To think people forget that autistic people grow into adults?

[BobblyQuim]

There's so many threads on here where people's behaviour is described as odd, crazy, creepy, weird, and so on for not being as the OP or people replying would expect. Today for example, I've seen two threads were one woman was described as an oddball for putting a handbag in a plastic bag and another is an overreacting drama queen for her OTT reaction to some upset in class.

There's so much vitriol on these types of threads towards someone who has acted in an unusual way. Does anyone ever consider there may be a reason for their unusual behaviour? Like autism?

I know not everyone that gets written about on here will be autistic but statistically it's likely that some of them are. Autistic children grow into autistic adults. They are out there in all walks of life. It might be nice to bear in mind sometimes when writing someone off as weird, a drama queen, an attention seeker etc. Autistic people don't just cease to exist at aged 18.

AIBU to think that people seem to forget that?

I am not on the spectrum, however a few years ago, on mn, if someone was being an arse, then they could have a mental health problem.

Neither is a reason as to why someone is being an arse. Both, is a reason why someone might act "differently" but neither is a reason as to why someone is being a shit.

In one of your examples, I have just read the thread, being on the spectrum does not excuse screaming at another adult. That is being an arse

I'm that woman that puts a handbag in a plastic bag. Yes really, I have a super fancy bag that i love but if it gets sopping wet It'll be ruined. So I have a plastic bag for when its pissing down.

Also suspected I have sensory processing difficulties but because of my abusive childhood I am not sure if I am responding a sensory way or possible PTSD way and wont ever find out because ffs... mental health services are stretched and I cope.

@GoSuckAFart You do whatever makes you feel comfortable. It's harming nobody.

One of my best friends is 27 and on the Spectrum and he really does struggle sometimes with the extremes.

Being too passive or too aggressive
Appearing not overly invested or getting too involved in others lives

But he is genuine and if he becomes in conflict with someone he explains his ASD so at least they can decide if this may be sensory issues/panic/social difficulty or my friend Just being an arse.

Because he says himself it bugs him people assume either someone with ASDs are either volatile or have very little personality but he says if you're high functioning you can have the disorder and act like a twat. Not due to the condition but because you're entitled/mean spirited etc. He finds it patronising not to assume he has his own negative qualities outside his diagnosis.

I've always thought it's a bit odd that when someone posts about a child misbehaving, someone almost always brings up SN. But if someone posts about, say, a midwife who was rude to them, SN is rarely mentioned as a possible explanation.

"Autism is not a synonym for unreasonable behaviour in adults."

My son will have what is considered to be unreasonable behaviour for an adult and it will sometimes impact on others. That will be unavoidable unless he is kept out of public places completely which isn't reasonable unless the behaviour is actually dangerous.

I definitely agree we can be too easily put off by behaviour that's a bit off-centre but otherwise innocuous. It's very easy to almost feel entitled to be able to predict what people are going to do or say, where everyone runs along the same sort of tracks and chooses from a predictable, rational range of options re: behaviour, preference etc. I have no doubt this has not a little to do with the fact that we are primed to grow up not as idiosyncratic humans but cohesive consumer profiles that can be most efficiently marketed to - eclectic consumers are no use if your advertising technique is to sell via visions of a highly coordinated lifestyle. People expect coherence, they make up their minds that encounters will run a certain way, and are then miffed when they can't run on autopilot and they have to unexpectedly input energy in reacting spontaneously to someone doing their thinking on a completely different plane to them.

One of my family members can sometimes come off as very offbeat, she is wired slightly differently to most people (in the best way possible I hasten to add!) but because she's beautiful, intelligent and has a foreign accent from a country that people go on holiday to in droves, people cut her a fair bit of slack. But if you don't seem to have an obvious reason for any oddness, or there's nothing that makes people feel a bit protective of or interested in you, then there are only so many non-sequiturs and so much seeming absent-mindedness you can come out with before people label you as just weird, as if you're somehow a bit dangerous because you don't play by the rules or don't seem to be familiar with them (and so by extension may not find other things that people hold store by very important either - in the way we might observe others' table manners to develop further networks of assumptions about them). I think often this is an entirely subconscious process, which is why it's so hard to stop - people won't openly snub you if you're a bit odd, they'll be nice to you, but they'll have marked you out as 'not like them' without maybe even realising it themselves e.g. via linguistic thought.

I think the goal should be not maybe to aim for increasing empathetic response to someone only once you've slapped a 'get out of jail free card' on them like 'autism', but more generally just to be forgiving and accepting of weirdness if it's not hurting anyone else. Just to tackle our more general aversion to things that don't compute easily, that aren't transparent or immediately assimilable to our vision of the world. Because excusing harmless behaviour only on the grounds that there's a reason for it that we understand, that meets our standards, I think is just perpetuating the root of the issue.
(I mean you could even argue that the concept of autism is partly there precisely for the comfort of neurotypical people, but that's a separate debate!)

I certainly think tolerance is lacking, but I don't see why it should have to be applied only to those as 'autistic'. At one time English eccentricism, as long as it did no harm to anyone else, was expected, even encouraged to some degree. When did everyone get so darned conformist?

The two bag thing sounds like ocd tbh

I kind of agree.

I hate making fun of people, and picking on difference. That’s horrible. Don’t get me wrong I’m no saint, I’ve picked up on myself judging others, but I correct myself. Hopefully!

Yet I do think the autism diagnosis has gone a bit bonkers. Everything is ASD. And sometimes I do think rudeness and selfishness is excused by a diagnosis. My son has severe ASD and I think the over generalization diminishes him sometimes. I get the ‘oh I’ve got ASD too’ so often I think I’m going to vomit the next time someone says it.

I hold my hand up and say, yes, if people wind me up sufficiently, I will display unreasonable behaviour in public. But I'm an independent adult, so whatcha gonna do?

If someone's shouting and screaming and tells you they're ASD, what they may well actually mean is "Please get me out of here, I can't cope".

Things that wind me up are things like, if I misjudge my verbal volume, when people shout back at me things like "DON'T SHOUT AT ME, OR YOU'LL HAVE TO LEAVE"... and I'm stood there thinking "oh god, I wasn't shouting, all I did was ask if they had A in stock, was I too loud? does she hate me now? do I have to leave? but I really need this thing, and it's all I came into town for, will she call the police if I persist? ".

So I cry a little (which makes me louder) , and explain I didn't mean to shout, I'm autistic. The shop assistant turns very nice now. Too nice - she's talking to me like I'm a toddler now, or telling me to bring my "carer" next time.

It's pretty shit, neurotypicals would be outraged if they made one minor mistake and got threatened, abused or patronised for it.

Not trying to be tricky but @chouetted what if the person you were shouting at also had ASD and had a meltdown because of your shouting? Would you be more sympathetic to the response?

Slightly Odd/unusual behaviour that doesn’t impact on others - no excuse for people rudely commentiing on that. Who gives a shiny shit?

Abusive behaviour is another thing. If you’re abusive to others, whether you have ASD or not, other people are well within their rights to call it out as unacceptable. Because it is always unacceptable to abuse others.

I think it’s very dodgy to assume that people with ASD are likely to behave awfully tbh. Don’t feed into that narrative that if someone’s behaving in a vile abusive manner, they must have ASD or some other issue - they are most likely just a vile person.

Of course, and it has happened, several times but that's completely different. I'm not unsympathetic to someone telling me I'm too loud, it's when they treat me like I'm some sort of criminal. It's no more abuse to accidentally shout at someone than it is to accidentally tread on their foot. They both hurt like hell, but I've never heard of anyone being ejected from a shop for the latter.

Yes I do think it would be very annoying if someone treated you like a criminal, especially if you’ve not meant to and tried to explain. I get your point and ejected from a shop is horrible @chouetted

I clearly say that people who behave in ways that we would not expect get described in those terms. Some people who behave in ways we do not expect are autistic.

Yes, and some people who are autistic behave in ways that we do expect. Your argument structure supports mutually exclusive claims, so it's an appeal to ignorance and a fallacious argument.

My DP, DD and I all have autism. We are all incredibly well behaved. When the conditioning and hard work begins to break down and we're struggling, we have workarounds and methods of dealing with this to avoid having a complete meltdown in front of other people. Inelegantly, the last solution is often to just run for cover and find a quiet space to deal with it away from other people.

Even in the worst case scenarios where the meltdowns happen and you can't get away to deal with it or you can't change the environment to prevent the trigger, from an external point of view, the meltdowns are pretty much a lot of flailing, panicking, stuttering, wandering around in circles and looking confused - punctuated with lots of "I'm sorry" because having a meltdown in front of people is one of the most humiliating, traumatic experiences possible for us.

Yes, there are times when we don't behave in ways NT's might expect. But the vast majority of times we are able to control it and successfully cloak because we've learnt to recognise and manage the triggers. When we can't manage it, we're not offensive, we don't demand that other people fix our problems for us and (in reference to the classroom drama queen thread) we absolutely do not concern ourselves with how other people are doing.

When we meltdown, it's because we can't deal with our environment as it stands. The over stimulation becomes unbearable and we're in survival mode. Believe me, there is absolutely no room in that maelstrom for competitiveness or trying to best someone else. We're literally trying to deal, nothing else.

So, honestly, I get what you're saying about "maybe there's another factor that's influencing the behaviour here". Yes, there probably is and we should try to be more understanding or accept that someone is probably just having a bad day.

But no. Please, please, please do not try to suggest that autism might be responsible for someone throwing a tantrum unreasonable. Autistic meltdowns do not look like someone being a diva or a drama queen. There's no well-reasoned rationalisations on why you deserve special treatment, there's no caring about how they look in front of other people.. in short, there's no goal other than finding the safe space.

But, to circle back to your argument:
Some people who behave in ways we do not expect are autistic. Some people who behave in ways we do not expect are horrible.
Some people who have autism are horrible.
Some people without autism are horrible.

And, for what it's worth - we're not stupid. We're as able as any NT to determine whether our behaviour and responses are justified and reasonable, or whether we're being demanding and unreasonable. If an ASD adult is being a dick and they can't help it, the most likely outcome is for them to disappear very quickly, then come back at some point later, full of apologies. Of course, they may just be a dick anyway - with or without the autism. In which case, the apology probably won't happen.

In the classroom thread specifically, this is not the behaviour of someone having an ASD breakdown. This is the behaviour of someone who wants something very specific and is in a clear mental space to intimidate and manipulate others to get what she wants.

@pandarific agree I’m all for odd, the world would be a duller place without it! Abuse is not nice.

The person forgetting to say goodbye or talking too loudly is not being rude or abusive. The person zoning out because of sensory stuff is not being horrible. Being mean by putting someone down or bullying, that’s not nice and I don’t think that’s any one groups issue!

Why must we put a label on everything?It seems like every man and his wife is autistic these days.As long as a person is functioning in life and not hurting anyone so what if they're on the spectrum or just a bit eccentric or odd in societies eyes?

Is putting your handbag inside a carrier bag odd behaviour? I have read that thread, it is something I do if I have paid for a carrier bag and don't want to; lose it or if it is raining and it is a nice bag. I don't know what I think about the other thread - surely the teacher should have insisted all conversation about marks be in private outside the class? I'm afraid I don't go around wondering if other people are part of the 1.1% , I'm sure there are far more likely explanations in these two cases.

I think it’s just a life thing rather then a specific mumsnet thing.
Lots of charities and support groups kind of die off once your an adult especially for those with hfa. I have found people become less understand as you get older, they want you to "grow up" "stop using excuses" "why are you being so weird haven't you grown out that" and basically wanting you to age yourself out of autism and being very put out when you can't flick a switch and magic the autism away. It's got to the point where I'm actually in the middle of moving house at the minute, to somewhere incredibly remote with no other houses on the road as less people, less judgement, less stress, I feel cows and fields will be more understanding of me!

I think in terms of mumsnet, lots of people try and diagnosis and say that the person might have autism or that the person doesn't have autism they're just being a cf or weird.
Which I always think people shouldn't really do, if it was as easy to get a diagnosis on someone from a couple of lines of one situation with no outside context then the diagnosis process wouldn't be so difficult/long! And by labelling everything outside the norm as autistic it gives a person with no experience of autism a very skewed view of what autism is like, which is obviously different from person to person.

They also might be being a dick and not have autism, or being a dick and have autism, the two aren't mutually exclusive.

It would be a better place all around in life/mumsnet etc if everyone just had a bit more understand of everyone in life regardless of any diagnosis, just not being a twat to each other as no one knows what the other person is going through, but humans are flawed and we have emotions and anger and have different experiences in life that is sometimes difficult to control so that's never going to happen!

I find the opposite on MN. The extent of knowledge re SN especially ASD, AS, PDA etc is huge, whereas in RL not.

Just want to point out to those moaning about everyone being autistic these days that you don't get a diagnosis unless you have 'significant impairments'. Just because you can't see the 'impairments' doesn't mean they're not there.

KreigersClones

"Yep, odd and creepy must mean autistic"

I'm a lifelong member of the weirdo club, I don't have SN and I was already a weirdo before I developed bipolar disorder. People are free to judge me as a weirdo just like I'm free to not give a toss about stranger's or acquaintances opinions of me.

Same as a pp really that in getting my son's diagnosis, I started to recognise a lot of the traits and think I myself have autism and I'm now 40.
Very good child, very academic etc but just a bit "odd" I suppose, can't really explain it.

One of the biggest misconceptions I've found though is that autism=bad behaviour which has not been the case at all for my ds. He is 15 and was diagnosed at 8.

I remember the doctor saying to me that he has autism, will be an autistic adult and the best advice he could give is to "play on his strengths and work on his weaknesses" and that's something I've always done.

I think that if you go back in your head to primary school, there was always that one kid who was a little bit different and sadly there wasn't the knowledge about ASD and so many people have slipped through the net.

There are likely to be many thousands of undiagnosed adults, all around us, maybe living in our home, maybe it's us. Who knows?