What exactly are autistic needs?

So, what exactly are autistic needs?

This is probably the most confusing aspect of autism.

I think the reason this confuses so many people (even autistic people) is that autistic needs are literally just human needs. 

We don't have different needs from the rest of the world.

What we do have is different tolerance levels and thresholds for when our needs go unmet (this is backed by both psychology and neuroscience).

The simplest example of this is sensory overload. 

All humans experience sensory overload if there's enough sensory overstimulation. 

But autistic people reach their threshold of tolerance way sooner than the average nonautistic person. 

And this stands out when it happens to autistic people for a very specific reason... 

Because our behaviors seem mismatched to the situation.

Why? Because no one around us has reached their tolerance threshold yet. 

So they think we're overreacting when they see us dysregulated and distressed.

And what happens next? 

What we do to regulate ourselves (whatever behaviors we demonstrate to self soothe or cope) becomes what they see and call autism... which then goes into diagnostic manuals like the DSM.

So people are made to think our coping behaviors ARE our autism when really, they're just how our autism MANIFESTS when our needs go unmet.

This is why I believe all autistic behaviors (especially the ones they put into the diagnostic criteria) are manifestations of unmet human needs.

And based on everything I know about autism through psychology, neuroscience, and lived experience, I think the only difference between us and everyone else is that we have different thresholds of tolerance for when our needs go unmet.

So our dysregulation shows up more quickly and more frequently than it does for nonautistic people. 

Which impacts us in significant ways and often impedes our ability to do important life activities without support. 

Hence why autism is considered a disability.

BUT autistic needs... human needs... are not what make autism a disability. 

What makes autism a disability is that we (autistic people) need support to get our human needs met.

And that our needs go unmet more quickly and more frequently than the average nonautistic person.

I hope this helps. 🙂