying so! I'm very pleased :-)
Everything kept clicking with this video... I've never heard my life experiences worded so accurately and with so much insight. Taking computer science, my teacher often tells me I focus too much on the details! I need to stop worrying about the huge complex issue and go through the steps of computational thinking, to abstract the problem to its fundamentals. To simplify it.
Really, I've been told to do this exact thing in every walk of life in slightly different ways. I have always struggled. I cannot simplify and breathe because that does not make the horrible details suddenly go away.
I never considered that I fundamentally process things differently. But now it makes a lot of sense. I am constantly told I get "too caught up in the details" and that I "worry and overthink things too much". I blamed myself for that behaviour but now I'm wondering if that's just a part of who I am, and the expectations of society aren't built to support me.
Some stuff to think on. Thank you.
Firstly, do read the books I recommended, it sounds like you could get a lot out of them, secondly, it takes a while to figure these things out! Knowing there are missing pieces of the puzzle is the first step to finding them :-)
@@NoBoilerplate The books do seem like a great read! I've been diagnosed for years and known for longer but I'm always learning more about myself and the people around me. Thanks!!
I don't have autism, but I definitely relate to several difficulties people on the spectrum have. In social situations with lots of people, especially strangers, I sometimes get overwhelmed. When plans change, it really throws me off. I don't relate to several social norms.
Even though I know I'm not diagnosibly autistic, it can be useful to deal with some specific issues from that perspective. I especially like your idea of incident retrospectives, I think I will apply that more in my own life. I've done it sometimes, though I never quite thought about it in your way.