“Well, I definitely don’t have sensory problems. Wait, what about masking? Am I masking so well I don’t even realize it? I do hate going into a grocery store that I don’t know the layout of. But isn’t that normal? Yeah, I wear earbuds and don’t listen to anything sometimes. But, that’s normal too. Wait, what was the question?”
If I could take a test with someone hearing my inner thoughts, I think I’d be diagnosed before I answered the first question.
I think every single autistic person could answer the test so that they pick the least autistic answer for every question if they wanted to. But I don’t think any autistic person could answer these types of test in a way that is accurate to themselves. At least for me. I literally am focusing on how the questions were made, what they are concluding, and coming up with corner cases for each answer that means none of them apply to me.
I do the exact same lol. Though I’ve gotten pretty good at quickly deciding what the appropriate answer is for where I’m expecting to fall on whatever aspect the question is trying to measure - not that that helps with test accuracy.
I’m not autistic, but I can definitely relate to overthinking and using earbuds without music. I guess there’s a decent amout of overlap between autism and ADHD.
I just gotta take the word of the professional who diagnosed it.
The “are you autistic” test are the weirdest fucking thing. Every single question I read and look at all the answers and think “well © is definitely the one that would be the most autistic in trait. I definitely am most related to © but am I choosing this because I’m trying to be labeled as autistic? Am I actually more like (b) and I’m just biasing my answers to the point of the test? Why am I trying to be labeled autistic? Maybe I should focus on finding the least autistic answer and filtering that out first. Because I’m definitely not the LEAST autistic. Fuck, I’ll just choose © for this one. I’m overthinking it.”
Next question.
“Well, I definitely don’t have sensory problems. Wait, what about masking? Am I masking so well I don’t even realize it? I do hate going into a grocery store that I don’t know the layout of. But isn’t that normal? Yeah, I wear earbuds and don’t listen to anything sometimes. But, that’s normal too. Wait, what was the question?”
If I could take a test with someone hearing my inner thoughts, I think I’d be diagnosed before I answered the first question.
I think every single autistic person could answer the test so that they pick the least autistic answer for every question if they wanted to. But I don’t think any autistic person could answer these types of test in a way that is accurate to themselves. At least for me. I literally am focusing on how the questions were made, what they are concluding, and coming up with corner cases for each answer that means none of them apply to me.
That’s why I’m glad I got diagnosed at age 8 when I didn’t even know what autism is
“Which answer are they looking for?” Gets me every time
Isn’t that supposed to be the thought process for basically every IRL interaction?
I do the exact same lol. Though I’ve gotten pretty good at quickly deciding what the appropriate answer is for where I’m expecting to fall on whatever aspect the question is trying to measure - not that that helps with test accuracy.
Thank you for writing this, I struggle with tests so much and exactly as you described.
I’m not autistic, but I can definitely relate to overthinking and using earbuds without music. I guess there’s a decent amout of overlap between autism and ADHD.
I won’t trust *them * either unless they’re autistic enough