13 autism symptoms in adults (you're not just a "highly sensitive person/hsp")

[Music] so are you highly sensitive or and or are you also autistic today's video is about the 13 Reasons Why or the 13 differentiators from high sensitivity as opposed to autism and that if you relate to more of these or understand these Concepts and find them helpful it could be not is but could be possible that you might want to explore an Autism diagnosis an understanding of yourself in some way I'm a licensed clinical psychologist and I have been I would say highly sensitive my whole life and I discovered this concept last year about a year and a half ago of understanding High masking autism and through lots of research that I post here and other places through books and articles and watching autistic creators and learning from them and those who do testing all of that has informed where I sort of sit today think I said that weird but that's where we are okay so in terms of the overlap between hsps highly sensitive people and autistic people it is quite large and massive and this is one of the big reasons why many in the autistic Community believe that HSP is just code for autism and those who were more HSP say no there are differences and I found some research articles I'll link below some websites but I do think there there's so much overlap that we can get into trouble where I think it's a problem is if you feel like you're an HSP and then you realize you're autistic if yourself or those around you don't support more awareness and knowledge and understanding and that keeps you from getting the or creating a life that's more helpful that's where it's most important so fundamentally when we talk about autism versus high sensitivity High sensitivity is a trait it is a temperament is a part of a sensitivity to the world to ourselves that we're often born with and many people say in some research articles from 15 to 30% of the population is just kind of comes out of the womb more sensitive autism on the other hand is a neurodevelopmental a neurological disorder that affects how people interact with others how they communicate how they learn how they behave how they engage in the world and so theoretically we're talking about issues yes with high sensitivity perhaps to everything and everyone but also at the core difficulty with communication and interaction with others a tendency towards uh special interests restricted interests and repetitive behaviors a strong preference for routines and other symptoms that can make life quite challenging from selfcare to work to school to you know to relationships in general so at the core both of them overlap significantly they both overlap HSP and autism in areas around sensory sensitivities although a sensory processing sensitivity which is basically a formal word often for an HSP is a highly sensitive kind of response to the world and yourself different or versus from a sensory processing disorder which is often much more impactful in terms of how they both can be impactful but the ways in which it shows up are much more complicated in terms of neurological Dynamics okay and that can be sensory seeking versus sensory responsiveness things like that where in a sensory sensitivity it's more like a sensitivity you're not going to see a seeking Behavior I don't believe like you would in maybe ADHD or Autism okay so sensory issues a lot of maybe value driven behaviors those who are sensitive to the world are theoretically not going to like violence and Injustice ice they're going to have a heart for other people they're going to be both of them deeply impacted by verbal and non-verbal communication that's that hypervigilance piece especially if you're a child which I think historically in the parenting world to have gentle sensitive parents is becoming more common but it certainly was not and I keep saying that I think a lot of us who have whatever it is high sensitivity autism ADHD all of these things trauma also had parents who had trauma right who didn't know how to self soothe who were disregulated made us walk on eggshells things like that so we're scanning we're used to scanning for tone so we're deeply impacted by things like anger unhappiness fear things like that both can have a deep an inner world like processing style deep thinkers although the processing style is a little bit different in autism we'll talk about that both can cognitively overload themselves and you know get themselves where there's just they kind of like easily overwhelmed by too many things too many people stimuli both can need alone time to self-regulate can enjoy isolation or downtime or recovery time and may need it both have sensitive nervous systems like I'm saying generally so maybe a stronger fight or flight a greater reactivity to the world both can have difficulty in like Transitions and new environments and warming up they can have difficulty in adjusting to you know things that create a sense of the unknown so we can see a lot of anxiety and you can definitely see big feelings in both right and so we're going to have possibly Dynamics on the sensitive side that are going to lean one way and that's going to be more of this like I'm I'm going to read the summary here when on the on elain Aaron's website when she talks about high sensitivity so things like you know if you're more HSP highly sensitive to lights smells Fabrics Sirens getting rattled when you have a little bit of time and a lot to do making a point of avoiding violence shows needing to be in quiet darkness and to recover uh needing to set up your life in a way that is less impactful and stressful for you having a fine appreciation for things like music the Arts you know the kind of Beauty in the world even things you eat your pet things like that and having a deep and Rich complex life and maybe perhaps being a shy or more sensitive child now that is kind of like the picture right that's where it kind of ends so what I want you to get about that is that it is this like I'm sensitive to the world and to things that are deeply impactful but I'm not going to have these more likely these next 13 things so in order to look at the signs I want to start with two things that are not really signs but might help you further understand HSP and and really autism at the core number one is to go to the website called Embrace autism.com and to consider taking their online tests now the conversation around self- diagnosis has been varied I do believe it's a very valid conversation and I do believe there's research supporting that it can be so the chances are if you take the test and they look leaning towards autism if you've looked at other people's research or videos and you've done your own work and most autistic people will and you think you are are there's a very good chance that you are the question then becomes what do you do about it and while this video is not about getting a diagnosis it's important to understand that getting a diagnosis may or may not help you so please research that before you consider it what can be helpful is the validation the accommodations the way you set up your life and of course that depends what level your needs are you know if you're on a higher needs level Dynamic you might not have a choice or you're a parent of a child that has autism so we're talking here about high masking but I want to make space for the very important spectrum of autism all right number two and especially the AQ the AQ in many articles I found was a really good filter for and you'll see it on Embrace autism number two to watch autistic creators on YouTube on Tik Tok on Instagram like I really do think that it will start to change your mind about a stereotype you have if you watch it and it may make you less inclined to say oh my God this is a trend by the way seeking an understanding patterns is very common in autism and I was thinking the other day about me recognizing this kind of emerging topic not as like a trend but seeing it growing about a year and a half ago and I've done that with lots of things like the cupcake you know Trends just all kinds of stupid things but I think my brain kind of is good at seeing patterns and that is very common in autism okay so now let's get into what the bulk of it looks like now these could also happen in some regard you could say there oh this is part of my sensitivity but at the core I do not believe you will find these things when it comes to autism number one you're highly sensitive to everything and everyone that one probably has the most overlap with HSP but the bottom line is that the world is an intense place and you are if you're autistic much more deeply disregulated by it it's not like oh I don't like that it's like I need to go I'm going to shut down for today I am over stimulated um that those lights are giving me a migraine things like that and so it really is this like it it it is the one big overlap highly sensitive the next one there's a trail of broken friendships in your past in some way you might be great at making friends but the research shows you have not been great at maintaining them along those lines as I've talked about socializing social issues isues needing recovery time being in a social environment like a classroom with your kids and freaking out and like trying to leave as soon as you can I've discussed networking events I was realizing that every single event I went to for my kids because I wanted to be there if it involved having to interact I hated it I would never eat the food that people brought cuz I was afraid it would make me sick like it's so crazy I have this whole thing with like buffets but you know they're passing around oh the the chicken salad Barb made or whatever uh I sound like I'm 80 and I'd be like no thank you I already ate um but like the whole thing being above my head not knowing who to talk to trying to find someone to like sit with and being panicked if the one or two mom friends I didn't know wasn't there feeling misjudged being labeled by people certain things like they're stuck up or they're not nice or whatever being called a loner needing a lot of recovery time so do you see the picture I'm painting it's not just like oh I'm sensitive and I don't know how to deal with conflict and maybe that hurt my feelings which is very common in autism as well or can be or being overly direct and maybe not filtering enough also common in autism not so common at all in HSP because you're going to be so worried about others you're not going to be hyperfocused on everything around your body and you're socializing in that regard you may be shy but it's like this panic and or you're kind of like don't really have good awareness of social cu and so you've offended people you've been too blunt you've been too direct and you don't see what the problem is you don't trust people right all of that in terms of social dynamics they don't feel safe is the part of the trust so there's a huge piece around social deficits and people who are HSP don't tend to have as many social deficits at all in fact for many of them they actually in a good social situation really enjoy that and it says that some autistics we might we might like it might not be terrible but it doesn't give us the same intrinsic reward for many of us that it does for other people the next one is a bottomup processing style so autism often involves a deep bottomup processing style which is part of how we take in everything and we kind of work our way into understanding things and that is not as characteristic of hsps the next one is special interest and repetition autistic individuals tend to have special interest restricted things they want to talk about they care about and yes as some research has talked about for those like high masking women who therapy psychology Arts science literature the Arts all of those maybe more common female topics that don't get recognized as yes you know a lot about that and by the way that's the only thing you know about right or that's the thing you were in for years and the need for repetition so having routines and that not being predict able being very once again disregulated for autistic people so routine brings Comfort predictability brings Comfort now that could be true in HSP like oh it's a new environment but nowhere nearly as disregulated and not going to be so rigid potentially in terms of those interests which we don't see in HSP those special interests and we don't tend to see the kind of Hardcore desire for routine now by the way if you also have ADHD and you are autistic that's a big sabotager we're not going to discuss ADHD in this video but you might have pieces where part of your brain craves routine and part craves novelty and that can be very common but we're pretending today for example that ADHD kind of doesn't exist okay um autism has the next one is a a communication style that tends to be more literal more direct more kind of authentic it makes us I think in many regards for most of us hate small talk want to skip right into the trauma bonding or the Deep conversations which is fine but sometimes socially we don't have the tolerance or desire or ability to build that up we should be like getting to know each other right so you're not going to see that kind of like I was mentioning earlier more likely to maybe even offend people and not mean to but be like well I don't like I don't like this I don't like that or why are you doing this or why would you think that things like that the next one is self soothing so we're talking about stemming an Autism not going to see this in hsps right so this whether it's I've talked about the blanket the satin on the blanket skin picking nail picking uh all kinds of rocking flapping you know hair twirling repeating certain phrases over and over and over again lyrics watching things over and over again a lot of those things can be stemming they're a form of self soothing that can be helpful in like anxious situations but also be deeply comforting and enjoy able the next one is needing structure so many autistic people you you know in the classic way you've seen them line things up have order categorize things that can very much be possible if you have the ADHD part it could be once again like I'm saying sabotaging of that but you're not going to see that kind of like structural rigidity or desire in hsps the next one is context independent so this is what it says is that the brain the autistic brain does not sub tically pick up context cues and values authenticity across various situations what that means is that we have to have it's not intuitive to pick up things we have to have effort and desire and conscious motivation that is happening as part of our prefrontal cortex to understand like the context clues of like where are we and what's happening and like a restaurant with the menus it might make somebody want to you know go online with autism for example and read the Men first to know what to expect to map out the restaurant or the environment you're not going to see that need for context and the inability to not to have to work to read context clues with HSP the next one is the variance in empathy so obviously with an HSP there's going to be a lot of empathy most likely right that's the whole core you are sensitive to yourself to the world to people well with people on the autism spectrum we can see hyper a lot of empathy and hypo not so much so that is going to vary in many ways but it is also not true that if you can for example you know make ey contact and be empathic you're not autistic because of our massive you know need to mask we might be counting in our mind how long we're holding eye contact or trying to research in our little catalog of the things we're supposed to say if we have empathy differences or you know Dynamics but the point is that should be much more intuitive for an HSP and and then the last two things are looking at not just the context clues but the social cues of allistic people so this requires once again more effort more work to know what to do to know what to say how to friends respond how to co-workers greet each other things like that body language so it requires much more effort for autistic people so even a shy HSP though is going to understand that much more intuitively and lastly we know if you are on the Spectrum there's a much higher chance you have connective tissue disorders if you're a woman PCOS I'm just mentioning Ellers danlos syndrome uh fibromyalgia a lot of these allergies a lot of things like that tend to be more common in those with autism so we don't necessarily see those I don't know the research on hsps although I could understand if you're more sensitive maybe your body is also to things like the environment and Illness but there is definitely in some research articles a correlation between these Dynamics and lastly because both of them often have trauma whether you're sensitive and so things are more traumatic or like the recent research we just saw about those with autism being more likely to develop PTSD to even mild stressors in other words things that those who are not autistic would not get Trauma from it means that we are much more responsive and sensitive to our environments and so I think that's where it gets confusing is that to be autistic I do believe is to have some level of high sensitivity to some parts of your life maybe more than others and that that's where it gets stuck so I think we have to keep talking about it I don't know I don't know that I'm fully convinced that HSP isn't code for autism there's I'll like I said link an article down below that says that they're not but the bottom line is that I think if you identify with HSP you go take a bunch of the tests you go do the readings and you relate to those things it might be helpful for you to do a little more uh self-awareness and knowledge around what might help you set up your life in a way if you are Autistic or have autistic you know subclinical traits that help you function better because like I've said it has been lifechanging for me to understand why I am bothered by everything and everyone and to do more things like building recovery time let me do my schedule a certain way stop feeling bad and ashamed for certain things work on certain areas around you know how I engage in the world things like that so anyway that is it I hope this was helpful hope you have a beautiful day and I will see you soon bye [Music]