How Autistic is Your Mind?

You may have heard some autistic people over on TikTok very excitedly talking about the new autism questionnaire that dropped. They do talk about it like it's a surprise release of an album. I don't know why we all get so excited about these new questionnaires that come out to do with autism because like we mostly kind of hate them. A lot of the questions are really difficult to answer and we like go back and forth and we're like oh I'm not sure what this is asking me exactly and we kind of stress out about it but then when a new one's here we're like can't wait. So the questionnaire that everyone's been buzzing about is the monotropism questionnaire the MQ which is not exactly a test for autism as one of the authors Fergus Murray has said on their social media. It's a test for how potentially monotropic your mind is. Monotropism is a theory of autism that was actually developed by three autistic people and the paper about that came out in 2005. I spent 36 minutes discussing how it can potentially explain many different facets of autism in this video over here I'll also leave it linked down below. Basically the theory of monotropism is that autistic and ADHD minds to some extent are more tunnel visioned. Our default tends to be to spend our attention deeply focused on fewer things compared to how neurotypicals spend their attention and they spend their attention in a more sort of polytropic evenly spread sort of way. This paper discovered that an autism or an ADHD diagnosis and this includes self-diagnosis as well was significantly correlated with higher MQ scores. I made that whole 36 minute video about monotropism but I have stayed away from doing the questionnaire because I really wanted to do it on camera with you so I'm gonna do it now. I'll leave a link to it you can click it and do it in a new tab if you want we can do it together. Let's find out how monotropic we are. Now obviously I might have a little bit of bias when I'm answering these because I've read all the research papers maybe I might kind of know the right answers I suppose you could say. I'll try and give reasons for why I'm giving my answers though and give you some examples from my life. Okay the person who uploaded it is like before you begin I am not a doctor I'm a board web developer who thinks self-diagnosis is valid. You go thank you thank you for your contribution we appreciate you. Routines provide an important source of stability and safety. Now I personally don't feel like I love routines. I fit the PDA profile of autism. I'll leave my videos linked if you don't know what that is it's pathological demand avoidance is the name of it unfortunately but it basically just means you have an anxiety driven need to remain in control. What I need more than routine is I need to be the person in control of my day. Being at school and under someone else's timetable was very distressing and I ended up in kind of a shut down state for most of my school days so I do kind of like to repeat the same tasks but not at the same time and not in the same order. So I'm gonna put disagree I won't put strongly disagree but my own personal routines give me safety. This is the thing I feel like we're so bad at just giving you like yes no answer. I would recommend if you struggle with that as well just just go with your gut you know just give like the closest thing the truest answer that you can give with the information you have like it doesn't have to be perfect. I rarely find myself getting stuck in loops of thought Jesus Christ I wish I could read that to my family. Did you know the monotropism paper says this? Did you know monotropism could actually have a link to dyspraxia? Yeah they're sick of hearing about it so I'm gonna um strongly disagree sorry it says I'm constantly in a loop and that was one of the things when I was diagnosed apparently I kept coming back to the same point so he'd have moved on to asking me the next question but if I felt like I hadn't answered the previous question I would go back to it again and be like I didn't complete my train of thought there so I need to go back to that and give you some more information. I manage uncertainty by creating routines. This is tricky because I do like to create routines I just don't stick to them very well I feel like in an ideal world if I was the perfect person I would really love to be I would be almost like a robot and I would get up and I would do all the perfect things like I exercise and then I got ready and it only took me this many minutes to get ready and then I did this and it would be you know conveyor belt and there'd be no interruptions nothing would ever go wrong I'd just be able to go through this day again and again that almost sounds like heaven in a way to me but I know in practice I wouldn't be able to get out of bed at the right time one of the days and then I'd mess the whole thing up I don't know I manage uncertainty by creating routines I don't know does it mess it up to say neither agree or disagree I think I do manage uncertainty by creating them I don't I don't stick to them particularly in times in my life where I've had health concerns and things like that and things have felt very out of control I have you know tried to gain back that sense of control by having a very rigid routine and being like you have to get up at this time then you have to meditate then you have to exercise that has been kind of how I've got myself back to mental sanity and to some extent that helped me to control meltdowns and things like that as well feeling like I had this level of control over myself I then also get anxiety from I feel like I have to perform it perfectly every day so then that can actually damage my mental health as well so it's a bit complicated I often lose sense of time when engaging in activities I'm passionate about strongly agree 100% I have no sense of time every time I film one of these videos it is way too long I could never tell you how long the footage is but it's always way longer than I'd expect I'm so time blind I sometimes focus on an incident for a substantial time brackets days after the event yeah I want to say do I say agree or strongly agree with that my husband always laughs at how much I memorize things that have been said to me particularly if I find something upsetting like say a doctor has said something to me I will remember it forever and I can quote things that people have said that upset me for a long time afterwards and I also I can't read the news say I read something about a hate crime I will need to look it up again and again and again for months to come to check if there's been any update I'm very sensitive to these things and they can be very upsetting to me but then I can also get really stuck on them and need to know everything about them so I don't read the news like my husband reads it every morning before he's got out of bed I would never get out of bed if I don't understand how your brain works at all I might offer to strongly agree I need the person who diagnosed me to come in and answer this for me you know everything about me come here come over I'm usually passionate about a few topics at any one time in my life yeah strongly agree and I mean if you are somebody who has ADHD and you're trying to answer that question I'm sure maybe you feel like you have a lot of interests like you know you might go out and buy a whole bunch of stuff because you're like now I'm going to take up knitting and this is going to be my whole life and then you only end up doing it for a few weeks or something or even a few days and I don't think that means that you don't have this you know tunnel vision attention where you get really zoned into something you were really zoned into the idea of doing the knitting in the moment it's just that kind of you know your torch beam of attention focus flicks around a bit more quickly than other people that doesn't mean that while you're focused on it you haven't you know put a lot of your attention resources in that moment on that thing and I think that's kind of more what monotropism is describing you don't have to have had the same interest for 20 years I kind of tend to have like the same base maybe like four interests and then I sometimes find little like subcategories within those strongly agree yeah at the moment it's spanish autism and youtube that's what I spend most of my day thinking about which is cool I love thank you very much for being here and watching these videos and subscribe if you haven't already because I think like 70% of people who watch are not subscribed which I'm like oh up to you whether you want to see these cat ears again this headband is giving me a headache I can get quite good at something even if I'm not especially interested in it this is tricky for me if you've seen my burnout video I became very fixated on getting perfect grades in my end of high school exams I wanted to get 100% in everything that was kind of the goal and it became a complete control kind of thing in my life I knew I had this intensity of focus and I didn't kind of manage to turn it on studying for my GCSEs was I interested in all these topics no and I got very frustrated with myself because I would kind of procrastinate I remember I had this like lush bubblegum lip scrub and I'd like be putting it on my lips all the time it's like I don't know a stimmy thing I was just so bored with what I was doing and I'd get so annoyed with myself like oh just just focus just focus so it wasn't easy I might put disagree because you know that's kind of always been the thing that's held me back I'm currently a second year psychology student with the open university which is great because you can study over 12 years if you need to in the past if I'm not completely interested in every topic that we're doing in a degree which obviously is highly unlikely that you're going to be interested in everything then it is going to be a little bit harder for me and then I'm also going to have things I am super interested in that I want to spend all my time on outside of that degree I'd probably always end up choosing to do that instead and then it's tricky I do tend to base my life around what I'm interested in and to turn away from what I'm not interested in and I see other people are able to have jobs that they're not interested in you know like they wouldn't say they love them and they'd be like oh yeah I wish I didn't have to do this every day but they're still doing it every day and they're still managing to get themselves out of bed and they're still getting that where I just can't understand that I think I would be so bored I would feel like I was dying I'm gonna say disagree when there's a lot of information to consider I often struggle to make a decision yep I feel like it is difficult to kind of hold a lot of different options in my head they're like helium balloons they're drifting off into the sky I think this is why I can be bad at like some board games and stuff where I've got to think of what to do on the spot and whenever I have to make a decision I always get up a document and write down all the options and what's the extreme best case if I took this option extreme worst case and I do that with all the options in order to try and make a decision and get all the information down on paper because yet trying to do it in my head is very difficult I think I'm gonna strongly agree with that one I'm very bad at making decisions as a child if I got taken to the toy shop and told I could choose something it was quite stressful and I'd often stand there for what felt like hours to me I would end up just deciding to save my money I actually just couldn't make a decision and then I just leave the toy shop and not choose anything I tend to do activities because I find them interesting instead of due to societal expectations yes for sure I don't feel compelled to do things just because other people are doing them and that can kind of make socializing difficult because then you can end up being a little bit of an outcast and feel like you don't have that much to say to the people around you because you're not interested in the same things I'd say strongly agree often when I focus on activities I do not notice I need the bathroom strongly agree and sometimes I do notice and I think oh I can't be bothered I don't care it gives me like an irritation feeling and then I'll care I'm working for 30 minutes and then I'll be like oh you need a wee still carry on working for 30 minutes and usually I only end up going when I have to get up for another reason and then because I'm standing it's like you need to go for a wee and it's like run for it and I always as a young person I noticed that I felt irritated when I needed the toilet and I thought that is really weird who gets irritated because they need the toilet I felt in my head like I had some sort of anger issue connected to needing the toilet these are the sorts of weird things that I'd experienced and I think there's no way I can ever tell somebody that without being locked up I knew people wouldn't relate to it so it's like yeah this goes in the list of do not share and now I share it all on the internet instead so there we are things change so this video isn't sponsored but I just want to say really quickly if you notice that I'm wearing this snail I have started a patreon page and you can get one of these badges if you join or there is also a round purple button badge as well if you go and look on the patreon page you'll see what badges you get for which tier you can check out the other things that you get on there at the moment there is a big fat 30 minute deep dive into autism speaks which you know you might enjoy I don't know but yeah if you want to know why I've decided to start a patreon then check out the video I'll explain everything and I take you on a tour of it there's also a discord there's lots of stuff blah blah blah I'm not going to bore you with it all here but it does exist just letting you know often when I focus on activities I do not notice I'm thirsty or hungry yep strongly agree I mentioned that quite a lot in the monotropism video yep I'm very bad at keeping myself hydrated some people have said oh use a straw they find that helpful it's like a stimmy sort of thing I can't do well at video editing I remember I got super hydrated when I was revising for exams because I think I did use sipping water as kind of a stim editing is so immersive for me I absolutely do not notice my surroundings they disappear so even a drink with a straw doesn't help one thing that does help me is I love sparkling water feeling of bubbles in my mouth is definitely quite stimmy for me so if you struggle with drinking water maybe try it I know some people find sparkling water a bit bitter my husband has always cooked our food if I was responsible for cooking I would get swept up in what I was doing and nobody would eat because I would just never want to stop to go and do cooking because it's not interesting to me so there we go another thing that I can't do because I'm not interested if I lived on my own I'd probably live on Huel sometimes making a decision is so hard I get physically stuck yep strongly agree when I was in that burnout phase which I talk about in my big fat 40 minute burnout story videos basically I ended up dropping out of college and I would sit with my mum and I would discuss for hours on end I don't know what to do with my life I don't know what to do I don't know why I feel so miserable I don't know what to do and we would just go round and round and round and eventually feel like we reached maybe some sort of resolution and then the next day I'd be like I don't know what to do with myself I don't know what to do with my life and then we'd go round and round and around again and I think that age is pretty horrible for autistic people there's just so many decisions that you have to make and there are so many options like there's so many options that you can't even be aware of all the options of like what to do next and do you study and do you get a job and which job do you get I was obviously in a burnout state I didn't have much capacity for anything so every option felt awful to me and that made me feel like there was something deeply wrong with me I was incredibly lazy why did none of these options sound exciting to me I think that really strained our relationship unfortunately at that point things are a lot better now but the fact that I just every day she would put so much effort into going through the options with me and it didn't change anything for me like we didn't actually make any progress I often find it difficult to switch topics after engaging in an activity for a long time yep strongly agree so I'm filming now I would never want to stop for a break from filming I'd never be like oh let me just have something to eat before I film the next one sometimes when I'm focused on an activity I do not recall all the information I might need to make good decisions hmm I often feel like I'm kind of juggling thoughts in my head and sometimes I'll have made a decision like oh yes I'm gonna do this at this time or this on this certain day and then it feels like I have to remake that decision several times and like go back through the thought process again and I'm like oh yeah I already decided I was gonna do that then of course yeah that makes sense maybe I'll just put agree for that one because I think that sounds right I'm still fascinated by many of the things I was interested in when I was much younger so yes strongly agree I suppose I'm 27 now I started getting interested in videography seriously when I was 13 and I also got into doing YouTube when I was 13 so since about 2008 I've been on this platform I've had various channels none of which have ever done particularly well but I've always loved doing this and on all aspects of doing this so it's amazing to be doing it right now and psychology has always been an interest for me people have always been an interest so yeah basically all of my interests have been there since childhood they evolve and they change as I learn new things and I get different like subcategories within them I have trouble filtering out sounds when I am not doing something I'm focused on yeah strong strongly agree for sure I really hated being in the dining hall at school and luckily in quotation marks because I know it was obviously very difficult for her but I had a best friend who had selective mutism and she would only eat if she was alone in the classroom with someone she was comfortable with and because she knew me outside of school because basically my mom got her as a friend for me by making friends with her mom when we were babies so yay my mom made a lot of friendships for me and that was great because that meant I got an accommodation through her which I was very grateful for and then the few times where maybe she wasn't in then I'd have to go into the hall and it was just so loud and just loads of background nonsense and things crisscrossing over each other and flanging of cutlery and plates and yeah it was just just unpleasant and overwhelming like an onslaught my son is at school now and I don't know whether these people are diagnosed and what their situation is but there are people who have ear defenders and they take them into the the canteen he's told me that and that made me want to cry when I heard that I was like oh you know like these are the things that would have been super helpful makes me sad but like you know I just want things to be better for younger people now then then that's a good thing to seek acknowledgement like oh that is something that's difficult for you you know you're not being difficult and here's something that can help I tend to feel quite self-conscious unless I'm deeply absorbed in a task yes yes oh my gosh I was just watching last night through a whole bunch of videos we had from our last holiday I don't know what to put myself I don't know what to do like I feel really uncomfortable in my own body like I'm just kind of like hanging there and I'm like because like I'm used to just being sat hunched over my computer most of the day or reading something the whole day you've got to be on the beach like what does one do on the beach you can read on the beach there's an awkwardness it doesn't flow for me I feel way too aware of myself and what I'm doing in the world and how uncomfortable it feels after a period of instability I need a quiet predictable environment yes again I want to strongly agree after college I would often just come home and just flop in the dark and just lie on my bed as I say I used to run away to the library in college and blast my music rather than spending my free periods talking to people talking to people is always kind of a period of instability for me I'd say because you don't know what they're going to say and you don't know how they're going to react to what you say and it's just a lot of uncertainty and unknowns and social interactions which I think is why I I know not every autistic person does but I struggle a lot with social anxiety I always thought my whole life I was like man you really need to do something about this social anxiety at some point because you keep pushing yourself to carry on it just just doesn't go away it's just always there like you know it's supposed to kind of be like as long as you keep putting yourself out there exposure therapy whatever you know you'll get over it but it never was like that for me and I was always like hmm yeah this is really a problem you should sort out at some point Meg and then I just kind of carry on doing my best as I was I often get stuck thinking about all of the possibilities that might come out of a decision yes as I've said I think I've already explained that one and it always feels like if I just think about it enough if I go over it one more time if I talk to my husband about it one more time then I will find out the truth the ultimate truth I'll be able to look in the crystal ball and I'll know for certain that I am making the right decision or I feel like I just need to know a little bit more information about what could potentially happen with this decision and then I'll be able to make it and it's just never enough I sometimes become highly anxious by focusing on the many possible situations that might occur at a future event I often have this weird thought sometimes I picture really clearly what could potentially happen like say I don't know I was going to a wedding the next day sometimes if I'm lying awake at night I might picture like someone's saying something to me or something that could happen and then for some reason I always have this thought okay you've pictured it exactly like that so now it won't happen because you've thought those things in that sequence it's impossible for them to happen like that so now you're safe from that outcome sort of thing I don't know it's a bit of a weird weird thing that sometimes comes into my head I'm not sure if that's relevant to the question but there we are does anyone else have that I drive I don't feel like while I'm driving I have that much driving anxiety maybe I do I'm often in denial I often see what I want to see in my own behavior I'm like of course I'm not anxious I'm not an anxious person I've never had a panic attack are you sure Meg whenever I'm about to drive somewhere it always feels quite overwhelming the idea that I don't know what other cars are going to do even if I know the route perfectly who's going to be at that roundabout am I going to have to stop at that roundabout or am I going to be able to just look and then go it just feels like a lot of different individual steps driving to somewhere and that's what I don't like about driving the most I have to remind myself you've driven to London before you've driven in central London before you can do this drive and I still will stress about driving to the local shops and finding a parking space and where am I going to park I might but agree with that one I find a problem that I can't solve distressing and or hard to put down yet strongly agree I think again that was when I was like what do I do with my life that was a problem I couldn't solve because I didn't know I was autistic I just knew I had these weird irrational problems with living a normal life that other people didn't seem to have when I'm working on something I'm open to helpful suggestions all the PDA is like snorting right now with laughter am I strongly disagreeing or am I disagreeing let me put strongly for now let me think about it I'm not initially if I'm working on something and somebody comments of what I'm doing what's on my screen it's jarring it kind of jolts me out of what I'm doing it gets under my skin it feels irritating however if someone did give me a suggestion and it felt jarring I might initially have a bad reaction to it but that doesn't mean I won't take on what they've said and I won't listen to them they probably will play on my mind a lot and I will actually end up taking on and then I may end up being grateful for it in the long run but my initial reaction will be quite negative and like please just don't look at what I'm doing it's not done yet I would say it's probably best as I strongly disagree I need a quiet and predictable environment for me to switch from one task to another easily I'm trying to think so I really do struggle with switching from one task to another but would a quiet and predictable environment make that any easier for me because if everything's in chaos it can feel harder I don't know if my head was busy and full of what I've been doing previously and then the environment was quite chaotic that doesn't seem good I mean I just like a quiet peaceful environment in general really for most things that I'm doing so I suppose yeah I kind of agree I might just do neither agree nor disagree people tell me I get fixated on things strongly agree yep if I've been watching one particular channel constantly my husband will be talking about something irrelevant and I'll be like oh this person said I just keep bringing it back to the same topic again and again and it can be kind of annoying for the people around me I often struggle to concentrate in busy and or unpredictable environments strongly agree I used to avoid doing my work in college and I would do it all when I got home so I'd leave myself with quite a lot that I had to do because I just really struggled to concentrate and I also felt like people were watching me and seeing what I was doing particularly if you're on computers and you know people could technically look at your screens I know like it sounds really self-absorbed nobody actually gives that much of a damn what I'm doing but it just felt like it being at home is always my preferred place to work which is why the distance learning is so great and why I struggle so much with the idea of having a traditional job I often loop back to previous thoughts I feel like these questions are looping back to previous thoughts have I not just had this question I know this is how question has worked I strongly agree yep definitely when I'm interested in something I tend to be passionate about it yes yes yes yes yes yes can you tell from my monotropism video did the passion come through I hope it did I had so much fun making that video oh I often engage in activities I'm passionate about to escape from anxiety no that makes me want to cry strongly agree yeah I feel like I crave that flow state which is probably why I can't imagine being in a job that I wasn't interested in because I'd spend my whole day out of that flow state and I feel like I always I'm chasing being in that flow state where like I'm just fully become what I'm doing basically I almost feel like my mind leaves my physical body and I leave the room and I'm just in what I'm doing it there's kind of like sadness in that like like you know you're running away from real life because it's overwhelming for you I don't know it makes me sad because yeah it does feel like that to some extent but I I do love the feeling of being in the moment and being in what I'm doing a lot so I don't know I wish I could you know try being in a neurotypical brain for a bit just you know see how how different it felt I don't know does that make you feel sad too when I'm interested in a topic I like to learn everything I can about that topic yeah strongly agree and that that's kind of why it's stressful you know with doing like the monotropism if I if anything that I'm reading references something else I'm like oh I really should read that oh and it's like I have to kind of stop myself and be like you can make more videos in the future like just focus on the stuff that's most important you can come back to it because it could get almost a bit like OCD obsessive like I need to read every single thing oh my god otherwise the world is gonna end and it's like just take a breath I find social interactions more comfortable if communicating about a topic of interest for me yeah I mean in the past before I knew I was autistic I'd sometimes feel like a and then now when I look back at it I feel a bit like almost embarrassed and uncomfortable because I'm like oh I was monologuing but because I'd been talking a lot more than usual and maybe I'd come across a bit more animated and extroverted I was like oh that went well whereas now I'm a bit like oh what did the other person think of that people often like confidence you know if you say anything kind of confidently and we're often you know more likely to be confident about our interests so you know they probably did feel like I came across well I just always analyze it too much I often don't talk about my interests I tend to when I mask do a lot of the blank mask where I just kind of remove a lot of myself for fear that I'm going to be criticized in some way and then I'm going to feel that rejection sensitivity and I think that is very painful for me so I do tend to like kind of downplay my whole personality so it actually is quite rare and it tends to only be people I'm very comfortable with that I will actually share my interests with so if you're an autistic person who masks a lot you might relate to that I'm going to put agree like I don't feel like I'm reaching around as much for something to say if I'm talking about my interests but I'm aware that not everybody is going to be interested in hearing me do that and I'm also aware that my passion my level of passion for something there are times where I can remember you know like someone kind of squinting at me and being like oh you really love this don't you you know that and it's a bit of a like judgmental sort of way I remember talking about veganism to my dad when I was first vegan about when about 14 and he's not vegan you know he's you know definitely got more respectful towards it as I got older but he used to you know always have to tell me about his trips to the steakhouse and stuff like that and I remember telling him about some of the things that I'd read and why I was vegan he was like kind of you know looked at me a bit funny and said you're like you're shaking because I was like so passionate about it and so like kind of enthusiastic to tell someone else that I was actually physically shaking I don't know it's kind of embarrassing so I guess I kind of do hide that passion quite a lot sorry I keep nearly crying I am often totally focused on activities I am passionate about to the point I'm unaware of other events yeah strongly agree and literally like I feel like I'm often very out of the loop with like cultural things that are going on obviously I don't really read the news I often miss kind of you know internet jokes and stuff like that because I'm just so focused on my corner of the internet or my projects that I'm doing away from the internet so even though I spend a lot of time on the computer sometimes like my husband's like you've seen that meme before and I'm like no I've never seen that before I often find engaging and stimming e.g fidgeting rocking to be relaxing yeah strongly agree relaxing I've said it's almost like meditative it's like an out-of-body experience I've noticed since you know my diagnosis if I stand completely still and don't fidget I get this feeling like my organs are kind of dropping and like just dysphoria I suppose so yeah I always like to be you probably noticed in these videos I like to dance around quite a lot strongly agree I find it easy to keep up with group discussions when everyone is speaking um I find it easy to keep up when everyone is speaking I'm trying to think we'll start with saying disagree that's my initial gut reaction I don't mind if I'm not expected to speak sometimes it can be quite nice just to sit back and listen to other people speaking it depends if there's multiple conversations going on then obviously that's I don't know how to speak is my main problem I don't know how to interject I'm much better with one-on-one even if there's you know two people there are many times where maybe I've seen a friend or my cousin and she's been with another friend or another cousin I've just completely basically disappeared from the room because I can't get a word in I often experience anxiety over matters I have little certainty over yeah strongly agree for sure like I say with the with the driving and even with like starting like scripting a new video I don't know how it's gonna do I don't know how good my script's gonna be I don't know how long it's gonna take me I don't know anything about it and that you know creates a lot of apprehension been wanting to make my monotropism video for months and I procrastinated it for ages I find it difficult to engage in a task of no interest to me even if it's important I'm gonna say agree because I can I can do it I suppose just as I find it difficult it usually feels like I have to kind of sometimes scream at myself in my head like I'll do lazy just this is how I would have done it in the past before I knew it was autistic my voice in my head has become a lot kinder since I was diagnosed which has resulted in much better mental health which again is just why it is so important that people are diagnosed even if you think oh she's functioning fine in the world nobody can tell that isn't the only thing that matters somebody has their own internal world and their own experience of existence I think we're very hard on ourselves and we don't know why we struggle with things that other people aren't struggling with I would scream at myself and just be like oh my gosh you're so lazy you're a piece of trash you're nothing you're dirt on the floor you have to do this so you've got at least one tiny little thing going for you now I suppose I would give myself more grace I can sometimes be very distressed by a topic that others think of as trivial yes strongly agree I can't stand feeling like I've been wronged in any way and say like I have a bad interaction with customer service like I say oh this thing arrived and it's broken and the company are like oh so sorry about that and then they don't you know offer to send me a new one or that kind of thing I just can't cope with it the sense of justice just goes crazy and it can be really frustrating it feels like it's really against my will because sometimes I'm like this is not a good use of your time and energy just don't order from them again just leave it it's fine I sometimes accidentally say something others find offensive or rude when I focus on a task I want to say oh strong do I say strongly agree I can be very rude yeah for sure if I'm working on something and somebody asks me to pass them something to look at something just wants to talk to me I have to take off my headphones I can be very snappy and I think sometimes you kind of don't even really notice what you're saying I think it's just because that feeling of being wrenched from what you're doing is kind of so distressing and dysregulating and you're nervous and just isn't a fan of it that you sometimes you go into a bit of a like fight response of like oh what's going on you kind of perceive it as a threat internally even though it's just your mom saying that your dinner's ready you know I often engage in lengthy discussions on topics I find interesting even though my conversational partners do not I'm worse at this when I'm drunk actually because I suppose I'm asking less when I'm drunk um I kind of lose that social anxiety level even if I know somebody's not particularly interested in it I'm like but I'm stuck on this track now I need to talk about it so I'm just gonna keep going I usually mean what I say and no more than that I'll say agree I think still like my mom and people who know me very well sometimes still try and read like hidden meanings into what I've said and they think there's like more no oh I'm saying this but I'm actually thinking this other thing over here and I'm like honestly mother do you think if I really felt that way do you think I wouldn't tell you the amount of bluntly honest things I say to you on a day-to-day basis you think no actually I'm hiding all these other things that I'm thinking as well I am pretty straightforward and direct I think it's been very good for my communication in my romantic relationships I don't know I don't like playing games I don't like drama I like whatever if I have a problem with somebody I'll tell them not just like you know random people on the street like you know I don't just go looking for confrontation but if there's something that's happened I'm not happy about I prefer to speak about it in the moment I don't like to just stew on things I have to notice details others do not yes for sure like sensory stuff I notice when things smell I've still got a slight blocked nose because of having a cold it's like being on holiday not having to feel like all the rooms in my house stink like something like they always stink like something and it's kind of exhausting it feels like I've got a bit more energy now I find sudden unexpected disruptions to my attention starts think yep I do I went through a phase for a while where my husband wasn't going to be home for most of the day so I was going to have to answer the door every time it went I started ordering all my stuff to my mom's house and then she would bring it to me when I saw her and so I'd wait longer to get the stuff but I preferred that to answering the door it sounds so stupid but it literally was painful and I know like for other people for neurotypical people it can be annoying when the door keeps knocking and you're like you know busy doing something and busy working but for me it was like distressing level really really unpleasant and my mom was like oh it's fine just ordered them to me it doesn't matter like she could tell I was getting really annoyed by it and I was ranting about it all the time which was really kind and now my husband's uh working from home a lot more so it's not too much of an issue I sometimes avoid talking because I cannot reliably predict how others will react especially strangers yes yes yes yes I think exactly what I've been trying to say isn't it yes yeah I would rather kind of just keep everything to myself if I feel like there's a chance that people aren't going to get me they aren't going to understand my perspective then I feel like it's better to just keep everything very surface level and bury my whole personality yeah for sure involvement in an activity of interest often reduces my anxiety level yes I would strongly strongly agree I absolutely need my interests in order to be happy and healthy and I think the whole college situation and my burnout I wasn't able to engage in my interests very much because I was obsessively studying all the time and I think that was one of the you know many reasons why I got into such a bad place I rarely find simultaneously holding eye contact and making a verbal conversation with another person uncomfortable so I rarely find it uncomfortable I'm gonna disagree with that I did speak about this quite a bit in the monotropism video how yeah I definitely prefer to stare at a fixed object particularly while I'm talking to somebody but also while they're talking and I'm trying to listen to what they're saying but particularly while I'm talking because I can focus better on the words I'm trying to get out and if I'm looking at their eyes darting around or what their face is doing as well then it's definitely harder and I can lose the thread of you know the path that I'm on in my head it was just so nice when I went into my autism assessment they said to me you do not have to make eye contact with me and I honestly just wanted to cry but I'll put disagree because I feel like some people have more of an issue with eye contact than I do I don't mind if someone interrupts me when I'm in the middle of an activity that is really funny strongly disagree I rarely find social situations chaotic no I strongly disagree chaotic is the perfect word for social situations for me yeah and I never feel like I'm doing a good job or that I'm coming across well even when sometimes apparently from other people on the outside I am it doesn't feel like that it's distressing to be unexpectedly pulled away from something I'm engaged in yeah strongly agree definitely right I'm going to submit reminder that this is an assessment for monotropism a trait sometimes associated with autism not autism directly if you score high please be sure to do further research into monotropism more information can be found at monotropism.org yes I definitely recommend you check out that website oh right okay monotropism score 221 out of 235 your average is 4.7 this score suggests that you are more monotropic than about 95% of autistic people and about 100% of allistic people based on data from the initial validation study I definitely feel like I am very monotropic there's definitely a reason why this theory resonated so heavily with me I've seen a lot of people in my comments who said they had done the questionnaire had a similar score like more than 100% of allistic people or whatever I really really love this quote theories of autism are important they have potential to enhance our understanding of autism including the self-understanding of autistic people to drive research hypotheses and to suggest ways to improve the lives of autistic people consequently it is crucial to ensure that theories of autism have face validity for autistic people and the potential to deliver tangible benefits to them and their families so far the most dominant autism theories have not fulfilled these criteria yeah this is the first theory that I've read about and I will definitely talk more about different theories of autism on this channel in the future but it's the first one that I feel like has that face validity it feels like this is my internal experience thank you you put it into words beautifully and helped me understand myself in a way I never could have done just alone in my bedroom feeling like I was the only one who felt these things and I'm so grateful to you Fergus Murray and everyone else who's researched on this I'm so grateful to your mum I'm so grateful to all of you thank you so much you are changing lives and I hope you know that and I hope you know how important you are and I'm excited to continue following all of your work going forwards I might get my husband to do this soon is that something you would like to see because he's not autistic but he's introverted I think we want to do some more questionnaires together and compare our answers because that can be quite helpful if you're not sure if like am I just an introvert or am I actually autistic it can be quite difficult to tell particularly if you've always just thought of yourself as an introverted shy person we're running a little podcast over on the patreon now so maybe we'll do it over there remember if you join the patreon before the 12th of November you can get a free little anti-social snail badge this is the wooden badge that you get through joining the second tier and also the third tier but there is a round button badge that you can get for the first tier if you're not interested then you're welcome to stay here on my youtube channel if you haven't seen 36 minutes of me talking about monotropism and you're just as hyper fixated on this as I am then you might enjoy that one I'll leave it linked and also make sure to check out Fergus Murray's social media as well because they have some great stuff on there thank you so much for watching bye