Re: texture sensitivity
@CAE_Jones
This is something I've struggled with myself. For me, what sort of clinches it is that I have very little interest in anything outside of my special interests. My special interests always dominate. Calling them obsessions would only begin to describe how much time I dedicate to them. And while I know other things are important, I have no clue how to get myself to pay attention to them, or to care about them, so I only deal with them when absolutely necessary. Where as a lot of people, even a lot of blind ones, do like to get out and do things and socialize, for me it is a major stressor especially if I am to meet a stranger or be in a group of people who I don't know well.
I do agree that a diagnosis is very difficult to come by in a true sense anyway, and that it is pretty easy to hand out a diagnosis. If, for example, you believe you have Aspergers you are likely to convince yourself more readily that you fit that diagnosis by piecing things together in a positive way and self-diagnose yourself. If you don't believe you have Aspergers you are probably going to question how well the documented symptoms actually fit you, and if you don't want to be labeled as such, you'll fight it and so it is harder in that case to self-diagnose. Officially getting diagnosed isn't particularly easy either. While I don't have a great distrust for all psychologists, I believe an official diagnosis is really not advantageous in most cases because it's not like a body temperature or a blood test that is objective, it's a psychological analysis and you can't do that without some subjectivity. I really don't know the answer. All I can say is that I originally didn't want to be labeled and fought it, but decided ultimately to at least consider I might be on the spectrum. Even though my weirdness, for the sake of broad reference, isn't really debilitating, it certainly makes life challenging on a day-to-day basis, some days naturally more than others. I identify more with people who have officially been diagnosed, not that that really means much, but subjectively, personally, it does make me feel better to know that I fit someplace and I am actually happy I found a label to tentatively put on myself. The way I see it, if someone knows I have Aspergers, and I can tell them why I think I do, they at least know I've given my differences some thought, rather than having no label and everyone assuming I am simply normal, which I know is not the case and I couldn't fake being normal if I tried.
I've also heard of people who discourage labels. Many even say there is no such thing as a true normal so how can you label someone as different? They seem to think that being on the spectrum is just an extension of everyday traits. People who would traditionally be considered as on the spectrum do things other people do, just much more often and with much more attention paid. People who don't have autism stim just as people with autism do, it's just more focused and much more apparent. So everyone, in a sense, is on a spectrum and having a label isn't really necessary. I sort of agree with this viewpoint, but I think it takes some getting used to to think that way, especially if for your whole life you have known things the traditional way. I stick to traditional thinking most of the time but I am not hard core stuck to it, and am somewhat fascinated by listening to alternative viewpoints and considering how they might make me feel a little more positive/better about myself. But if this discussion is to continue, it needs a new thread .
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