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Awe, This is Serious Mum.
Some people think autism means taking everything literally but that’s actually kleptomania
Add ADD to the mix, and you go back and change this answer at least 7 times.
People don’t tell you that. It would be rude. It would probably be someone else on the spectrum tactlessly telling you, if anyone. However, self-realization that you took many comments literally and embarassed yourself or screwed something up is why you tick that box “yes”.
Recently I had a therapist ask if I experience cognitive distortions, but in a way where a literal interpretation would be asking if I hallucinate. I’m not autistic and I knew what she meant, but I did feel the need to be clear in my answer
I hate being autistic.
Why? Sure we have a difficult time being social sometimes, but it’d argue it gives you a superpower in reasoning/being in touch with yourself.
Sometimes it’s easier to want yourself to change to accommodate the NT world than to want the world to change to accommodate you
The “people tell me I’m X” type questions on shit like this always annoy me because like, what exactly are you trying to gauge with this question? Are you trying to determine what I’m like, or are you trying to determine what other people’s perception of me is? The way it’s worded would denote the latter but I’m not sure that’s in actuality what they’re going for. In any case, I don’t typically have people regularly telling me “you’re so [personality trait]” so most of the time if I answer honestly then the answer will usually be “completely disagree” but then that probably skews the test towards an inaccurate result if what they’re really trying to determine is “are you [personality trait]?”
They’re trying to figure out how you compare to other people. It’s terribly worded, but it’s something people who don’t take things literally would get. It’s also really weird because other mental health evaluations tend not to use that sort of potentially confusing language.
They should get some autists to write alternative versions of the questions.
V1 rewrite: “You often notice or have been told that you take things too literally.”
Nah, still too vague. How literal is too literal?
V2: “You often notice or have been told that you take things more literally than what was probably intended.”
The most “fun” ones are the control questions askinging you exactly the opposite of something you’ve been already asked.
Except inversion also reverses subtext so your honest answer has to be different than just the opposite of the previous answer you have. But if the two answers are not a perfect mirror, you might trigger too many control questions and not get diagnosed. What should you do? AAAAAAAAAAAAAH
Autism tests are useless because I can already see which are the autistic answers and can manipulate the results either way.
Why would you?
To score Adderall, duh
Isn’t that true to an extent for all mental health quizzes? The question rather is, why would you want to manipulate the test? Usually it is in the persons best interest to answer as honestly as possible
It is, I once manipulated an IQ test by giving all the correct answers.
2D chess
😂
I believe IQ are made in such a way thire are no correct answers.
You didn’t tag that ragebait
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oh btw, i was reading some legal texts yesterday (as a hobby) and it’s surprisingly easy to read for me. yes, it’s all convoluted language; but at least it’s precise and clear. no swampy vague language.
so it’s actually easier to digest than many small-talk conversations that i’ve had.
In which country do you find clear and defined legal texts? I was inder the impression such texts were kept intentionally vague so the executioner can sway either way, deoending where the money sits. (Especially laws, but I realize law texts are just a small subset of legal texts)
what you said is basically true in the US; but in german-speaking areas, legal texts are perfect for people with autism. just clear, defined terms; meaningful sentence structure; getting to the point. no ambiguity, no vagueness, no bullshit (mostly).
You’re thinking consumer sales contracts by scummy companies. There’s plenty of very precise legal texts available. Business to business contracts where both sizes have good lawyers, for example
The German laws that I’ve had the pleasure of reading were pretty clear. Examples are eKFV and LuftVO (no translations available).
All online tests are basically
Test: from 1 to 5, how much X do you feel?
You: 4/5
Test results: You are 75% X
You: so true
You can always tell immediately which question confirms your preconceptions, so you can never answer genuinely. It’s all confirmation bias.
This is all amplified by the fact that if you are taking the test, you already think that you are the thing in the test (in this case, autistic).
P.S. this includes mbti tests. Don’t let their sciency looks deceive you. It’s all confirmation bias, all fake.
Myers Briggs is complete pseudoscience, if it helps. Literally nonsense made up whole cloth by some mother and daughter
You mean astrology for MBAs?
Autism test: Look at this picture of a face, what is this person thinking?
Me, an experienced masker: You can’t tell what a person is thinking from their face, they expend a lot of effort keeping their face in a socially acceptable position to hide their true feelings.
As opposed to the cptsd answer: “what did I do to cause you to show me a bunch of pictures of people who are mad at me”
I had a test with a short movie, cut scene by scene and each time they asked to explain what happend and what did were thinking. I thought I did good on it, but apparently I didn’t, just too autistic to know.
This is always what makes me a little unsure of if I have autism. Cause I have very little trouble understanding a person’s feeling from their facial expression. Admittedly I am self-diagnosed, but I also know it’s a spectrum so there’s gotta be a few outliers who don’t struggle with this, right?
Honestly, I think neurotypicals put too much emphasis on facial expression. I can read facial expressions fine most of the time, yeah, but rarely does someone accurately read my facial expression.
People either assume I’m upset (because I’m not actively attempting to emote, such as when I’m thinking about something), or assume I’m happy (because I’m masking - in which case I may look happy, but that doesn’t mean I feel happy.)
Considering that “resting bitch face” has become a known cultural phenomenon, I’m tempted to argue that neurotypicals have as much trouble reading faces as they claim we do. The difference is, if they’re wrong they either don’t recognize it, or double-down because obvs you’re lying for some reason. (You’re autistic after all, they clearly know how you’re feeling better than you do. /s)
Same. This is where I’m at. People keep failing to understand me and I can read others just fine, I recognize regular emotions without a problem, etc. But I prefer to express myself clearly, which means I want to think things through, and often people don’t get me so it’s annoying to be social with people who don’t know me.
I don’t mask my emotions (intentionally), I just don’t show them outwards a lot (which contributes to people not understanding me 🤷)
Regular ass neurotypicals rely more on vibes than content to communicate.
Ha yeah I got that resting bitch face too. When I’m feeling just fine I look like someone just kicked my shin with dogpoop-smeared boots. Agree we put way too much emphasis on facial expressions.
Part of the reason my therapist diagnosed me was because, when running a test like this, I was constantly asking questions to get clarification for the questions of the test because I couldn’t answer them correctly because of this.
Probably around 8th or 9th test question, my therapist was already certain of my diagnosis.
Same thing happened with me, and I think that’s where the actual strength of the test is. You need a professional who can observe how you interact with it to really get a proper assessment. If you just do it on your own you’re not going to get out of it an accurate assessment.
I feel like a weird secret 3rd thing because my brain is basically both sides of the spectrum (I call my brain a mosaic sometimes) and the diagnostic expert said they don’t think I need a diagnosis. I can be social just fine, but it drains me fast around people who don’t get me (most people).
It kinda sounds like you’re just good at masking tbh
I was getting my flu vaccine the other day and the nurse asked me why I checked “I don’t know” in response to the question “Is the patient sick?”
She seemed genuinely annoyed when I told her that the only two truthful answers to “Are you sick?” are “Yes” and “I don’t know”.
If the question had asked “Is the patient showing any symptoms of illness?” it would have been a different story, but I answered the question as asked.
i went in for a surgery a couple of years ago. receptionist asks if I’ve had covid. i say i don’t know. receptionist looks at me like im trying to be funny. i specify that i haven’t had symptomatic covid. receptionist asks me again if I’ve had covid. my partner tells me to stop being difficult. receptionist rolls their eyes. as far as i was aware you can have covid without symptoms, so i really think answering ‘no’ is dangerously arrogant. or at least foolishly naive.
My trick for this is to replace “I don’t know” with “not to my knowledge” or “not as far as I know”.
Same sentiment, but much less pushback from others.
This is the way. “I don’t know” could imply you haven’t even thought about it, while “Not to my knowledge” implies you know but may be wrong.
Saying that and adding a small smile and a quick laugh does wonders
Meanwhile, I’ve never had Covid and whenever i tell this to medical receptionists they’re like “you’ve never been symptomatic” 😂 every time! You can’t win
Have you done repeated tests, alternatively taken antibody tests (for covid19 proteins not in the vaccines)? (because this is a thread about being pedantic)
Yes, I kept various taking tests weekly for years until it finally got too expensive. I still have only been sick once since 2019, got a cold in 2025. N95 mask nearly everywhere, nearly all the time.
I’m in a couple different academic studies for possible covid resistance, but I keep telling them I don’t think there’s anything biologically keeping me from getting covid, it’s just the masking + forsaking society.
It’s more “fun” for me. I had something that presented quite a bit like covid early on, but it was just barely not bad enough for my province to let me get tested. Then when I got something similar again later I tested negative.
Whenever asked if I’ve ever had covid I tend to explain the whole situation because I have no idea if I’ve had it or why it’s relevant to the asker.
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I’ve had some of my family get annoyed at me for a similar thing lol. If someone asks me if I’d do something in a hypothetical scenario, I basically always answer with “probably” or “probably not”. I just feel like no matter how certain I feel I would do something in some given situation that I’ve never experienced, I can’t know 100% unless it were to actually happen, so answering as if I’m sure would be incorrect of me.
Finally, some people who incorporate a bit of epistemology into their lives. Y’all are my people.
