Most females who are autistic are often misdiagnosed. Data reveals that about 80% of these diagnosed autistic women are reported to have been feeling better after their diagnosis. Common misdiagnoses include anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, BPD, PTSD, OCD, and anorexia.
The symptoms of autism can be confusing to diagnose somebody with something. This is due to the issues arising with the criteria for autism diagnosis, the DSM-5. Particularly the Criteria C that makes it challenging to figure out what adults with autism are like. Symptoms of autism in adults are as follows; increased need for sensory stimulation, difficulty with identifying emotions, difficulty in understanding others’ perspectives, repetitive motor movements and sounds known as echolalia, verbal reasoning problems and a sensory overload.
There are four potential signs of undiagnosed autism in adults: social signs, sensory signs, communication signs, and behavioural signs. Social signs consists of mimicking, being rigorous, and having trouble picking up social cues. Sensory signs are picky eating, a lack of need of social touch, and an odd sensitivity to clothing. Communication signs include issues with eye contact and an understanding of the body language, they also have a preference for the written mode of communicating. Behavioural signs can be identified by the fidgeting, the under- or over-reacting, and exhibiting a repetitive pattern in front of others.
Autism progresses in two forms: stereotypical autism and non-stereotypical autism. Stereotypical autism is one that is associated with the stigmatized versions, people around them, that perceive certain behavioural characteristics as autistic whereas the non-stereotypical is not explanatory of autistic traits. Interestingly, one can also have an overlap of the two forms. Observable stereotypical autism has hypo-empathy, a fight-or-flight-response, a thinking style that is both concrete and pragmatic, social differences that lead to more bullying and isolation, ‘obscure’ special interests, an externalised repetition, and a high alexithymia. A not much recognised non-stereotypical autism is inclusive of hyper-empathy, a fawn-or-flee-response, is deeply existential possibly like OCD, concealment of their autistic traits to blend in-tune with the social norms that are a standard, giving them a high anxiety level about oneself, there is an internal repetition, as well, and is an empath. The overall has a much different collection of cues; special interest ecosystems, executive functioning difficulties, bottom-up processing style, finds safety and security in predictability, routine and repetition, dislikes small talks and much rather prefers a substantial conversation, sensory processing differences, struggles to adjust in a group setting, and gets absorbed by their own interests.
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